Intelligent Design

Have you noticed that heroes are often scoundrels too (at least in the movies)? Can we say Rhett Butler or Han Solo?

Recall this romantic scene from The Empire Strikes Back:

Scoundrel I like the sound of that

Han: Hey! Your worship, I’m only trying to help.
Leia: Would you please stop calling me that?

Han: Sure…Leia.
Leia: You make it so difficult sometimes.

Han: I do. I really do. You could be a little nicer, though. C’mon admit it, sometimes you think I’m alright.
Leia: Occasionally, maybe, when you aren’t acting like a scoundrel.

Han: Scoundrel? Scoundrel…I like the sound of that. Read More ›

David DeWolf, professor of law at Gonzaga University and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, explains in today’s Boston Globe why questions about teaching evolution can either be silly and tendentious (“Okay, who doesn’t believe in evolution?” — duh) or thoughtful. Alas, not many media types — let’s be honest — want to do the thoughtful thing. Doesn’t play in the headlines the way the silly questions do: “Senator Mockworthy Sez Earth is Flat, His Constituents Agree.” (‘Flat’ Left Undefined To Allow for Maximum Hilarity; Mockworthy Answers the Question Anyway.) Nor is thoughtful readily used for short clips on the Daily Show or Colbert Report. Still, one can hope. If most people know that the question was dumb, they’ll Read More ›

For those UD readers who are not familiar with it, I recommend visiting ARN. On the right-hand side of the home page you will see a section entitled “The ID Report.” Here, UD’s very prolific author and commentator, Denyse O’Leary, posts on a regular basis. So do other authors, and one of my favorites is Roddy Bullock of idnetohio. In this recent ARN essay, Roddy does an excellent job of summing up UD’s mission statement. Below is an excerpt. I encourage UD readers to check out Roddy’s contributions at ARN whenever they become available. Naturalism, the unscientific crutch for unguided, purposeless Darwinism, turns scientific inquiry on its head. Suddenly a philosophy that presumes only unintelligent causation becomes gatekeeper to the Read More ›

Yeah, the show’s back in town. And with most of the original cast, too.

I mean the poll, recently reported by USA Today, that shows that 66% of Americans think that the statement, “Creationism, that is, the idea that God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years” is definitely or probably true.

This is wonderful poll question for people who believe that Uncle Sam’s alter ego is Santa Claus. I wonder how much public money Darwin lobbies in high science will screw out of US taxpayers in order to try to change their minds – with about as much success as they have had in the past – zilch.

As I pointed out in By Design or by Chance?, the human history that most people would recognize is certainly less than 10,000 years old. Read More ›

We need to face the fact that it may still be a very long time before the majority of scientists will take seriously the idea that a designer may have been directly involved in the origin and development of life. However, it may not be nearly so long before they will at least finally acknowledge that science has no clue about the “natural” causes involved. I have written a short article, submitted to several publications without success so far, which encourages readers to think about what it will be like when this happens. It will, in my opinion, be a much improved world. Here begins the article, entitled “How Evolution Will Be Taught Someday”: A 1980 New York Times News Read More ›

Sean Carroll writes a review of Michael Behe’s new book “Edge of Evolution” for Science Magazine titled God as Genetic Engineer. Professor Behe can’t respond to this for at least a week so let’s give him a hand by fisking it. Please keep your comments topical, focused, and well supported by evidence arguing against the reviewer’s conclusions. Read More ›

Review of “The Edge of Evolution, The Search for the Limits of Darwinism,” by Michael J. Behe. Read it at TheBRITES.org.

Behe’s focus and where he finds major problems with chance and necessity is in nano-molecular cellular machinery rather than the gross anatomical level such as scales becoming feathers or limbs turning into wings. That is also where I find the NeoDarwinian explanations most deficient. In that context could someone please describe for me the “dynamic fitness landscape” that could drive the evolution of this: Good luck.

