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John Hanna of the Associated Press has a very good, balanced and straightforward look at Kansas' upcoming hearings over evolution and education, in today's Kansas City Star.
In the article Hanna looks honestly at the debate, identifies the people testifying as predominately supporters of ID, but goes on to explain that they are not calling for ID to be put in the classroom, but instead want to teach more about the scientific criticisms of Darwinism. Intelligent design advocates haven't proposed citing ID in the standards or including it in lessons. Yet ID is under scrutiny because scientists fear there will be an attempt to sneak it - or even creationism - into the classroom. Critics contend intelligent design is a response to court rulings against teaching creationism in public schools.
Backers of intelligent design said opponents are trying unfairly to identify ID advocates with Christians who take literally the Bible's account of a divine, six-day creation. Advocates stress that ID doesn't identify the intelligent cause of creation - or claim that science can.
"You cannot, by seeing something that's designed, know anything about the designer," Harris said. "The data doesn't take you to the God of the Bible, the Koran, or some little green man on Mars. We're not being coy."
Hanna does a good job with a more accurate definition of ID, which he amazingly has boiled down to less than 20 words: some features of the natural world, because of their well-ordered complexity, are best explained by an intelligent cause.
National Geographic News is running a fair and balanced article about intelligent design and the debate over how to teach evolution. Unlike many journalists, the author of this piece defines intelligent design correctly:
Intelligent-design theory states that certain features of the natural world are of such complexity that the most plausible explanation is that they are products of an intelligent cause rather than random mutation and natural selection. Supporters of the theory say the nature of the intelligent cause is outside the scope of the theory.
The writer also quotes me correctly and accurately describes Discovery Institute's position on how evolution should be taught:
Teach the Controversy
John West is the associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture and an advocate of the institute's "teach the controversy" approach to teaching evolution in U.S. public schools.
The approach steers clear of teaching intelligent-design theory in the schools (the Discovery Institute believes the theory is too new to be required). Instead, "teach the controversy" promotes teaching "all the evidence relating to evolutionary theory," West said.
Included in the evidence are what the Discovery Institute views as legitimate criticisms of evolutionary theory, such as the limits of natural selection and random mutation in explaining the explosion of new body plans during the Cambrian period (about 570 million years ago).
"If high school or college students are capable of understanding evidence for evolution, certainly they could understand scientific criticisms of key parts of the theory, particularly the limit to the creative power of selection and random mutation," West said.
Kudos to National Geographic News for trying to inform readers by fairly describing both sides of the debate.
The National Center for Science Education has finally acknowledged the libel lawsuit filed against its director Eugenie Scott for statements she made in a recent article about California parent and attorney Larry Caldwell. In a brief posting on its website, the NCSE states that it "believes the lawsuit against Dr. Scott has no merit." But the NCSE continues to engage in stonewalling by failing to address any of the specifics of Caldwell's complaint.
As first reported on this blog, Scott claimed that Caldwell was trying to inject the teaching of creationism into his school district. To be specific, she stated that he tried to get his school board to adopt two prominent creationist books as part of the school district curriculum. Caldwell says this claim is absolutely false. In fact, he says he did not even know about the books cited by Scott. When Caldwell wrote Scott a letter asking her to correct the record, she failed to respond. So Caldwell had to file a libel lawsuit to clear his name.
Why is it so hard for Scott and the NCSE to clear the record and print a retraction? Or if they have evidence that Caldwell isn't telling the truth, why don't they publish that?
According to Neo-Darwinism, once the first lusty cell leapt onto the stage of the world, purely impersonal, material processes reigned--a blind watchmaker and less than blind. It was a mindless mechanism. This is quite different from the teleological evolution that some, including the Catholic Church, have considered a possibility. Darwininian evolution possesses no distant goal nor is man the twinkle in the eye of any god.
This distinction between directed and undirected evolution is commonly blurred by Darwinists and the MSM who love them. Consider the following comment in the Wisconsin State Journal by molecular biologist Sean Carroll:
The problem with the debate, Carroll said, is that little notice is given in the media to the many, including clergy and even the late Pope John Paul II, who believe evolution and belief in a higher power are not contradictory.
"I was taught evolution by Catholic priests," Carroll said. "And I never realized there was a problem." "Little notice?" As a molecular biologist, Carroll is kept extraordinarily busy plumbing the intricate riches of the cellular world, so it's not surprising he hasn't heard the MSM's drumbeat of propaganda reassuring Americans that "evolution" and Christian theism go hand in hand.
However, he is trained in evolutionary theory, so he knows better than most the enormous gulf between the idea of directed evolution and Neo-Darwinism's story of life evolving strictly by undirected causes like natural selection.
An essential component to a clear and civil debate is the use of precise terms central to the debate. Journalists should be the first to insist on such clarity, dispensing with vacuous definitions like this one that recently appeared in The Kansas City Star:
Evolution ... says species change in response to environmental and genetic factors over the course of many generations. The Greeks of Homer's day, I'm told, were about our height. Those of the Middle Ages were much shorter. Now they're taller again. If that's the modern theory of evolution, we can all pack our bags and go home. But Neo-Darwinism is much more ambitious than that, more ambitious even than Rudyard Kipling's fanciful Just So Stories about how the leopard got his spots, or the whale his throat. It tells how the amoeba became a man, one little undirected step at a time. It's an extraordinarily imaginative story, and one every child should learn in full--the whole big fish.
Update: Mark Ryland provided an excellent summary of the Catholic Church's view of teleological evolution: "IF, as most scientists claim, evolution/universal common descent happened, THEN it was guided, because design is (self-)evident in Nature, including biology." Notice in that summary both the IF, and the fact that the Catholic Church is here considering directed rather than undirected evolution.
Below are Dr. William Provine's comments on the recent debate between himself and CSC's Dr. Stephen Meyer. I agree with Rob Crowther’s summary of the debate. Our debate was indeed between evolution and ID explanations for fossil and living organisms. I thought our debate would be between ID evolution and naturalistic evolution, but Steve Meyer championed many young-earth, anti-evolution doctrines. I was frank about the implications of really believing in naturalistic evolution. Steve Meyer refused to reveal religious assumptions that I think relate to his views about the origin of species.
Logan Gage begins his summary of the main points of the debate by saying that my major point was dysteleology. To the contrary, my major point throughout the debate was that ID was based upon religious commitments more than upon science. This contrasted with Steve Meyer’s insistence that ID had no religious motivations, and that it was pure science.
