Part I of this series discussed two exciting papers which support the claims of intelligent design (ID), and in Part II, I discussed how the molecular data is failing to support Neo-Darwinian common descent with modification. This final post of a 3-part series recounting some interesting scientific discoveries reported since the Kitzmiller ruling will discuss how Darwinists have tried to oversell evolution to the public while ID-proponents have continued to do some exciting research.

Over at ID The Future, Casey Luskin has a year-end interview with Access Research Network's Dennis Wagner who has compiled a list of the top intelligent design stories of the past year. His list spans the globe and includes such highlights as:

• 60% of U.S. Medical Doctors Doubt Macroevolutionary Theory
  
• Fly Eye Important Blueprint for Creating Better Video Systems
  
• Europeans Question the Value of Teaching Macroevolution
  
• Over 600 Scientists Express Skepticism of Darwinian Evolution
  
• Scientists Conduct New Research Using Intelligent Design Theory.

ARN also has a nice list of ID related resources if you're looking for belated Christmas gifts for the ID science buff on your list, and a comprehensive year end report.

Recently, CSC senior fellow John West discussed some of this year's ID related highlights in two podcasts for ID The Future. Click here to listen to the first part, and click here to listen to part two.

Next year Discovery's CSC Society will begin hosting regular conferences around the country, Darwin vs. Design, that will feature CSC scientists and scholars and educate participants in the most current scientific and policy developments in the debate over evolution. As exciting as 2006 was, 2007 promises to be even better.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

TVW here in Washington state has chosen to rebroadcast Seattle's Townhall debate on intelligent design between Discovery Instiute's Stephen Meyer and University of Washington's Peter Ward as part of their "Best of 2006."

For those who missed this debate, it is available on our website here.

We debate. You decide.

Posted by Logan Gage at 11:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Part I of this series discussed two exciting papers which support the claims of intelligent design (ID). While ID is certainly compatible with common ancestry, molecular evidence against the Neo-Darwinian icon, "Darwin's Tree of Life," continues to mount. This paper will discuss how molecular data is posing great challenges to the Darwinist assumption that life forms a nested hierarchy. Perhaps with time, common design will be considered as a serious option.

During the holiday season, many Americans take time to seriously and respectfully reflect on Judeo-Christian religious beliefs. Not so for one website, the “Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster" (FSM), a pro-evolution satire against intelligent design. They exhibit no interest in treating Christian holidays with respect. To celebrate the season, they are selling Christmas cards which show a dead Christian fish symbol. Other Christmas Cards portray Michelangelo’s well-known "Creation of Adam" painting on the Sistine Chapel, but the FSM cards have God replaced by the “Flying Spaghetti Monster.” Another graphic promoted on the page shows a nativity scene where Jesus is replaced by the "Flying Spaghetti Monster." I can appreciate humor, but it's also clear that the FSM images are intended to mock traditional religion:

Sample Imagery on the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" Website which Mocks Judeo-Christian Religion:

What is the "Flying Spaghetti Monster"?
For those who don't already know what “FSM” is all about, according to the London Guardian’s FAQ on intelligent design, “Flying Spaghetti Monsterism” is “a satirical 'religion' created by Bobby Henderson, a physics graduate of Oregon State University.” The website reports that FSM began when Henderson “wrote to the Kansas Board of Education in June 2005, alerting them to the many people who believe that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, and demanding that science lessons be split three-ways: ‘One third time for intelligent design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.’” The FAQ then explains that “Henderson's point is that the concept of a Flying Spaghetti Monster is every bit as rational a concept as intelligent design.”

Also known as “Pastafarianism,” FSM is obviously a satire and a joke. As such, I can appreciate the humor and I will admit, even though I am a Christian with a Jewish heritage, sometimes the FSM website really makes me laugh. But there's a deeper issue here. Aside from the anti-Christian Christmas cards, the FSM website sells "The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster," which is a mockery of the Christian New Testament. Anyone who has ever studied the paraphernalia in a Christian bookstore will recognize that the FSM shirts with dead Christian fish symbols and the word "Truth" are mocking Christianity. They even sell an FSM car icon to mock the “Jesus fish” icon. I've seen a couple FSM car icons on the road here in Seattle. It's funny, but clearly the FSM concept aims to mock those who seriously believe in Judeo-Christian religious views.

"Academic Endorsements"
Yet FSM is reportedly "endorsed" by about 50 Darwinist academics, who presumably see nothing wrong with this mockery of religion. Below are some of the comments from the scientists and other academics who have apparently written to Bobby Henderson to express support. While it's easy to play along and laugh about all of this, consider also the mindset of these Darwinist scientists and other academics as they write their comments:

It's been just over a year since the Kitzmiller ruling, and over a series of 3 posts, I'd like to briefly highlight some scientific discoveries reported since that time:

The Scientist today is reporting about Smithsonian officials' campaign of discrimination and harassment of evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg and the Congressional recommendation of more protection for scientist's free speech rights.

In a welcome turn of events, Ted Agres reports accurately and fairly:

The Congressional report, prepared by the staff of Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), chairman of the Government Reform subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources and released Dec. 11, supports Sternberg's claims that NMNH supervisors investigated his political and religious beliefs, sought to discredit him, and aimed to force his removal as an RA by creating a "hostile work environment" after the article was published.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Congress's recent report documenting the harassment of evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian reveals a shameful lack of respect for the free speech rights of scientists skeptical of Darwinian evolution on the part of federal officials. It is important to emphasize that pro-Darwin officials at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) tried to punish Dr. Sternberg for his activities outside of the museum.

The Smithsonian conceded that Dr. Sternberg had fulfilled all of his obligations as a Research Associate, and that his editorship of a biology journal that published a pro-ID peer-reviewed article was outside of its authority to supervise. Hence, efforts to punish and harass him for allowing publication of the pro-ID article clearly violated his free speech rights as a citizen. As a tax-funded entity, the Smithsonian has no right to punish its scientists for their speech-related activities outside of the Smithsonian. Yet that is precisely what happened in the case of Dr. Sternberg.

But that's not all. The congressional investigative report also reveals clear evidence that Smithsonian officials have allowed pro-Darwin scientists at the NMNH to impose a virtual blacklist on scientists who express skepticism of Neo-Darwinism, no matter how sterling their credentials or research. According to congressional investigators:

Given the attitudes expressed in these emails, scientists who are known to be skeptical of Darwinian theory, whatever their qualifications or research record, cannot expect to receive equal treatment or consideration by NMNH officials. As a taxpayer-funded institution, such blatant discrimination against otherwise qualified individuals based on their outside activities raises serious free speech and civil rights concerns. Some NMNH officials apparently believe that they have the right to use their official positions to punish scientists who in their outside activities express skepticism toward Darwinian theory. The unwillingness of top Smithsonian officials to take proactive measures to correct this discriminatory environment is shameful. Imagine a parallel situation in which government officials expressed their intent to prohibit the appointment of anyone who is found to have participated (on their own time) in a gay or lesbian group, or in an abortion-rights group. Action to stop such an expression of discriminatory intent would be swift and certain. But in the present case, Smithsonian officials seem indifferent to ensuring that NMNH comply with the basic requirements of the Constitution, Title V civil service law, and the Smithsonian’s own antidiscrimination policy.

Everyone concerned about free speech rights of government scientists--even those who oppose intelligent design--should consider whether they really want government officials to have the power to blacklist scientists simply because outside the government they express skepticism toward Neo-Darwinism.

The full section of the congressional report dealing with the violation of Dr. Sternberg's free speech rights is reprinted below:

2. EVIDENCE OF AN INTENT TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST SCIENTISTS BASED ON THEIR OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES REGARDING EVOLUTION

In the emails exchanged during August and September of 2004, NMNH officials revealed their intent to use their government jobs to discriminate against scientists based on their outside activities regarding evolution.

In a series of emails on August 30, Dr. Ferrari and Dr. Sues discussed the Smithsonian’s procedures for hiring and firing a Research Associate and how Dr. Sternberg was approved for his RA position. Sues lamented that “The Sternberg situation could not have been prevented by senior management because his CV looks credible and does not reveal his interactions with the creationist movement.” Dr. Sues seemed to be suggesting that if Sternberg’s supposed interactions with the “creationist movement” were known, he would not have been approved as an RA, and the “situation” would have been prevented.

Dr. Ferrari’s comments also suggested a very real bias in the selection process: “I wonder, however, if we might consider a more open process of vetting nominees? For example, while a post doc here Sternberg was listed in an advertisement in the NY Times as a scientist at the Smithsonian Institution who did not believe in evolution. I saw that page and certainly would have spoken up had I known he was a prospective research associate.” Ferrari seemed to be suggesting that questioning evolution would disqualify a candidate for a position.

Similarly, in an email on September 9, Dr. Sues blamed the scientist who nominated Sternberg as a Research Associate for not adequately investigating his background. “Sternberg is a well-established figure in anti-evolution circles, and a simple Google search would have exposed these connections.” The clear implication was that had a background check been conducted on Sternberg’s non-governmental activities, he would have been barred from being a Research Associate.

Given the attitudes expressed in these emails, scientists who are known to be skeptical of Darwinian theory, whatever their qualifications or research record, cannot expect to receive equal treatment or consideration by NMNH officials. As a taxpayer-funded institution, such blatant discrimination against otherwise qualified individuals based on their outside activities raises serious free speech and civil rights concerns. Some NMNH officials apparently believe that they have the right to use their official positions to punish scientists who in their outside activities express skepticism toward Darwinian theory. The unwillingness of top Smithsonian officials to take proactive measures to correct this discriminatory environment is shameful. Imagine a parallel situation in which government officials expressed their intent to prohibit the appointment of anyone who is found to have participated (on their own time) in a gay or lesbian group, or in an abortion-rights group. Action to stop such an expression of discriminatory intent would be swift and certain. But in the present case, Smithsonian officials seem indifferent to ensuring that NMNH comply with the basic requirements of the Constitution, Title V civil service law, and the Smithsonian’s own antidiscrimination policy.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 10:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Last summer, 49 scientists (mostly biologists) from the University of Virginia co-authored a letter to University of Virginia (UVa) Magazine arguing that “[n]ot only does evolution clash with religious dogma, but it undermines the significance that some would like to give to the place of humans in the universe.” Both Salvador Cordova and I wrote letters responding to their anti-religious mischaracterizations of intelligent design. UVa Magazine has now kindly printed abbreviated versions of our letters. Salvador Cordova has discussed these at UncommonDescent, and we also reprint our original letters below in full:

I was mentioned in the article ‘Ultimate Questions’ which sparked the recent flurry of letters to the editor over intelligent design (ID). I hope to set the record straight about what the issues really are.

Nobel prize-winning scientist Charles Townes said, "Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real.” Another Nobel prize winning scientist, Richard Smalley, wrote, “Evolution has just been dealt its death blow...[after studying the origin of life] with my background in chemistry and physics, it is clear evolution could not have occurred.”

If world-renowned scientists can accept ID, why should there be such a fuss about pro-ID students at UVa? Acceptance of ID is not a hindrance to the pursuit of science. If that were the case, there would have been no great scientists in the past like Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Pasteur, Mendel, and Plank or Nobel laureates (like Townes and Smalley) in the present.

Pro-ID students with majors in scientific disciplines (like biology) graduated from UVa this past spring. Several pro-ID science professors teach at UVa. 1/3 of the freshman biology majors at schools like Iowa State accept ID, and over 1/3 of American medical doctors prefer ID over evolution. In light of this, should there be such a fuss over pro-ID students and faculty at UVa or any other university? I think not.

Much talk has been raised about ID in the grade schools and colleges. But that is not even the real issue. The real issue is epitomized by the work of world-class physicists like John Barrow. Barrow’s mathematical derivations of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics imply that the source of universe (and thus all life) is a super-intelligence. Whether Barrow and other ID-sympathetic scientists are ultimately correct is the real issue. Everything else pales in comparison.

Salvador Cordova, IDEA Center affiliate

-----

Dear Editor,

The letter in UVA Magazine against intelligent design (ID) signed by 49 UVA biology faculty is revealing: not only do they oppose ID due to a false characterization of the theory, but they repeat false claims that there are no pro-ID peer-reviewed science publications.

Firstly, the faculty wrongly define ID as saying "the less we know, the greater is the support for supernatural explanations." In reality, ID limits its claims to what can be learned from the empirical data. ID therefore only appeals to intelligent causes and does not try to address unscientific religious questions about whether the designing intelligence was supernatural. ID is also not an “argument from ignorance.” Rather, design is inferred based upon what we know about the powers of intelligent causes, and detecting in nature informational patterns known to only come from intelligence. As microbiologist Scott Minnich and philosopher of science Stephen Meyer observe, “[i]n all irreducibly complex systems in which the cause of the system is known by experience or observation, intelligent design or engineering played a role the origin of the system.”

