CSC senior fellow and Acton Institute Research Fellow Jay Richards was interviewed by The Christian Post about the current controversy over the Darwin vs. Design conference coming up at SMU next month. As if often the case, the question of how evolution should be taught is more pressing for reporters than the scientific evidence at the foundation of either Darwinism or intelligent design. So, how does Richard's weigh in on the what should be taught question?

I do think that the biggest impediment for ID getting a better hearing is what I would call a ‘Scope’s Monkey Trial stereotype.’ In part, it’s this idea from American history since 1925 that conveys whether a teacher can express Darwin’s theory of evolution. At that time, the issue was whether the state could suppress the discussion of Darwinism. The issue actually has fled to the opposite direction since then. So now the question is whether the teacher is even free to discuss criticism of Darwinism. Now, even if the teacher tries to raise criticism of Darwinism apart from an argument for intelligent design, they can find themselves a target of a lawsuit.

Richards is no one trick pony. See here for his latest film endeavor, "The Call of the Entrepreneur," which will be highlighted at a special Discovery Institute screening in April.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 9:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This fourth and final installment of a critique of Elliott Sober’s recent article entitled “What is Wrong With Intelligent Design?” will show some final problems Sober's claim that ID is not testable because, he alleges, ID can always regress to a higher level of design. In Part I, I explained some problems with Sober's history of ID, and in Part II, I explained how Sober eschews ad hoc explanations while ignoring how modern neo-Darwinism commonly invokes them. In Part III, I explained that Sober ignores the testable predictions of ID. In this final installment I will show that Sober is wrong to claim that ID is not testable because he bases his argument on the false claim that ID permits the possibility that a designer produced a universe where natural processes can produce novel specified complexity on their own.

Designer-Regress?
Sober objects to the prediction that ID creates certain types of complexity by claiming that if “purely physical antecedents” are shown to produce complexity, then ID proponents will just claim those “purely physical antecedents” were themselves designed. In other words, he thinks that ID proponents can always appeal to higher levels of design to save the theory. His example is the printing presses, a physical machine, which can reprint intelligently designed information. His implication is that we might treat nature like a printing press--asserting that Darwinian processes themselves were designed to create information. In his view, this makes ID an untestable theory because whenever real design is lacking, we'll always appeal to higher, untestable levels of design.

But the printing press gives an inappropriate example because of course we know that printing presses are designed, and we do not find printing presses in nature. The question is not “can processes which we know are human-designed re-transmit information and complexity?” but rather “can processes we find at work in nature generate novel specified and complex information?”

Intelligent design is making real claims, not untestable speculations like Sober puts it. William Dembski explains this point:

According to the theory of intelligent design, the specified complexity exhibited in living forms convincingly demonstrates that blind natural processes could not by themselves have produced those forms but that their emergence also required the contribution of a designing intelligence. The design found in nature therefore exhibits that nature is incomplete. In other words, nature exhibits design that nature is unable to account for.” (Dembski, The Design Revolution, pg. 147, emphasis added)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 8:04 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We recently reported on a major ID conference in Istanbul, which was organized in part by Mustafa Akyol. Now today, Post-Darwinist highlights an interview with Akyol about what it is that Easterners find discomfiting about Westerners.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 4:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A short time ago I posted a story on the celebration in London of the 150th birthday of Karl Pearson, one of the fathers of mathematical statistics and an ardent Darwinist and eugenicist. The celebration focused on Pearson’s contribution to mathematical statistics, which was substantial, but neglected his contribution to eugenics, which was substantial, too.

The only word that Darwinists use less frequently than ‘design’ is ‘eugenics’. It‘s disappeared down the Darwin memory hole following the Second World War because the Nazi programs that applied Darwinism to medicine made the real nature of eugenics so apparent that it could no longer be denied. So it was forgotten.

Eugenics is the application of the principles of animal breeding to medicine and to human society. It depends entirely on a denial of the sanctity of human life. Its modern scientific foundation is Darwinism.

The ideology that drives Darwinism and eugenics is materialism. Philosophical materialism is the assertion that all existence is ‘atoms in the void’ — the only thing that exists is matter in motion. Materialism is a denial of the existence of God, and of any transcendence or meaning in human life. Darwin provided materialism with a creation myth.

Just as Darwinism is still very much alive, eugenics is alive as well, but cleaner and quieter than it used to be. We have sperm and egg banks that systematically select donors for their appearance and for their intelligence. We have routine antenatal genetic testing and abortion of handicapped babies. There is a growing acceptance of euthanasia in the United States and Europe. Babies with spina bifida in Holland are routinely killed in the nursery with lethal injections. Support for assisted suicide is growing, and the recent killing of a helpless, severely brain-damaged woman by starvation was accepted by the American judicial system. A hundred years ago, it was a lot safer to be an unborn baby with Down’s syndrome in the United States, or a newborn with spina bifida in Holland, than it is now.

So, in coming posts, I’m going to recount the lives and work of the eugenicists, and recount the important events in the history of eugenics. Eugenics is the only meaningful idea that Darwin contributed to medicine. It’s fitting to remember the birthdays of these Darwinists who worked with such fervor to ensure that people they deemed inferior to themselves never had birthdays.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 3:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Philosopher Elliott Sober recently published an article entitled, “What is Wrong With Intelligent Design?” which claimed that intelligent design is not testable. In Part I, I rebutted Sober's early history of intelligent design. Part II explained how Sober made the curious charge that auxiliary prediction weaken the testability of a scientific theory, something which Darwinists are famous for doing. This third installment will assess Sober’s characterization of ID and explain how Sober ignores positive predictions of intelligent design. Sober misses 2 key points about intelligent design, leading him to false conclusions:

(1) It’s simple: intelligent design detects the past action of intelligence, nothing more, and nothing less

Sober states: “We have no independent evidence concerning which auxiliary propositions about the putative designer’s goals and abilities are true.” That’s not correct. While the "goals" of the designer may be beyond the reach of the scientific inquiry, ID does make claims about the "abilities" of the designer. Sober then provides quotes from design-proponents, and he fails to recognize that they always refer to detecting intelligence! We understand the abilities of an intelligent agent and we understand what intelligence produces (discussed below). Sober doubly misrepresents ID: He wrongly expects ID to identify the "goals" of the designer, but then fails to recognize that ID identifies the "abilities" of the designer.

(2) Studies of intelligence show that a unique hallmark of intelligence is its ability to produce high levels of complex and specified information.

Intelligence is a feature we understand and comprehend from our studies of human intelligence in the natural world. From these studies, William Dembski explains that “the primarily, empirically verifiable thing that intelligences do is generate specified complexity.” (Dembski, The Design Revolution, pg. 194). But does the generation of specified complexity make ID testable in a “comparative” sense (see Part II) with respect to neo-Darwinism? Yes, it does.

Dembski explains that natural processes like the neo-Darwinian mechanism do not generate high levels of specified complexity:

[Intelligent design is] a fully scientific claim and follows directly from the complexity-specification criterion. In particular this is not an argument from ignorance. Just as physicists reject perpetual motion machines because of what they know about the inherent constraints on energy and matter, so too design theorists reject any naturalistic reduction of specified complexity because of what they know about the inherent constraints on natural causes. Natural causes are too stupid to keep pace with intelligent causes. Intelligent design theory provides a rigorous scientific demonstration of this long-standing intuition. Let me stress, the complexity-specification criterion is not a principle that comes to us demanding our unexamined acceptance--it is not an article of faith. Rather it is the outcome of a careful and sustained argument about the precise interrelationships between necessity, chance and design.

(William Dembski, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, pg. 223 (InterVarsity Press, 1999).)

Sober Botches Irreducible Complexity
Similarly, Sober also ignores that irreducible complexity is a unique indicator of intelligent design, but he states that irreducible complexity “does nothing to test ID. For ID to be testable, it must make predictions.” Claiming that irreducible complexity is nothing more than a critique of evolution, Sober writes “The fact that a different theory makes a prediction says nothing about whether ID is testable. Behe has merely changed the subject.” Here, Sober is repeating the Darwinist plaintiffs' arguments in the Kitzmiller case. But Sober misrepresents ID and ignores the fact that ID theorists have argued extensively that irreducible complexity is not just a negative argument against evolution, but also a positive indicator of design. Behe writes:

[I]rreducibly complex systems such as mousetraps and flagella serve both as negative arguments against gradualistic explanations like Darwin’s and as positive arguments for design. The negative argument is that such interactive systems resist explanation by the tiny steps that a Darwinian path would be expected to take. The positive argument is that their parts appear arranged to serve a purpose, which is exactly how we detect design.

(Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, Afterward, pgs. 263-264 (Free Press, Reprint, 2006), emphasis added.)

Molecular machines display a key signature or hallmark of design, namely, irreducible complexity. In 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. Given that neither standard neo-Darwinism, nor co-option has adequately accounted for the origin of these machines, or the appearance of design that they manifest, one might now consider the design hypothesis as the best explanation for the origin of irreducibly complex systems in living organisms. … Although some may argue this is a merely an argument from ignorance, we regard it as an inference to the best explanation, given what we know about the powers of intelligent as opposed to strictly natural or material causes.

(Scott A. Minnich & Stephen C. Meyer, Genetic analysis of coordinate flagellar and type III regulatory circuits in pathogenic bacteria, in Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Design & Nature.)