I branded the ID creator as supernatural at the beginning of my talk. Steve Meyer responded that the ID creator was conscious, but not necessarily supernatural. He has written that the rise of multicellular organisms was mediated by the Conscious Intelligent Designer, and I argued that this creator must also be supernatural. How could it not be?
Steve Meyer has argued that the Conscious Intelligent Designer made species perfect, and that their DNA degenerated over time, making them subject to disease and extinction. This is a favorite theme of young-earth creationists. I suggested that each of hundreds of thousands of beetles had several parasitoids (parasites that kill) that did not wait for DNA decay, but evolved with each beetle species. Extinction is better explained by environmental change than DNA decay, which cannot be demonstrated.
I asked Steve Meyer if he thought that humans and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor. He said no, for two reasons. He argued first that extreme similarity of DNA said nothing about a common ancestor. This means that systematics (making evolutionary trees) is a sham science since modern methods stress using DNA evidence to support tree structures. Secondly, he said, in answer to my question, that humans had God-given immortal souls, and thus could not possibly share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, also a main argument of the young-earth creationists. Thus religion plays an important role in Steve Meyer’s rejection of a common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.
Steve Meyer’s criticism of neo-Darwinism was surprisingly narrow, emphasizing natural selection acting upon mutations. I have a far deeper quarrel with the evolutionary biology of the 1960s. I no longer see natural selection as a mechanism, or an active cause of evolution. Natural selection (or adaptation) is a result of many interacting ecological and genetic causes and does not “work upon” individual genes. I reject random genetic drift and see the movement of neutral DNA by hitchhiking with pieces of chromosome with high or low survival rates. I reject gene pools, genetic homeostasis, am critical of the biological species concept and all hopes of generating robust phylogenetic trees older than 700 million years ago because of the wide exchange of DNA and RNA between one-celled organisms. Thus I turn out much more critical of neo-Darwinism than does Steve Meyer. None of my criticisms, however, suggest a ID creator, but a more lively and realistic view of evolution than I learned in graduate school.
Steve Meyer’s attempt to hide the religious underpinnings of ID theory remind me of Wendell Bird’s huge 2 volume work entitled, The Origin of Species Revisited: The Theories of Evolution and of Abrupt Appearance (Philosophical Library, 1989). No mention of God graces his volumes but his theory of abrupt appearance he brands as “scientific.” Nothing but the supernatural can abruptly produce a fully adapted species. Likewise, Steve Meyer’s Conscious Intelligent Designer produces fully adapted species, often many at a time, and is patently supernatural.
I thank Steve Meyer for the debate, Rob Crowther for his constant help in organizing the debate, and Logan Gage for his summary and for his conversation.
Paul Pardi has an excellent post on his blog discussing the hysterical rhetoric of many critics of intelligent design (ID). Reading Pardi's comments, one has to wonder why the most vocal critics of ID are so bitter, angry, and defensive. If the evidence for their views is so overwhelming, why are they so insecure?
In a homily at his installation on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI made his first comment on evolution:
We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.
It will be interesting to see if the newsmedia will report about this, given their interest in the last Pope's statement on evolution.
After asking Eugenie Scott to stop spreading falsehoods about him but getting no response, parent Larry Caldwell has filed a libel lawsuit against both Scott and her group, the National Center for Science Education. Below is the text of a press release issued today by Caldwell about the suit:
Parent Files Lawsuit for Libel in Evolution Debate
California Parent says 'chief evolution spokeswoman' trying to discredit education improvement efforts
ROSEVILLE, CA -- California parent Larry Caldwell has filed a lawsuit against the National Center for Science Education, Inc. and its executive director, Eugenie C. Scott for libel.
The lawsuit is based upon defamatory statements Scott allegedly made about Caldwell in an article she authored in the current edition of the California Academy of Science’s magazine, California Wild, in what Caldwell says was an effort to discredit his efforts to improve how evolution is taught in biology classes.
Caldwell proposed in 2003 that school officials in the Roseville Joint Union High School District adopt his Quality Science Education (QSE) Policy and related instructional materials aimed at changing how the theory of evolution is taught in biology classes by including presentations of scientific weaknesses of evolution in biology classes along with the scientific strengths of evolution.
Scott –- executive director of the Oakland, Calif.-based National Center for Science Education –- wrote that Caldwell attempted to get the district to adopt materials advocating Biblical creationism, including a young-earth creationist book, "Refuting Evolution," by Jonathan Safarti; and the Jehovah's Witness book "Life: How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or Creation?" which Scott described as “probably the most widely-circulated creation science book in the country.”
“I never submitted such books to the school district,” Caldwell said. “In fact I had never even heard of either of these books until I read Scott’s article.”
According to Caldwell, Scott’s article also contained a number of other factual misstatements about him and his proposals to improve science education.
“I wrote a letter to Ms. Scott and the NCSE demanding a retraction,” Caldwell said. “But they totally ignored it.”
"It just shows that even after they've been told in detail the specific facts, they are not willing to rely on the truth in this debate," Caldwell said. "It just confirms to me they have a strategy of using misinformation."
Caldwell says Scott claimed: "that I purportedly subscribe to a number of creation science beliefs discussed in the article – none of which I in fact agree with; and that I purportedly advocate a number of creationist activities in public schools that are enumerated in the article – including the banning of evolution from science classes, and the use of the Bible in science classes."
“I wonder if Ms. Scott has found it so difficult to locate someone who actually fits her preconceived stereotype of a Bible-thumper trying to ban evolution that she must now resort to reinventing someone to fit her stereotype," said Caldwell.
According to Caldwell, Scott's article is typical of how the Darwinists 'debate' this issue: “They tell lies about our side and try to discredit and marginalize everyone on our side by stereotyping people as 'religious nut cases' who are trying to inject Genesis into science classes, or trying to ban evolution from science classes. Neither of which is true.”
"What does that say about the strength of their argument on the merits of how Darwinism should be taught in our public schools?" Caldwell asked.
Caldwell says matters are made worse when the legacy media routinely publishes what Scott and the NCSE tell them to print about the evolution debates around the country.
“She is the source of much of the misinformation about the evolution debate in American media,” Caldwell said. “The misstatements in this article prove that the legacy media's primary source is peddling science fiction."