Finally, the letter asserts that “no peer-reviewed scientific studies in support of ID have ever been published in any major scientific journal.” Yet in 2004, Meyer published a peer-reviewed paper in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington arguing that design best explains the rapid “explosion” of biological information in the Cambrian period.

When 49 UVA biologists oppose ID because they believe false claims about a lack of peer-reviewed pro-ID publications, and misunderstand it as an argument from ignorance that appeals to the supernatural, then it is clear that much opposition to ID is based upon self-replicating misinformation. Why do they feel so threatened that a UVA Magazine article mentioned a small pro-ID student club? Thomas Kuhn understood why, and he’s smiling from his grave.

Sincerely,

Casey Luskin,
President Emeritus, IDEA Center

Posted by Casey Luskin at 8:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A year ago today, Judge John E. Jones issued his 139-page ruling denouncing intelligent design in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. At the time, the ruling was hailed by defenders of Darwin’s theory as a knock-out blow against intelligent design and scientific skepticism of Darwin’s theory.

What a difference a year makes.

A year after Dover, Darwinists seem increasingly disillusioned as well as shrill, the central part of Judge Jones’ “brilliant” decision has been found to be riddled with errors and copied nearly verbatim from the ACLU, a research lab has been launched for scientists to pursue intelligent design-inspired scientific research, and states and localities are continuing to adopt public policies to encourage students to study the scientific evidence for and against Darwin’s theory. At the same time, the stereotype that all critics of Darwin's theory are religiously-motivated zealots while all defenders of the theory are dispassionate scholars who are neutral toward religion has started to implode.

Here are the top developments during the past year in my view:

1. The Growing Sense of Defeat among Darwinists. Darwinists like to claim that criticizing Darwin is tantamount to insisting the earth is flat. Yet last time I checked, scientists weren’t spending a lot of time in their science journals and at their professional meetings trying to refute the idea of a flat earth. But they are devoting a significant amount of time and energy trying to refute intelligent design. Why? I think the Darwinists’ efforts reflect their underlying insecurity. Despite their bluster and bravado, many of them recognize at least implicitly that they are losing the intellectual debate. Last month, for example, there was a gathering of eminent pro-Darwin scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. According to the New York Times reporter covering the event, there was “a rough consensus” at the meeting that the theory “of evolution by natural selection” is “losing out in the intellectual marketplace.” Let me repeat that statement: there was “a rough consensus” among these pro-Darwin scientists that the theory “of evolution by natural selection” is “losing out in the intellectual marketplace.” Darwinism is “losing out” not just in the public arena in their view, but “in the intellectual marketplace.” That is a stunning admission.

2. The Growing Challenge within Science to Neo-Darwinism. A few weeks before the beginning of the Dover trial last fall, around 400 doctoral scientists had signed Discovery Institute’s “Dissent from Darwin” statement expressing skepticism toward the central claim of Neo-Darwinism. A year after the Dover decision, the number of doctoral scientists affirming the statement is approaching 700. During the Dover trial, there was a constant refrain that scientists who support intelligent design don’t do scientific research, but as just reported last week, a research lab has in fact been established to facilitate biological research from the perspective of intelligent design. At the same time, research findings have continued to mount exposing the weaknesses of traditional Darwinism. The very week that the Kitzmiller ruling was issued, biologists admitted in the journal Science that “[t]he phylogenetic relationships among most metazoan phyla remain uncertain” because of conflicts between types of phylogenetic trees. In early 2006, Norwegian cellular biologist, Øyvind Albert Voie published an article in a mainstream scientific journal arguing that “chance and necessity cannot explain sign systems, meaning, purpose, and goals” in the DNA system. Voie concluded that since “mind possesses other properties that do not have these limitations,” it is “therefore very natural that many scientists believe that life is rather a subsystem of some Mind greater than humans.” Two highly-trumpeted “missing links” publicized by Darwinists in 2006, meanwhile, turned out to be much ado about nothing (see here and here).

3. The Implosion of the Kitzmiller Ruling by Judge Jones. A year after Dover, Judge Jones’ opinion in Kitzmiller is not wearing well. The book Traipsing into Evolution documents the many errors of fact and analysis in Jones’ opinion as well as its overreach in trying to decide whether intelligent design is science, and the recent study co-authored by David DeWolf and myself reveals how Jones’ “brilliant” analysis of whether intelligent design is science did not represent his own work but was copied (errors and all) virtually verbatim from language submitted to him by ACLU attorneys. Practically the only defense of Judge Jones' wholesale copying offered thus far has been the false claim that“everyone is doing it,” a response that has been too much even for some Darwinists to swallow. It is noteworthy that at least one staunch critic of ID in the legal community has joined ID proponents in taking Judge Jones to task for his judicial opinion's overreach. Boston University law professor Jay Wexler has argued forcefully that “[t]he part of Kitzmiller that finds ID not to be science is unnecessary, unconvincing, not particularly suited to the judicial role, and even perhaps dangerous to both science and freedom of religion.” (emphasis added)

4. The Persecution of Darwin’s Critics. Evidence continues to accumulate that leading Darwinists are trying to win the debate over Darwin’s theory through harassment and intimidation rather than reasoned argument and open discussion. Last week’s devastating report from congressional investigators documenting the persecution of evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian is only the most recent example of the effort to suppress legitimate dissent over Darwin’s theory. That report also revealed the unsavory role played by the pro-Darwin National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in the campaign to smear and persecute Sternberg. In the words of congressional investigators, “[t]he extent to which NMNH officials colluded on government time and with government resources with the NCSE to publicly discredit Dr. Sternberg’s scientific and professional integrity and investigate opportunities to dismiss him is alarming.”(emphasis added) The more people learn about Darwinist efforts to shut down the debate over Darwinism through harassment and intimidation, the more skeptical they will likely become of the Darwinists' unrelenting dogmatism.

5. Continued Public Policy Efforts to “Teach the Controversy” and Promote Academic Freedom. It is true that in the initial months after the Dover decision, Darwinists were able to use the ruling to bully the Ohio State Board of Education into repealing its excellent science standard and model lesson plan that merely promoted the critical analysis of evolution. Yet in subsequent months, it has become apparent that the Dover ruling has had a decreasing impact on public policy debates over evolution. While some political candidates who favored teaching the controversy over Darwin lost in the recent elections, others won, most notably state board of education members in Texas, the Governor of Texas, and the Governor of Minnesota. In addition, states and localities have continued to advance science education policies that encourage schools to teach the controversy over Darwinian evolution. In March, Oklahoma’s House of Representatives passed a bill to protect the academic freedom of teachers and students to study all of the scientific evidence relating to evolution by an overwhelming (and bipartisan) vote of 77-10. The bill was later denied a vote in the state Senate, but it will likely be reintroduced. Also in March, the Lancaster School District in California passed a policy protecting the right of teachers to present scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution. In June, South Carolina adopted a science standard requiring students to learn how “scientists… investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.” At the end of November, the Ouachita Parish School District in Louisiana enacted a policy that protects the academic freedom of teachers to objectively cover scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution as well as the evidence in favor of the theory. And according to a national Zogby poll conducted earlier this year, nearly 7 out of 10 Americans (69%) continue to believe that “biology teachers should teach Darwin’s theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it.” Only 2 out of 10 (21%) believe that “biology teachers should teach only Darwin’s theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it.” This is virtually unchanged from a national Zogby poll in 2001, and the rates of support are even higher in some state surveys.

6. The Debate over Darwin Goes Global. Darwinists often insist that the debate over Darwin’s theory is limited to the United States, but recent outbreaks of the debate in Britain, Japan, and various European countries have refuted that claim, as do the growing number of international scientists who have signed the Dissent from Darwin statement.

7. The Darwinist War on Religion. For years the National Center for Science Education has tried to convince leading Darwinists to tone down their anti-religious rhetoric and cultivate the impression that Darwin’s theory of unguided evolution is perfectly compatible with traditional monotheism. But this fall the public relations strategy has unraveled with books like Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and conclaves like the gathering of scientists at the Salk Institute in November, which overflowed with expressions of hatred and contempt toward religion. According to one participant in the latter gathering quoted in the New York Times, "[w]ith a few notable exceptions, the viewpoints [at the conference] have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?” (emphasis added) It is becoming sharply evident just how much Darwinism functions like a religion for many of its leading champions, and how the blind allegiance to atheism or agnosticism of leading Darwinists skews their evaluation of the debate over evolution. Ironically, Darwinists routinely criticize defenders of intelligent design because many of them happen to be traditional theists (just like the vast majority of Americans), but these same Darwinists see nothing wrong with the fact that leading evolutionists are largely anti-religious. Indeed, according to a 1998 survey of members of the elite National Academy of Sciences (NAS), nearly 95% of the NAS biologists identify themselves as either atheists or agnostics. As I’ve said repeatedly before, the debate over Darwin’s theory should be decided on the evidence, not on motives. But if Darwinists insist on stigmatizing the motives of anyone who criticizes Darwin’s theory who happens to believe in God, then the Darwinists' own motives surely should be open to scrutiny. Either motives are irrelevant for everyone, or they are relevant for everyone. As public knowledge of the metaphysical baggage of leading Darwinists increases, the ability of Darwinists to maintain their double-standard about motives in the public debate should diminish.

In summarizing my reflections on the past year, I keep coming back to a phrase that stuck in my mind immediately after the Dover decision last December: Pyrrhic victory. Darwinists thought they had succeeded in shutting down the debate over intelligent design by court order. But they were wrong, and the longer it takes for them to grasp that fact, the more Darwinism will continue to lose out in the free marketplace of ideas.

Posted by John West at 12:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

An article in the latest issue of New Scientist highlights the exciting work of scientists at the Biologic Institute, a new research lab conducting biological research and experiments from an intelligent design perspective. While writer Celeste Biever can't suppress her visceral pro-Darwin bias from the story (which carries the dismissive title "Intelligent design: The God Lab"), Biever's article is going to make it very difficult for Darwinists to continue to assert that scientists who support intelligent design aren't conducting scientific research.

As Biever's article grudgingly makes clear, "researchers [at the Biologic Institute lab] work at benches lined with fume hoods, incubators and microscopes--a typical scene in this up-and-coming biotech hub." The article also reports on some of the research projects underway, and even describes Darwinian biologist Ken Miller as conceding that the topics being explored "are of interest to science":

According to [Biologic Institute senior researcher Dr. Douglas] Axe, the projects currently under way at Biologic include "examining the origin of metabolic pathways in bacteria, the evolution of gene order in bacteria, and the evolution of protein folds."

Certainly the topics Axe mentions are of interest to science, says Kenneth Miller, a cell biologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who testified as an expert witness for the pro-evolution side at the Dover trial. Miller adds that they might be of particular interest to people intent on undermining evolution if, like Axe's earlier work on protein folding, they can be used to highlight structures and functions whose origins and evolution are not well understood.

In addition to protein and cell biology, Biologic is pursuing a programme in computational biology which draws on the expertise of another of its researchers, Brendan Dixon, a former software developer at Microsoft. According to Axe, "On the computational side, we are nearing completion of a system for exploring the evolution of artificial genes that are considerably more life-like than has been the case previously."

Biever's breathless, conspiratorial prose can't hide the fact that researchers at the new Institute are serious scientists with impressive research records. For example, the article notes that the Institute's senior scientist, protein researcher Douglas Axe, has published peer-reviewed research articles in the Journal of Molecular Biology and previously worked "as a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Protein Engineering, a research centre in Cambridge, UK, funded by the Medical Research Council, under the supervision of protein specialist Alan Fersht of the University of Cambridge." In addition, Dr. Axe has worked "as a visiting scientist at the structural biology unit of the Babraham Institute, also in Cambridge."

Biologic Institute biologist Ann Gauger has a similarly sterling track record. Dr. Gauger has published peer-reviewed research "on cell adhesion in fruit flies" in Nature, one of the world's premiere science journals, as well as publishing "papers as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University."

It is worth noting that Biever acknowledges that Discovery Institute has been providing funding for scientific research, including start-up support for the Biologic Institute. While Biever tries to insinuate that this commitment to funding scientific research is somehow a "new" development tied to recent policy debates, the facts cited in her article undermine that claim. Indeed, Biever herself notes that Discovery Institute was providing research funding for Dr. Axe by the late 1990s, which ultimately resulted in the publication of his peer-reviewed research articles in the Journal of Molecular Biology. Yes, that's right--Discovery Institute has been supporting scientific research and writing all along, just like it has said. But don't hold your breath for corrections or apologies from the Darwin spinmeisters who have insisted otherwise for the past decade.

