Recently, we have been discussing the (probably true) claim that Americans are less likely than others to believe Darwinism. As I noted in earlier discussions, American society gives its citizens greater rights than many other societies do to disagree with the elite and the privileged. And what may be the consequences of that?: “In the final episode of PBS’s television series, the narrator states that for decades after the 1925 Scopes trial “Darwin seemed to be locked out of America’s public schools.” When the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, in 1957, according to the narrator, Darwin was restored to the curriculum and “long-neglected science programs were revived in America’s classrooms.” Yet during the supposedly benighted decades between 1925 Read More ›

Feature: The Intelligent Design Controversy in Higher Education
This week on The Coral Ridge Hour we look at Intelligent Design, a movement which is gaining adherents at colleges and universities around the world. But what about professors who dare to challenge evolution by presenting alternatives to students? As you are about to see, the consequences can be severe.

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Terry Mirll sent me the following predictions and anti-predictions related to materialism.

If naturalistic materialism is true:

1. We are nothing but the sum of our parts. Our bodies are wholly explicable in terms of nature, and there is no aspect of our bodies that cannot be described in purely naturalistic terms, nor any means of describing ourselves other than naturalistic ones. Human beings are simply organic beings and nothing more, composed of organs which are composed of cells which are composed of molecules which are composed of atoms which are composed of sub-atomic particles (and, if string theory is valid, the particles are composed of various strings of energy), and that’s it. We are thus material beings and not spiritual ones. We have no souls. Consciousness is therefore nothing but a curious offshoot of biochemistry, a higher reasoning function of our brains that has arisen from the natural advantage afforded to us by both the size of the human brain and its level of complexity. It is NOT evidence that Man is a creature imago dei, but rather evidence of the power by which natural selection operating in tandem with random genetic mutation can operate.

THEREFORE, I PREDICT that scientists will one day construct a device capable of transporting a human body across vast regions of space–a device comparable to the “teleporter” as portrayed in the “Star Trek” TV series. It will disassemble a living human body at a molecular or sub-molecular level, transport those small bits of living organic material at high speed across great distance, and reassemble them to their original macroscopic configuration, with no ill effects to the body it has transported.

IF, HOWEVER, after several hundred years of scientific advance no such a device will have been formulated, this fact should be taken as an indication that naturalistic materialism is not true. Read More ›

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/08/the_double_standard_for_id_and_1.html

[From some colleagues:] It appears that, while co-option is reputed to be a valid evolutionary mechanism, it is illegal when based on federally-funded county equipment. “State homeland security officials have warned Vermillion County to stop using electronic emergency message boards [purchased with a grant from Homeland Security] to advertise fish fries, spaghetti dinners and other events.” So if we can show that these primitive structures that were supposedly co-opted into the flagellar apparatus were the product of a federal granting process, then we can show that evolution is clearly illegal and ought not be taught. But then again, when you are really hungry, spaghetti dinners may qualify as an emergency response. And as for the fish fries, well, if you’re Read More ›

[From a colleague:] The species problem is real, but I think that (a) it is way overblown in importance in the phil. biol. literature as a result of our fixation on metazoans; and (b) it may already have a pretty good answer (Paterson’s “recognition” concept). Briefly, on (b): the idea is just that the “glue” holding species together is the fact that members recognize each other as members, which is a fact about their cognitive systems analyzable in terms of pheromones or whatever. Of course, there is also the fact that recognition has to be correlated with reproductive viability, which raises all the usual design issues. But I don’t see that there are any deep problems here that are not Read More ›

Denyse, I would be interested in how you would grade Mr. Than’s article (see a couple of posts down)  if it were a project in a journalism class you were teaching.  I am not a journalist, but from my lay perspective he gets points off for: 1.  Value laden language.  Depending on one’s perspective, “near the bottom” could just as easily be “near the top” for independence of thought, and “low ranking” could be “high ranking” for a wholesome skeptical scientific attitude. 2.  Stating opinions as facts.  His wholesale adoption of ID’s opponent’s characterization of ID as factual statements, instead of statements of their opinion, is a mistake. On the positive side, he at least gave someone with an ID point Read More ›

Bill’s recent exchange with an American sci jo who has suddenly discovered (how, I wonder?) that Darwinists’ promotion of evangelical atheism is a poor match for their claims of religious neutrality made me decide to cross-post an item from the Post-Darwinist. I keep up with the steady stream of nonsense from evolutionary psychology, because that is the form of Darwinism that most laypeople encounter most regularly. Stories like the one from the Dallas Morning News, linked below, help us understand why so many Americans cannot take Darwinism seriously. It drips with the vast contempt that the Darwinist feels for people who have had experiences he (or she) cannot account for, let alone (apparently) have. (I don’t take too seriously the Read More ›