CSC senior fellow David Berlinski recently sent me the following comments about science writer Dr. Susan Blackmore's adoration of the inevitability of natural selection. Dr. Susan Blackmore on Darwin’s Great Insight:
"Frighteningly, most people do not understand Darwin's great insight. What people miss is the sheer inevitability of the creative process. Once you see it —copy, vary, select; copy, vary, select —you see that design by natural selection simply has to happen. This is not like Isaac Newton's laws, or quantum physics, or any of the other great theories in science, where one can ask "why is this so?" It simply has to be the case. Then, the scary implications follow. If everyone understood evolution, then the tyranny of religious memes would be weakened, and we little humans might find a better way to live in this pointless universe."
It is, indeed, odd that so many people seem to miss Darwin’s great insight. What is odder still is that the insight is so easy to demonstrate. All that is required are ten packs of cards and ten friends. Here are the steps involved, which can really be followed by anyone with an open mind:
1 Distribute one pack of cards to each of your ten friends;
2 Ask everyone to shuffle their pack seven times (the least number of shuffles required to insure a random deck);
3 Now ask everyone to select five cards from his or her deck; no peeking;
4 Then ask everyone to replace from one to four cards in his or her hand with new cards; again, no peeking.
5 Select.
That’s it. Nothing more is involved. Design by natural selection should now be obvious. It’s right there in front of your eyes. As Susan Blackmore says, “it simply has to happen.”
This experiment can be performed by high-school students as well as the elderly.
David Berlinski
WorldNetDaily has an article about the false smear of California parent Larry Caldwell by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. According to the article, Scott has yet to respond to Caldwell's request for a retraction:
Caldwell asked for a response by 5 p.m. yesterday but has heard nothing from Scott...
"It just shows that even after they've been told in detail the specific facts, they are not willing to rely on the truth in this debate," Caldwell said. "It just confirms to me they have a strategy of using misinformation."
As of this morning, the NCSE's website is still running its link to Scott's article about Caldwell, which falsely claims that he tried to get his district to adopt two creationist books as part of the district's curriculum.
Of course, this isn't the first time NCSE officials have been guilty of spreading false information about those they disagree with. In 2002, NCSE officials Kevin Padian and Alan Gishlick impugned the science credentials of biologist Jonathan Wells by claiming that after Wells obtained his Ph.D. in biology, he “followed this with a 5-year postdoctoral position…during which time he seems to have performed no experiments” and “no peer-reviewed publications resulted.” Both claims were false. Wells did perform experiments in his post-doctoral position, and those experiments did generate peer-reviewed publications. But even after being sent documentation of these facts, Padian and Gishlick refused to correct the record. For details of their outrageous defamation of Wells, you can read the pdf document posted here. Spreading false information about others appears to be part of standard practice at the NCSE.
Apparently I don't have any reason to be grumpy with the agronomists.
World magazine has a brief essay and interview with historian Richard Weikart on how Germany moved from Darwin to Hitler. The essay begins, "Phillip Johnson, leader of the Intelligent Design movement, writes, "The philosophy that fueled German militarism and Hitlerism is taught as fact in every American public school, with no disagreement allowed." The interview concludes with Weikart noting that "Darwinist terminology and concepts are prominent in many of Hitler's writings and speeches." In the example Weikart gives, Hitler is explaining the danger of saving and caring for the weak and imperfect:
The natural struggle for existence, which only allows the strongest and healthiest to survive, will be replaced by the obvious desire to save at any cost even the weakest and sickest; thereby a progeny is produced, which must become ever more miserable, the longer this mocking of nature and its will persists. . . . A stronger race will supplant the weaker, since the drive for life in its final form will decimate every ridiculous fetter of the so-called humaneness of individuals, in order to make place for the humaneness of nature, which destroys the weak to make place for the strong."
Hey, maybe this is why the weaknesses in Darwin's theory aren't being allowed into our public schools: teach only the strengths and weed out the weaknesses. Now I get it.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The National Press Club was the setting today for a Discovery Institute sponsored and hosted debate about evolution and design. Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, CSC director, championed the theory of intelligent design while Dr. William Provine, the Charles Alexander Professor of Biology at Cornell University, stood up for evolution.
Of the forty or so people in attendance approximately half were journalists, and the rest of the crowd was comprised of a number of high school students, and various parties interested in the ongoing national debate over evolution.
The best parts in my mind were the discussion beforehand between Meyer and Provine, and CSC senior fellow Dr. David Berlinski who attended, and our lunchtime discussion after the event was over.
In an environment where some Darwinists are seeking to stifle debate it was extraordinarily pleasing to debate someone as thoroughly agreeable –in his demeanor only mind you—as Dr. Provine. And Provine is refreshingly candid about his own adherence to a metaphysical viewpoint that is completely consonant with Darwinian evolution.
Logan Gage out of the CSC Washington D.C office summarizes the main points: Provine's main argument was from dysteleology, or bad design. That is, he argued for evolution by saying that a creating intelligence, especially a superintellect with omnipotence, would not have been either sloppy or malevolent. Thus, anything "leftover," out of place, odd, or unnecessary is obviously evidence for evolution because no superintellect would have been so sloppy. Provine looked to parasites found on beetles and wasps. What kind of intelligence behind the cosmos would create such things? Why would "God" have done it that way? Certainly, he argued, this is evidence for evolution.
The problem, of course, is this: How does he know how a superintellect would do things? How does he know what sort of creatures a superintellct would make? Before Darwinism, there were a wealth of reasons to explain dysteleology. Perhaps original systems degraded. Perhaps the superintellect knew vestigial parts were necessary at one time but not now. Or perhaps we lack the knowledge to see the role such vestigial parts play now or will play in the future. Who knows? But certainly modern Darwinian theory is not the only explanation, or perhaps even the best explanation, for dysteleology and vestigial structures.
But the ultimate irony is that Provine urged Meyer to "come clean" about being religious. This is ironic because Meyer presented an evidential case for the inadequacy of modern materialistic attempts to explain the origin of life and further argued that ID better explains the presence of an information-rich digital code in the cell (DNA), while Provine argued from a religious preconception about how a superintellect would do things.
Provine's other main argument against Meyer was that ID means giving up the search for materialistic explanations of the origin of life. That is, ID theorists throw up their hands and cry, "God done it!" Actually, as Meyer explained, ID is based upon a comparative methodology because it is trying to argue that intelligence offers a better explanation than blind forces. But, Provine was unconvinced. We simply must keep looking for materialistic explanations. Provine has faith that we will find them. He was quite clear about his philosophical commitments.
