Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Category

Evolution

Paul Nelson in Oslo, Norway — the latest

Paul Nelson spent yesterday morning in the editorial offices of Dagbladet, the main daily newspaper in Oslo, and fielded reader’s questions via the Internet. Approximately 1,000 emails came in. Here is the exchange: http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2006/09/20/477320.html. Note that the title of the Dagbladet piece, “Hadde Darwin Rett?” means “Was Darwin Right?”

Darwinism: A House Divided

Here’s an illuminating book review. We are increasingly seeing two streams of Darwinism — one which says there’s no problem reconciling it with religion; the other which sees the two as completely incompatible. As the reviewer notes: “Stanovich takes the hard line that accepting darwinism has to mean opposing virtually all religious beliefs. He praises fundamentalists as recognizing this point while arguing that mainline churches do not see the incompatibility of science with religion.”  
 

Book Review: A rebellious revolution
Gordon M. Burghardt
Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Volume 21, Issue 10 , October 2006, Pages 537-538

Keith E. Stanovich, The Robot’s Rebellion: Finding Meaning in an Age of Darwin, University of Chicago Press (2005) ISBN 0 226 77125 3 US$18.00 pbk (374 pages). Read More ›

Does the Pope oppose the blind watchmaker thesis?

Here is the link to the full Vatican Radio published transcript of the Pope’s Regensburg address Sept 12th 2006 together with a relevant extract: http://www.oecumene.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=94805 We believe in God. This is a fundamental decision on our part. But is such a thing still possible today? Is it reasonable? From the Enlightenment on, science, at least in part, has applied itself to seeking an explanation of the world in which God would be unnecessary. And if this were so, he would also become unnecessary in our lives. But whenever the attempt seemed to be nearing success – inevitably it would become clear: something is missing from the equation! When God is subtracted, something doesn’t add up for man, the world, the Read More ›

“Vatican: Pope Slams Evolution”

Perhaps the significance of this announcement should be read in light Ken Miller’s pronouncement that the Pope should embrace Darwinian evolution and urge Catholics to reject intelligent design: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/kenneth_miller/2006/09/miller.html.

Vatican: Pope slams evolution

Source: http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-09-12_1128196.html

‘Accounts about Man don’t add up without God’ says pontiff (ANSA) – Regensburg, September 12 – Pope Benedict XVI on Monday issued his strongest criticism yet of evolutionary theory, calling it “unreasonable” .

Speaking to a 300,000-strong crowd in this German city, the former theological watchdog said that, according to such theories derived from Charles Darwin’s work, the universe is “the random result of evolution and therefore, at bottom, something unreasonable”.

The homily appeared to throw the Catholic Church’s full weight behind the theory of intelligent design (ID) – a subject of massive controversy in the United States. Read More ›

Who said Darwinists weren’t a barrel of laughs?

Check out Jeffrey K. McKee’s book The Riddled Chain. McKee, as you might recall, stood in the way of Bryan Leonard completing his dissertation work at Ohio State University (blogged here). As Jonathan Wells noted in his Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, “Bryan Leonard is a high school teacher who for the past few years has been working on a Ph.D. in science education. His dissertation research focused on these questions: When students are taught the scientific data both supporting and challenging macroevolution, do they maintain their beliefs over time? What empirical, cognitive, and /or social factors influence students’ beliefs? . . . Although Leonard had gone through normal procedures and received proper approval to conduct research, OSU professors Brian McEnnis, Steve Rissing, and Jeffrey McKee accused Leonard of ‘unethical’ conduct, primarily on the grounds that his research was predicated on ‘a fundamental flaw: there was no valid scientific data challenging macroevolution.’ Leonard’s research, they claimed, involved ‘deliberate miseducation of these students, a practice we regard as unethical.’” (pp. 189-190)

Regarding Leonard’s graduate thesis advisors, Glenn Needhman and Robert Disilvestro, McKee wrote in an e-mail:

“DiSilvestro, Needham have become viewed as parasitic ticks hiding in the university’s scalp, who just got exposed by a close shave. I learned in Boy Scouts to twist the ticks when taking them out, so their heads don’t get embedded in the skin. Others prefer burning them off. What fate awaits OSU’s ticks remains to be seen.”

A colleague of mine collected a number of interesting quotes from McKee’s book, especially on the relation between evolution and materialism. Read More ›

Ken Miller is a creationist — although you didn’t hear it from me

Paul Myers, no longer content to shoot himself in the foot, is now focusing on more vital parts of his anatomy. Check out the following: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/09/ken_miller_creationist.php. Ken Miller is the best friend Myers and his merry band of atheists ever had, putting a veneer of respectability and religious tolerance over the village atheism of Darwin’s most ardent followers.