Incredibly, Sober makes no mention of the fact that design proponents have formulated irreducible complexity or specified complexity as positive indicators and predictions of design. He completely ignores these in order to make his central point that ID makes no positive predictions.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 2:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The length some Darwinists have gone to in their efforts to deny that Haeckel’s embryo drawings were fraudulently used in modern biology textbooks has made for some interesting reading over the years. That these efforts were often used to paint intelligent design scientists such as Jonathan Wells as liars is even more outrageous. Where is the evidence for these claims? Or, as Casey Luskin puts it in a new article, “What Do Modern Textbooks Really Say about Haeckel’s Embryos?”

Luskin gives his reasons for analyzing no fewer than ten modern textbooks as follows:

Many Darwinists are scurrying around on their blogs and at movie screenings, trying to rewrite history by claiming that Haeckel’s embryo drawings were never used in modern textbooks. In a contradictory claim, some then concede that modern textbooks did use the drawings but argue that Haeckel’s work was only cited to provide some historical context to evolutionary theory—they assert that Haeckel’s fraudulent drawings are not used to promote evolution in modern textbooks. They are wrong on both counts.

Posted by Anika Smith at 1:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This last weekend, I attended Timberlake Wertenbaker's play "After Darwin" at D.C.'s Church Street Theater.

The first thing to note is that the man playing Darwin looks uncannily like Steve Meyer. Go figure.

Second, the play is set up in a series of Inherit the Wind-induced stereotypes. It is Fitzroy vs. Darwin, the Bible vs. Science, from the get-go—where Fitzroy is pro-flogging and Darwin the enlightened liberal is opposed, and on and on. This was unfortunate. Even if these things were to be historically true, the impression given (to me, at least) is that this has applicability for today, which is false.

And finally, the important part of the play centers around a moral dilemma facing one of the characters. You see, it is a play within a play—so there are Darwin and Fitzroy, but then there are also the actors playing each. "After Darwin" cuts back and forth from the rehearsal of a play about Darwin to the actors themselves. Each of the characters faces a moral dilemma—but it is universally agreed by the characters that Darwin’s theory has destroyed morality. So the moral dilemma of one of the actors is difficult for the characters to come to grips with. In the end, one of the characters (a biology professor who wrote the play-within-the-play) says that he knows morality has evolved, but he feels moral obligation nonetheless, so he abides by it best he can.

Now I do not think Wertenbaker intends the play to come off this way, but the whole thing struck me as a reductio ad absurdum. When the professor chose to follow the dictates of morality at all costs—despite claiming to know that morality has only evolved—it seemed to me to show the ridiculousness of the claim that morality has evolved.

It was like seeing a cartoon character standing on the branch which he has sawed off. Sadly, this dramatic climax was probably meant to show that evolution is mystically strong indeed, and so we might have trouble breaking from the illusion that morality exists. That is, it was probably meant to show, in a post-modern sort of way, that we just have to live with the existing tension and contradiction “after Darwin.”

All of this seems to me, however, to undermine the case for neo-Darwinism. If neo-Darwinism has implications that contradict our everyday experience of the world, so much the worse for the theory, in my mind—especially if one is, as I am, already dubious as to its scientific merit.

Posted by Logan Gage at 12:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If you want a clear example of Darwinist sleight-of-hand, read the Panda’s Thumb tirade about my posts on the relevance of Darwinism to modern medicine (here). My interlocutors, between puns on my name, insults and obscenities, raise off-point topics that evade the central issue: is Darwinism, which is the assertion that all biological complexity has arisen by random heritable variation and natural selection, relevant to the practice of medicine? Several bloggers raised the standard Darwinist trope about bacterial antibiotic resistance. This issue is an important source of misunderstanding about the application of Darwin’s theory to medicine.

The Darwinist assertion that random variation and natural selection (chance and necessity) account for all biological complexity has nothing to do with the mundane observation that it’s unwise to unnecessarily expose populations of bacteria to antibiotics. The observation that an antibiotic will kill the bacteria that are killed by it, and the antibiotic will not kill the bacteria that are not killed by it, is a tautology. If you expose a population of bacteria to antibiotics, the unkilled ones will, over time, outnumber the killed ones. The unkilled ones will be the ones that are resistant to the antibiotics. Think about it. That's Darwinism's seminal contribution to our understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

Preventing the emergence of resistant strains of bacteria is important work, but the insight that Darwinism brings to the problem — the unkilled ones eventually outnumber the killed ones — is of no help. We can figure that out ourselves. The tough work on preventing the emergence of resistant bacteria is done by microbiologists, epidemiologists, molecular geneticists, pharmacologists, and physicians who are infectious disease specialists. Darwinism, understood as the view that “chance and necessity” explains all biological complexity, plays no role.

The Darwinist modus operandi for a century and a half has been to slip a philosophical agenda — scientific materialism — in with the science. They hijack other fields of biology — microbiology, population biology, epidemiology, genetics, etc — then they assert that Darwinism is essential to those fields, then they claim that the hypothesis that random variation and natural selection is the origin of all biological complexity is a “fact” supported by overwhelming evidence. When challenged, they prove the “fact” of scientific materialism by doing a Pub-Med search for thousands of tangential articles from the fields they've hijacked.

Not a single Darwinist in this debate has addressed the issue of how their trivial contribution to our understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics-'unkilled bacteria will eventually outnumber killed ones'- in any way supports the assertion that all biological complexity is the result of random variation and natural selection.

Darwinists are hoping that people don’t notice this non-sequitur. The reason for their rage at intelligent design advocates is that we have noticed it.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 7:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

It isn't just profs in SMU's Ivory Tower that are afraid of students learning more about the failings of Darwinian evolution. In New Mexico recently an attempt to ensure academic freedom in line with the state's educational standards has been opposed by local, dogmatic Darwin-only lobbyists. Joe Renick of ID Net New Mexico today has an opinion piece, Fear of Exposure, that shows the intolerance of the Darwinists in regard to any views but their own.

Unhappy with the thought that scientific views different than their own might be discussed in science classes, the Darwinists avoid the science debate entirely (as usual) and accuse the backers of academic freedom of wanting to insert religion into the science curriculum.

The principle objectives of this legislation are to "give teachers the right and freedom, when a theory of biological origins is taught, to objectively inform students of scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses of that theory and protect teachers from reassignment, termination, discipline or other discrimination for doing so," and to give students the "right and freedom to reach their own conclusions about biological origins."
Thomas warns that while the bill is about academic freedom, its intent is to teach creationism in the science classroom.
Having assisted in the drafting of this legislation, I can say that it says what it means and means what it says - nothing different, nothing more and nothing less.
There is a lawyer's adage that says, "If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If the law is on your side, argue the law. If neither are on your side, change the subject and go after the motives of your opponent."

Now, when legislation is put forward that would ensure that the free speech rights of scientists and eductors aren't trampled by Darwinist thought police, we see the ugly face of censorship.

Again I ask, what is so dangerous about this discussion going forward?

Joe Renick concludes by offering an answer to that question:

It is academic freedom the Darwinists fear because it will expose the weakness of the evolutionary theory.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 4:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

First Darwinists at SMU demanded that the school keep the debate over Darwin off-campus, arguing for the Darwin vs. Design conference to be cancelled and denied use of campus facilities. Now their attempts at censorship have sparked more controversy than they intended, as evidenced by a response printed in the SMU Daily Campus:

I was amused to read that some of the science department faculty at SMU had protested the proposed Intelligent Design Conference.

Isn’t it so typical to see academics who live in mortal fear of viewpoints other than their own? I was particularly amused to read the comments of Dr. Ubelaker, former chair of chemistry, calling the conference “propaganda.” Someone might want to explain to Dr. Ubelaker that propaganda takes place when someone tries to suppress the discussion of ideas. Where is the SMU faculty’s commitment to free and open discussion?

Sincerely,
Larry Bradshaw, Ph.D.
Abilene Christian University

Dr. Bradshaw has it right. Those who really want to educate their students will engage them with the evidence for and against a theory, and they won’t be shy away from alternative explanations. In fact, science faculty at SMU agreed with this proposal as recently as 2005, when biology professor John Wise wrote an opinion article responding to ID-proponent and conference speaker Michael Behe. Then, he said, “What makes science so useful and progress so quickly is the tradition of critically analyzing these alternatives from individuals.”

Now it seems the Biology Department at SMU, along with Geology and Anthropology, want to go against this important tradition in science by keeping this alternative scientific explanation — intelligent design — off-campus, thereby ensuring that their students will be shielded from any theory which challenges the reigning paradigm of Darwinism.

Posted by Anika Smith at 11:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Is Darwinism indispensable to genetics? Darwinists claim that their theory, which is the assertion that all biological complexity arose by random heritable variation and natural selection ("chance and necessity"), is indispensable to modern medicine. What was Darwin’s role in genetics?

He played an important role in classical genetics, in a negative way. In 1865, an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel presented a scientific paper called 'Experiments in Plant Hybridization' at meeting of the Natural History Society of Brno in Moravia. Fr. Mendel found a remarkable pattern of inheritance in experiments on plants in his garden in his monastery. The experiments suggested that heritable factors were, in some cases, particulate, could remain hidden for generations, and sorted according to simple mathematical rules. According to contemporary records, his paper was ignored, and discussion at the meeting swirled around Charles Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection. Mendel’s seminal work, the basis for classical genetics, was buried for the rest of the 19th century under a Darwinian frenzy.

Modern molecular genetics grew out of the work of James Watson and Francis Crick in Cambridge in the early 1950s. Using x-ray diffraction and information about molecular structure derived from quantum mechanics, Watson and Crick designed scale models of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). The models made it evident that DNA was a double helix, and that the individual components (base pairs) were symbols in a code. Subsequent work translated the genetic code, and revealed that at the core of life there is a symbolic language, with letters (base pairs), words (codons), sentences (genes), directional reading frames, and even punctuation (stop codons).