Posted by John West at 4:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

One of the most disturbing revelations of the recent congressional investigation into the Smithsonian’s persecution of Richard Sternberg is the behind-the-scenes role of the pro-Darwin lobbying group the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). According to the congressional staff report, the NCSE was in essence asked to spy on Dr. Sternberg by Smithsonian official Dr. Hans Sues:

The NCSE was also enlisted by a NMNH official to monitor Dr. Sternberg’s outside activities. On August 26, Dr. Sues promised NCSE director Eugenie Scott that “[f]rom now on, I will keep an eye on Dr. (von) Sternberg, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you or other NCSE specialists could let me [know] about further activities by this gentleman in areas poutside [sic] crustacean systematics [emphasis added].” The clear purpose of having the NCSE monitor Dr. Sternberg’s outside activities was to find a way to dismiss him. Dr. Sues hoped that the NCSE could unearth evidence that Dr. Sternberg had misrepresented himself as a Smithsonian employee, which would have been grounds for his dismissal as a Research Associate: “As a Research Associate, Sternberg is not allowed to represent himself as an employee of the Smithsonian Institution, and, if he were to do so, he would forfeit his appointment.”

But spying was only part of the NCSE’s role. According to the congressional report, the NCSE helped mastermind efforts by government officials to publicly smear Sternberg with false information:

Many of the efforts to publicly discredit Dr. Sternberg were done under the guidance of the National Center for Science Education, a private special interest group and proevolution advocacy organization. Early on in the controversy, the NCSE circulated a set of “talking points” to the BSW Council and NMNH officials on how to discredit both Sternberg and the Meyer article. The OSC investigation found that the “NCSE recommendations were circulated within the SI and eventually became part of the official public response of the SI to the Meyer article.”

Congressional investigators found the collusion between government employees and the NCSE of significant concern:

The extent to which NMNH officials colluded on government time and with government resources with the NCSE to publicly discredit Dr. Sternberg’s scientific and professional integrity and investigate opportunities to dismiss him is alarming.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 10:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

On Evangelical Outpost, Joe Carter has a post about our study on Judge Jones’ copying of the ACLU’s Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. Darwinist bloggers Ed Brayton and Joe McFaul participated in the thread critiquing the study. My responses to them showed how Darwinist critiques are off-base and misrepresent the study, as well as the nature of our arguments. I include some excepts from my responses here to help readers see why the Darwinist critiques of the Judge Jones’ study don’t hold up:

Hi all and thanks for this interesting discussion. I am not going to have time for more than one post, so here go a few responses:

Response to Ed Brayton:
It’s saddening that Ed Brayton had to descend to so much namecalling against me in his post in order to make his points. I’m not going to respond back to Ed by calling him names, but I think it’s legitimate for me to defend my arguments.

I think Ed has misunderstood our point. We do NOT cite cases like Bright v. Westmoreland or In re: Community Bank of Northern Virginia in order to claim that Judge Jones ruling perfectly and identically fits the facts from those cases identically and should therefore should be overturned. But much dicta from those cases do establish a principle: courts disapprove of copying a party’s brief verbatim. That’s our point: what Judge Jones did is not generally approved of by courts.

Thus, regarding the case Bright v. Westmoreland, Ed is correct that the case dealt with a proposed opinion rather than findings of fact and that the judge in that case made other errors. That does not make it irrelevant to our point. Like I said, we’re not arguing that Kitzmiller should be overruled like the Bright court did to a different judge. We’re simply establishing the principle that courts generally disapprove of judges who copy a party's documents in a verbatim or near-verbatim fashion into their rulings. The cases I cited are useful for establishing this point.

Moreover, in In re: Community Bank of Northern Virginia--a case dealing with (among other things) copying of findings of fact--the Third Circuit itself cited Bright v. Westmoreland to bolster their claim that such a practice was inappropriate, even though Bright clearly dealt with a party's proposed opinion. So apparently the difference in the type of document doesn't necessarily distinguish things. Here's what the Third Circuit says in a case where it lamented that it could not overrule a judge simply because he copied the findings of fact:

We are bound by the Supreme Court's decision in Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 572, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985), holding that a district court's verbatim adoption of a party's proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, although highly disapproved of, is not per se grounds for reversal. Lansford Coaldale Joint Water Auth. v. Tonolli Corp., 4 F.3d 1209, 1215 16 (3d Cir.1993). However, there must be evidence in the record demonstrating that the district court exercised "independent judgment" in adopting a party's proposed findings. Bright v. Westmoreland County, 380 F.3d 729, 731 32 (3d Cir.2004); see also Pa. Envtl. Def. Found. v. Canon McMillan Sch. Dist., 152 F.3d 228, 233 (3d Cir.1998) ("The central issue is whether the district court has made an independent judgment.").

In re: Community Bank of Northern Virginia, 418 F.3d 277, 300 (3rd Cir. 2005). (emphasis added)

2 points I make here:
(a) If the Third Circuit Court of Appeals can cite to Bright v. Westmoreland when discussing the inappropriateness of copying a party's "proposed findings" in a verbatim or near verbatim fashion without showing independent judgment, then so can I.
(b) The point of this passage goes much deeper: here the Third Circuit said it is “highly disapproved of” (even according to the Supreme Court) for a party to adopt “a party’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law” in a “verbatim” fashion. Given that they cite Bright here on this issue, it’s clear that the precise type of brief, motion, proposed opinion, or other party-produced document is immaterial to the clear point from the Third Circuit’s dicta that verbatim or near-verbatim copying is “highly disapproved of.” That’s my point, and it’s legitimate.

Brayton tries to overstate my argument as if I am claiming that the Kitzmiller ruling perfectly fits the facts of Bright such that it should be overturned. That is NOT what I am arguing, but Bright and In re: Community Bank of Northern Virginia both contain relevant dicta which establish the principle that the practice of blanket copying a party’s brief—while not always prohibited—is clearly disapproved of by courts. That’s my point, and I think it’s legitimate.

The passage which Joe Carter cites is entirely relevant--as dicta--to the central point that the practice of verbatim copying briefs is not favored by courts (even if it is sometimes allowed).

[…]

[Response to Joe Mcfaul:]
If all Joe McFaul can do is attack me for citing dicta then his case is weak indeed. "Relevant dicta" is not a meaningless term. Courts often cite to dicta of other cases to bolster points which are relevant to their own holding [see below for more on this point]. That's because dicta usually make factually accurate characterizations of the law. Thus the authoritative Black's Law Dictionary (7th edition, 1999) has a wonderful quote from an early 20th century legal scholar explaining the importance of dicta in the "dictum" entry:

"As a dictum is by definition no part of the doctrine of the decision, and as the citing of it as a part of the doctrine is almost certainly to bring upon a brief maker adverse comment, lawyers are accustomed to speak of a dictum rather slightingly, and sometimes they go so far as to intimate a belief that the pronouncing of a dictum is the doing of a wrong. Yet it must not be forgotten that dicta are frequently, and indeed usually, correct, and that to give an occasional illustration, or to say that some the doctrine of a case would not apply to some case of an hypothetical nature, or to trace the history of a doctrine, even though it be conceded, as it must, that such passages are not essential to deciding of the very case, is often extremely useful to the profession."

(William M. Lile et al., Brief Making and the Use of Law Books, 307 (3d ed. 1914). [emphasis added]

Paraphrased: Lawyers often call other lawyers names when they cite dicta, but dicta is usually correct and thus it can provide useful insight into legal doctrines. Mr. McFaul's arguments here fit Lile et al.'s critique of lawyers' misperceptions of dicta perfectly.

And keep in mind that the Third Circuit interpreted a Supreme Court ruling as directly "holding," in part, that judicial copying is "highly disapproved of":

We are bound by the Supreme Court's decision in Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 572, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985), holding that a district court's verbatim adoption of a party's proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, although highly disapproved of, is not per se grounds for reversal. (emphasis added)

If the question is "do courts generally disapprove of judicial copying" the answer is clearly "yes." That's all I'm saying here.

(Posts by Casey Luskin in a discussion thread on Evangelical Outpost)

A Final Note on Dicta
In conclusion, if anyone doubts that courts regularly cite to dicta from other cases to make their arguments, consider how the U.S. Supreme Court relied heavily upon the famous "mystery passage," which is entirely dictum, from the pro-abortion case Planned Parenthood v. Casey when it struck down a Texas anti-sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas:

In explaining the respect the Constitution demands for the autonomy of the person in making these choices, we stated as follows:

"These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State." Ibid. [Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S.Ct. 2791 (1992)]

Persons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do.

(Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 123 S.Ct. 2472, 2481-2482 (2003).)

Clearly, the U.S. Supreme Court believes that dicta can state relevant formulations of legal principles which can be relied upon in future decisions where those principles are implicated. My citing of dicta to establish a legal principle is completely legitimate.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 1:07 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Last week, Rob Crowther reported evidence suggesting that Judge John Jones of Kitzmiller v. Dover fame plagiarized from a scholar's book in his commencement address last summer at Dickinson College. Well, consider the report confirmed. Quote marks and even a footnote have now magically appeared in the text at the Dickinson College site. If you are quick, you can still find the archived version of the original text using an internet search engine. Ironically, the hastily added quote marks now have Judge Jones slightly misquoting the book he was using, because his unattributed copying included a couple of errors.

Posted by John West at 8:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Two local newspapers which serve the Dover area have published articles making the same mistake when attacking Discovery Institute’s report, which found that 90.9% of Judge Jones’ section of the Kitzmiller ruling on whether intelligent design (ID) is science was copied verbatim, or near verbatim, from the ACLU’s Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.

The York Dispatch has two articles—an editorial and a news article, each of which rely upon ACLU attorney Witold Walczak justifying Judge Jones’ copying by saying, “This is something lawyers do routinely, precisely so judges can use them.” It should come as no surprise that Mr. Walczak is defending a ruling which copied a brief he probably helped write. The York Daily Record similarly cited attorneys noting that judges are allowed to rely upon the findings of fact from a party.

Yet our report acknowledges precisely that point, explaining that “[p]roposed ‘findings of fact’ are prepared to assist judges in writing their opinions, and judges are certainly allowed to draw on them.” Thus Mr. Walczak and the other critics misunderstand the report’s main point:

The extent of Judge Jones’ reliance upon the plaintiffs’ Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law dwarfs the usual practice. 90.9% of his celebrated section on whether ID is science was taken essentially verbatim from the ACLU’s brief. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which governs all federal courts in Pennsylvania, held that it is “highly disapproved of” for judges to adopt wholesale the briefs of parties in a “verbatim or near verbatim” fashion. As legal scholar Bruce Green from the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham Law School told the Associated Press, it is “not typical for judges to adopt one side's proposed findings verbatim.” A 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case favorably quoted the famous jurist Judge James Skelly Wright explaining the danger behind the blanket adoption of party’s arguments:

I suggest to you strongly that you avoid as far as you possibly can simply signing what some lawyer puts under your nose. These lawyers, and properly so, in their zeal and advocacy and their enthusiasm are going to state the case for their side in these findings as strongly as they possibly can. When these findings get to the courts of appeals they won't be worth the paper they are written on as far as assisting the court of appeals in determining why the judge decided the case.

(United States v. El Paso Natural Gas Company, 376 U.S. 651, 657, fn4 (1964) (internal citations and quotations omitted).)

While there is no question that Judge Jones agreed with the plaintiffs wholeheartedly, his copying of the ACLU diminishes the value of the ruling. It also seems clear that he engaged in an uncommon practice which is frowned upon by the higher courts of law which govern his own court.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 3:27 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This short, long-awaited final installment of the response to Barbara Forrest will note that she may have misplaced her praise of Judge Jones regarding the Kitzmiller ruling.

In her Kitzmiller response, she wrote that Judge Jones’ ruling is “a marvel of clarity and forthrightness.” Of course she’s entitled to her opinion, but perhaps she should have given more credit to the ACLU, who contributed greatly to the arguments, concepts, and even the verbatim wording on the Kitzmiller ruling's section on whether ID is science. See this report for details.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 3:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In his commencement speech at Dickinson College, Judge John Jones said:

"Each day as a federal trial judge . . . I am at risk of deciding a case incorrectly if I accept that which is presented to me at face value." (Emphasis added.)