And for the record, Meyer's DNA argument did not give up and say "God did it." Rather, Meyer argued that in our everyday experience we constantly attribute the presence of information to conscious activity. Therefore, when we see the presence of information in DNA, it is reasonable to infer an intelligent cause. Provine did not rebut this inference with either logic or evidence. Rather, he said we must keep searching for non-intelligent causes.
This was a very good event in that it helped to educate the media about the two most prominent viewpoints in the overall debate about evolution.
Cardinal Ratzinger’s sermon at the Mass for the Election of a Supreme Pontiff has been trumpeted as a frontal assault against cultural relativism. This it was and, yet, digging deeper one finds reason to believe that Ratzinger, the newly elected Pope, may also have materialist interpretations of science (including Darwnism) in his
sights.
In an impassioned essay at NRO, Michael Novak writes:
What Ratzinger attacks as relativism is the regulative principle that all thought is and must remain subjective. What he defends against such relativism is the contrary regulative principle, namely, that each human subject must continue to inquire incessantly.... Ratzinger wishes to defend the imperative of seeking the truth in all things, the imperative to follow the evidence.
Neo-Darwinism has long shielded itself from scrutiny and competition by a convoluted web of definitional tactics. Those we might term militant Neo-Darwinists don't want scientists to follow the evidence wherever it leads. They only want to follow it to material, impersonal causes.
If the sophisticated outboard motor inside the cell called a bacterial flagellum is inexplicable on Darwinian terms and has the hallmark of designed systems (like our less sophisticated outboard motors), many Neo-Darwinists insist that scientists must not follow the evidence to a design inference but instead must insist dogmatically that the flagellum has--must have--an undirected cause like natural selection.
That Ratzinger means to implicate Neo-Darwinism in this flight from evidence is not mere wishful thinking on the part of the design community. The new pope made the application explicit in his 1986 book In the Beginning, taking direct aim at the dogma of undirected evolution:
Let us go directly to the question of evolution and its mechanisms. Microbiology and biochemistry have brought revolutionary insights here.... They have brought us to the awareness that an organism and a machine have many points in common.... Their functioning presupposes a precisely thought-through and therefore reasonable design....
It is the affair of the natural sciences to explain how the tree of life in particular continues to grow and how new branches shoot out from it. This is not a matter for faith. But we must have the audacity to say that the great projects of the living creation are not the products of chance and error… (They) point to a creating Reason and show us a creating Intelligence, and they do so more luminously and radiantly today than ever before. Thus we can say today with a new certitude and joyousness that the human being is indeed a divine project, which only the creating Intelligence was strong and great and audacious enough to conceive of. Human beings are not a mistake but something willed. (54)
Despite intense media spin to the contrary, this was also John Paul II's position. The Pope's 1996 message on evolution, which made headlines around the world, simply states that evolution (in the sense of common descent, not the materialist Darwinian mechanism) is "more than an hypothesis," which is certainly a true statement about its status among contemporary biologists. Yet in the same message the Pope explicitly questioned the Darwinian/materialist explanation of human evolution, calling it "incompatible with the truth about man."
Keep in mind that the 1996 message was simply a letter to the Pontifical Academy for the Sciences. Despite the vast media attention, it was just a letter of greeting and not a teaching document, and therefore carried no authoritative weight according to Catholic teaching about the Pope's role as authorative teacher.
In his other more authoritative writings Pope John Paul II explicitly
rejected the purposeless Darwinian mechanism:
The evolution of living beings, of which science seeks to determine the stages and to discern the mechanism, presents an internal finality [i.e., final cause or design] which arouses admiration. This finality which directs beings in a direction for which they are not responsible or in charge, obliges one to suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator.
Neo-Darwinists like to talk about the vague issue of "evolution," that is, change over time. But that's not the controversial, the metaphysical and dogmatic, part of their theory. Modern Neo-Darwinists, like Darwin himself, insisted that the common descent of all plants and animals from the original common ancestor must proceed by purely material, undirected means. John Paul the II would have none of this:
To all these "indications" of the existence of God the Creator some oppose the power of chance or of proper mechanisms of matter [i.e., Darwinism]. To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements, and such marvelous finality [design or purpose] in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact, this would be equivalent to admitting effects without cause. It would be an abdication of human intelligence which would thus refuse to think, to seek a solution for its problems. (General Audience, July 10, 1985.)
Such a statement could hardly be more antithetical to the materialist project of Neo-Darwinism. This teaching goes back to the Apostolic era (see Romans 1:19-20), and was recently reinforced by the single most authoritative compilation of Catholic teaching, a document published in the 1990s known as the Cathecism of the Catholic Church. In that document, under the major heading "The Mystery of Creation," and the first subheading "God creates by wisdom and love," the text begins, "We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance."
The new Pope appears ready to make promotion of this long-standing Catholic teaching a higher priority, perhaps overcoming the confusion caused by the media's overblown treatment of the 1996 statement. Against the notion that scientists must never consider design as an explanation for biological systems, Pope Benedict XVI is urging scientists and the broader culture, rather, to follow the evidence where it leads. There, according to Catholic teaching, it will find a creative intelligence.
By Mark Ryland and Jonathan Witt
Note: For more on Pope John Paul II and materialism, see George Will's excellent essay in the recent Newsweek here.
The Darwinists in Kansas have decided to participate in the upcoming hearings on teaching evolution called for by the Kansas State Board of Education.
Thw Wichita Eagle is reporting that attorney Pedro Irigonegaray will defend the Darwinists recommendations for state standards and call Darwinists to address the board. "The majority concluded that a response is needed," he said.
"Our witnesses will be called in a timely manner, and they will have relevant and important information," he added. Currently, the Kansas Science 2005 website lists 24 scientists and scholars who have already agreed to address the board in support of proposed revisions that would require both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution to be presented in science classes.
California parent and attorney Larry Caldwell is seeking a retraction from Eugenie Scott and the California Academy of Sciences after an Academy magazine published false and potentially defamatory claims about Caldwell's effort to improve the teaching of evolution in his northern California school district. For more than a year, Caldwell tried to get the Roseville Joint Union High School District to present scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory as well as the evidence favoring the theory. Scott now asserts that Caldwell attempted to get the district to adopt materials advocating Biblical creationism. In particular, she claims he proposed for use in the district
a young-earth creationist book, Refuting Evolution by Jonathan Safarti; and the Jehovah's Witness book Life: How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or Creation? Thanks to its free distribution, this book is probably the most widely-circulated creation science book in the country.