Darwin’s role in the emergence of molecular genetics was negative, as well. Molecular geneticists worked implicitly from an inference to design, using the principles of reverse engineering applied to biology. The genetic code was translated, and read, like a language. Darwin’s assertion that the raw material for biological complexity is "randomness" was anti-heuristic. It was the inference to design, not the inference to randomness, that led to the understanding and translation of the genetic code. Darwin never predicted, in his theory of chance and necessity, a language at the core of life. The understanding of the genetic code was the direct result of the inference to design in biology.

Former Vice President Al Gore famously claimed to have invented the Internet because years ago he was in the Senate and sponsored a bill. The assertion that Charles Darwin’s theory was indispensable to classical and molecular genetics is a claim of an even lower order. Darwin’s theory impeded the recognition of Mendel’s discovery for a third of a century, and Darwin’s assertion that random variation was the raw material for biological complexity was of no help in decoding the genetic language of DNA. The single incontrovertible Darwinian contribution to the field of medical genetics was eugenics, which is the Darwinian theory that humans can be bred for social and character traits, like animals. The field of medical genetics is still recovering from eugneics, which was Darwin’s only gift to medicine.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 10:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

In Part I, I explained how Elliott Sober's recent attack upon ID in his article entitled “What is Wrong With Intelligent Design?” gave an inaccurate history of intelligent design. This second part will discuss how Sober's reasoning necessarily implies that ID is testable, except for the fact that he applies a double standard and ignores the ad hoc explanations so commonly used by Darwinists to square their theory with the data.

Testing by Comparing Predictions of Theories
Sober concedes that “many formulations of ID are falsifiable” and meet Karl Popper’s famous criteria that a scientific theory must be falsifiable. However, Sober critiques Popper’s usage of falsifiability as a hallmark property of science because he claims it does not always entail robust testability relative to other explanations. Sober prefers a definition of testability where testing is conducted by comparing a theory to other competing theories. He writes: “To develop an account of testability, we must begin by recognizing that testing is typically a comparative enterprise.”

Thus, in Sober's view, ID must make predictions with respect to neo-Darwinism in order for ID to be testable: “If ID is to be tested, it must be tested against one or more competing hypotheses.” His method might be called "relative testability," and it has clear implications for the scientific status of ID: Since Sober measures ID’s testability by comparing it to neo-Darwinism, the implication is that Sober should measure the comparative testability of neo-Darwinism by trying to test it against ID. The unavoidable conclusion is that under Sober’s methodology, ID and neo-Darwinism must have equal, relative testability with respect to one-another. Obviously Sober believes that neo-Darwinian evolution is a scientific theory, so doesn't that mean ID must also qualify as a scientific theory? Yet Sober implies ID is not a scientific theory, revealing a possible double-standard.

In the end, Sober doesn’t even use this "relative testability" methodology. Instead, he ignores the wholly standard formulation of intelligent design in order to claim that it’s untestable. This will be explained more in Part III of this series.

Sober’s Auxiliary Propositions
Sober writes: “It is crucial to the scientific enterprise that auxiliary propositions not simply be invented. By inventing assumptions, we can equip a theory with favorable auxiliary propositions that allow it to fit the data.” Auxiliary assumptions, when misused, are like the epicycles used to defend the long-discarded geocentric model of the solar system: they are post-hoc explanations used to square a theory with contrary data. I agree with Sober's statement here, which makes it all the more curious that Sober fails to recognize how often Darwinists have made auxiliary propositions to square their theory with the data:

The upcoming Darwin vs. Design conference at Southern Method University (SMU) has triggered controversy because some Darwinists are intolerant of discussion of ID taking place too close to their campus offices. When the DvD conference was held in Knoxville recently, the Knoxville News reported that an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Tennessee, Michael Gilchrist, was so concerned that he "petitioned Oak Ridge National Laboratory to remove Darwin vs. Design from its technical calendar." Gilchrist was quoted saying that "It is fine for people to think of these things, but it's a problem when they present it as science." It seems that for Gilchrist, he's OK with any view about ID being promoted as long as it is not the view which says ID is a scientific theory. The press has been sympathetic to free speech rights to discuss this debate over Darwin and design, but it has simultaneously revealed its anti-ID bias and its tendency to distort the arguments of ID proponents in favor of its own view. For example, Dallas Morning News religion reporter Jeffrey Weiss expressed dismay at the intolerance of SMU science faculty:

Not only did the professors misstate the facts, most of the protesters took actions guaranteed to help their opponents. By calling for the university to cancel the event (which was simply not going to happen. Contracts had been signed.), the science profs turned themselves into would-be censors and the ID side into victims standing up for free speech and the free exchange of ideas.

[T]he ID side jousted with me over the use of one word, "supernatural," using what I consider a sort of intellectual dishonesty that has nothing to do with whether ID is right or not, but makes many people suspicious of their point of view. … Their bottom line: To describe the designer as "supernatural" is to limit the identity or nature of the designer. And they don’t want to do that. I’ll use the ID side’s own strategy to explain why I think this is unfair word manipulation.

In contrast to what Mr. Weiss alleges, this is not some attempt to "manipulate" or be "dishonest," because ID-proponents have consistently given the principled explanation that ID's inability to specify the nature or identity of the designer stems from a desire to respect the limits of scientific inquiry. Moreover, ID-proponents are honest about their views on the designer, they just note that these views are their personal religious views and not the conclusions of intelligent design. Phillip Johnson gives a good example of this, writing: "[M]y personal view is that I identify the designer of life with the God of the Bible, although intelligent design theory as such does not entail that." Michael Behe gives another similar example in his quote given below.

Other Pro-ID Scientists and Scholars Agree
Mr. Weiss quotes from "a book co-authored by one of the scheduled presenters at the SMU conference" talking about the design of the universe. However, when it comes to biological design, ID-proponents are clear that the empirical data alone do not determine the nature or identity of the designer. Charles Thaxton, one of the first scientists to adopt "intelligent design" in the early 1980s, stated:

I wasn’t comfortable with the typical vocabulary that for the most part creationists were using because it didn’t express what I was trying to do. They were wanting to bring God into the discussion, and I was wanting to stay within the empirical domain and do what you can do legitimately there.

Surely the intelligent design explanation has unanswered questions of its own. But unanswered questions, which exist on both sides, are an essential part of healthy science; they define the areas of needed research. Questions often expose hidden errors that have impeded the progress of science. For example, the place of intelligent design in science has been troubling for more than a century. That is because on the whole, scientists from within Western culture failed to distinguish between intelligence, which can be recognized by uniform sensory experience, and the supernatural, which cannot. Today we recognize that appeals to intelligent design may be considered in science, as illustrated by current NASA search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Archaeology has pioneered the development of methods for distinguishing the effects of natural and intelligent causes. We should recognize, however, that if we go further, and conclude that the intelligence responsible for biological origins is outside the universe (supernatural) or within it, we do so without the help of science. (Of Pandas and People, 1993, pgs. 126-127, emphasis added)

The most important difference [between modern ID and Paley] is that [ID] is limited to design itself; I strongly emphasize that it is not an argument for the existence of a benevolent God, as Paley's was. I hasten to add that I myself do believe in a benevolent God, and I recognize that philosophy and theology may be able to extend the argument. But a scientific argument for design in biology does not reach that far. Thus while I argue for design, the question of the identity of the designer is left open. Possible candidates for the role of designer include: the God of Christianity; an angel--fallen or not; Plato's demi-urge; some mystical new age force; space aliens from Alpha Centauri; time travelers; or some utterly unknown intelligent being. Of course, some of these possibilities may seem more plausible than others based on information from fields other than science. Nonetheless, as regards the identity of the designer, modern ID theory happily echoes Isaac Newton's phrase hypothesis non fingo. (Michael Behe, "The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis," Philosophia Christi, Series 2, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2001), pg. 165, emphasis added.)

By contrast, intelligent design nowhere attempts to identify the intelligent cause responsible for the design in nature, nor does it prescribe in advance the sequence of events by which this intelligent cause had to act. . . . Intelligent design is modest in what it attributes to the designing intelligence responsible for the specified complexity in nature. For instance, design theorists recognize that the nature, moral character and purposes of this intelligence lie beyond the remit of science. As Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis remark in their text on intelligent design: ‘Science cannot answer this question; it must leave it to religion and philosophy.’ (William A. Dembski, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, pg. 247-248 (InterVarsity Press, 1999))

There is no ‘Made by Yahweh’ engraved on the side of the bacterial rotary motor—the flagellum. In order to find out what or who its designer is, one must go outside the narrow discipline of biology. Cross-disciplinary dialogue must begin with the fields of philosophy, sociology, history, anthropology, and theology. Design itself, however, is a direct scientific inference; it does not depend on a single religious premise for its conclusions. (Thomas Woodward, Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelligent Design, pg. 15 (Baker Books, 2006))

Reporters aren’t supposed to editorialize. They’re supposed to report. This presents a nice case study of how a reporter has imposed his own biases and misunderstandings upon the debate. For some unknown reason, Mr. Weiss refused to print the definition of ID coming from ID-proponents, so he created his own. That’s not reporting — that’s creative writing.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 6:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

William Dembski reports that Ken Miller responded to the BBC Documentary and my recent claim that he misrepresented Dembski's work. In short, Miller now claims he wasn't talking about Dembski and passes the blame on to the BBC for misleading editing and blames "Discovery Institute" for believing what the documentary plainly said. Most of Miller's response blames the BBC documentary's editors for making it appear as if he were talking about Dembski by sandwiching Miller's comments between narrator's comments stating Miller is rebutting Dembski, and interspersing Miller's comments with numerous shots of Dembski. Directly after Miller’s comments, the narrator said, “For Miller, Dembski's math did not add up.” But does Miller’s explanation of the situation now “add up”? Readers can decide for themselves after considering these points:

(1) Miller admits he has a hazy memory of what happened:
Miller writes, "I do not remember the exact question that prompted my response." He claims he doesn't remember the question he was asked, but he claims he does remember he wasn't talking about Dembski. Miller's admission of a fading memory on this matter does not inspire confidence for the things he claims he does remember. After all, in the documentary Miller clearly states he is critiquing the "mathematical tricks employed by intelligent design," and Dembski is widely recognized as the leading mathematical theorist in the ID movement. Dembski seems a likely target for Miller's comments.