Judge Jones' statement is ironic in light of his decision in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, in which he appears to have copied incorrect facts supplied by the ACLU attorneys without having his clerk check those facts against the actual evidence in the record. I understand that federal judges and their staff are busy. However, given how important —indeed, even historical — Judge Jones believes the Kitzmiller case to have been (just ask him), one would have hoped he would have made a more diligent effort to get the facts right. Instead, Judge Jones penned a prime example of the kind of "incorrect decision" that can result when a federal trial judge fails to heed his own advice.

Posted by Larry Caldwell at 12:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The House Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources has issued its official report on the investigation into the harassment and discrimination against biologist Dr. Richard Sternberg. (for more background see here). The congressional report bluntly states: The staff investigation has uncovered compelling evidence that Dr. Sternberg’s civil and constitutional rights were violated by Smithsonian officials. Posted here is the Executive Summary of the report. The full report can be downloaded here, and the appendix can be downloaded here.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In January 2005, an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal first raised public awareness about disturbing allegations that officials at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) had retaliated against museum Research Associate (RA) Richard Sternberg because he allowed publication of an article favoring the theory of intelligent design in a biology journal.¹ A well-published evolutionary biologist with two doctorates in biology, Dr. Sternberg claimed that after publication of the article, his colleagues and supervisors at the NMNH subjected him to harassment and discrimination in an effort to force him out as a Research Associate.

In November of 2004, Dr. Sternberg filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the agency charged with “protecting federal employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices, especially reprisal for whistleblowing.” The OSC eventually found evidence to corroborate Dr. Sternberg’s complaint, concluding that “[i]t is... clear that a hostile work environment was created with the ultimate goal of forcing” Dr. Sternberg out of the Smithsonian. Despite this finding, the OSC was unable to pursue its investigation due to a question of jurisdiction. In August of 2005, subcommittee staff initiated their own investigation into the possible mistreatment of Dr. Sternberg by the Smithsonian. During their investigation, staff met with Dr. Sternberg and senior Smithsonian officials, and reviewed internal emails provided by the Smithsonian in response to requests from the subcommittee.

The staff investigation has uncovered compelling evidence that Dr. Sternberg’s civil and constitutional rights were violated by Smithsonian officials. Moreover, the agency’s top officials—Secretary Lawrence Small and Deputy Secretary Sheila Burke—have shown themselves completely unwilling to rectify the wrongs that were done or even to genuinely investigate the wrongdoing. Most recently, Burke and Small have allowed NMNH officials to demote Dr. Sternberg to the position of Research Collaborator, despite past assurances from Burke that Dr. Sternberg was a “Research Associate in good standing” and would be given “full and fair consideration” for his request to renew his Research Associateship. ² The failure of Small and Burke to take any action against such discrimination raises serious questions about the Smithsonian’s willingness to protect the free speech and civil rights of scientists who may hold dissenting views on topics such as biological evolution.

Major findings of this staff investigation include:

• Officials at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History created a hostile work environment intended to force Dr. Sternberg to resign his position as a Research Associate in violation of his free speech and civil rights. There is substantial, credible evidence of efforts to abuse and harass Dr. Sternberg, including punitively targeting him for investigation in order to supply a pretext for dismissing him, and applying to him regulations and restrictions not imposed on other researchers. Given the factual record, the Smithsonian’s pro-forma denials of discrimination are unbelievable. Indeed, NMNH officials explicitly acknowledged in emails their intent to pressure Sternberg to resign because of his role in the publication of the Meyer paper and his views on evolution. On September 13, 2004, Dr. Jonathan Coddington, chair of the zoology department, wrote to crustacean curator Dr. Rafael Lemaitre that he could not find a legal basis for terminating Sternberg, but added: “I suppose we could call him on the phone and verbally ask him to do the right thing and resign?” ³ A few hours later, Dr. Lemaitre responded that “a face to face meeting or at least a ‘you are welcome to leave or resign’ call with this individual, is in order.” ⁴ Finally, in an email on October 6, 2004, Dr. Coddington (in his capacity as Dr. Sternberg’s “supervisor”) stated that he was planning to meet with Dr. Sternberg to convey the message “that if he had any class he would either entirely desist or resign his appointment.” ⁵ Clearly, the NMNH management was trying to make Dr. Sternberg’s life at the Museum as difficult as possible and encourage him to leave, since they knew they had no legal grounds to dismiss him.

• In emails exchanged during August and September 2004, NMNH officials revealed their intent to use their government jobs to discriminate against scientists based on their outside activities regarding evolution. For example, Dr. Hans Sues, Associate Director for Research and Collections, suggested in emails on August 30, 2004, and again on September 9, 2004, that Dr. Sternberg would never have been appointed as an RA if Smithsonian officials had known about his non-governmental activities regarding evolution. Sues even blamed the scientist who nominated Sternberg as a Research Associate for not adequately investigating his background: “Sternberg is a well-established figure in anti-evolution circles, and a simple Google search would have exposed these connections.” ⁶ The clear implication was that had a background check been conducted on Sternberg’s non-governmental activities, he would have been barred from being a Research Associate. Given the attitudes expressed in these emails, scientists who are known to be skeptical of Darwinian theory, whatever their qualifications or research record, cannot expect to receive equal treatment or consideration by NMNH officials. As a taxpayer-funded institution, such blatant discrimination against otherwise qualified individuals based on their outside views and activities raises serious free speech and civil rights concerns. With regard to Dr. Sternberg, this discriminatory attitude makes it all-but-impossible for him to be fairly considered for reappointment when his current term as Research Associate ends in 2007. Indeed, NMNH officials expressed in their emails a clear expectation that Dr. Sternberg would not be reappointed as a Research Associate after expiration of his current appointment. True to their statements at the time, NMNH officials have recently notified Dr. Sternberg that they will not renew his position as a Research Associate. Rather, they will only permit him to continue his research at the Smithsonian as a Research Collaborator—a demotion from his previous position. ⁷

• The hostility toward Dr. Sternberg at the NMNH was reinforced by anti-religious and political motivations. Dr. Sternberg’s OSC complaint describes efforts to discover or disparage his supposed religious and political beliefs, and the OSC investigation concluded that there was “a strong religious and political component to the actions taken after the publication of the Meyer article.” The emails reviewed by subcommittee staff corroborate this finding. In a memo prepared on February 8, 2005, NMNH scientist Marilyn Schotte admitted that after publication of the Meyer paper, Dr. Coddington wanted to know “if Dr. Sternberg was religious.” Dr. Schotte further admitted telling Coddington that Sternberg “was a Republican.” Schotte even conceded that Coddington may have asked her whether Sternberg “was a fundamentalist” and whether “he was a conservative.” Dr. Schotte insisted that by asking such questions “Dr. C. was not being judgmental, only curious.” ⁸ But given the demonstrably hostile atmosphere toward Sternberg at the NMNH during the period in question, there is nothing innocuous about an official with supervisory authority inquiring into Sternberg’s religious and political beliefs. The email traffic also substantiates Sternberg’s concern about a viscerally anti-religious culture existing at the Museum. For example, on February 22, 2005, NMNH Research Associate Sue Richardson sent an email of solidarity to Dr. Coddington regarding the Sternberg situation. She complained about the time she spent living in the “Bible Belt,” mockingly reporting that “the most fun we had by far was when my son refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance because of the ‘under dog’ part...” ⁹ Would similar expressions of disparagement have been tolerated by Smithsonian officials if directed at a racial minority?

• NMNH officials conspired with a special interest group on government time and using government emails to publicly smear Dr. Sternberg; the group was also enlisted to monitor Sternberg’s outside activities in order to find a way to dismiss him. In cooperation with the pro-evolution National Center for Science Education (NCSE), Museum officials attempted to publicly smear and discredit Dr. Sternberg with false and defamatory information. While NMNH officials have the right to criticize scientific views with which they disagree, using government time and resources to publicly smear with false information someone whom they supervise is an abuse of their authority as government employees. In addition, Dr. Sues promised the director of the NCSE on August 26, 2004, that “[f]rom now on, I will keep an eye on Dr. (von) Sternberg, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you or other NCSE specialists could let me [know] about further activities by this gentleman in areas poutside [sic] crustacean systematics.” ¹⁰ The clear purpose of having the NCSE monitor Sternberg’s outside activities was to find a way to dismiss Sternberg. Dr. Sues hoped that the NCSE could unearth evidence that Sternberg had misrepresented himself as a Smithsonian employee, which would have been grounds for dismissal as a Research Associate.
  
  
• Secretary Small and Deputy Secretary Burke have exhibited a head-in-the-sand attitude toward wrongdoing at their agency; they have engaged in stonewalling and spin rather than dealing forthrightly with the discrimination that has occurred. In Deputy Secretary Burke’s most recent response dated May 3, 2006, she acknowledged that Dr. Sternberg’s viewpoint on evolution sparked “strong disagreement” among other scientists at the NMNH, but insisted that “[w]hile the tone of the disagreement between scholars may seem harsh, disagreement does not equal discrimination.” ¹¹ However, the issue is not the disagreement of Smithsonian scientists with Dr. Sternberg’s views on evolution, but rather their effort to use their official powers to punish Dr. Sternberg by seeking to remove him as a Research Associate, and their effort to publicly smear him with false information on government time using government emails. More broadly, NMNH officials have made clear their intent to prevent any scientist publicly skeptical of Darwinian theory from ever being appointed as a Research Associate, no matter how sterling his or her professional credentials or research. This is discrimination, plain and simple. The abject failure of the Secretary and Deputy Secretary to protect the basic rights of Dr. Sternberg to a civil work environment is indefensible.

Because of the Smithsonian’s continued inaction in the Sternberg case, Congress should consider statutory language that would protect the free speech rights regarding evolution of scientists in the Smithsonian and other federally-funded institutions. Since the treatment of Dr. Sternberg came to light in early 2005, evidence has accumulated of widespread discrimination against other qualified scientists who dissent from Darwinian theory, making further violations by federal agencies likely. While the majority of scientists embrace Darwinian theory, it is important that neither federal funds nor federal power be used to punish or retaliate against otherwise qualified scientists merely because they dissent from the majority view.

1 David Klinghoffer, “The Branding of a Heretic,” The Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2005.
2 Letter from Sheila Burke to Rep. Mark Souder, May 3, 2006.
3 Jonathan Coddington, “Re: Upcoming in Helsinki,” September 13, 2004, 10:51 AM, email to Rafael Lemaitre and Hans Sues.
4 Rafael Lemaitre, “Re: Upcoming in Helsinki,” September 13, 2004, 1:46 PM, email to Jonathan Coddington and Hans Sues.
5 Jonathan Coddington, “Re: Research Associate sponsor,” October 6, 2004, 1:29 PM, email to Hans Sues.
6 Hans Sues, “Re: Reply [3],” September 9, 2004, 10:57 AM, email to Frank Ferrari.
7 Richard Vari, “RE: NMNH Research Associateship: CV and Research,” October 5, 2006, 12:42 AM, email to Richard Sternberg; Letter from Cristian Samper K. to Richard Sternberg, November 2006.
8 Marilyn Schotte, “statements,” March 22, 2005, 9:53 AM, email to Jonathan Coddington with attached memo dated February 8, 2005.
9Sue Richardson, “Re: misc,” February 22, 2005, 9:38 AM, email to Jonathan Coddington.
10 Hans Sues, “Re: Meyer article,” August 26, 2004, 1:41 PM, email to Eugenie Scott.
11 See note 2.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 10:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Recently Edward T. Oakes reviewed Richard Weikart's From Darwin to Hitler:

As Richard Weikart proves in his magnificently written monograph From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection released a veritable Pandora's box of evil vapors and demonic spirits, which, once unleashed on an eager European public, poisoned discourse on war, race, sex, nationality, diplomacy, colonization, economy, and anthropology—especially, it would seem, in Germany.

In a letter he wrote to the German Wilhelm Pryor in 1868, Darwin averred that "the support which I receive from Germany is my chief ground for hoping that our views will ultimately prevail," a line that could well serve as the epigraph to Weikart's riveting tale of how Germany led itself (and thereby the rest of the world) into the abyss of internecine war and savagely applied eugenics, naïvely thinking all the while that it was helping to produce Darwin's "higher animal" from his eagerly anticipated "war of nature."

It's a long review, but well worth the read. In reading the review and the book, what is striking, ultimately, isn't that evil has been done in the name of Darwinism. Every influential paradigm in history has been co-opted for evil purposes. What is striking is how reasonably and logically many of the horrors documented in Weikart's book follow from Darwinian principles—e.g., the survival of the fittest populations (genocide), the great good that supposedly comes from natural selection eliminating the weak and defective (eugenics and forced sterilizations), the notion that humans are merely smart animals (moral pragmatism, which in turns underwrites not only genocide and eugenics but also even the cruelest kinds of human experimentation, provided they can further medical research).