Caldwell tells me that not only is Scott's claim patently false, he has never even heard of the books she cites. But that's not the only problem with Scott's fanciful account according to Caldwell. In a letter sent to both Scott and the California Academy of Sciences, Caldwell catalogues the various errors in Scott's hit-piece:
Among other things, the Scott Article makes the following false statements: that I purportedly asked our local public school district to adopt curricula for use in science classes containing creation science, young-earth creationism, pseudo science, and religious materials published and distributed by the Jehovah's Witnesses... The Scott Article also falsely implies that I urged our school board to adopt curricula for use in science classes that would have placed our school district in violation of the U.S. Constitution; that I purportedly subscribe to a number of creation science beliefs discussed in the article--none of which I in fact agree with--; and that I purportedly advocate a number of creationist activities in public schools that are enumerated in the article--including the banning of evolution from science classes, and the use of the Bible in science classes.
Has Scott found it so difficult to locate someone who actually fits her preconceived stereotype of a Bible-thumper trying to ban evolution that she must now resort to reinventing someone to fit her stereotype? It will be interesting to see whether Scott and the California Academy of Sciences have the decency to correct the record.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, director of CSC, gave a standing room only presentation of the case for intelligent design at the Heritage Foundation here in Washington.
Dr. Meyer delivered a very thorough presentation in which he presented two key components of the case for design theory: irreducible complexity, and the digital code in DNA molecules.
It was an engaging lecture and you can watch it online. The event was streamed live on the Heritage website, and is now available for viewing from their archive at http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/archive.cfm (events are listed chronologically and this one was April 19, 2005).
The lecture, including Q&A (which begins at about 1:05 into the event), ran just about an hour and a half, and the audience was completely engaged beginning to end. Many even stayed to speak with Dr. Meyer following the official end of the event.
Tomorrow morning, Dr. Meyer will debate Dr. William Provine of Cornell University at the National Press Club at 9am. It is unlikely that this will be recorded by any major media outlets, but I will report on it after the fact.
CSC Fellow John Angus Campbell in a column for today's Memphis Commercial Appeal argues that teaching both the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution has several beneficial outcomes for students including preparing students to be informed citizens and helping them to understand the very nature of science.
His appeal is to teach Darwin's theory the way Darwin would have himself, as an argument. Further, when training in argument is recognized as the center of science education, and science education is seen as an extension of the civic education vital to a democratic and pluralistic culture, we will be able to turn the heat of our longstanding cultural debate over evolution into needed educational light.
The opening sentence of the final chapter of Darwin's "Origin" should guide school board members and educators as they shape science education policy and curriculum: "This whole volume is one long argument..."
Update: Craig Roberts, Editor-in-Chief of Crop Science Society of America, pointed out that the poll noted below was posted for the normal, two-week period of time before giving way to the next two-week Quick Question. The ASA should be commended for leaving the poll up for the full period, and for all of its members who support free scientific inquiry into the question of origins. The post has been updated to incorporate Roberts' information.
As William Dembski notes here, there's a new fad among professional societies--denouncing intelligent design. Perhaps somebody wanted the American Society of Agronomy to join the new fad; but agronomists, apparently, don't herd very well.
The society conducted an online poll regarding the teaching of alternatives to evolution in grades K-12. They've moved onto a new polling question now, but thanks to Google's cache feature, I was able to unearth the poll here.
The media strategy is a simple one. If an informal poll of a scientific organization suggests that there is a genuine scientific controversy over Neo-Darwinism, ignore it. If, however, an informal poll of a scientific organization supports the information embargo against criticisms of evolution, never mind about methodology. We saw this when a recent query of high school biology teachers found that a terrifying 30 percent of them felt pressure to teach less about evolution.
Pro-Darwin propaganda is sprinkled throughout the standard biology textbooks, and virtually all the nature documentaries kids grow up watching, but this in-house poll was carried in newspapers around the country to suggest that Neo-Darwinism is a suppressed viewpoint. In this case, the poll's methodology was deemed irrelevent.
Design theorists want more taught about Darwinism, too, but this would mean teaching the weaknesses of the theory as well as the strengths.
Let me get this straight, philosophers of biology Dr. Paul Nelson and Dr. Niall Shanks can debate for a live audience about evolution, ID, and public education.
And, Darwinist Dr. William Provine will debate design proponent Dr. Stephen C. Meyer at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
And, Cambridge University can publish an academic work featuring scientists writing about the debate between Darwinism and intelligent design.
And, MSU Press can publish a book featuring scientists debating what exactly should be taught about evolution in public school classrooms.
And, PBS can air a debate between biologists Darwinist Dr. Massimo Pigliucci and Darwin doubter Dr. Jonathan Wells.
And, Darwin defender Michael Shermer can debate design theorist Stephen Meyer.
And, Rev. Barry Lynn will even debate our own Dr. John West.
And, the editor of The Scientist has recently stated twice (here and here) that the debate over Darwinian evolution needs to take place, exhorting his Darwinian colleagues to “get out there and argue!”
And, reporters are starting to embrace aspects of our teach the controversy approach, (for example here and here) which ultimately rests on the idea that there is a scientific debate to be had.
But, no Darwinist will testify to the Kansas board of education. Amazing. Simply amazing.
Why? Because the Darwinian high priests at the American Association for the Advancement of Science have issued a sort of scientific papal bull, a gag order to scientists, telling them not to debate the flaws in Darwin’s theory before the Kansas State Board of Education. (Apparently a couple of dozen of scientists and scholars didn’t get the memo, or chose to ignore it, and have agreed to testify in spite of the AAAS gag order.)
The statement is full of misinformation and outright lies such as these: “Kansas has been a focal point of efforts to restrict the teaching of evolution in public schools. Proponents of intelligent design theory hold that the physical universe is so elaborate and complicated that its creation required a sophisticated architect, and they are working to impose that theory in science classrooms.” First, no one in Kansas is seeking to “restrict the teaching of evolution.” In fact, the scientists testifying before the board want to see MORE about evolution taught in science classes, NOT less.
Second, none of the serious participants –not the scientists testifying, not the board of education— has called for the inclusion of the theory of intelligent design in Kansas science curriculum.