(2) Miller has a history of misrepresenting intelligent design arguments:
Miller attempts to pass the blame to Discovery Institute, saying we "should know better," implying we should not think he would misrepresent Dembski. This reminds us how, in 2003, Dembski told Miller that Miller "should know better" than to claim that ID necessarily requires “the direct and active involvement of an outside designer.” Yet in this very BBC documentary, Miller repeats the same false claim, saying, "By the terms of the advocates of intelligent design themselves, the designer creates outside of nature, supernaturally..." (time index 39:25) Shouldn’t Miller “know better” than to make such claims? Based upon this example and many others, we “know” that Miller at times misrepresents the arguments of ID-theorists.

(3) Miller admits that the documentary makes it look like he's talking about Dembski:
Miller admits that the documentary "does mislead the viewer" to think he's talking about Dembski. After all, just before the statements of Miller that I quoted, the narrator states: "Also on his [Miller's] hit list, Dembski's criticism of evolution." Miller then speaks, giving his misrepresentations, while the video simultaneously shows numerous shots of Dembski himself. As noted, directly afterw Miller is done speaking the narrator says, "For Miller, Dembski's math did not add up." Clearly, the BBC Documentary gives every indication that Miller was talking about Dembski. If the editors were fair, then one would presume that the question Miller was asked referred to Dembski, which is why they felt justified in framing this section as a response from Miller to Dembski. But Miller claims (despite a bad memory) that he was not talking about Dembski. If we assume Miller's explanation of the situation is true, then according to Miller's admission that the documentary "does mislead the viewer," then I did nothing wrong. I simply watched the video and took away the message any reasonable viewer would take: the context strongly indicates that Miller was talking about Dembski.

But even if Miller's account is true, this does not let him off the hook:

(4) If Miller wasn't talking about Dembski, he's still promoting a straw man view:
Assuming Miller wasn't talking about Dembski, the question remains: Then what is Ken Miller talking about? We know what Miller did say, but no ID-proponent argues that mere improbability is enough to infer design nor do they argue that some inconsequential but unlikely event (like a hand dealt in a game of cards) is enough to falsify neo-Darwinian evolution. Design theorists acknowledge that improbable events happen all the time. When inferring design, they always couple improbability with some specification. One commenter on Dembski's blog, "gpuccio," explained this point clearly:

As far as I know, nobody in the ID field has ever made the silly argument that Miller criticizes. Everybody, instead, in the ID field, constantly mentions the CSI argument due to Dembski, and so clearly and beautifully explained in many of his writing.

Perhaps the BBC's misleading narration and editing is to blame for part of this problem, but that does not let Miller off the hook. Regardless of whether Miller intended to bring Dembski into this, Miller's rebuttal doesn't address the types of arguments that ID proponents make, especially when it comes to the math behind the theory of ID. If Miller’s explanation is correct, the he seems to misrepresent the arguments of not just William Dembski, but ID in general.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 1:31 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Is Darwinism indispensable to modern medicine? As I noted in an earlier posts here and here, Darwinists usually use three arguments to assert that Darwin’s theory of random variation and natural selection is indispensable to medicine. They claim that Darwinism is necessary for comparative medicine, or that it is necessary for molecular genetics, or that it is necessary for understanding bacterial resistance to antibiotics. All three fields of medicine are obviously important, but Darwinism, understood as the theory that all biological structure arose by random variation and natural selection, is not necessary to understand any of them. In this post, I’ll deal with the first question: is Darwinism essential for an understanding of comparative medicine and comparative biology? No, it’s not.

For several millennia before Darwin, all biology was comparative biology. Before the scientific revolution, biologists spent their time studying and comparing the design of living things. In the 4th century B.C., Aristotle wrote extensively on comparative biology, and classified living things according to structural and functional similarities. The great 2nd century A.D. Roman physician Galen, who was the father of classical anatomy, dissected apes, not humans, and drew inferences to human anatomy from his animal dissections. Andreas Vesalius, the 16th century founder of modern anatomy, dissected humans and corrected Galen’s erroneous extrapolations from animal dissections. The great 17th century physician William Harvey discovered the circulation of blood by extensive physiological studies of animals. It is noteworthy that all these pioneering comparative biologists based their work on the inference that living things were designed.

The father of modern comparative biology was Carolus Linnaeus. The 18th century Swedish physician, botanist and zoologist laid the foundation for modern taxonomy. He advanced the binomial (“genus and species”) system of classification, and his work is the basis for biological nomenclature used throughout the world today. Linnaeus’ system was based on detailed knowledge of the physical similarities and differences between living things. Linnaeus based his classification on his inference that living things were designed.

Was Darwin indispensable to comparative medicine and biology? Consider this. Linnaeus, the father of modern comparitive biology and a devout Lutheran, died during a church service in Uppsala Cathedral on January 10, 1778. That was 31 years and 33 days before Charles Darwin was born.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 5:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

It’s been amusing—and revealing—to observe the recent debates between many in the Darwinist internet community and a professor of neurosurgery, Michael Egnor. A few simple questions have incurred a deluge of ad hominem attacks upon Egnor, mocking his name by calling him an “Egnoramus” who writes “EgnorRants” and using post titles like, “Egnorance: The Egotistical Combination of Ignorance and Arrogance.” In fact, Darwinist attacks upon Egnor are nothing new. Last summer a Darwinist wrote that “Michael Egnor is a Crappy Neurosurgeon Who Will Cut out Your Brain and Eat It,” and compared Egnor’s arguments to taking “a big ol' steaming s*** on a piece of paper and want[ing] that taught as science.” More recently, Egnor pointed out the viciousness of Darwinist attacks upon Michael Behe. Egnor was then greeted with telling replies from Darwinist commenters on PZ Myers’ blog who wrote things like: “let me say,as [sic] gently and politely as possible, that on this Egnor is full of s***,” and explained away Behe's perseverance through the attacks by saying “if idiots couldn't weather having their idiocy pointed out to them, they wouldn't BE idiots now, would they.” Yet for all their numbers and name-calling, not a single one has answered Egnor’s question: How does Darwinian mechanisms produce new biological information?

One Darwinist was so angry that he wrote in response to Egnor, “I'm deliberately not linking to the [Egnor interview] podcast; I will not help increase the hit-count that DI will use to promote it's [sic] agenda of willful ignorance.” I’ll gladly link to this Darwinist because this Darwinist mathematician’s irrelevant stammering about the definition of tautology never addresses Egnor’s point that we don’t really need Darwin to achieve the mundane insight that bacteria which are immune to drugs are going to survive. The mathematician’s angry tone proves Egnor’s private statement to me: “Chesterton once wrote that insanity isn't a matter of losing your reason, but of losing everything but your reason” (oh yeah, and the Egnor podcast is here). Still, one thing is still missing from Darwinist reason: a satisfactory answer to Egnor’s simple question, How much information can actually be produced by Darwinian mechanisms?

These ad hominem attacks remind me of Kevin Beck’s post last month on a "scienceblog" called “Dr. Joan Bushwell’s Chimpanzee Refuge,” where he tells those he calls “faith-filled gasbag[s]” to “look up ‘arrogant’” as he praises PZ Myers for “having the temerity to put to use his years of education and scholarship in exploding the stupid arguments of fundagelical Christians." Beck concludes that these “fundagelical Christians” try “to paint” their “opponent as ‘soulless’ or ‘having no greater purpose’.” But he himself calls those who believe in the Bible, believers in “horsesh** that has no inherent meaning,” calling a hypothetical mother who questions evolution, “the little lamb … who is supremely arrogant.” He calls people like this a “thoroughly debunked s***slinger” and ends with a criticism of religion: “It's often struck me that religious belief is so arrantly f**ed up that its adherents aren't content to merely be wrong; they have to get things 100 percent backward most of the time as well. In fact, the whole house of cards seems to rely on this, especially in an increasingly skeptical world.” But at least he gives me a soul, calling me “Discovery Institute's affably inane Casey Luskin.”

In the end, I can cheerfully forgive Kevin Beck, but two questions remain: (1) Why is such name-calling so common among Darwinists? and (2) How do Darwinian mechanisms produce truly novel biological information? I've seen no good answers to question 2, and perhaps their lack of such a good answer is driving the observations behind question (1).

