Karsten Pultz sends us this report: A Norwegian shipping chief has recently donated 15 million Nkr (1.6 million US $) to support the promotion of intelligent design. The money has gone into a foundation, BioCosmos, where individuals and organisations (primarily in Norway) can apply for support to projects like developing teaching material, publishing books, holding conferences, and anything else related to promoting the ID-hypothesis, especially among young people.
The generous Norwegian behind the foundation, engineer Einar Johan Rasmussen, is quite sure that the theory of evolution does not hold all answers to life’s origin, and having read about ID he feels that life is not a product of blind chance. He hopes that the foundation will make it possible for more people to be able to question what they have been taught so far.

Head of the foundation is Tromsø university professor Steinar Thorvaldsen who in 2013 together with Danish professor Peter Øhrstrøm authored the peer-reviewed paper, Darwin’s Perplexing Paradox: Intelligent Design in Nature. Thorvaldsen is also head of the Norwegian branch of Origo, an evolution-critical magazine and publishing company, a collaboration between Danish and Norwegian evolution sceptics and ID proponents.
Origo has previously published translations of Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells and Undeniable by Douglas Axe. Currently, it has one translator working on Lee Spetner’s The Evolution Revolution and two others working on Michael Behe’s Darwin Devolves. The latter will be available in both Norwegian and Danish.
With this new foundation ID will get a significant boost. In the Scandinavian countries we are used to the fact that everything to do with education is tax-funded and state-run. This makes it difficult to convince people that there are important areas of research and education that need support from private sources.
As we all know tax money are only going to support mainstream science, so ID is depending 100 % on private funding, BioCosmos will be the first group to really make a difference in that regard. This wonderful news come on the heels of the just as wonderful news about the opening of the ID centre in Austria, Zentrum für Biokomplexität und NaturTeleologie. Although the Austrian centre focuses on the German-speaking areas, it is also meant to function as a common European ID institute. I’m happy to say that a promising collaboration between the Nordic countries and Zentrum für BioKomplexität has already been established.
It seems there are good reasons to be optimistic about the future for ID. Although we are under attack from theistic evolutionists, atheists and even young earth creationists, ID is slowly but surely getting traction in the Old World.
Pultz is the author of Exit Evolution.
More from Karsten Pultz and Denmark:
Karsten Pultz: The Perils Of Talking About ID He Wonders, Should He Give Up? (Um, not just now, Karsten – the Uncommon Descent Virtual Coffee Room)
Educating Oneself Away From Science Denial: Two True Stories
Denmark: Slowly developing a conversation about design in nature
Something Is Rotten In The State Of Denmark
Denmark: Perhaps Not So Rotten After All
and
Swedish Mathematician Explains Why He Sees Design In Nature (And Became A Christian)
That’s embarrassing – he got his degree at NTH, which morphed into the university I now work at.
BTW, there is quite a bit of private money that goes into research in the Nordic countries – there are a bunch of funds, and in Norway I can get a tax break if I contribute. The biggest private research foundation is probably Carlsbergfondet, in Denmark – it owns almost a third of the Carlsberg brewery.
Bob O’H, we assume that you are and will remain an exemplary contributor to research funding, according to your income position.
LoL! @ Bob O’H, the human embarrassment.
Hey! ET! Bob O’H could make it all up by tithing his income for research, especially given that research gets him a living. And then, surely, he is entitled to his opinion, no?
thank you Mr. Rasmussen
i hope your money, lots of money, will be used wisely…unlike Darwinians would do…
p.s. Mr. Rasmussen, you are an engineer. Me too… we engineers can recognize another Engineer’s work instantly (unlike biologists, natural science graduates) … Especially when we see a very sophisticated design beyond our comprehension- like for instance SELF-REPLICATION….
Bob O’H states that he is embarrassed that one of his alumni could dare to support ID education.
That is an odd thing for Bob to be embarrassed about given that he himself believes in Darwinian evolution. If Bob’s ’embarrassment meter’ were working properly he should rightly be embarrassed to say that he believes in Darwinian evolution. But alas, Bob’s ’embarrassment meter’ is severely compromised much like the Emperor in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” ’embarrassment meter’ was severely compromised.
And much like the naked Emperor, Bob, and everyone else who promotes Darwinian atheism, are, as far as science itself is concerned, walking around completely naked with not a stitch of scientific clothing on to cover their nakedness.
Simply put, Darwinian evolution, since it lacks any rigid falsification criteria, does not even qualify as a science in the first place. As Denis Noble, President of International Union of Physiological Sciences, stated, “it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.”
Moreover, it is not as if the central tenets of Darwinian evolution have not been falsified over and over again, it is that Darwinists, for whatever severely misguided reason, simply refuse to accept any empirical falsifications of their theory. i.e. Like the emperor, they refuse to accept the fact that they are naked for fear of being seen as stupid by their Darwinian peers.
Here are a few falsifications of Darwinian evolution that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory:
Verse:
Besides Darwinists refusing to adhere to the criteria of falsification for their supposed scientific theory, by any other reasonable measure that one may wish to judge whether Darwinian evolution even qualifies as a science or not, as is shown in the following video, Darwinian evolution fails to meet those criteria as well:
Simply put, Darwinian evolution simply fails to qualify as a rigorous and testable science by any reasonable measure one may wish to invoke and is therefore more properly classified as a pseudoscience, even as a religion for atheists, rather than ever being classified as a real and testable science.
In other word, the Emperor is completely naked, he does not even have any underwear on!
Moreover, contrary to what many people have been falsely led to believe by Darwinian atheists about Intelligent Design supposedly being a pseudo-science, the fact of the matter is that all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on the presupposition of methodological naturalism.
From the essential Christian presuppositions that undergird the founding of modern science itself, (namely that the universe is rational and that the minds of men, being made in the ‘image of God’, can dare understand that rationality), to the intelligent design of the scientific instruments and experiments themselves, to the logical and mathematical analysis of experimental results themselves, from top to bottom, science itself is certainly not to be considered a ‘natural’ endeavor of man.
Not one scientific instrument would ever exist if men did not first intelligently design that scientific instrument. Not one test tube, microscope, telescope, spectroscope, or etc.. etc.., was ever found just laying around on a beach somewhere which was ‘naturally’ constructed by nature. Not one experimental result would ever be rationally analyzed since there would be no immaterial minds to rationally analyze the immaterial logic and immaterial mathematics that lay behind the intelligently designed experiments in the first place.
Again, all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on the presupposition of intelligent design and is certainly not based on the presupposition of methodological naturalism.
Moreover, following the restriction of methodological naturalism on science, that is to say, following the presumption that only natural, material, and/or physical causes are allowed to be given in order to explain any effect in science, leads to the catastrophic epistemological failure of science itself.
Thus, although the Darwinist may firmly believe that he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic and/or naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinian materialists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to.
Again, It would be hard to fathom a worldview that turns out to be more antagonistic towards modern science, indeed more antagonistic towards reality itself, than the presumption of methodological naturalism has turned out to be.
Bottom line, without God nothing turns out to be truly real in the atheist’s worldview. Not even the atheist himself turns out to be real in his materialistic worldview.
And again, if Bob’s ’embarrassment meter’ were working properly he should rightly be VERY embarrassed to even admit that he believes in such an absurdity as Darwinian evolution. But alas, despite his nakedness, Bob, like the Emperor, apparently wants to be seen as wise by his Darwinian peers so he will never honestly admit to himself and to others that he is, in reality, completely naked with not a stitch of scientific clothing on.