Judge Jones Top Ten List

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Judge Jones regarding the Dover trial (page numbers are from his Dover decision). In the next few weeks I expect they will be put to good use for the public’s general amusement. Stay tuned. CAPTION: Praise Darwin Or Else… QUOTE: “We will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from … requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution.” (p. 138) CAPTION: Where’s The Peer Review? QUOTE: “Intelligent design is not supported by any peer-reviewed research, data or publications.” (p. 87) CAPTION: Nobody Better Than Me QUOTE: “No other tribunal in the United States is in a better position than are we to traipse into this controversial area [of intelligent Read More ›

Replacing the Ten Commandments with Icons of Darwin . . .

From www.thebrites.org: The caption reads: “The BRITES is working through legal channels to have statues of Darwin installed in United States court houses to replace the recently outlawed ten commandments. This is a photo of a statue given to the citizens of Dover, PA from The BRITES and is currently on display in the lobby of the the Dover courthouse. (Head sculpter Species Aldacruz, © TheBRITES.org)”

Evolution debate hits Kenya

Furious evolution debate hits famed Kenyan museum
Lillian Omariba
AFP
September 5, 2006

NAIROBI — The global debate between scientists and conservative Christians over evolution has hit Kenya, where an exhibit of one of the world’s finest collections of early hominid fossils is under threat.

As the famed National Museum of Kenya (NMK) prepares to re-open next year after massive EU-funded renovations, evangelicals are demanding that the display be removed or at least shunted to a less prominent location. Read More ›

Dobzhansky’s Myth

The “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” Myth: An Empirical Study and Evaluation Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. Abstract It is commonly claimed that Darwinism is the cornerstone of the life sciences and that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” To evaluate this claim I reviewed both textbooks used to teach life science class at the college where I teach and those I used in my university course work. I concluded from my survey that Darwinism was rarely mentioned. I also reviewed my course work and that of another researcher and came to the same conclusion. From this survey I concluded that the claim “nothing in biology makes sense except in the Read More ›

Is a materialistic approach to teaching the origin of life inherently atheistic and therefore religious?

[There’s] a new 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that approaches the issue of teaching origin-of-life theories in public schools from a new angle . . . Few are aware that the courts have ruled atheism is a religion for the purposes of the First Amendment in 2005 and thought about its implications on the teaching of origin-of-life theories in public schools. In brief, evolution becomes both a religious and scientifc theory (using the court’s definition of scientific theory), and abiogenesis becomes purely a religious theory. That being the case, these atheist origin-of-life theories should be treated the same as any other origin-of-life theory. Anything less is unconstitutional. Visit the website at http://originoflifefairness.org for much more information and the links/facts to back it Read More ›

Steve Fuller reviews Francis Collins

God and science: You just can’t please everyone
A Review of Francis Collins’s The Language of God

By Steve Fuller
From NewScientist 26 August 2006, p. 48.

Denying the real conflict between religion and science is a sure formula for confusion, finds STEVE FULLER.
————–

Let me start by declaring an interest: I am that Steve Fuller who gave evidence for the defence in the trial over whether intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in school in Dover, Pennsylvania, last year. And books like this persuade me that I did the right thing.

*The Language of God* is by Francis S. Collins, director of the Human Genome Project for the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He became a born-again Christian after reading C. S. Lewis’s *Mere Christianity* as a biochemistry graduate student. Collins is now part of the American ScientificAffiliation, a group of 3000 Christians which aims to render science consistent with its beliefs.

Collins’s mission is to deny any real conflict between God and Darwin. He wants to square things for scientists who don’t want intelligent design on their doorstep but who also don’t want to examine their own beliefs too closely. Read More ›

Catholic hierarchy on slippery slope

Once the discussion of biological origins opens up in the way the good Cardinal proposes (see below), it’s over for standard evolutionary theory. To be sure, the distinction between “evolutionism” as philosophy and “evolution” as science is valid and at first blush may seem like a way to keep evolution safe. But this distinction is one that the figureheads of evolution, such as Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, and Francisco Ayala, deliberately muddy to preserve evolution as materialism’s best safeguard.

As this discussion opens up, people are increasingly going to “get it,” and as they do they’ll realize that Darwin’s legacy is the biggest scam in the history of ideas. Right now what keeps the theory afloat is not overwhelming evidence (yes, there are “mountains and mountains of evidence” as Richard Dawkins puts it, but the quality of this evidence in establishing evolution’s grandiose claims is abysmal). Rather, what keeps the theory afloat is strict enforcement of ideological purity.

With Catholic leaders like Cardinal Schönborn taking the lead in opening up the discussion, this scam will become increasingly difficult to perpetuate. Any bets when the Darwinian house of cards will come crashing down? I’m not talking about nobody believing it anymore. Rather, I’m talking about people not having any longer to show undue deference to it — a new age when they can ridicule it openly, and its defenders must actually defend the theory rather than merely sneer at those who disbelieve it.

Cardinal Schönborn Proposes Evolution Debate
Calls for More Science, Less Ideology
Date: 2006-08-25, Code: ZE06082508
http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=93781

RIMINI, Italy, AUG. 25, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Cardinal Christoph Schönborn is
proposing an ideology-free debate on the theory of evolution, and wants to
clarify the Church’s position on the topic. Read More ›