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[Update on March 29, 2007: Today a Darwinist biologist e-mailed me making no arguments against Egnor (who is professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook and an award-winning brain surgeon who has been named one of New York's best doctors by New York Magazine) other than calling him "a crackot [sic] physician.” Meanwhile, the above-mentioned Darwinist mathematician discussed above has responded to this post. How did he respond? He responded by titling his post "Casey Luskin, Proud Idiot," and saying Michael Egnor has "made incredibly idiotic statements," which the mathematician calls "dishonest." Moreover, the mathematicians scientific arguments are still inadequate: he continues to discuss irrelevant Shannon information (a random string of data has the same amount of Shannon information as a Shakespearan Sonnet of the same length), and he also discusses how bacterial genes are spread (a problem solved by molecular genetics, not Darwinism, as Egnor discusses below). The mathematician also talks about how people die to due to antibiotic resistance and the fact that it's a serious problem. But of course Dr. Egnor acknowledges that antibiotic resistance is a serious problem. But Dr. Egnor just doesn't think that Darwinism is very helpful in solving this problem:

Microbiology tells us that bacterial populations are heterogeneous. Individual bacteria differ from one another. Molecular biology tells us that some bacteria have molecular mechanisms by which they can survive antibiotics. Molecular genetics tells us how these resistance mechanisms are passed to other bacteria and through generations of bacteria. Pharmacology helps us design new antibiotics that circumvent the bacterial defenses.

What does Darwinism add to the sciences of microbiology, molecular biology, molecular genetics, and pharmacology? Darwinism tells us that antibiotic-resistant bacteria survive exposure to antibiotics because of natural selection. That is, bacteria survive antibiotics that they're not sensitive to, so non-killed bacteria will eventually outnumber killed bacteria. That’s it.

(Michael Egnor, Quick, Nurse, Give the Patient a Tautology!)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 5:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Today, ENV contributor Dr. Michael Egnor will be on Janet Parshall's America to discuss the recent Newsweek article The Evolution Revolution. Dr. Egnor will be on for the second half of the first hour of the three hour program, which is carried nationwide. You can find a local station here. Members can stream the program directly from Parshall's website.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 9:27 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Science Daily reports:

Researchers from the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) today announced the publication of several studies from the Sorcerer II Global Ocean Sampling Expedition (GOS) in PLoS Biology detailing the discovery of millions of new genes, thousands of new protein families and specifically the characterization of thousands of new protein kinases from ocean microbes using whole environment shotgun sequencing and new computational tools.

"In addition to increasing substantially the size and diversity of these families," the article reports, "the GOS sequences increased the understanding of the evolution and function of these proteins" (emphasis mine). The article offers a repair protein by way of illustration:

One example is those that repair DNA damage due to UV light (photolyases). While sunlight has benefits to the microbes, like with humans, sunlight also has the potential to be harmful to cells exposed to it. The team discovered many new proteins that protect these organisms from UV ray damage and some that are involved in repairing UV damage. These proteins were found in all organisms in the dataset, even in viruses.

Posted by Jonathan Witt at 6:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

For as long as Darwinian biologist and Brown University professor Kenneth R. Miller has attacked intelligent design (ID), design proponents have refuted him. While there are occasions where Miller has wisely dropped his refuted objections, more often he will keep trotting out the same stale arguments. His tendency to hold onto his misconceptions means design theorists have to continually point out how he misrepresents their arguments. Several of these responses to Miller are worth revisiting, and because we've recently had some new rebuttals to Miller, we've now put together a list of links to some of the best:

The issue of academic freedom when it comes to intelligent design just won't seem to go away. Darwinists are completely unable to tolerate any views of science that don't completely align with their own. This past week saw the science departments at Southern Methodist University throw a tantrum because we rented an auditorium on their campus and plan to have pro-intelligent design speakers present their case for ID (see Darwin vs. Design conferences). You'd think we were sacrificing puppies with chainsaws, given the way they reacted.

The Dallas Morning News is reporting the current view of academic freedom amongst scientists protesting the conference:

While some who are leading the protest acknowledge the need for free speech and academic freedom, they say this event doesn't qualify.

In another stellar example of their strong support for academic freedom and free speech, a letter allegedly sent to SMU's Provost from the anthropology department says the ID conference should be run off campus.

They have no place on an academic campus with their polemics hidden behind a deceptive mask. We urge the University to recognize this and to withdraw its permission to use our facilities and our name.

It seems to me that if the Darwinists were confident in the strength and merits of their arguments, they wouldn't need to censor other viewpoints and stifle debate.

Editor's Note: In the third paragraph of the DMN story it was reported that the Darwin vs. Design conference "will say that a supernatural designer is the best explanation for aspects of life and the universe." In fact, the conference will not do that. On the issue of whether the designer is supernatural we've been very clear that the scientific theory of intelligent design does not address metaphysical and religious questions such as the nature or identity of the designer. (see here) As the article is otherwise accurate, we're hopeful this will be straightened out.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 6:00 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

DALLAS—Darwinists at Southern Methodist University issued a demand this week that the university withdraw permission for a scientific conference about intelligent design to be held on campus.

Discovery Institute and the SMU Christian Legal Society obtained permission to rent McFarlin Auditorium for a two-day conference on “Darwin vs. Design,” featuring presentations by the nation’s leading intelligent design scientists. The Departments of Anthropology, Biological Sciences, and Geological Sciences reacted with a letter objecting to the university’s agreement to host the conference. The Institute described the letter as an effort to censor scientists and stifle debate.

“Their attempt to censor scientific discussion of the evidence shows that their interest is not in obtaining a fair result but in keeping students from learning about the nature of the debate,” said Discovery Institute president Bruce Chapman. “Darwin himself wrote that ‘a fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.’”

In a statement issued by the Southern Methodist University Provost’s office, the university declined to cancel the upcoming Darwin vs. Design conference scheduled for April 13-14. The statement included a response from three of the university’s science departments: “In this case, the Departments of Anthropology, Biological Sciences, and Geological Sciences in SMU's Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences wish to reaffirm their commitment to applying rigorous scientific principles to teaching and research on the subject of evolution.”

“Their response proves why such a conference is needed,” Bruce Chapman replied. “Applying rigorous scientific principles to teaching and researching evolution requires careful examination of the scientific evidence for both Darwinism and intelligent design.”

Posted by Anika Smith at 5:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

On Friday, March 23, 2007, the Royal Statistical Society, the British Society for the History of Mathematics, and the British Society for the History of Science will sponsor the Karl Pearson Sesquicentenary Conference to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of the founders of mathematical statistics.

The papers to be presented are a cornucopia of praise. The abstracts describe Pearson as a “Renaissance man” who created “the modern world view.” Yet several of Pearson’s most important contributions to the modern world view get no notice at the conference.

Pearson, a “freethinker” and ardent atheist, was a passionate Darwinist and eugenicist. He wrote:

No degenerate and feeble stock will ever be converted into healthy and sound stock by the accumulated effects of education, good laws, and sanitary surroundings. Such means may render the individual members of a stock passable if not strong members of society, but the same process will have to be gone through again and again with their offspring, and this in ever-widening circles, if the stock, owing to the conditions in which society has placed it, is able to increase its numbers.

Pearson’s eugenic ideology was a natural consequence of his Darwinian ideology. In 1898, in the midst of his eugenic advocacy, Pearson was awarded the Darwin Medal by the Royal Society of London. He was the 5th recipient of the biannual award. Other Darwin Medal laureates included Francis Galton and fellow eugenicist Ernst Haeckel.

Pearson’s work goes on today, carried out more tactfully and more efficiently by his philosophical descendents. Most Darwinists no longer talk openly, as they once did, of “eliminating the unfit” or “culling human waste.” But the influence of their eugenic ideas on our society is profound. Since 1973, one million children in the United States have been aborted because they were handicapped. Down’s syndrome is disappearing, not because we’ve cured it, but because we’ve become skilled at picking out unborn children with it. Children born today in Holland with spina bifida are euthanized in the nursery with an injection of barbiturates. We are living in a society soaked with eugenics.

Pearson is rightly remembered, on his 150th birthday, for his work. He did help create the 'modern world view'. He was an atheist, a eugenicist and a Darwinist, as well as a statistician. We would do well to remember all of his work.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 12:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Last year I wrote about some memory lapses that Brown University biologist and textbook author Ken Miller apparently had while testifying during the Kitzmiller trial regarding his own textbooks. Ken Miller has authored many biology textbooks, and his first textbooks (from the early 1990’s) used Haeckel’s fraudulent embryo drawings and blatantly promoted the idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. To his credit, Miller fixed later editions of his textbooks—he took out Haeckel’s drawings and replaced them with real embryo photographs, and he also stopped promoting recapitulation theory. Like many Darwinists, however, Miller then tried to rewrite history and pretend that these mistakes had not been promoted by biologists for many decades. First, read what Miller & Levine’s 1994 version of Biology: The Living Science stated:

Darwin and his contemporaries knew that early embryos of many animals look nearly identical and that the earliest stages of development in “lower” animals seem to be repeated in the development of “higher” animals such as ourselves (Fig. 8.15). Darwin realized that the similar developmental paths followed by animal embryos make sense if all of us evolved long ago from common ancestors through a series of lengthy evolutionary changes.

These striking embryological similarities led some of Darwin’s contemporaries (though apparently not Darwin himself) to believe that the embryological development of an individual repeats its species’ evolutionary history.

Why, then, should the embryos of related organisms retain similar features when adults of their species look quite different? The cells and tissues of the earliest embryological stages of any organism are like the bottom levels in a house of cards. The final form of the organism is built upon them, and even a small change in their character can result in disaster later. It would hardly be adaptive for a bird to grow a longer beak, for example, if it lost its tongue in the process.

The earliest stages of the embryos life, therefore, are essentially “locked in,” whereas cells and tissues that are produced later can change more freely without harming the organism. As species with common ancestors evolve over time, divergent sets of successful evolutionary changes accumulate as development proceeds, but early embryos stick more closely to their original appearance.