The fact that Darwin's theory has resulted in violence does not, of course, make that theory wrong. But it certainly provides a healthy motivation for considering with an open mind the growing body of scientific evidence against the theory.

[Update: The subtitle of the original version of this post was "A Straightforward Path to Horror." I have dropped the word "straightforward" from the subtitle and the text because it may have left a misleading impression about Weikart's book. While Weikart documents the pervasive influence of Darwinism on the development of Nazi ideology, he also makes clear that history is often not straightforward and that Darwinism did not "inevitably" lead to the Holocaust. Nevertheless, "without Darwinism, especially in its social Darwinist and eugenics permutations, neither Hitler nor his Nazi followers would have had the necessary scientific underpinnings to convince themselves and their collaborators that one of the world's greatest atrocities was really morally praiseworthy." (From Darwin to Hitler, p. 233) ]

Posted by Jonathan Witt at 8:40 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We have made clear that Judge Jones' wholesale and uncritical copying from ACLU attorneys in the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision is not considered "plagiarism" in legal circles--even though such verbatim copying has been frowned upon by appellate courts. But what about the unattributed use of language from someone else's book in a public speech? According to the posted text of his Commencement Address at Dickinson College, Judge Jones appears to have engaged in unattributed copying outside the courtroom as well. Compare the following passages and decide for yourself whether this new finding constitutes plagiarism.

Judge Jones' Commencement Address at Dickinson College (2006):

"...our Founding Fathers... possessed a great confidence in an individual's ability to understand the world and its most fundamental laws through the exercise of his or her reason... The Founders believed that true religion was not something handed down by a church or contained in a Bible, but was to be found through free, rational inquiry... this core set of beliefs led the Founders... to secure their idea of religious freedom by barring any alliance between church and state." (http://www.dickinson.edu/commencement/2006/address.html)

"The Founding Fathers... had great confidence in the individual's ability to understand the world and its most fundamental laws through the exercise of his or her reason. To them, true religion was not something handed down by a church or contained in the Bible but rather was to be found through free rational inquiry...the framers sought to secure their idea of religious freedom by barring any alliance between church and state."

(Frank Lambert, The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in
America, pg. 3 (2003). You can also find this material online at http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i7500.html)

Posted by Robert Crowther at 11:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As might be expected, Darwinists are in a tizzy about the discovery that Judge John Jones copied virtually verbatim 90.9% of his analysis of whether intelligent design is science from ACLU laywers. Of course, most are rallying valiantly around Judge Jones, that “outstanding thinker” who produced a “masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking” and who “is as deserving of the title ‘great thinker’ as someone who writes a great mathematical proof or a great work of music criticism.”

But not everyone has joined the party. Pro-Darwin biochemist Larry Moran has noted his disillusionment with the over-the-top praise fellow Darwinists lavished on Judge Jones:

When the Jones decision was first published I read every word. I was very impressed. Here was a man who seemed to have learned a lot of sophisticated science in a very short period of time. His grasp of complexities like the evolution of bacteria flagella and blood clotting was impressive. His understanding of the meaning of science rivaled that of many advisors on the ACLU side. Frankly, I was jealous, and humbled.

Everyone was praising the Jones decision. For example, Timothy Sandefur on Panda's Thumb wrote,

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District is a major victory for science and a major blow to those who have tried to sneak religion into the classroom by disguising in scientific garb. But it’s more than that. It is a brilliant, insightful, profound decision that reaches to the bottom of ID and finds it empty.

Judge John Jones, a George W. Bush appointee, deserves the praise and thanks of every defender of rigorous, meaningful scientific education. He has taken the time to really understand not just the legal issues, but the scientific ones as well. This decision proves he is a credit to the federal judiciary.

These comments, and others, seemed to confirm that Jones had written this decision all by himself and deserved full credit for his brilliant analysis.

As it turns out, this isn't true and I feel deceived.

After being criticized for his comments, Moran further observed:

I was led to believe that the brilliant, insightful, decision was written by Judge Jones. That impressed me since it covered some very complex issues.

Now I know that the section in question was actually written by someone else. Presumably, someone who was much more knowledgeable about these issues. That's all, that's my only "quibble." I was deceived into thinking that Jones was much smarter than he actually is.

If this had been a student essay, it would have received a failing grade for plagiarism. The standards in the legal profession are different. It's acceptable for Judge Jones to take credit for something that other people wrote.

There are some people who knew all along that Jones had copied the ACLU Findings. I'm a little diappointed that they didn't let on. Instead, they left it to the Discovery Institute to reveal the truth.

Predictably, for making such comments Moran has been savaged by fellow Darwinists, who are falling over themselves trying to defend Judge Jones. A sampling of their “defenses” is instructive.

Responding to Moran’s observation that in legal circles “It’s acceptable for Judge Jones to take credit for something that other people wrote,” someone calling himself “Coin” declared:

It's not "acceptable", it's better. We don't want judges writing all the elaborate technical stuff. Some judges might be able to understand the issues at hand, and from following the case it's clear Judge Jones was one. However it's better when possible to have the actual final materials written by someone with, or even a group of people with, deep background knowledge. The findings of fact in a law case are legally "truth" and no matter how well they understood the issues at hand in the case, any judge ruling on scientific matters would be bound to make minor errors, errors which both would not be acceptable (you can't go back and just correct a judicial decision later with a red pen) and which in a worst case scenario might even result in a needless appeal. This is not what we want. This is not a judge's job.

That’s right, it’s not the judge’s job to write his or her own opinion, or to do his or her own analysis. It’s better to have the experts do it. Why not just dispense with the job of judge altogether?

The standard justification being offered by most Darwinists at this point can be paraphrased as the “everybody does it” defense. Judges don’t write their own opinions, they insist, and we shouldn’t expect them to do so in any case.

But this claim is highly misleading. As we stated in our study, Judges can and do use proposed findings of fact, and such use does not constitute “plagiarism” according to contemporary legal standards. But the wholesale, uncritical, and unattributed copying practiced by Judge Jones is the sort of behavior that has been condemned by appellate courts. When trial judges make use of proposed findings of fact, they are still supposed to demonstrate that they have exercised independent judgment and an independent examination of the record. Our study explains why this does not seem to have been the case in Kitzmiller.

Posted by John West at 12:05 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

On December 12, 2006, Discovery Institute released a report which found that “90.9% (or 5,458 words) of Judge Jones’ 6,004-word section on intelligent design as science was taken virtually verbatim from the ACLU’s proposed ‘Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law’.” Since that time, we have received questions from various media sources and members of the public. This backgrounder on the report will help answer some common questions:

Why is this report important?
The section on whether ID is science is the most celebrated and expansive portion of the Kitzmiller opinion, which Judge Jones hoped would have an impact on future courts. As constitutional law scholar Stephen Gey said, “the critique of ID and science is the most important part of the Kitzmiller opinion . . .” Yet even the anti-ID legal scholar Jay Wexler agrees that this section was NOT necessary to the ruling and is highly controversial. The discovery that Judge Jones’ section on whether ID is science was taken almost entirely verbatim or near-verbatim from an ACLU brief will likely give future courts good reasons to have significant hesitation before citing to this section of the ruling.

Moreover, this report is changing the verdict of the court of public opinion upon the issue. The report recounts the unyielding praise many Darwinists previously gave Judge Jones, but now even the arch-Darwinist biochemistry professor Larry Moran is admitting, “The legal significance of the decision doesn't change but my opinion of Judge Jones does. He is no longer the brilliant man who was able to grasp complex scientific concepts in the blink of an eye.”

Other members of the public would agree with the report’s central arguments that “the extent to which Judge Jones simply copied the language submitted to him by the ACLU is stunning” and that “[t]he revelation that Judge Jones in effect ‘dragged and dropped’ large sections of the ACLU’s ‘Findings of Fact’ into his opinion, errors and all, calls into serious question whether Jones exercised the kind of independent analysis that would make his ‘broad, stinging rebuke’ of intelligent design appropriate.”

Are you accusing Judge Jones of plagiarism or any other violation of judicial ethics?
No. As the report reads, “Proposed ‘findings of fact’ are prepared to assist judges in writing their opinions, and judges are certainly allowed to draw on them. Indeed, judges routinely invite lawyers to propose findings of fact in order to verify what the lawyers believe to be the key factual issues in the case. Thus, in legal circles Judge Jones’ use of the ACLU’s proposed ‘Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law’ would not be considered ‘plagiarism’ nor a violation of judicial ethics.”

Don’t judges do this all the time?
Not to such a high extent of copying that Judge Jones employed. While there is no absolute prohibition against what Judge Jones did, the Associated Press reports that a legal scholar at the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham Law School explained that it is “not typical for judges to adopt one side's proposed findings verbatim.”

Do Courts Approve of this Practice?
The answer to this question is clearly “no”: The Third Circuit, which governs all federal courts in Pennsylvania, has strong law discouraging judges from simply adopting ‘verbatim or near verbatim’ the findings of fact of parties in a case. One Third Circuit ruling in 2005, In re: Community Bank of Northern Virginia, held that it is “highly disapproved of” for judges to adopt the briefs of parties in a “verbatim or near verbatim” fashion.¹ In 2004, the Third Circuit also had harsh words for a judge which unilaterally adopted the recommendations of one party:

Judicial opinions are the core work-product of judges. They are much more than findings of fact and conclusions of law; they constitute the logical and analytical explanations of why a judge arrived at a specific decision. They are tangible proof to the litigants that the judge actively wrestled with their claims and arguments and made a scholarly decision based on his or her own reason and logic. When a court adopts a party's proposed opinion as its own, the court vitiates the vital purposes served by judicial opinions. We, therefore, cannot condone the practice used by the District Court in this case.²

I suggest to you strongly that you avoid as far as you possibly can simply signing what some lawyer puts under your nose. These lawyers, and properly so, in their zeal and advocacy and their enthusiasm are going to state the case for their side in these findings as strongly as they possibly can. When these findings get to the courts of appeals they won't be worth the paper they are written on as far as assisting the court of appeals in determining why the judge decided the case.⁴

Why are you issuing this report now, almost a year after the ruling?
Judge Jones issued his ruling in late December 2005. Discovery Institute subsequently published critiques of the Kitzmiller ruling in April 2006, with Traipsing Into Evolution, the first book-length critique of the Kitzmiller ruling. But we did not discover the extensive copying and pasting in Judge Jones' ruling until September 2006, when Michael Behe was investigating the source of Judge Jones’ misquote of Behe in the Kitzmiller ruling. Work began on the present report at that time with aims to release it around the 1 year anniversary of the Kitzmiller ruling.

Did Judge Jones copy the entire opinion from the ACLU?
Parts of other sections of the ruling were taken verbatim from the ACLU’s proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, but we have not conducted a quantitative analysis of the level of copying in those sections. The report covers only the section of the Kitzmiller opinion which purported to address the question of whether ID is science.

What role did this "ID as science" section play in the entire judicial opinion?
Under current constitutional law, Judge Jones could have struck down Dover's ID-policy without addressing whether ID is science. But Judge Jones claimed it was “incumbent upon the Court to further address . . . whether ID is science.” Judge Jones even sought to answer the question for all other courts, writing that “no other tribunal in the United States is in a better position than” his own to address whether ID is science, and declared his “hope that it may prevent the obvious waste of judicial and other resources which would be occasioned by a subsequent trial involving the precise question”⁶ of whether ID is science. Clearly, Judge Jones sought to settle the question of whether ID is science for all future courts. Yet, as the study aptly concludes, “The new disclosure that Judge Jones’ analysis of the scientific status of ID merely copied language written for him by ACLU attorneys underscores just how inappropriate this part of Kitzmiller was—and why Judge Jones’ analysis should not be regarded as the final word about intelligent design.”

Cases Cited:
1. In re: Community Bank of Northern Virginia, 418 F.3d 277, 300, 319 (3rd Cir. 2005). Back to text.
2. Bright v. Westmoreland County, 380 F.3d 729, 732 (3rd Cir. 2004). Back to text.
3. United States v. El Paso Natural Gas Company, 376 U.S. 65, 656, 657 (1964). Back to text.
4. Judge James Skelly Wright quoted in United States v. El Paso Natural Gas Company, 376 U.S. 65, 657, fn4 (1964) (internal citations and quotations omitted). Back to text.
5. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 572 (1985). Back to text.
6. Kitzmiller v. Dover, 400 F.Supp.2d 707, 735 (M.D. Pa. 2005). Back to text.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 10:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (2)

The egregious case of copying text from plaintiffs’ attorneys by federal judge John E. Jones has drawn additional criticism from legal scholars who explain that such copying should be scrutinized and carefully examined.

