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Darwinism has already been quietly abandoned, and people are mainly afraid of the bereft trolls?

Here’s an interesting perspective from Paul Benedict (War of Words, July 2, 2011):

Stephen C. Meyer, expounding Intelligent Design in his book Signature in the Cell, makes a point he does not seem to appreciate: for decades microbiologists have been abandoning Darwinism. Breakthrough technologies have shown that life at the cellular level is complex beyond anything Darwin or any 19th century biologist could have predicted. From the variety of cellular functions to the complex information transmitted in the gene, many outstanding scientists recognize that the math just doesn’t work. Intelligent Design represents only one concession to the statistical impossibility that chance caused the life of simple cells. Interrupting the following parade of microbiologists who, like Meyers, recognize that random chance alone cannot have produced the simplest cellular life, are conclusions flowing from this scientific consensus. 

Christian de Duve, for example, a Nobel Prize winner, and in no way an advocate of Intelligent Design, has abandoned random chance as the agent of upwards evolution or the ascent of man. Read More ›

But can politicians really afford to discuss the “evolution question” honestly?

Bio_Symposium_033.jpg
Credit Laszlo Bencze

In “Answering the Dreaded ‘Evolution’ Question” (The American Spectator 6.24.11), Jay Richards and David Klinghoffer explain how politicians can avoid the “speed trap” of the “evolution” question:

Though a president doesn’t have much influence over state and local science education policy, reporters lie in wait for the unwary candidate, ready to pounce with a question he’s poorly prepared to answer yet that is important to millions of voters. Fortunately, there’s a reply that not only avoids the trap but helps advance public understanding.

Oh yes? They suggest:  Read More ›

Who Will Be Michele Bachmann’s Science Advisers?

Michele BachmannAn earlier post yesterday underscored Michele Bachmann’s support of ID. That she supports ID is fine and well. Back in 2005 George W. Bush supported ID in the same terms as Bachmann. But Bush also had as his science adviser “company man” John Marburger (the “company” being Darwinian naturalists).

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She said it: Nancy Pearcey’s thoughtful article on how “Christianity is a Science-starter, not a Science-stopper”

One of the most common objections to design thought is the idea that it is about the improper injection of the alien  supernatural into the world of science. (That is itself based on a strawman misrepresentation of design thought, as was addressed here a few days ago.)

However, there is an underlying root, a common distortion of the origins of modern science, which Nancy Pearcey rebutted in a  2005 sleeper article as headlined, that deserves a UD post of its own.

Let’s clip the article:

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He said it: Prof Lewontin’s strawman “justification” for imposing a priori materialist censorship on origins science

Yesterday, in the P Z Myers quote-mining and distortion thread, I happened to cite Lewontin’s infamous 1997 remark in his NYRB article, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” on a priori imposition of materialist censorship on origins science, which reads in the crucial part:

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

To my astonishment, I was promptly accused of quote-mining and even academic malpractice, because I omitted the following two sentences, which — strange as it may seem —  some evidently view as justifying the above censoring imposition:

The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

To my mind, instead, these last two sentences are such a sad reflection of bias and ignorance, that their omission is an act of charity to a distinguished professor. Read More ›

A tale of two students: The “rebel” who knows the Establishment is right vs. the “problem” kid who wants to think critically

Some think them a mirror of contemporary American society.

Recently, the Clergy Letter Project‘s Michael Zimmerman (getting the clergy to help sell Darwinism to their congregations) was publicizing Louisiana student Zack Kopplin’s effort to repeal Louisiana’s “discussion allowed” law on controversial issues in science: Read More ›

More on Haeckel’s fake embryos possibly starring again in the Texas school system

File:Haeckel drawings.jpg
Romanes, after Haeckel

As in here. Also: What make you of this, from Wikipedia?

Sources note: Choosing only those embryos of species that fit the Darwin/Haeckel frame for teaching purposes – as opposed to a range of accurate depictions – isn’t the biggest problem, nor is exaggerating the similarities midway through development. Haeckel’s most serious misrepresentation is that he left out the earliest stages in embryo development – when various classes differ markedly.

Why would he do that? In order to demonstrate common ancestry through embryos, what you need is for them to all start out very similar and gradually diverge as they develop. And that does not happen. Of course, common ancestry can be true even if embryos do not demonstrate it. But if we believe there is sufficient evidence for common ancestry, why choose  fake evidence to demonstrate it?

See Jonathan Wells, “Haeckel’s embryos: Setting the record straight,” The American Biology Teacher (May 1, 1999): Read More ›

Why read newspapers? Why go to college?

Naomi Schaefer Riley, a former editor at the Wall Street Journal, is the author of the forthcoming The Faculty Lounges .?.?. And Other Reasons Why You Won’t Get the College Education You Paid For” complains about high-price, low-impact education here, and says something interesting about legacy media journalism along the way:

Think about it this way: Suppose I start a print newspaper tomorrow. I might think I’m selling excellent journalism, while my “readers” are actually using my product to line their birdcages. It might work out fine for a while. But the imbalance in this transaction would make it difficult to talk in general terms about improving the product or whether the product is worth what I’m charging. I might think I should improve my grammar and hire more reporters. My customers might want me to make the paper thicker.- “What is a college education really worth?” (Washington Post, June 3, 2011).