(Joseph S. LeVine & Kenneth R. Miller, Biology: Discovering Life, pg. 162 (2nd Ed., D.C. Heath, 1994), emphasis added)

Before Darwinists object by claiming that Miller is merely discussing the history of evolutionary thought, I point out two important facts:

(1) The quoted text comes from a section titled "DATA SUPPORTING THE FACT OF EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE" (emphasis in original) and a sub-section titled "Similarities in Anatomy and Development." (pg. 162)

(2) There is no indication whatsoever, anywhere in the text that any of these ideas are wrong or that they are no longer believed. The reader is left with the clear impression that this is how vertebrate development works.

Rewriting History
As noted, Miller later rewrote and corrected his textbook. But now he has also tried to rewrite history by implying that biologists have not promoted these ideas for decades. As his website states:

Haeckel noticed that vertebrate embryos pass through a series of similar stages in early development, and argued that there was a good reason for this. As an organism evolves, he reasoned, it does so by tacking on new stages to its process of embryonic development. Therefore, as an organism passes through embryonic development it actually re-traces every stage of its evolutionary ancestry. This idea became known as "Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny," which literally means "Development is a replay of Ancestry." … As you read this, you may wonder why evolution should be limited to changes tacked on at the end of the process of development. So did evolutionary biologists, and Haeckel's idea was quickly discarded.”

(Ken Miller, Haeckel and his Embryos, emphasis added)

Ken Miller should be commended for rewriting his textbooks. But he should be exposed for trying to rewrite history by implying that Haeckel’s false ideas have not been promoted by biologists in the present day. Perhaps some biologists did abandon Haeckel long ago, but Miller's own textbooks provide a counterexample which refutes his blatantly false history.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A reporter recently sent me an anti-intelligent design BBC documentary with the outlandish title "A War on Science." In it, Darwinian biologist Ken Miller is shown purporting to refute irreducible complexity in the bacterial flagellum by citing the type 3 secretory apparatus, giving his usual misrepresentation of irreducible complexity. But it gets incredibly worse. Miller egregiously twists the basic arguments of leading ID theorist, mathematician William Dembski. To paraphrase Miller's argument (Miller's exact words are given ***below), when cards are dealt out in a game of poker, the hand you get is unlikely. But obviously that hand wasn't intelligently designed. Therefore, unlikely and non-designed things happen all the time, so evolution can happen even if it's unlikely, and we should never infer design. This completely misrepresents Dembski's arguments. Dembski 101 explains that unlikely events happen all the time and that unlikelihood alone is not how we detect design. In fact, the first two paragraphs of the first page of the first section of Dembski’s first foundational work, The Design Inference, plainly makes this point:

In Personal Knowledge, Michael Polanyi (1962, pg. 33) considers stones placed in a garden. In one instance the stones spell “Welcome to Wales by British Railways,” in the other they appear randomly strewn. In both instances, the precise arrangement of the stones is vastly improbable. Indeed, any given arrangement of stones is but one of almost infinite possible arrangements. Nonetheless, arrangements of stones that spell coherent English sentences form but a miniscule proportion of the total possible arrangements of stones. The improbability of such arrangements is not properly referred to chance.

What is the difference between a randomly strewn arrangement and one that spells a coherent English sentence? Improbability, by itself, isn’t decisive. In addition what’s needed is conformity to a pattern. When stones spell a coherent English sentence, they conform to a pattern. When they are randomly strewn, no pattern is evident. But herein lies a difficulty. Everything conforms to some pattern or other – even a random arrangement of stones. The crucial question, therefore, is whether an arrangement of stones conforms to the right sort of pattern to eliminate chance.

(William A. Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities, pg. xi (Cambridge University Press, 1998), emphases added.)

The design inference therefore requires unlikelihood (related to complexity) coupled with specification. Miller implies that Dembski infers design by the mere unlikelihood of an event, but Miller egregiously ignores the fact that according to Dembski, we must also have specification to infer design. Dembski even uses this very example of dealing a hand of cards when illustrating an unlikely but yet non-designed event. (See how this is implied in Dembski’s essay “Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information.”) Ken Miller has put forth a patently false straw-man characterization of intelligent design arguments in order to falsely allege refutations to the public.

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*** Here are Miller's exact words when discussing this subject in the documentary:

"One of the mathematical tricks employed by intelligent design involves taking the present-day situation and calculating probabilities that at the present would have appeared randomly from events in the past. And the best example I can give is to sit down with 4 friends, shuffle a deck of 52 cards, and deal them out, and keep an exact record of the order in which the cards were dealt. We could then look back and say ‘my goodness, how improbable this is, we could play cards for the rest of our lives and we would never ever deal the cards out in this exact same fashion.’ And you know that’s absolutely correct. Nonetheless, you dealt them out and nonetheless you got the hand that you did."

Posted by Casey Luskin at 7:55 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Is Darwinism essential to understanding bacterial resistance to antibiotics? Consider the following conversation, at the bedside of a patient with a serious antibiotic-resistant infection:

Nurse: Nothing’s working, Doctor!
Doctor: I know. All of our antibiotics have failed. Penicillin, Cipro, Tetracycline. Nothing is working.
Nurse: Let’s ask the Darwinists for help!
Doctor: (Slaps forehead) Of course! Darwinism is the foundation of our understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Quick, Nurse, give the patient a tautology!

Darwinists claim that Darwin’s theory, which is the theory that all biological complexity arose by random variation and natural selection, is essential to our understanding of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. What exactly does Darwinism teach us about antibiotic resistance?

Microbiology tells us that bacterial populations are heterogeneous. Individual bacteria differ from one another. Molecular biology tells us that some bacteria have molecular mechanisms by which they can survive antibiotics. Molecular genetics tells us how these resistance mechanisms are passed to other bacteria and through generations of bacteria. Pharmacology helps us design new antibiotics that circumvent the bacterial defenses.

What does Darwinism add to the sciences of microbiology, molecular biology, molecular genetics, and pharmacology? Darwinism tells us that antibiotic-resistant bacteria survive exposure to antibiotics because of natural selection. That is, bacteria survive antibiotics that they'r e not sensitive to, so non-killed bacteria will eventually outnumber killed bacteria. That’s it.

Microbiology, molecular biology, molecular genetics and pharmacology are indispensable to modern medicine. We’ve learned much about intricate bacterial defenses against antibiotics, and we’ve developed hundreds of antibiotics that have saved millions of lives. What has Darwinism added to these miracles? Just this: non-killed bacterial eventually outnumber killed bacteria.

Darwinism is worthless to modern medicine. That’s becoming a tautology, too.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 12:02 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Darwinists often tell us that scientific views which challenge Darwin should be banned from classrooms or scientific discussion because they are outside the "consensus" of the scientific community. Darwinists love to make this appeal to authority because it is a very effective form of peer pressure which appeals to our respect for science and the conformist tendencies in society. Yet they rarely define the meaning of “consensus,” and they also ignore the fact that true respect for science implies that we should never accept something merely because it’s the “consensus.” Simply put, that’s because the consensus can be wrong, and we should accept something only because of the evidence. As Stephen Jay Gould and other scientists warned the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992, regarding a case dealing with the definition of scientific evidence, “Judgments based on scientific evidence, whether made in a laboratory or a courtroom, are undermined by a categorical refusal even to consider research or views that contradict someone’s notion of the prevailing ‘consensus’ of scientific opinion.” (emphasis added) This is wise counsel. There are powerful examples from recent scientific memory where a view that was outside the “consensus” eventually became widely accepted as, it would seem, the new “consensus.”

Being both a book hound and a rock hound, I recently picked up an old 1968 geology textbook at a neighbor's garage sale entitled Introduction to Geology Physical and Historical by William lee Stokes and Sheldon Judson (Prentice-Hall, 1968). This textbook was published before plate tectonics became widely accepted by geologists, so I was interested in what it said on that topic for historical interest. I personally am a huge supporter of the plate tectonics paradigm of geology, and my masters thesis dealt with paleomagnetism, one of the primary lines of geological data that eventually led many geologists to accept plate tectonics. The authors of this 1968 textbook acknowledge that the geological consensus was not firmly supportive of plate tectonics at that time. The textbook defines continental drift as a "process, considered by some to be theoretical and by others to be a fact." (pg. 500) The authors state:

[I]ntelligent thinkers, if they try to reason on the subject, may soon find themselves taking sides in one of the most important scientific controversies of modern time--the problem of continental drift.

[..]

Another respected student in reviewing a large volume devoted exclusively to the problem of continental drift concludes that: ' ... Both geologist and geophysicist must go considerably farther before the theory can be considered either firmly established or disproved.'"

(William lee Stokes and Sheldon Judson, Introduction to Geology Physical and Historical, pgs. 424, 439 (Prentice-Hall, 1968))

What does this story teach us about the value of the scientific "consensus"? It shows that the "consensus" of today may not be the "consensus" of tomorrow. Today's “consensus” may be right, but the "consensus" can also be dead wrong. Keep this in mind when Darwinists tell you to oppose ID because of appeals to the authority of the scientific "consensus."

I’m convinced of plate tectonics not because it’s the “consensus” of the scientific community but because it’s so strongly supported by many lines of geological data. What matters at the end of the day is not the “consensus” but the scientific evidence. And a lot of scientific evidence is being left out of classrooms today when it challenges the teaching of Neo-Darwinian evolution, all in the name of the “consensus.”