Both of these facts have been publicly stated and it is unbelievable that the AAAS is not fully aware of what are the real issues in Kansas.
The AAAS and the Darwinian activists can opt-out of the debate, but the debate will simply go on without them.
George Diepenbrock, a reporter with the Southwest Daily Times in Liberal, Kansas hits the nail on the head in his column today when he argues that Darwinists should embrace the opportunity to defend Darwinian evolution and answer the critics who point to scientific flaws within the theory.
What Diepenbrock struggles with is exactly what many in the public, and the media, are struggling with: namely the difference between criticisms of Darwinian evolution and the emerging scientific theory of intelligent design.
Challenges to Darwinian evolution are not the same as proposed solutions, such as intelligent design.
If every ID theorist and proponent fell of the face of the earth today, tomorrow there would still be debates over peppered moths, and Haeackel’s embryo drawing would still be totally wrong.
Scientific challenges to Darwinian evolution include unresolved debates amongst scientists over issues such as the peppered moth, the myth of human gill slits, Haeackel's embryos, and the Miller-Urey experiment. Scientific challenges to Darwinian evolution address problems for which adequate solutions have not been presented. The scientific theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Intelligent design theory then is an alternative solution to answer problems with Darwinian evolution.
The question in Kansas really is whether or not students should learn all about evolution, including the scientific criticisms, much the way that students in Ohio learn to critically analyze the theory.
Diepenbrock’s assertion that the theory of intelligent design is under consideration for inclusion in Kansas classrooms is simply wrong, and likely through no real fault of his own. Darwinists who oppose teaching students about any of the scientific challenges to Darwinian evolution have loudly proclaimed that anyone skeptical of Darwinian evolution is advancing the theory of intelligent design. Not true.
Groups of diehard Darwinian defenders such as Kansas Citizens for Science, the National Center for Science Education, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science repeatedly make this claim, and the media usually reports it unchallenged, and the public absorbs it as if it were true. It is not true. In the least the media should report that some people claim this, but that others disagree. That is the nature of the debate and both sides should be accurately represented, yet often they are not.
So, it would appear that Diepenbrock –and others in the media-- have been suckered by the KCS and others who are falsely claiming that the Kansas state school board wants to include intelligent design in the curriculum. This is not true, there is no one calling for intelligent design to be required in science classes in Kansas.
Earlier this week the Associated Press issued a correction that makes this clear. KCS and other Darwinian activists can make these claims, but they simply are not true.
The CSC’s position has not changed since the last time this debate raged in Kansas six years ago. Diepenbrock quotes from Mike Behe’s 1999 op-ed urging Kansas teachers to teach more about evolution, not less: "Discuss where (evolution) also has real problems accounting for the data, where data are severely limited, where scientists might be engaged in wishful thinking and where alternative-- even heretical-- explanations are possible," wrote Michael Behe, a biochemist, in a New York Times opinion piece in 1999. Diepenbrock is to be congratulated for pointing out that trying to squelch debate is not good for science, or for science education, and certainly not good for students. His final sentence should be heeded by the Darwinian activists: "But refusing to step forward at the hearings would either convey to the public arrogance or insecurity on the part of evolutionary advocates.”
The PBS debate between biologists Massimo Pigliucci and Jonathan Wells is now available online in both streaming video and as a transcript on the website for "Uncommon Knowledge." During the exchange, Jonathan Wells effectively articulates what is at stake in the growing public debate over science education:
I absolutely think science students should be taught Darwin's theory of evolution and the modern version of it because it's so important and so influential in modern biology. But I also think they should be taught scientific evidence and arguments against it as well as for it. And if you question whether there's a controversy, you have here two biologists and you've heard the controversy, at least a little snippet of it. So there is a controversy here and I think students should be aware of that.
After wrongly reporting that upcoming Kansas evolution hearings would feature witnesses advocating the teaching of intelligent design, the Associated Press has issued a correction admitting that it got its facts wrong:
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
April 12, 2005, Tuesday, BC cycle
HEADLINE: Correction: Evolution Debate story
DATELINE: TOPEKA, Kan.
In an April 8 story about Kansas science standards, The Associated Press reported erroneously that public hearings next month will feature witnesses who advocate teaching intelligent design alongside evolution in public school classrooms. Instead, the witnesses are expected to advocate exposing students to more criticism of evolution, not teaching alternatives to it.
The AP is to be congratulated for correcting the record. Let's hope other news organizations take notice and follow the AP's lead.
The latest Wichita Eagle story on the upcoming Kansas science hearings does a solid job of explaining that the 23 scientists are coming to testify about the weaknesses in Neo-Darwinism, not to push for public school teaching of intelligent design. The story is mostly balanced, giving the Darwinists against balanced classroom coverage of their theory plenty of rope to hang their argument. As one reads the story, their reasoning becomes all to clear. Boiled down it works something like this: We Darwin defenders can be trusted implicitly to hear reasonable criticisms of our cherished theory. We refuse to hear criticisms. Ergo, they must be unreasonable. Oh, and those scientists who think those criticisms are worth hearing, they aren't real scientists because the criticisms aren't reasonable because scientists said so and the scientists who said otherwise aren't scientists because they aren't reasonable because ...
You get the idea.
One portion of the story, however, does create some confusion:
Moderate board member Carol Rupe of Wichita said she doesn't think the politicians on the board have any business judging science or any other subject.
That's why the board appoints experts to the standard-writing committees, she said.
"We don't have the expertise to do that," she said.
The story should have immediately noted that a sizable number of the scientists on the science-standards committee did call for more balanced coverage of Neo-Darwinism in the classroom. The sensible thing would be for all the members of the science-standards committee to attend the hearings and explain their position. But for some reason the very scientists who don't want students learning about the weaknesses in Darwin's theory also won't show up at the hearings to explain why.
An AP story on the upcoming hearings on Kansas science standards contains a crucial error. According to the lead, the hearings “will have as many as 23 witnesses speaking in support of teaching public school children intelligent design alongside the theory of evolution.”
In fact, few if any of the featured scientists are pushing for design theory in the curriculum. That’s not even on the table in the science standards. Indeed, some of those speaking, like Italian geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti, aren’t even design theorists. They’re simply calling for students to learn the strengths and weaknesses in Darwin’s theory of evolution, rather than the air-brushed presentation of evolutionary theory they currently get.