Yesterday Discovery Institute released a report revealing that the key section of the widely-noted court decision in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover intelligent design case was copied nearly verbatim from a document written by ACLU lawyers.

“Discovery Institute is on solid ground in pointing out Judge Jones’ highly questionable practice in this case," said Bruce Green, an attorney with the Center for Law and Policy. “While having no legal bearing at this stage, it is highly frowned upon by the federal judiciary for a judge to adopt wholesale the findings and conclusions of a party without making a case for independent investigation demonstrated in the record.”

According to Discovery attorney Casey Luskin, the Institute’s study explained that judges are allowed to draw upon findings of fact submitted by the parties before them. “But that does not mean the practice is looked upon favorably by higher courts,” said Luskin. “In fact, the Third Circuit, which governs all federal courts in Pennsylvania, has strong case law discouraging judges from simply adopting ‘verbatim or near verbatim’ the findings of fact of parties in a case.”

• A Comparison of Judge Jones’ Opinion in Kitzmiller v. Dover with Plaintiffs’ Proposed “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law”
  
• "Masterful" Federal Ruling on Intelligent Design Was Copied from ACLU
  
• Media Coverage of Judge Jones' Copying ACLU

Judicial opinions are the core work-product of judges. They are much more than findings of fact and conclusions of law; they constitute the logical and analytical explanations of why a judge arrived at a specific decision. They are tangible proof to the litigants that the judge actively wrestled with their claims and arguments and made a scholarly decision based on his or her own reason and logic. When a court adopts a party's proposed opinion as its own, the court vitiates the vital purposes served by judicial opinions. We, therefore, cannot condone the practice used by the District Court in this case.³

I suggest to you strongly that you avoid as far as you possibly can simply signing what some lawyer puts under your nose. These lawyers, and properly so, in their zeal and advocacy and their enthusiasm are going to state the case for their side in these findings as strongly as they possibly can. When these findings get to the courts of appeals they won't be worth the paper they are written on as far as assisting the court of appeals in determining why the judge decided the case.⁶

According to the Associated Press, a legal scholar at the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham Law School acknowledged that it is “not typical for judges to adopt one side's proposed findings verbatim.”

1) In re: Community Bank of Northern Virginia, 418 F.3d 277, 300 (3rd Cir. 2005).
2) In re: Community Bank of Northern Virginia, 418 F.3d 277, 319 (3rd Cir. 2005).
3) Bright v. Westmoreland County, 380 F.3d 729, 732 (3rd Cir. 2004).
4) United States v. El Paso Natural Gas Company, 376 U.S. 651, 656 (1964).
5) United States v. El Paso Natural Gas Company, 376 U.S. 651, 657 (1964).
6) Judge James Skelly Wright quoted in United States v. El Paso Natural Gas Company, 376 U.S. 651, 657, fn4 (1964) (internal citations and quotations omitted).
7) Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 572 (1985).

Posted by Robert Crowther at 7:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Associated Press and WorldNetDaily are both reporting that Judge John Jones has refused to respond to Discovery Institute’s study showing that he copied nearly verbatim 90.9% of his 6,004-word analysis of whether intelligent design is science from a document submitted to him by ACLU attorneys. Someone should ask Judge Jones why he is suddenly so reticent to talk about his ruling. During the past year, he has traversed the country to speak at public events and talk about his ruling at length, usually before friendly audiences. But now someone raises the uncomfortable fact that he copied the central part of his ruling from the ACLU, and mum’s the word.

Posted by John West at 2:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

WorldNetDaily is covering the Judge Jones’ copying story, as is the Associated Press, The York Dispatch, and the AgapePress (note: the last article inacurrately states that we are faulting Judge Jones for “plagiarism,” which we aren’t; he copied extensively from the ACLU, but in judicial circles that would not be called plagiarism).

Blogs weighing in include Uncommon Descent, Sandwalk, Reasonable Kansans, Darwinian Fundamentalism, and Doubting Darwin. The discussion going on at Sandwalk is particularly fascinating. There pro-Darwin biochemist Larry Moran expresses his disillusionment about being misled about the “brilliant” Judge Jones. The responses posted by fellow Darwinists who won’t tolerate any criticism of the Judge or his decision are especially illuminating.

Posted by John West at 2:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The key section of the widely-noted court decision on intelligent design issued a year ago on December 20 was copied nearly verbatim from a document written by ACLU lawyers, according to a study released today by scholars affiliated with the Discovery Institute.

"Judge John Jones copied verbatim or virtually verbatim 90.9% of his 6,004-word section on whether intelligent design is science from the ACLU's proposed 'Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law' submitted to him nearly a month before his ruling," said Dr. John West, Vice President for Public Policy and Legal Affairs at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.

"Ironically, Judge Jones has been hailed as 'an outstanding thinker' for his 'masterful' ruling, and even honored by Time magazine as one of the world's 'most influential people' in the category of 'scientists and thinkers,'" said West. "But Jones' analysis of the scientific status of intelligent design contains virtually nothing written by Jones himself. This finding seriously undercuts the credibility of a central part of the ruling."

The study notes that, while judges routinely make use of proposed findings of fact, "the extent to which Judge Jones simply copied the language submitted to him by the ACLU is stunning. For all practical purposes, Jones allowed ACLU attorneys to write nearly the entire section of his opinion analyzing whether intelligent design is science. As a result, this central part of Judge Jones' ruling reflected essentially no original deliberative activity or independent examination of the record on Jones' part."

Jones' copying was so uncritical that he even reprinted a number of factual errors originally made by ACLU attorneys.

For example, Jones claimed that biochemist Michael Behe, when asked about articles purporting to explain the evolution of the immune system, responded that the articles were "not 'good enough.'" Behe actually said the exact opposite: "it's not that they aren't good enough. It's simply that they are addressed to a different subject." Jones' misrepresentation of Behe came directly from the ACLU's "Findings of Fact."

Again copying from the ACLU, Jones insisted that "ID is not supported by any peer-reviewed… publications." But, in fact, the court record contained evidence of several such publications.

The study, titled "A Comparison of Judge Jones' Opinion in Kitzmiller v. Dover with Plaintiffs' Proposed 'Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law,'" was co-authored by West and law professor David DeWolf and is available from Discovery Institute's website at www.discovery.org/csc.

West noted that "those who thought the Dover decision would end the debate over Darwinian evolution were obviously wrong. That debate is just as vibrant and vigorous as it ever was, and Darwinists know it." West cited a recent New York Times report about a gathering of scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in November where there was "a rough consensus" that the theory "of evolution by natural selection" was "losing out in the intellectual marketplace."

"A year after Dover, it's the Darwinists who seem filled with gloom, not us," said West, highlighting several positive developments over the past few months:

***In March, the Lancaster School District, in Southern California, adopted a philosophy of science policy stating that "that Darwin's theory should not be taught as "unalterable fact" and states that "Discussions that question the theory may be appropriate as long as they do not stray from current criteria of scientific fact, hypothesis and theory." The policy further allows the use of supplemental materials by teachers in teaching about science.

***In June, South Carolina adopted a science standard requiring students to learn how "scientists… investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory."

***In September, legal scholar Francis Beckwith, whose support for the constitutionality of intelligent design is well-known, was granted tenure at Baylor University after an effort by Darwinists to deny him tenure backfired.

***At the end of November, the Ouachita Parish School District in Louisiana enacted a policy that protects the academic freedom of teachers to objectively cover scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution as well as the evidence in favor of the theory.

"As we made clear from the beginning, Discovery Institute opposed the Dover school board policy because attempts to mandate intelligent design are counterproductive," said West. "At the same time, Darwinist efforts to use the courts to restrict open discussion of evolution offend free speech and academic freedom. We are delighted that the Darwinist attempt to muzzle the debate has failed."

Click here to read the full study.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Last week Michael Behe spoke at Kansas University as part of a series of "Difficult Dialogues," with various speakers on the topic of intelligent design. There is an excellent report on Behe's talk at Reasonable Kansans Blog which has some highlights worth noting. Behe primarily discussed and critiqued the Kitzmiller ruling. (We will have more news about this and related issues dealing with how Judge Jones wrote his ruling tomorrow, so be sure to check back here.)

The Immunology Literature Dump:

Thanks to a notice by William Dembski at UncommonDescent, people are becoming aware that video footage of the "Beyond belief: Science, religion, reason and survival" conference where scientists bashed religion at the Salk Institute is now online. A panel discussion, which included Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, and Michael Shermer, discussed why as many as 15% of National Academy of Sciences (NAS) scientists believe in God. Tyson expressed surprise that the number was as high as 15%:

Tyson: I want to put on the table, not why 85% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject God, I want to know why 15% of the National Academy don’t. That’s really what we’ve got to address here. Otherwise the public is secondary to this.

(Neil deGrasse Tyson, Session 2, 40:45)

At the end of my book "Why People Believe Weird Things," the last chapter is called "Why Smart People Believe Weird Things" which is the harder question to answer. And the short answer to that is because they're better at rationalizing beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.

(Michael Shermer, Session 2, 42:55)

Shermer's explanation is not logically tight. If Shermer is right that "smart people" are "better at rationalizing beliefs," then perhaps it is the 85% of NAS scientists who "reject God" that are doing the rationalization of their beliefs. After all, if Shermer's principle is correct, then we'd expect to see more rationalization among the smartest scientists than anywhere else.

In fact, by Shermer's own logic, perhaps rationalization is exactly what Shermer (who is a pretty smart guy) is doing: Shermer is trying to rationalize why smart people believe in God by essentially rationalizing away smart religious people by saying, "well, they're just good rationalizers."

The technical philosophical problem with Shermer's argument is that it is "self-referentially incoherent." In other words, the argument Shermer himself makes could critique itself.

What's the Point?
What does any of this have to do with the debate over evolution? When I was a graduate student at UCSD, the Darwinist blood clotting expert Dr. Russell Doolittle told our class during a graduate seminar I was in that Michael Behe, whom he called "an eminent protein chemist in his field," supports ID because, as Doolittle told the class, "smart guys are great rationalizers."

But I'm not interested in getting into a debate over who is rationalizing and who isn't in the debate over evolution. In the end, these interesting debates are not related to a study of the scientific evidence over Neo-Darwinism.

All scientists look at the same data, and some come to one conclusion, others to another. To assume that those who disagree with you are simply "great rationalizers" is a fallacious rationalization in-and-of-itself which does not address the evidence. Perhaps scientists who support ID actually have valid empirical reasons for their viewpoints which come from the evidence, not "rationalization."

Posted by Casey Luskin at 9:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Update: The link to the American Prospect article has been fixed.

Sahotra Sarkar has become a revisionist of the first order. Not even 12 months have gone by since the Dover ID trial and he's already rewriting history in this web post for the American Prospect.

Apparently, the whole argument for the fine tuning of the universe from The Privileged Planet, published in 2004, almost 2 full years before the Dover ruling, was just a reaction to Dover, and an attempt to subvert Judge Jones's (may he live forever) ruling banning ID from Dover area classrooms. Won't those stealth creationists Jay Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez be surprised. Not to mention those poor creationists Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee.

All this is very exciting, coming as it does on the heels of the discovery this week that Darwinism is not just the cornerstone of biology, but also of astronomy and cosmology ("Galaxy formation found to follow Darwin's theory of evolution").

That Darwinism sure is great. It's the foundation of everything. Simply everything. It boggles the mind to consider how anyone could ever think otherwise.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:05 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If you want to keep tabs on the debate that’s heating up in the U.K., there is no better resource than the News Blog on Truth in Science’s website. Current and concise, Truth in Science does an excellent job compiling all the latest information on the controversy over ID in the government and the media.

As today’s update explains, “Truth in Science is faced by growing political opposition as Members of Parliament and Government ministers seek to discourage science teachers from using our resource packs. Forty MPs are calling for a ‘restriction’ on its use and one has suggested a ‘directive’ against it.” In addition to this summary information, TiS provides the play-by-play of what some government officials are doing to try to stop the teaching of intelligent design in schools.

Besides tracking opposition from the government, TiS is holding the British media accountable for their mistakes. They’ve exposed the Guardian’s mistake in proclaiming that the government wanted to “ban” intelligent design:

This claim was made on the basis that the government has stated that intelligent design is “not included in the science curriculum” and that Truth in Science packs are not “appropriate…to support the science curriculum.”
The national curriculum is a minimum standard. It exists to guarantee that every young person receives a basic education. Teachers are free to go teach more than the minimum requirements of the national curriculum. Even if intelligent design is “not included in the science curriculum,” this simply means that it is not compulsory in all schools. It does not constitute a ban.