Posted by Casey Luskin at 4:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

University of Wisconsin philosopher Elliott Sober has published an article in Quarterly Review of Biology entitled, “What is Wrong With Intelligent Design?” It seems that mainstream biology journals are more than willing to publish articles attacking intelligent design (ID) while choosing not to include any companion piece supporting ID. Regardless, from Sober’s article it would appear that very little is wrong with ID because he ultimately fails to disclose the predictions of the theory. He starts by defining ID fairly well in a vague sense, stating “mini-ID is that … complex adaptations that organisms display (e.g., the vertebrate eye) were crafted by an intelligent designer.” He even acknowledges that those who state the designer is supernatural “go beyond mini-ID’s single claim.” But he wrongly asserts that the reason that “proponents of ID think that mini-ID is so important” is for constitutional concerns, failing to recognize the real reason is due to a bona fide desire to stay within the scientific realm.

The actual history of ID shows that in 1982, the astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle (an atheist who did not express sympathy for Biblical creationism) was perhaps the first scientist to use the term “intelligent design" in its modern form, arguing that “if one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure of order must be the outcome of intelligent design.” (Fred Hoyle, Evolution From Space (The Omni Lecture), pg. 28 (1982). Soon after, this modern usage of the term "intelligent design" was also adopted by chemist Charles Thaxton. Thaxton used the term "intelligent design" prior to the Edwards v. Aguillard case and explained his reasons for preferring ID over creationism:

“I wasn’t comfortable with the typical vocabulary that for the most part creationists were using because it didn’t express what I was trying to do. They were wanting to bring God into the discussion, and I was wanting to stay within the empirical domain and do what you can do legitimately there.”

Posted by Casey Luskin at 1:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Over at the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) archives, I’ve posted a review of Sean B. Carroll’s book entitled, “The Evolutionary Gospel According to Sean B. Carroll: A Review of Sean B. Carroll’s The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution” (W.W. Norton, 2006). Below are a few excerpts of the review:

To ensure the reader adopts his own view of evolution, Carroll resorts to scare tactics. After a bleak discussion of the potentially disastrous consequences of global warming, Carroll explains that “acceptance of [evolutionary biology’s] facts” is not “a matter that should be open to political or philosophical debate.” Carroll, who interestingly always capitalizes the term “Nature,” quotes Peter Medawar, saying that “the alternative to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to think at all.” . . . For Carroll, the salvation of the human species hangs upon acceptance of neo-Darwinism, and there’s no room for dissenting viewpoints (i.e. “debate”) or “any doubt,” and if you don’t accept the facts of Darwin, we’ll all spend eternity in extinction. One might call it the gospel of evolution according to Sean B. Carroll.

[…]

As a conservationist myself, I don’t need, as Carroll taunts me, to “accept evolution or you won’t ‘think at all’” in order to understand the importance of conserving our natural resources. ... The ID-proponent who reads this book will feel very encouraged about the strength of her own position, for Carroll failed to provide any compelling explanations for the primary subject of his book: the evolutionary making of the fittest.

(Casey Luskin, “The Evolutionary Gospel According to Sean B. Carroll: Review of The Making of the Fittest,” ISCID Archives)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 9:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Darwin vs. Design conferences will kick off at the Knoxville Convention Center this coming Saturday, March 24th. Here is an updated agenda for the day's events. If you haven't registered yet, you can still do so online before Noon EST Wed., March 21. Otherwise, you'll have to try and purchase tickets the day of the event, but if it's sold out you'll be out of luck. It's better to get those tickets now while you still can. See below for the full schedule.

Doors open for admittance at 8:45 a.m.

• Morning Session – 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
  
• Welcome and Introductions
  
• Session #1 Lee Strobel sets the stage for the conference with the story of his own search for the truth about life’s origins. He will also interview Dr. Stephen Meyer about why this issue is so important and controversial.
  
• Session #2 Dr. Jay Richards will explain the evidence for intelligent design based on the fine tuning of the universe, including new developments in astronomy and cosmology which he explored in his book The Privileged Planet.
  
• Session #3 Dr. Stephen Meyer, director of the Center for Science & Culture, editor of Darwinism, Design and Public Education, and co-author of the forthcoming text ook Explore Evolution, will explain why the information encoded in DNA points powerfully to a designing intelligence.
  
• Lunch - 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
  Knoxville Convention Center is surrounded by numerous cafés and restaurants. Take a walk and enjoy the scenery of the World’s Fair Park and the restaurants surrounding the Convention Center.
  
• Afternoon Session – 1:45 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
  
• Session #4 Dr. Michael Behe will showcase new scientific discoveries which further advance his ideas about irreducible complexity and expand on the amazing discoveries he published in his bestselling book, Darwin’s Black Box.
  
• Session #5 Question and Answer Time - Lee Strobel will moderate a time of questions with our panel of speakers.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 2:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This is your assignment. You are to read the mind of someone named "Lucy." Actually, you are to find out where Lucy's mind came from. You can't meet Lucy. She's been dead for 3.2 million years. Your only data will be a fragment of Lucy's fossilized skull and genetic analysis of some apes, men, and lice.

This isn't a bad dream. This is an exciting new branch of evolutionary biology, and it's on the cover of Newsweek magazine. And they're serious.

This week's cover story in Newsweek, "The Evolution Revolution,” is about evolutionary paleoneurology. It is the study of the brains and minds of ancient hominids, dating back to 7 million years ago. Newsweek reporter Sharon Begley gives a credulous tour of the standard Darwinist speculations: we can tell when humans first started wearing clothing by genetic analysis of modern body lice, or perhaps human society was the result of the emergence of the gene for oxytocin, a hormone that causes mothers to secrete milk and that may influence social behavior in humans. Evolutionary paleoneurologists claim to know some of what ancient hominids actually thought by studying fragments of their fossilized skulls. Ms. Begley tells us that "paleoneurology is documenting when structures that power the human mind arose, shedding light on how our ancestors lived and thought." What can we really know about what ancient hominids thought?

I do research on living brains. My specialty is studying the pulsations in the blood flow that goes through the brain and trying to understand how the brain responds to the pulsations. I study rats and dogs in the laboratory, and I study brain blood flow in people using MRI scans. It's hard to do, and three centuries after the discovery of capillaries, we're just beginning to be able to actually see the blood flowing through capillaries in the brain.

I can't tell what live people (or live rats) are thinking by looking at their brains, and I can't even tell using two-photon confocal microscopy (the latest in capillary imaging). Of course, I can't tell what dead people used to think by studying their brains, and I certainly can't tell what dead people used to think if I don't have a speck of tissue from their brains. And I certainly can't tell what 3.2 million year old hominids used to think by studying their skulls.

Even the suggestion that we could understand the minds of extinct hominids who lived 3.2 million years ago by studying fragments of their fossilized skulls and by studying the genes of modern apes, men and lice, boggles the mind. This kind of science makes phrenology seem precise.

It's a remarkable irony. The inference that the origin of the genetic code and the intricate nanotechnology in living cells might be from intelligent agency is deemed “not science,” and mere mention of it is banned in public schools. The inference that we can understand the brains and thoughts of 3.2 million year old hominids by studying fragments of their skulls and the genetics of lice is an “Evolution Revolution” and makes the cover of Newsweek.

The mind reels.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 12:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Over at ID Plus, Peter Williams has an excellent analysis of Richard Fortey's article against ID. Fortey's article was subtitled "Why I hate this intelligent design story. It's simply IDiotic" and it concludes, "Darwinists are readily labelled. There should be an equivalent term for the proponents of Intelligent Design. May I suggest IDiots." In "Richard Fortey rants at straw man of ID," Peter Williams writes in response, "While Darwinists provided their own name, this childishly rude title does not allow the proponents of the ID theory to choose their own name for their theory. Descending to name-calling is not going to help the Darwinist cause shift the appearance of 'a threatened Establishment'! Rather, it confirms it." Williams is correct: the term Darwinists is not uncommonly used by "Darwinists" when they are describing themselves, so they "provided their own name." Moreover, there is no comparison between the common term "Darwinist" and the pejoritave insult, "IDiot." Read Williams' point-by-point analysis here.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 8:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Darwinist blogger and computer scientist MarkCC (why don’t they use their real names?) called me a lot of names a couple of days ago. The most profane was that I am a ‘bastion of s***headed ignorance.’ Profanity seems to be a particular problem with the computer-math Darwinists. A dysfunctional clad, perhaps. They’re dysfunctional because, as Aristotle wrote, effective rhetoric has three characteristics: logos, ethos, and pathos. Effective rhetoric appeals to the best in reason, ethics, and emotion. When I’m called unprintable names merely for expressing my skepticism about the relevance of Darwin’s theory to the practice of medicine, I’ve already won the ‘ethos’ and ‘pathos’ skirmishes. I can concentrate on the logos.

Mark’s blog is worth reading, if you’re over 18. After cursing me in ways that suggests Tourette’s syndrome, he writes a series of equations, and then blames my way of thinking for his father’s infection and paralysis (seriously). He is displeased with my opinions on Darwinism and medicine.

Mark took umbrage at my podcast comment that Darwinism wasn’t indispensable to understanding antibiotic resistance in bacteria. His father seems to have had a very hard time with a resistant strain of bacteria, and he blames me and my view of Darwinism, sort of. I’ve treated thousands of people with serious infections, and I’ve dealt, in a very first-hand way, with the difficulties of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. I’m sorry about his dad’s illness. But Mark hasn’t shown any real insight into medicine or into what doctors actually need to understand in order to deal with serious infections.

Mark, your dad’s illness didn’t happen because his doctor didn’t know enough about random mutation and natural selection. Our battle against bacterial resistance to antibiotics depends on the study of the intricate molecular strategies bacteria use to fight antibiotics, and our development of new antibiotics is a process of designing drugs to counter the bacterial strategies. We use molecular biology, microbiology, and pharmacology. We understand that bacteria aren’t killed by antibiotics that they're resistant to. We understand tautologies. Darwin isn’t a big help here.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 8:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I have written in this blog that Darwinism is irrelevant to the practice of medicine. The truth of my assertion is, I think, fairly obvious, except to Darwin fundamentalists. Most of the Darwinists’ comments on my posts have been personal attacks on me, rather than carefully reasoned arguments. The thoughtful arguments that have been put forth are, I think, misguided, as I will discuss in upcoming posts.

