He quotes from a post by paleontologist Gunter Bechly on everyone’s favorite cuddly pet, prehistoric scorpions:
In today’s science world it is no longer sufficient to objectively describe some nicely preserved ancient fossils. You must overinterpret the evidence and oversell their importance with a fancy evolutionary narrative. And you do not have to hesitate to be really bold with your claims, because neither the scientific reviewers nor the popular science media will care if your claims are actually supported by the evidence. This system is broken. It was broken by the pressure to publish or perish, by the pressure of public relation departments to generate lurid headlines, and by the pressure of the idiotic paradigm that nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution.
David Klinghoffer, “Scientific Decadence and the Myth of Objectivity” at Evolution News and Science Today:
Speaking on behalf of popular media, I (O’Leary for News, a fifty-year veteran) would say, we’d far rather media releases were supported by sound evidence. But if the paleontologists are the only source of evidence and they all think as one—and we are unable to evaluate their work independently—it’s not clear what we can be expected to do about it if they inflate or misrepresent the evidence. Some reforms must come from within. We can promote reform but we can’t create it.
Klinghoffer goes on to note something neurosurgeon Michael Egnor wrote yesterday:
Perhaps the most disturbing damage that the abortion lobby has done to our society — aside from the systematic killing of tens of millions of innocent human beings — is the corruption of science in the name of ideology. Nowhere is this corruption more obvious than in the misrepresentation of the neuroscience of fetal pain perception.
A new article in the Journal of Medical Ethics titled Reconsidering Fetal Pain (open access) is a welcome correction to the abortion lobby’s systematic misrepresentation. The authors, one of whom is an abortion advocate, reviewed the literature on the perception of fetal pain and came to the conclusion that there is clear scientific evidence to support the view that unborn children feel pain as early as 13 weeks of gestation. Michael Egnor, “Abortion advocate admits in a medical journal that unborn children feel pain” at Mind Matters News
Egnor adds, “I have cared for hundreds of premature infants and it is very clear that these very young children experience pain intensely. An innocuous needlestick in the heel to draw small amount of blood would ordinarily not be particularly painful for an adult. But a tiny infant will scream at such discomfort.” But, all too often, it’s a silent scream among killers.
Klinghoffer also introduces Discovery Institute’s new “Long Story Short” video on homology:
suggesting that we also have a look at one of Michael Egnor’s other recent reflections: Jeffrey Epstein and the silence of the scientists
See also: The current war on objectivity.
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As to Dobzhansky’s oft repeated claim that “nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution”, that claim in and of itself, since “all of Dobzhansky’s arguments hinge upon sectarian claims about God’s nature”, proves that all of science must be based upon Theistic presuppositions.
As Paul Nelson explains, “Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky’s arguments hinge upon claims about God’s nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist’s arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky’s arguments.”,,
Darwinists might think that they could get along just as well without this “God talk”. Yet as Steve Dilley further explained in this subsequent article that examined several major biology textbooks it is found that, “significant difficulties arise if textbooks exclude theological claims in their case for evolution.”
Moreover, although “God talk” is found be essential to Darwinian thinking, it is interesting to point out that Darwinian thinking is not essential to biology itself. As Adam S. Wilkins pointed out,
And as Marc Kirschner pointed out,
The fact that Darwinian thinking is not essential to biology is revealed by the fact that you can, in biological research papers, remove all the words that make reference to Darwinian evolution and have the science not only survive but turn out to be healthier and more useful,
While it is certainly bad enough for Darwin’s theory that you can remove all the Darwinian language from research papers and have the papers turn out healthier and more useful, what is completely devastating for Darwin’s theory is what type of language, i.e. teleological language, that CANNOT possibly be removed from these research papers that purport to support Darwinian evolution without severely compromising the integrity of the papers,
As J. B. S. Haldane noted, “Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist; he dare not be seen with her in public but cannot live without her.”
Teleological, (i.e. purpose, goal directed), explanations of any sort are simply self defeating to any Darwinian explanation that seeks to explain biological life as being purely the result of completely blind and purposeless processes (as Darwinists are supposedly ‘purposely intent’ on doing). Yet teleological language is rampant within Darwinian explanations.
In the following article, Stephen Talbott points out that it is impossible to describe the complexities of biological life without illegitimately using language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness (i.e. teleology). He even challenges readers to “take up a challenge: pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness 1.”
Denis Noble also notes that “it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language”.
This working biologist agrees with Talbott and Noble’s assessment and states, “in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them.”
In short, Theological presuppositions are essential to all of science, especially including biology. Even Dobzhansky’s essay itself, “nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution”, proves this point since “God talk” is essential to all of the arguments he makes in his paper.
In other words, we can apparently remove all the words from research papers that make reference to Darwinian evolution and have the papers turn out healthier and more useful, but we cannot remove “God talk”, i.e. Teleological, (i.e. purpose, goal directed), explanations from research papers without severely compromising the integrity of the research. To repeat what Professor Nobel stated, “it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language,,,”
Bottom line, the very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use, i.e. “God talk”, when they are doing their biological research and/or writing their papers, falsifies Darwinian evolution and validates Intelligent Design:
Verse:
Of supplemental note: Michael Egnor has a very insightful article explaining exactly why Darwinists are so “purposely intent” on trying to deny teleology in the first place, “It is purpose that must be denied in order to deny design in nature. So the mind, as well as teleology, must be denied. Eliminative materialism is just Darwinian metaphysics carried to its logical end and applied to man. If there is no teleology, there is no intentionality, and there is no purpose in nature nor in man’s thoughts.”
@1 Bornagain77
And it is the existent mind the thing that denies itself.
This is a clear violation of the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC).
1. Existent entities (minds) deny themselves.
2. According to naturalism “I think, therefore I am not “.
3.The mind is then directed (teleology) to deny itself.
Being = Not- Being.
This is intellectual suicide.
“This is intellectual suicide.”
It certainly is! I usually term the denial of mind and free will by Darwinists as leading to ‘catastrophic epistemological failure’, but “intellectual suicide” gets the point across more clearly!
TF
Also:
Where did the understanding of mind and self come from?
It was created by mind and self.
So, I created myself. My self decided to create my self, with my mind which created my mind.
After that, I was able to deny that mind and self exist.