Why are some Darwinists so keen to obscure this fact? Why won’t they attend the hearings and explain why students shouldn’t learn about those weaknesses? Perhaps because such a position is indefensible.
Earlier this week, NY Times’ Paul Krugman published a column that, among other things, sounded alarm bells about a supposed invasion of creationism in college classrooms. This column has reprinted in papers across the country, and the editorial writers at smaller publications are now voicing fears about this highly unlikely scenario.
In "The Goldberg File," National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg takes on Krugman in a recent article intitled “BullKrug.” Specifically addressing science education and academic freedom at universities, Goldberg says the following:
Krugman cites some moronic state legislator in Florida (or, to be fair, a state legislator in Florida with a moronic idea), who wants conservative students to be able to sue their professors if conservative ideas aren't respected. From there he leaps to the conclusion that "Soon, biology professors who don't give creationism equal time with evolution and geology professors who dismiss the view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old might face lawsuits."
How frightening! The scrotal-tightening horror of such a prophesy fills me with dread. Indeed, if this were an Airplane! movie, a giant spear would fly through the room and stick in the wall behind Lloyd Bridges for extra dramatic emphasis. Thwaauunnnggggg!!!!!
And I should be careful about characterizing the Florida legislator's idea as moronic, relying as I am on Krugman's version of events--and not just because he picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. Krugman's facts are sloppy.
Goldberg then goes on to challenge a number of Krugman's factual assertions, which provide an interesting read.
I did a little bit of fact-finding on the Florida legislation Krugman discusses. Curiously, HB 837, the bill mentioned in Krugman’s column, says NOT A THING about science.
The bill does, however, mention some other subjects:
In the humanities, the social sciences, and the arts, the fostering of a plurality of scholarly methodologies and perspectives should be a significant institutional purpose.
I'm still trying to figure out where to find the hidden fundamentalism is in THAT provision. The bill also states:
[Faculty and instructors] should make their students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints other than their own and should encourage intellectual honesty, civil debate, and critical analysis of ideas in the pursuit of knowledge and truth.
Covert creationism alert, indeed! Most of the bills' terms are stated with a great deal of generality about viewpoint neutrality. Again, no mention is made about science. And there is certainly NO mention of creationism.
The cause of all the hyperventilation over creationism getting equal time in college classrooms apparently stems from some comments made by the Florida legislator who has sponsored the bill. The legislator is claimed to have stated that professors touting “evolution is a fact” are guilty of academic totalitarianism. We don't know anything about this legislator's experience in college or what he really did say about the bill. But at the very least, it doesn’t follow from the text of the bill that creationism would have to be given equal time.
Students for Academic Freedom—who have promoted this type of legislation—appear to be arguing that nothing in the bill restricts the academic freedom of university professors. According to their website, many of the bill’s provisions are drawn from previous AAUP statements on academic freedom.
It hardly seems likely that the completely unsuccessful creationist equal-time phenomenon from the 1980s is experiencing any kind of resurgence. Not to mention the fact the main SCIENTIFIC critics of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory overwhelming REJECT such a notion. But given that alarms over the same appears to have arisen over supposed comments by a state legislature, should this alarmism be taken seriously? The text of the bill, as well as Godlberg's recent article, would suggest otherwise.
By the way, the U.S. Supreme Court declared as UNCONSTITUTIONAL the mandating of equal time for creationism in public school classrooms in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987).
(See a recent op-ed by Stephen Meyer and John Angus Campbell, offering an alternative proposal as to how to best teach about neo-Darwinian evolution, here.)
Phil Magers’ recent UPI story about evolution in the classroom (“Teachers feel pressure”) conveys a growing problem for biology teachers: more and more students refuse to uncritically accept Darwinism. How horrible!
Magers' pro-Darwin analysis is simplistic, even misleading. This is fitting, for so too is the presentation of evolution in the typical classroom. When students aren’t being fed bogus evidence for Darwin’s theory (like Haeckel’s faked embryo drawings), they’re being led to believe the theory is without important weaknesses.
In fact, Darwinism faces enormous evidential hurdles. Consider the Cambrian Explosion of animal forms 500 million years ago. As leading Darwinist Eugenie Scott admitted in a recent Seattle Times story, "Who knows whether natural selection explains the Cambrian body plans. ... So what?”
So what? So, natural selection is integral to the modern theory of evolution. Instead of pretending that such weaknesses don't exist, schools should follow Ohio’s lead. There, students hear the case for Darwinism, but they also learn about the scientific debates over modern evolutionary theory, like the question of whether change within a species confirms the unobserved notion of common descent from a single, original cell. If scientists can read about these debates in their science journals, why can't students study them in biology class?
Cable station KPAX's television program, Faith Under Fire, hosted by Lee Strobel features a debate between John West and Barry Lynn, this Saturday, April 9. Check your local listings for time and channel. Teaching Evolution
For generations of students, evolution has been taught as scientific fact. Yet there are scientists who doubt Darwin's theory and believe that intelligent design better explains the origins of life. How can this be? And should intelligent design be taught in the same science courses as evolution? Dr. John G. West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and associate director of their Center for Science and Culture, squares off with Rev. Barry Lynn, practicing attorney, ordained minister, and Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Washington Post reporter Jay Mathews writes about his recent deluge of e-mail regarding his suggestion that ID be taught alongside of evolution. I blogged about that here, and warned Mathews of the kind of response he could expect. (Mathews goes beyond what the CSC policy is on teaching evolution in calling for inclusion of ID. So, for the record, yet again, we advocate including scientific criticism of evolution in the classroom, not mandating ID or any alternative theory.)
Mathews says he received about 400 e-mails in response to his article, and that the majority of those “said they had the unfortunate duty to tell me that I was an idiot.” I can imagine that many of the responses were not family-friendly fare. Mathews quotes several that he received denouncing him and his idea. But, it was encouraging to see that he did find people who understand why there needs to be more discussion of the evidence for and against evolution at least, if not intelligent design itself. "But instead, I was stunned to discover that many e-mailers (a generous estimate would be about 30 percent) agreed with me, and they had had the same idea long before I did. 'I, like you, am a strong believer in Darwinism and, also like you, think that critical debate should be injected into the classroom whenever possible, …'" And: "Our entire school curriculum is devoid of intelligent debate, especially in science. Our students lack the basic ideas of what makes a credible claim and how to defend their position with experimentally derived evidence." One of the reasons CSC has advocated for the teach the controversy approach is because it is a good way to teach critical thinking to students who all too often are not learning to analyze things and think critically about the arguments for and against.