And, as we can attest, it’s important not only to correct inaccurate and misleading reports but to bring attention to the good news that’s out there. In this encouraging post, Truth in Science highlights a recent column by Peter Hitchens at the Daily Mail - his second on the subject (we blogged about the first here:

As intelligent design continues to be misrepresented by much of the British media, Sunday Mail columnist Peter Hitchens has again called for "a bit more fairness and open-mindedness" in the debate.

Whilst not claiming to know which side is right, Hitchens points out that intelligent design is being misrepresented by those defending Darwinian orthodoxy.

He questions the argument (common in both media reports and school textbooks) that that the 'overwhelming majority' of scientists accept the Darwinist position:

"Since Darwinism is orthodoxy, on which many careers have been built and continue to prosper, is it likely that an attack which threatens that orthodoxy is going to be sympathetically treated by other scientists?" he asks.

After a brief survey of the evidence for Darwinism, he concludes: "All I ask is that people keep thinking about this, don't get frightened of doing so, and don't try to frighten others into orthodoxy, or to misrepresent opponents' positions."

This thoughtful article can be found here, and follows an earlier article, now with over fifty substantial readers' comments.

Posted by Anika Smith at 4:44 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer (P-I) ran an opinion article by guest columnist Cathy Young titled “Campuses would benefit from political diversity” which laments the lack of intellectual diversity on college campuses. Young, who is also a contributing editor at Reason magazine, supports academic freedom in universities for suppressed “politically incorrect opinions” but seems to oppose academic freedom for the oft-suppressed and politically incorrect theory of intelligent design. She explains that David Horowitz’s “Academic Bill of Rights” requiring inclusion of “balanced viewpoints” in college curricula is not the best solution because it could allow the teaching of intelligent design:

Some conservatives advocate legislative interference as a solution. An advocate, David Horowitz, has been pushing for an "Academic Bill of Rights" that would not only protect dissenting students from classroom retaliation but also guarantee the inclusion of balanced viewpoints in the curriculum.

This effort has gone nowhere.

[Brooklyn College historian Robert] Johnson took a dim view of such efforts.

Given conservative support for including intelligent design in the biology curriculum, he noted, a mandate of "balance" in teaching could be used to smuggle creationism into science classrooms at public universities.

(Cathy Young, “Campuses would benefit from political diversity,” Opinion, Seattle Post Intelligencer, (Wed., Dec. 6, 2006)

Ignoring that she conflates intelligent design with creationism, Young does identify some good solutions to the apparent lack of unpopular viewpoints in academia:

Yet he also outlined legislative remedies that could work: Fund programs that would expose students to ideas currently neglected or marginalized in the academy; conduct oversight hearings on the lack of intellectual diversity on campuses; abolish speech codes that often result in suppressing politically incorrect opinions…

("Campuses would benefit from political diversity")

Ironically for Young, these solutions would ALSO support a freer spirit to discuss intelligent design in the academy. Academic freedom for intelligent design has been taken away by administrators at the University of Idaho and Cornell, and there are multiple examples of viewpoint discrimination and marginalization of supporters of intelligent design.

Apparently Young advocates academic freedom for unpopular viewpoints, except for those that challenge Neo-Darwinism.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 2:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Richard Buggs, a member of Truth in Science, an organization in the U.K. which supports teaching intelligent design in schools, recently published an editorial in the Liverpool Daily Post. Truth In Science reports that the headline above the original editorial originally read: “Should religion be part of science teaching? YES: Dr Richard Buggs is on the Scientific Panel of Truth in Science.” Yet Truth in Science does not advocate putting religion into science teaching, and in fact the question which Dr. Buggs was asked to answer by the newspaper was actually “Should Intelligent Design be taught in school science lessons?”

It should be obvious that Buggs, a botanist with a special interest in the ecology and evolution of plants, firmly does not believe intelligent design is religion, as he writes, “Because intelligent design is a logical inference, based on data gathered from the natural world, it is firmly in the realm of science. That's where it should be taught.” Thankfully, the Liverpool Daily Post has done a good job of correcting their mistake, as they fixed the heading so that it now reads more accurately: "Should Intelligent Design be part of science teaching?" If only more newspapers in both the United Kingdom and United States would correct non-neutral characterizations of this debate.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 4:39 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

It looks like the local media in Louisiana have the best idea of what’s happening with the Ouachita Parish School Board. We’ve been bringing you the latest news on the Monroe, Louisiana Board’s decision to protect the academic freedom of its teachers. Impressively, it was local newspaper The Ouachita Citizen which gave a thorough and objective treatment of the event itself in an article last Wednesday.

The Ouachita Parish School Board unanimously approved a resolution to allow its teachers “academic freedom” in teaching all sides of controversial issues such as Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

Following the vote Wednesday at the school board meeting, several audience members of the packed board room applauded.

“This has been a long fight,” White said, but added the fight to implement quality science education guidelines in all schools has just begun.
. . .
In 2002, White reviewed science textbooks that the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approved. He said those were flawed textbooks that numerous state lawmakers, public officials, college professors and high school teachers opposed.

He said documented scientific errors, misleading statements and “glaring omissions” were noted in all of the textbooks BESE approved.

“They really give a one-sided story,” White said. “They don’t teach the weaknesses of Darwinism, and the weaknesses of evolution need to be taught right along with the strengths.” BESE officials said those who opposed the textbooks should take their concerns to the individual school boards that use the books.

“This is just a follow up today to what started back in 2002,” White said.

Assistant superintendent Dr. Frank Hoffman said the issue is not about evolution or religion, but rather giving school teachers the freedom to teach all facets of a subject.

Superintendent Dr. Bob Webber said the school system polled local teachers and 100 percent indicated they don’t feel they have the freedom to teach controversial issues.

“They are just looking for our support,” Webber said.

Danny Pennington, a biology teacher at West Monroe High School, addressed the school board during Tuesday’s meeting.

He helped poll local teachers and agrees that most of them are scared to teach these controversial issues for fear of backlash from the public.

“Darwin has three chapters where he questions his own theory,” Pennington said. “Now, if Darwin questioned it, why can’t we?”

“All we want to do as teachers is be able to teach both sides and strive for a fair result,” Pennington said

"Board Gives Teachers 'academic Freedom'" (Emphasis added).

Posted by Anika Smith at 12:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As I noted earlier, some Darwinists have contacted me insisting that not all freshmen were required to attend the lecture by anti-ID philosopher Robert Pennock at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) (first described here). I felt it was clear that freshmen were required to attend the lecture, given that UCSD's main student website, Tritonlink, stated, "All first-quarter freshmen are required to attend the event." Wanting to be diligent, I decided to contact organizers of the lecture to find out the facts. What I found was that, when Darwinists inquired, they were given different answers than I was given. Additionally, I gained fascinating insight into the mindset of Robert Pennock himself.

One Answer for Darwinists, a Different Answer for Me
One person I contacted regarding Pennock's lecture was the provost of UCSD's 6th College, Dr. Gabriele Wienhausen. Originally, I asked her, "Were all UCSD freshmen were required to attend Dr. Pennock's lecture? If the answer is 'no', why did Tritonlink say otherwise?" She wrote me back confirming that 6th college freshmen in the CAT I course were required to attend but stated she did not know about requirements pertaining from UCSD's other colleges. She wrote me: "I do not know what the TritonLink main page stated. I realize that my answer only applies to a subset of freshmen - but that is all I know." (emphasis added)

A Darwinist professor at UCSD then wrote Dr. Wienhausen inquiring about this, and she told him, "Did the other colleges require their freshmen to come? No, they strongly encouraged their students." (emphasis added)

Obviously, Dr. Wienhausen gave the Darwinist UCSD professor a different answer than she gave me. She told me she didn't know anything about the requirements of the other colleges at UCSD, but she plainly answered the professor's questions and told him that the other colleges did NOT require their freshmen to attend (they only "strongly encouraged their students" to attend). I therefore felt that prudence required that I again inquire into the situation. Thus I subsequently wrote Dr. Wienhausen the following in an e-mail:

UCSD Professor [Snip] forwarded me your response to him regarding Robert Pennock's lecture at UCSD. You had told me you did not know about requirements for freshmen outside of 6th college, but you told Dr. [Snip] that other colleges did not require their students to attend. As you gave Dr. [Snip] a different answer than you gave me, I wonder what additional information you have learned since you last wrote me.

I also asked her, "If Tritonlink was incorrect, will Tritonlink be posting a correction or retraction?" She wrote me back saying: "Dear Mr. Luskin, I have no additional information." (emphasis added)

Hmmm. So originally Dr. Wienhausen told me she didn't know anything about the requirements of other colleges. Then a Darwinist writes her and she gives a different answer saying other colleges did not require their students to attend. I write her back asking if she learned something new since our original correspondence, and she says "I have no additional information." Why can't this Darwinist administrator at UCSD simply answer my honest questions and give consistent answers to people? Regardless, if I take her claims written to me at face value, she presently has said nothing to me to retract the claim that all UCSD freshmen were required to attend.

Robert Pennock's Advice to Dr. Wienhausen
The most fascinating part of this investigation is what Robert Pennock apparently wrote Dr. Wienhausen, according to the e-mail forwarded to me by the Darwinist professor at UCSD. Pennock wrote quite a bit, including a section I leave off where he misinterprets something I wrote, which I have now clarified. But I include this highlight to reveal the mindset of Pennock. Pennock reportedly wrote to Dr. Gabriele Wienhausen:

The article on the Discovery Institute website about my talk (actually prior to my talk) is standard propaganda from these guys and filled with their usual deceptions and factual mistakes. They make these misleading claims all the time in public, but when under oath on the stand, the ID expert witnesses all had to admit that ID introduces the supernatural and that this violates the ground rules of science. (emphasis added)

But where in the Kitzmiller record did ID proponents "admit that ID introduces the supernatural"? At trial, when Scott Minnich was "whether intelligent design requires the action of a supernatural creator," he stated, "It does not." (Scott Minnich, Testimony Transcript, pgs. 45-46 [Kitzmiller v. Dover, afternoon session, Nov. 3, 2005].) When Michael Behe was asked essentially the same question, he also replied, "No, it doesn't." (Michael Behe, Testimony Transcript, pg. 86 [Kitzmiller v. Dover, morning session, Oct. 17, 2005].) As I explained in my original post about Pennock's lecture, the Of Pandas and People textbook makes precisely the same point-in passages which Robert Pennock completely ignored in his testimony.

How does Pennock rebut this plain evidence? He does not provide a rebuttal to my arguments about intelligent design and the supernatural, but rather advises a university provost that anything coming from the pro-ID viewpoint is "standard propaganda" filled with "their usual deceptions and factual mistakes." This shows that the Darwinist tactic of instructing people to 'shut their minds and ignore other arguments because our critics are all liars' extends to Pennock's involvement in the highest levels of academia. When people have to demonize their opponents to keep colleagues from considering the opposing arguments, that should tell you something about the strength of their position.

Perhaps next time there's a trial about intelligent design, Robert Pennock can be questioned on cross-examination about his statement to Dr. Wienhausen so the judge can learn Pennock's true views about intelligent design.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 6:12 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Since my post on "junk-DNA" last week, I would like to report a couple interesting discoveries on the topic.

Wonderful List of References for Functionality of "Junk-DNA"
I discovered a website at http://www.junkdna.com/new_citations.html which has compiled dozens of citations to articles discussing functionality for non-coding junk-DNA. The site also provides two quotations readers should consider:

"...a certain amount of hubris was required for anyone to call any part of the genome 'junk'." — Francis Collins (2006)

"You only believe theories when they make predictions confirmed by scientific evidence."

Star Trek Promotes the "Introns are Evolutionary Junk" Myth
Last last night I was amused by watching an episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation. The episode, called "Genesis," featured the Enterprise crew "devolving" because of the junk in their introns. The episode called introns mere "evolutionary holdovers." As the episode description states, "Data explains that a synthetic T-cell has infected the crew and activated their introns-dormant genetic codes held over from earlier evolutionary times."