Here’s a recent exchange between me and a well-known journalist: Dear Mr. Dembski: I got your email from [snip]. I’m a science writer who has written for the usual suspects: New York Times (book review, op-ed, magazine, week in review), The Atlantic, Discover, Omni, Wall Street Journal, many others. You can google me, but the NY Times and WSJ block search engines, and that’s where most of my journalistic stuff is. . . . I am not sympathetic to ID or creationism, but I’m thinking of writing a piece–not yet sure for whom–about how silly the neo-Darwinists have become, Dawkins and Dennett come to mind. It seems to me the evolutionists have fielded the wrong team, and despite the recent Read More ›

So reports Ker Than a Staff Writer for Space.com and LiveScience.com.  You can get the whole story here:  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,207858,00.html. 

Mr. Than reports that a new study compares attitudes toward evolution in 34 countries.  The US ranks “near the bottom” when it comes to public acceptance of evolution.  Other findings:

Thank you very much to Bob OH for pointing me to a transcript of the Behe literature bluff at the Dover trial.  I have read the transcript in detail, and I now believe the Dover defendants’ lawyers should have made objections that they did not make.  Here are quotes from the Behe examination followed by the objections that should have been made (in bold):
 

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In an article in Skeptical Inquirer Paul Kurtz announced that religion and science are compatible: … there is an appropriate domain for religion, and in this sense science and religion are not necessarily incompatible. That domain is evocative, expressive, emotive. Religion presents moral poetry, aesthetic inspiration, and dramatic expressions of existential hope and yearnings. In other words, religion represents what yer know ain’t so. I don’t imagine he’ll sell too many of those to people who take their faith seriously. More to the point, the relevant question is not whether “religion” and “science” are compatible. When categories are as broad as that, anything can be compatible with anything else, or not. The relevant question for Western culture is whether Judaeo-Christianity Read More ›

To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted.”

– Thomas Kuhn pp. 17-18 ( The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2^nd Edition, Enlarged, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970)

Darwinism was first forced on my notice by the Darwinists’ unseemly habit of persecuting scientists who question it – I mean, really question it, as if it could actually be wrong. Way back in 1996, I noticed that Darwinism seemed to be the only theory you could not safely criticize.

Later, I began to pay attention to a curious pattern in the pop science media’s coverage. Many, many stories heralded new evidence for Darwinism. Virtually none talked about problems with it. The few that did admit to any problems assured the reader that they would soon be solved – as if we are all heavily invested in when or whether they get solved.

For example, in stories on the Cambrian explosion, the point of much coverage is to force a Darwinian interpretation on the picture. Yet, a very minor investment of time in story research will turn up the fact that even Darwin knew that the Cambrian and its subsequent rollout did not really fit his theory.

Somehow one just did not talk about problems with Darwinism unless one had turned up a scrap of evidence that suggested that they might not be problems after all. Read More ›

I was going to post this in Gil’s “Literature Bluffing” thread, but it got too long, so I am putting it in this post.

Let me preface this comment by stating that I have not reviewed the transcript of the Dover trial in detail, and I am basing what I am about to say on the information in the thread to Gil’s post.  The defendants’ lawyers in Dover may indeed have done a poor job overall.  I have no opinion on the matter, but on the specific topic discussed in Gil’s post, I think they are getting a bum rap.

Here is the issue.  Several of the commentators wondered, “Why didn’t the defendants’ lawyers object when the plaintiffs’ lawyers placed a stack of books and articles in front of Behe and asked ‘have you read these articles that refute your testimony about irreducible complexity?'”  In other words, they want to know why the defendants’ lawyers did not object to the literature bluff coming into evidence, and some suggested the lawyers were negligent for failing to make this objection.

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Scientist Exposes Evolution’s Weaknesses in Politically Incorrect Book About Darwinism and Intelligent Design SEATTLE — “This book is going to upset defenders of Darwin’s theory, because it exposes just how weak the evidence for it is and how irrational their criticisms of intelligent design really are,” says biologist Jonathan Wells author of the controversial new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. The book will be published on August 21st by Regnery as part of their popular series of “Politically Incorrect Guides.” In clear, non-technical language, Wells explains who is fighting whom, the root of the conflict, and the evidence for and against Darwinism and Intelligent Design. He also explains what is ultimately at stake for liberals Read More ›