UD Subscriber Magnan pinches his nose closed long enough to fisk Mark Chu-Carrol’s vitriolic spittle strewn imbecilic diatribe “review” of Michael Behe’s new book The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism in a comment here. I reproduce it in its entirety. Now that someone has responded to it point by point I hope those who have been losing sleep over it can get some rest. Read More ›

I’ve just seen the Publisher’s Weekly review of Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard’s and my book, The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul:

Following C. S. Lewis’s dictum that “to ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see,” neuroscientist Beauregard and journalist O’Leary mount a sweeping critique of a trend in “the pop science media” to explain away religious experience as a brain artifact, pathology, or evolutionary quirk. While sympathizing with the attraction such “neurotheology” holds, the authors warn against the temptation to force the complex varieties of human spirituality into simplistic categories that they argue are conceptually crude, culturally biased, and often empirically untested. In recently published research using Carmelite nuns as subjects, Beauregard’s group at the University of Montreal found specific areas of brain activation associated with contemplative prayer. But these patterns are quite distinct from those associated with hallucinations, autosuggestion, or states of intense emotional arousal, resembling instead how the brain processes “real” experiences. Insisting that “we have never entertained the idea of proving the existence of God,” the authors concede that “the results of our work are assumed to be a strike either for or against God” and that “on the whole, we [don’t] mind.” Never shrinking from controversy, and sometimes deliberately provoking it, this book serves as a lively introduction to a field where neuroscience, philosophy, and secular/spiritual cultural wars are unavoidably intermingled. (Sept.)

It was great that the reviewer homed in on some of what Mario and I are trying to do – expose the sheer shoddiness of so much materialist thinking in neuroscience in the area of spirituality. Read More ›

New Textbook Seeks to Improve Teaching of Evolution as reported by Rob Crowther. “Explore Evolution brings to the classroom data and debates that already are raised regularly by scientists in their science journals,” emphasized science education policy analyst Casey Luskin, M.S., J.D. “Exposure to these real-world scientific debates will make the study of evolution more interesting to students, and it will train them to be better scientists by encouraging them to actually practice the kind of critical thinking and analysis that forms the heart of science.” Co-authored by two state university biology professors, two philosophers of science, and a science curriculum writer, Explore Evolution was peer-reviewed by biology faculty at both state and private universities, teachers with experience in both Read More ›

There have been a few limited skirmishes in Virginia over ID in the universities. Up until now the public school issue has been quiet. But are things set to change?

Ed Brayton brought this article to my attention: Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

How were the oceans, puppies and human beings formed? Was it through evolution, creationism or something in between?

It’s a heavy topic that’s generated debate for years. That discourse landed in Chesterfield School Board members’ laps…

Intelligent design proponents urged the School Board to include that theory in the school system’s science curriculum so students can consider differing viewpoints in the classroom. But, federal law requires school systems to remain neutral on the topic, making it illegal for teachers to prompt discussions involving intelligent design or creationism.

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Ted Davis, a historian of science who has often spoken against the ID guys, has weighed in heavily on the side of Guillermo Gonzalez in the recent tenure denial scandal: From where I sit, the impact of Dr. Avalos’[*] deeds is not hard to see: he poisoned the environment for Dr. Gonzalez, by undermining his academic reputation and isolating him at Iowa State*and all based on a book that is actually one of the best popular books about science in recent years. I am an expert on the history of religion and science in the United States (my current project on modern America has received significant support from the National Science Foundation), and in my opinion Dr. Gonzalez’ treatment of Read More ›

In a review of David Sloan Wilson’s book for popular audiences: Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin’s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives, Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist, gives an unwitting slam of Darwinism. The review was published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature.

Selling Evolution

we discover that 54% of adults in the United States prefer to believe that humans did not evolve from some earlier species. What makes this figure surprising is that it is up from 46% in 1994.

The number of non-Darwinists is rising! Pagel then asks this rhetorical question, “Where have the evolutionists gone wrong?”
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The following poem entitled “First they came…” is inscribed at the Boston Holocaust Memorial. Those who believe Guillermo Gonzalez’ involvement with ID outside the Iowa State campus can be justly used in consideration of whether or not to grant him tenure would be well served to think about this. First they came… They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they Read More ›