Darwinian evolution is mostly taught as if it were a done deal, as if there were no unsolved problems, as if the theory had been proven. Such is not the case. Telling students about the debate amongst scientists over certain evidences for Darwin’s theory is not only necessary for good science, it is a pedagogically sound way of teaching a controversial subject.
CSC Fellow John Angus Campbell explains it this way: “We propose that teachers should present Darwin’s theory of evolution as Darwin himself did, as a credible, but contestable, argument. Rather than teaching Darwin’s theory as an incontrovertible “Truth,” teachers should present the main arguments for Darwinism and encourage students to evaluate these arguments critically as they would any other theory—whether new or long established. …
Students who learn the arguments for, and against, a given theory, or for and against two or more competing theories, are learning—not just what science teaches—but how scientists reason. In learning about Copernicus which of us did not also learn about the stationary earth views of Ptolemy and Aristotle? Why not extend the principle we call “teaching the controversies” (teaching science as argument) to all scientific theories, whether they were only controversial in the past or whether they are controversial now?” Interestingly, Mathews ends his column with a request to hear from current teachers. I have received very few e-mails from actual high school biology teachers who have ever tried introducing the debate to their classes. I suspect some are doing this quietly to avoid the kind of religious eruption that readers told me was inevitable.
Is there anyone out there trusting their high school students to handle these contradictions and using them to better explain how science works? There are teachers out there already teaching the controversy. I suspect they are quiet about it not to steer clear of religious minded parents, but to steer clear of ACLU thought police anxious to criminalize practitioners of academic freedom.
BY WILLIAM DEMBSKI AND JONATHAN WITT
In a recent news story, Alexandra Witze writes, “Although intelligent design is not scientific …” That’s highly misleading. In a supposedly fair and accurate news story about this growing controversy, Witze presents as fact a key point of contention in the debate.
Although public science education and the vast majority of science documentaries present only the strengths of Darwin’s theory, design theorists are patiently assembling a minority report based on scientific evidence: (1) Only intelligent causes adequately explain information-rich structures like the intricate world of the cell; (2) these causes are empirically detectable; and (3) there exist well-defined methods, based on observable features of the world, that can reliably distinguish intelligent from impersonal causes.
With the evidence against them, Darwinists increasingly have responded with a question-begging definitional game. Science only deals with natural causes, they assert. That’s a bit like trying to settle the pro-baseball controversy over designated hitters by yelling, “Pitchers, by definition, don’t hit!” Please, let’s drop the question-begging and follow the evidence wherever it leads. An astonishing world of complex circuits, molecular machines, and digital code awaits us.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an article discussing Discovery Institute and its role in the debate over how to teach evolution, "Evolution debate has new player:
Group treads delicate territory, promotes 'intelligent design.'" The article is non-hysterical in tone and accurately reports my comments that Discovery does not support trying to require the teaching of intelligent design:
John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, said the Center for Science and Culture believes teachers should be able to present criticism of Darwinian theory.
"The Discovery Institute does not -- does not -- favor trying to require the teaching of intelligent design, and we are not pushing for the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, period," he said. "We advocate teaching more about evolutionary theory.
"That means all of the evidence that favors it ... but students also need to know the areas of the theory which have legitimate scientific controversies."
The article also discusses two teachers who are trying to teach students about some of the scientific controversies over Darwin's theory. It further mentions the travails faced by former Burlington, Washington public school teacher Roger DeHart when the local Darwin posse effectively drove him out of town.
On the bad side, the article completely mangles its brief discussion of what intelligent design is about. Take this absurd sentence:
"intelligent design"... holds that some complex features of the universe cannot be explained by science.
Intelligent design does not propose that these features cannot be explained by science. It argues that they can't be explained by neo-Darwinism and its mechanism of chance and necessity. There is a huge difference.
Other parts of the article are also misleading, such as the comment that Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture "spends more than $1 million a year on polls, advertising and research." The wording here makes it sound as if the Center spends much of its budget on polls and advertising, which is false. As reported much later in the article, about 85% of its budget goes to support scholarly research and writing by scientists and other scholars. Why wasn't this fact stated up front in the intial part of the article?
The article also allows defenders of Darwin's theory to make wild and unsubstantiated charges without reporting the response by the other side. Perhaps the worst example is Eugenie Scott's desperate claim equating skeptics of Darwin's theory with Holocaust deniers. Last time I checked, respected academic publishers like Cambridge University Press and Michigan State University Press weren't publishing books by Holocaust deniers. Nor were there hundreds of historians with doctorates from mainstream American universities and colleges who were expressing skepticism of the Holocaust. Nor were there growing numbers of professors of history at American universities and colleges who were raising doubts about the Holocaust. Yet there are hundreds of doctoral scientists--many of whom teach and research at the same universities where Darwinists reside--who are challenging Darwin's theory. The comparison of Darwin skeptics to Holocaust deniers is outrageous and shows just how over-the-top Darwinian fundamentalists like Eugenie Scott can be. I said all of this to the reporter, but none of my response was quoted.
The article also doesn't cover my response to the boilerplate claim that there are no scientific disputes over Darwin's theory to tell students about. I provided a detailed discussion of some of the scientific debates over modern evolutionary theory, like the question of whether microevolutionary processes can be extrapolated to explain macroevolutionary events. These are the sorts of issues that Discovery Institute encourages schools to cover. As I told the reporter, if scientists can read about these debates in their science journals, why can't students study them in biology class?
The letters section of today's Los Angeles Times is titled "Point and Counterpoint on 'Intelligent Design.'" But if you actually read the five letters posted, there are four letters attacking intelligent design versus one letter defending it. Then I remembered that today was April Fools' day. Perhaps the Times decided to play a prank on its readers?
Discovery Institute fellow David Berlinski has a delicious response to UC Berkeley Dean Holub's frantic worrying about the demise of Darwinism amongst his colleagues. Appearing in today's Berkeley student newspaper, the essay begins, "Wearing pink tasseled slippers and conical hats covered in polka dots, Darwinian biologists are persuaded that a plot is afoot to make them look silly. At Internet web sites such as The Panda's Thumb or Talk Reason, where various eminences repair to assure one another that all is well, it is considered clever beyond measure to attack critics of Darwin's theory such as William Dembski by misspelling his name as William Dumbski." Read on.
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