But of course, our intronic DNA is not merely "dormant genetic codes held over from earlier evolutionary times" but rather plays a vital role in cellular processes. As discussed earlier, this "evolutionary holdovers" viewpoint may have led to what a geneticist quoted in Scientific American called "one of biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology." It appears that Star Trek is also promoting the Neo-Darwinian myth that introns are junk.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 1:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

No one seriously thinks Brian Greene — he of multiverse fame — is an intelligent design proponent. I'm fairly certain he doesn't see himself as one. Yet he is speculating on the possibility of scientists being able to create their own universes . . . so maybe he should be called something like a proponent of intentional formation of natural universes theory. Regardless, NPR's All Things Considered recently had a story on all the speculation about this:

One day (far off, no doubt), it may be possible to go into a laboratory on Earth, create a "seed" -- a device that could grow into a universe -- and then there would have to be a way to get that seed, on command, to safely expand into a separate, infinite, unexplorable but very real alternate universe.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 11:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As we recently reported, the Ouachita Parish School Board in Monroe, Louisiana, has passed a policy protecting Academic Freedom to Teach Scientific Evidence Regarding Controversial Scientific Subjects. The policy observes that "some teachers may be unsure of the district's expectations concerning how they should present information on such subjects" and guarantees teachers the academic freedom to teach both scientific strengths and weaknesses of controversial scientific subjects:

Toward this end, teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught.

What could be less objectionable? Indeed, according to an article in the News Star in Monroe, Louisiana, a local attorney for the ACLU conceded that "On its face, it is not objectionable." So in order to attack the policy, he had to invent assertions that equate teaching scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution with inserting religion into schools:

[Charles] Kincade said that the policy itself is very innocuous and vague in its language. "On its face, it is not objectionable, but in reality, it is people trying to get a foothold on religion in schools."

("School Board Commended for Science Education" by Barbara Leader (Page 1B), News Star, December 1, 2006)

Barry Lynn similarly jumped to the conclusion that the policy is really "an underhanded way to undercut the theory of evolution" and claimed, "There isn't a scientific controversy. There's a religious one."

But of course both Lynn's and Kincade's organizations (Americans United and the ACLU, respectively) have already agreed that "any genuinely scientific evidence for or against any explanation of life may be taught." (See Religion In The Public Schools: A Joint Statement Of Current Law.) Ouachita's resolution recognizes this fact, writing that "diverse organizations including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and American Civil Liberties Union have acknowledged that 'any genuinely scientific evidence for or against any explanation of life may be taught'." And Ouachita's policy sanctions nothing more and nothing less than what these Darwinists groups already supposedly supported.

There are legitimate scientific criticisms of key aspects of Neo-Darwinism, and teaching them would improve scientific instruction over controversial subjects like evolution. But apparently for critics of the policy like Barry Lynn and Charles Kincade, freedom of inquiry and academic freedom should not be given to students and teachers if it might not fully and wholly support Neo-Darwinism. Where is American United and the ACLU's support for academic freedom now?

Posted by Casey Luskin at 8:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Mark Farmer has responded to Larry Caldwell's original post about Farmer's e-mails to Quality Science Education for All. Readers can decide for themselves whether Farmer's explanation of what he wrote fits the tone of his original e-mails to Caldwell where Caldwell reported that Farmer enthusiastically asked: "Specifically I would like to know whether or not you support the word of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ being taught in our public schools. This is an issue I feel very strongly about and would need to know your position before making a decision to financially support QSEA."

Caldwell responded saying:

Thank you for posting Mark Farmer's response to my blog post. Farmer's response is full of contradictions that might be amusing to pick apart, but he really doesn't refute what we said in the post --we caught a fervent non-creationist Episcopalian Evolutionist who publicly opposes including religious teachings in biology posing as a Creationist who advocates including religious teachings in biology.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 6:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As noted here, Ouachita Parish around Monroe, Louisiana recently passed a policy on academic freedom for teaching controversial scientific subjects. Here is the text of Ouachita Parish's new resolution on academic freedom as well as their new their curricular policy:

From http://www.opsb.net/downloads/forms/Ouachita_Parish_Science_Curriculum_Policy.pdf

Ouachita Parish Science Curriculum Policy Adopted November 29, 2006

RESOLUTION ON TEACHER ACADEMIC FREEDOM TO TEACH SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE REGARDING CONTROVERSIAL SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS:

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Constitution declares that among the legitimate ends of government is “to promote the …education … of the people….” (1), and;

WHEREAS, Congress in 2001 declared that “Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society." (2), and;

WHEREAS, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that it is possible for “scientific critiques of prevailing scientific theories [to] be taught” (3), and;

WHEREAS, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has found that it is legitimate for school districts to pass curricular policies for such purposes as advancing critical thinking, fostering informed freedom of belief, and to disclaim any intent to impose an orthodoxy of belief on students (4), and;

WHEREAS, diverse organizations including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and American Civil Liberties Union have acknowledged that “any genuinely scientific evidence for or against any explanation of life may be taught” (5), and;

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education has promulgated certain Science Framework, and;

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Science Framework at page 11 holds that, "scientific information is continuously open to review and modification" (6), and;

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Science Framework at page 11 further states that, "for scientific ideas to become widely accepted, peers must review, analyze, and critique results" (7), and;

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Science Framework at page 19 declares that, "the process of scientific inquiry involves 'thinking critically and logically about the relationships between evidence and explanations, constructing and analyzing alternative explanations, and communicating scientific arguments'" (8), and;

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Science Framework at page 12 indicates that science should be "presented as a... continuing process for extending understanding of the ultimate, unalterable truth" (9), and;

WHEREAS, it has come to the attention of this Board that some science teachers in the parish school system are uncertain of what can be taught about particular scientific theories;

THEREFORE, the Board of Education of Ouachita Parish School District adopts the following policy and directs that it be inserted in the District’s listing of curriculum and instruction policies which is posted online at www.opsb.net.

---

TEACHER ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN SCIENCE EDUCATION WHEN COVERING CONTROVERSIAL SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS:

The Ouachita School District understands that the purpose of science education is to inform students about the scientific evidence and to help them develop critical thinking skills they need in order to become scientifically minded citizens. The District also understands that the teaching of some scientific subjects, such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning, can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the District’s expectations concerning how they should present information on such subjects.

The District shall endeavor to create an environment within the schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately to differences of opinion about controversial issues. The District shall also endeavor to assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies. Toward this end, teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught.

***************

----------------------------------------------
Footnotes:
(1) Louisiana Constitution, Preamble.
(2) H.R. 1 - "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001": Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference, Title I, Part A, item 78,
edworkforce.house.gov].
(3) Edwards v. Aguillard, 107 S.Ct. 2573, 2583 (1987).
(4) Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education, 185 F.3d 337, 344-46 (5th Cir. 1999).
(5) Joint Statement of Current Law on Religion in the Public Schools (4/12/1995) Religion In The Public Schools: A Joint Statement Of Current Law
http://www.aclu.org/religion/schools/16146leg19950412.html (Accessed July 20, 2006).
(6) Louisiana Science Framework, page 11.
(7) Ibid.
(8) Ibid, page 19.
(9) Ibid, page 12.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 6:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Monroe, LA – The Ouachita Parish School Board in Louisiana drew praise this week for adopting a Resolution on Teacher Academic Freedom to Teach Scientific Evidence Regarding Controversial Scientific Subjects. The policy states in part that “teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught.”

“We’re very happy to see them take a stand protecting the academic freedom of teachers to answer student questions and discuss scientific issues in the classroom,” said Casey Luskin, an attorney and education policy specialist with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. “Teachers are the real winners in this case because they now have clear protection to help their students analyze all aspects of controversial scientific issues without worrying whether or not they will be fired or censored by their school district.”

The policy was passed after teachers expressed a desire for clarification of their rights. Ouachita Parish supported those teachers by noting that the Board “understands that the teaching of some scientific subjects such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming and human cloning, can cause controversy and that some teachers may be unsure of the district's expectations concerning how they should present information on such subjects.”

“There is a disturbing trend of teachers, students and scientists coming under attack for questioning evolution,” said Luskin. “Free speech and academic freedom are cherished principles in America and too important to be sacrificed to the intolerant demands of extremists on any issue.”

Discovery Institute is the nation’s leading public policy center that defends the rights of teachers and students to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution. The Institute has a national program to defend the rights of scientists, teachers, and students who are being threatened because they dare to raise critical questions about evolution. For more information, visit www.discovery.org/csc.

Posted by Anika Smith at 5:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Over the years, many (though not all) Darwinists have stated that non-coding DNA is not worth exploring because it is thought to be mere evolutionary junk. In 2003, Scientific American explained that “the introns within genes and the long stretches of intergenic DNA between genes, Mattick says, ‘were immediately assumed to be evolutionary junk.’” John S. Mattick, director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia was then quoted saying this might have been “one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology.” (Wayt T. Gibbs, “The Unseen Genome: Gems Among the Junk,” Scientific American (Nov. 2003), emphasis added)

Of course known functionality for non-coding DNA now goes far beyond intronic DNA. Early last month Nature reported that the “junk” is responsible for coding for many of the differences between humans and chimps (see Erika Check, “It’s the junk that makes us human,” Nature, 444:130 (Nov. 9, 2006)). Then just a couple of weeks ago, Nature again reports on function for junk DNA, noting an incredible level of multi-layered codes within our DNA:

That DNA contained at least one code was realized as soon as the molecule’s structure was discovered. That code, cracked in the 1950s and 1960s, parses passages of DNA into threeletter combinations that correspond to particular amino acids. This is a code in the strictest sense; input determines output. But researchers now know that there are numerous other layers of biological information in DNA, interspersed between, or superimposed on, the passages written in the triplet code. Human DNA contains tissue-specific information that instructs brain or muscle cells to produce the suite of proteins that make them brain or muscle cells. Other signals in the sequence help decide at what points DNA should coil around its scaffolds of structural proteins. These are the codes that computer buffs such as Shepherd want to crack with raw processing power … [M]any stretches of DNA in humans and other organisms manage to multi task: a sequence can code for a protein and still manage to guide the position of a nucleosome.

(Helen Pearson, "Genetic information Codes and enigmas," Nature, 444:259 (Nov. 16, 2006).)

It is revealing to see the scientific community invoking analogies of language, syntax, and using code-breaking methods via computer software to detect multi-layered meanings in the genetic code. This makes the article’s assertion that “[t]his elegance is surely the handiwork of evolution” difficult to take seriously. The code, with its multi-layered complexity, bears the signature of an intelligent coder.

Science Stopping
But it appears that Darwinists are still poised to make the same mistake they made with introns. When analyzing some non-random patterns which seem to correlate over long stretches of DNA, one biologist continued to go with the “junk” hypothesis:

Today, these correlations are thought to be real — but interest in them has faded because, despite researchers’ best efforts, the patterns have not revealed anything biologically important. Perhaps, suggests Ivo Grosse of the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben, Germany, the patterns could simply be traces of random evolutionary processes, such as the erosion patterns elegantly but accidentally carved into sandstone by the wind. “Long-range correlations definitely do exist, but I don’t think it’s some supercode imprinted in DNA,” Grosse says. “We just stumbled on a feature with probably no deep biological meaning.” (Genetic information Codes and enigmas)

According to Nature, “interest in them has faded” because scientists are having difficulty figuring out their function, so they simply assume the patterns represent “traces of random evolutionary processes.” This shows that when scientists face difficulties understanding something, Neo-Darwinism can sometimes be a science-stopper—or at least science-delayer, in this case. It is incredible that Darwinists have levied this charge for so long at intelligent design when intelligent design provides a useful heuristic for understanding biological complexity while Darwinism often gets stuck and assumes that non-coding DNA is junk.

The Intelligent Design Approach
ID-proponents have been suggesting a different approach for a while now.

In 1994, ID-proponent Forrest Mims predicted that non-coding “junk” DNA would have function, writing a letter to Science, “Those supposedly meaningless strands of filler DNA that molecular biologists refer to as ‘junk’ don't necessarily appear so useless to those of us who have designed and written code for digital controllers.”

Science rejected the letter, but in 1998, long before the "junk-DNA" revolution was in full swing, William Dembski predicted function for non-coding "junk"-DNA based upon intelligent design:

But design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term "junk DNA." Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as "junk" merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. For instance, in a recent issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology, John Bodnar describes how "non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development." Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it.

(William Dembski, "Intelligent Science and Design," First Things, Vol. 86:21-27 (October 1998))

Finally, in 2004 Jonathan Wells wrote, “research shows that ‘junk DNA’ does, indeed, have previously unsuspected functions. Although that research was done in a Darwinian framework, its results came as a complete surprise to people trying to ask Darwinian research questions. The fact that ‘junk DNA’ is not junk has emerged not because of evolutionary theory but in spite of it. On the other hand, people asking research questions in an ID framework would presumably have been looking for the functions of non-coding regions of DNA all along, and we might now know considerably more about them.” (Jonathan Wells, “Using Intelligent Design Theory to Guide Scientific Research,” Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design, 3.1.2 (Nov. 2004), emphasis in original)

Perhaps it’s time for a new approach to “junk” DNA.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 7:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)