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Louisiana: Goodbye, Darwin in the schools lobby. Now back to teaching. Or what?

In “Scientists Issue Letter Supporting Louisiana Science Education Act” (Evolution News & Views, May 27, 2011), John West tells us that 15 PhD scientists signed a letter saying that it’s okay for Louisiana teachers to discuss problems with Darwinism. The Louisiana Senate agrees:

yesterday the Louisiana Senate Education Committee voted down a bill that would have repealed the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA). Louisiana College biology professor Wade Warren gave testimony in favor of the LSEA and opposed the repeal, and also distributed to the Committee a letter from 15 Ph.D. scientists supporting academic freedom. The letter (available as a PDF here) also challenges the ideological motives of many of the scientists who have opposed the LSEA.  Read More ›

Freedom to think can aid learning, studies show

Over at AITSE, headed by Expelled’s Caroline Crocker, author of Free to Think, we learn (May 20, 2011) something that should not surprise us: Freeing students to think is an aid to learning: Do students learn better when taught by experienced lecturers in the traditional method or when given specific problems to solve in a small group setting? According to a study conducted with over 500 engineering students at the University of British Columbia, even if the teacher is inexperienced, students that are encouraged to read, solve problems, and bounce ideas off the teacher are more engaged, attend class more frequently, and achieve higher average exam scores (74%) than those who are forced to sit and listen to lectures (41%).One Read More ›

Evolution as loss of function: Newly discovered blind legless lizard

Looks like a worm. Here: The blind reptile looks like a snake, but it is actually a lizard that has evolved to live underground – losing its legs to enable it to push through the soil by wriggling its body.[ … ] “Also most lizards are able to blink and snakes can’t,” Dr Daltry continued. “Although this new [underground] lizard has no eyes at all.” – Victoria Gill, “blind legless lizard species discovered in Cambodia” BBC News, May 10, 2011 Rube’s kid: My science teacher pinned up a picture of this new lizard on the tackboard and said, There! Darwin was right! New species form all the time, acquiring new traits through natural selection … Rube: Just a minute, son. Read More ›

Science education: Where “hypothetical deer mice” demonstrate Darwinism to passive degree seekers …

In Free to Think: Why Scientific Integrity Matters (2010), Expelled’s Caroline Crocker (p. xv) explains what you are getting for your overpriced science education, Darwin Catechism division – brand new icons of (Darwinian) evolution, and just as shoddy as the old ones:

In the fall of 2008 students taking Animal Biology, Genetics, Ecology ad General Biology at George Mason University, a state school in Virginia, reported fascinating classroom incidents to me that clearly demonstrate this entrenchment. First, the Peppered Moth story, an “icon of evolution” challenged by writer and scientist Jonathan Wells (PhD, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Berkeley” has now been replaced by the evolution of “hypothetical deer mice.” Similarly, the “evolution” of E. Coli, which was a favorite example for evolutionists but has stubbornly remained the same species despite over 100 years of experimentation, has now been replaced by evolution of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Of course, the fact that HIV is a virus and that there is much discussion about whether viruses even qualify as being alive, was not mentioned. Read More ›

Lobby group ratchets up the momentum to repeal Louisiana’s “critical thinking in science” bill

LA governor Bobby Jindal signed 2008 Act

… via Important NameTM endorsements to repeal the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act ( critical thinking in science education) not to be confused with the 42 Nobel laureates a couple of weeks ago. Repeal would be via SB70.

Here’s Barbara Forrest’s op-ed in support of repeal. UD readers will remember Forrest as the “ID expert” prof who mistakenly slagged Baylor’s Frank Beckwith – in a professional philosophy journal – as an ID supporter. (He isn’t, and the journal’s editors disowned the article.)

Back in the expert’s chair again at Houma Today (April 26, 2011), Forrest offers a similar level of evidence for creationism being taught in Louisiana schools: Read More ›

Harris poll: 76% support books that “discuss evolution” in school libraries

A recent Harris poll revealed “Most Americans Opposed to Banning Any Books” (April 12, 2011):

While few Americans think that there are books which should be banned completely, opinions differ on books that should be available to children in school libraries. Strong majorities say that children should be able to get The Holy Bible (83%) and books that discuss evolution (76%) from school libraries.

Majorities also say so for other religious texts such as the Torah or Talmud (59%) and the Koran (57%), but approximately a quarter say these texts should not be available (24% and 28%, respectively) to children in school libraries. Half or more say that children should be able to get books with vampires (57%), books with references to drugs or alcohol (52%) and books with witchcraft or sorcery (50%) in school libraries, but between 34% and 41% say that each of these types of books should not be available there.

There is no consensus on books with references to sex (48% say they should be available, 45% say they should not) and violence (44% say should, 48% say should not). A majority of Americans say, however, that books with explicit language should not be available to children in school libraries (62%).

How would these results change if the “books that discuss evolution” were non-Darwinist or wrote sympathetically about design?

Also:

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