The assertion that Darwinism is essential to medicine is usually is based on the argument that one or more of the following areas of science are dependent on Darwin’s theory:

• 1. Comparative medicine, which is the study of the similarity and the differences between humans and other organisms.
• 2. Medical genetics and molecular biology
• 3. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics

In addition, a common Darwinist argument is that the presence on medical school faculties of scientists who study some aspects of evolutionary biology is evidence that evolutionary biology is indispensable to medicine. That argument is flawed, but it does raise an important issue. I’ll address that issue here, and I’ll address the other issues, one by one, in ensuing posts.

Many, even most, scientists whose work includes evolutionary biology are fine scientists. They have been my teachers, and many are now my colleagues and friends. They contribute to medical education in major ways. They contribute as anatomists, or as physiologists, or as microbiologists, or as molecular biologists. I hold them in high regard, and I am indebted to them for much of my own education.

These fine scientists do not, however, contribute to medicine by studying or teaching evolutionary biology. They contribute to medicine by their work in anatomy, or physiology, or microbiology, or molecular biology. The central assertion of Darwinism—that all biological complexity arises by random heritable variation and natural selection—is of interest to evolutionary biologists (and to those of us who disagree with it), but the assertion that randomness is the raw material for all biological complexity plays no role in medical education or research. Darwin’s assertion of randomness is irrelevant not only to medicine, but to much of biological science. Darwinism is, in Phillip Skell’s apt phrase, a narrative gloss applied to biology and highly superfluous. Teaching medical students about the anatomy of the brain or the molecular structure of DNA is very important. Teaching students about Darwinian speculations about the random origins of the brain or of DNA adds nothing to students’ knowledge of medicine.

In fact, most research and education in medicine involves the implicit assumption of design. The best medical research is the search for patterns recognizable as design, and the best teachers teach their students, implicitly or explicitly, to search for design and purpose in human biology. Evolutionary biologists who teach anatomy, and physiology, and microbiology, and molecular biology in medical schools contribute much to modern medicine by teaching those important subjects. Evolutionary biology itself, however, is superfluous to medicine.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 11:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Darwinist blogs are infamous for ridiculing those who question the party line until they change their mind, stop posting, or leave. But is this strategy employed by those higher in the Darwin-defense hierarchy? Richard B. Katskee, Assistant Legal Director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State and attorney for the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller case, illustrates in his article in First Amendment Law Review how this Darwinist tactic of ridicule and name-calling goes all the way to the top.

Mr. Katskee attacks those who do not oppose ID as “succumbing to the basic deceit at the heart of intelligent design,” saying they "have been deceived.” He uses language to ridicule ID as uncool and evil, calling it a “Humpty-Dumptyesque linguistic project” which is “creationism in a cheap tuxedo” and “disingenuou[s].” Mr. Katskee engages in complex ridicule, asserting that “viewed from a sufficient distance, and with eyelids half closing in technospeak-induced slumber, even a cheap tuxedo can look almost elegant--at least to those of us without the training or discernment to distinguish cashmere from polyester blend.” Keep in mind that Mr. Katskee didn't just say all this on some blog, but in a supposedly scholarly article in First Amendment Law Review. Mr. Katskee’s strategy is clear: ridicule and attack those who show any inkling of support for ID or critique of Judge Jones and the Darwinist party line, so they will step back into line. Such attacks were used against Jay D. Wexler and Arnold H. Loewy, whose critiques of Judge Jones have been recently discussed. When Darwinists must attack those who disagree with them as being deceived or morally bankrupt, the true strength of Mr. Katskee’s position is obvious.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 1:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

What is intelligent design and what scientific evidence supports it? How does it differ from Darwin’s theory of evolution? Is there a purpose to the universe? What new scientific facts are turning evolutionary theories upside down? Answers to these and other intriguing science questions are the focus of two special conferences called Darwin vs. Design. The first is in Knoxville, TN at the Knoxville Convention Center, all day Saturday, March 24. The second is April 13-14 at McFarlin Auditorium on the SMU campus in Dallas, TX.

Click here to register now.

Join journalist and New York Times bestselling author Lee Strobel and a panel of scientists at Discovery Institute's Darwin vs. Design Conference as they explore the evidence for Darwin's theory of evolution and explain the emerging scientific theory of intelligent design.

Conference attendees will interact with intelligent design scientists and experts whose discoveries in cosmology, biology, physics, and DNA present astonishing scientific evidence that is overturning the evolutionary thinking of the past. Conference-goers will hear firsthand the astounding implications these discoveries are having on our society, our politics, and our culture.

Featured speakers include:

Lee Strobel, journalist and bestselling author of Case for A Creator, in which he talked with intelligent design researchers and prodded them to translate scientific jargon into everyday illustrations for their expert arguments.




Dr. Stephen Meyer, Director, Center for Science and Culture (CSC) at Discovery Institute, and co-editor of Darwinism, Design, and Public Education.





Dr. Michael Behe, Lehigh University biochemist and author of the bestselling book Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, and CSC senior fellow.





Dr. Jay Richards, Research Fellow of the Acton Institute, co-author of The Privileged Planet, and CSC senior fellow.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 1:54 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

How many Darwinists Does it Take to Have a “Debate” over Intelligent Design? Only one, as the Daily Democrat reports in an article entitled “Evolution vs. 'Intelligent Design' debated.” According to the DD, only Dr. Maureen Stanton, professor and chairwoman of the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology, will “debat[e]” intelligent design vs. evolution. Apparently that’s the meaning of debate to some Darwinists.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 11:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Dave Thomas has published an op-ed in the Albuquerque Tribune entitled “Intelligent design supporters find new, creative ways to get their message out.” Predictably, Thomas uses invectives and misrepresentations to oppose a legitimate bill which would simply give teachers “the right and freedom, when a theory of biological origins is taught, to objectively inform students of scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses of that theory.” I predicted that Darwinists* would attack the bill by trying to claim that it brings creationism, intelligent design, or religion into the classroom. As I’ve noted before, Darwinists* have no legitimate reason to make such attacks because the bill would protect the teaching of science, and science only, in the science classroom, as it is explicitly states that “‘[s]cientific information’ does not include information derived from religious or philosophical writings, beliefs or doctrines.” Yet Dave Thomas claims the bill is about religion, intelligent design, and, ludicrously, tries to tie the bill (through a series of odd free-association arguments) to “young Earth creationism.”

So what does Dave Thomas have to worry about? Thomas thus exposes his true reasons for opposing the bill: He laments that “the driving purpose” behind the bill “would have permitted and encouraged teachers to present so-called weaknesses of evolution science in biology classes” and asserts that we shouldn’t “encourage students to ‘reach their own conclusions.’” Dogmatic Darwinists* like Dave Thomas apparently find it very scary that students might not reach his preferred “conclusion” if they are taught the full range of the scientific evidence about Neo-Darwinism. So he’s forced to oppose a bill that sanctions the teaching of science, and science only, in the science classroom.

Let's just say, hypothetically speaking of course, that someone had some little nugget of data or research result that was completely at odds with another data point supporting Darwinian evolution. Did I say hypothetical? Actually, the Cambrian explosion that Thomas mentions in his article isn't just hypothetical, it’s actually what Time magazine called “Biology's big bang” and is a real challenge to the Darwinian theory of evolution. As Darwin himself said when discussing this data, "I can give no satisfactory answer." But if a tenth grader's head is so full pro-Darwin data-points, it’s understandable that there would be room for just one data-point that challenges Darwin's theory. It’s sort of shocking that, even though students learn dozens of other points supporting his theory, Thomas is scared of having just one point raised against it.

Finally, Thomas neglects to remind his readers that the New Mexico Science Standards requires that students “critically analyze the data and observations supporting the conclusion that the species living on Earth today are related by descent from the ancestral one-celled organisms.” It seems that he doesn’t want certain types of science taught.

Thomas is so desperate at this point that he attacks the religious beliefs and religious motives of various proponents of the bill. He says that the “creationists”** are getting “sneakier,”** but in reality it’s the Darwinists* who are getting more desperate in their attempts to oppose legitimate bills which would allow the teaching of science which challenges neo-Darwinism. Thomas’s anti-science and anti-education dogmatism speaks for itself.

(Notes:

*Thomas also objects to usage of the word "Darwinists" even though the term is commonly used by, well, Darwinists, when talking about themselves.

** Thomas has replied calling my direct quotation of him here the equivalent of using scare quotes. That's a weak response because I'm simply quoting his own words. In the English language, quotation marks are used when you're quoting someone. That's why I used quotation marks around those words because I'm quoting his words and I intended to show that. It's not complicated.)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:06 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

My recent post here about the irrelevance of Darwinism to the practice of medicine seems to have gotten under the skin of a medical resident at Penn State. Dr. Burt Humburg, blogging at Panda’s Thumb, unleashed a tirade, including a very clever word play on my name in the title of his post (Egnorance: The Egotistical Combination of Ignorance and Arrogance) and his very serious doubts about my competence and integrity. Burt has also been involved in the Kansas evolution struggle. You might say he has a dog in this hunt.

What set Burt off was my observation that the hypothesis that ‘random heritable variation and natural selection is responsible for all biological complexity’ is not of value in the practice of medicine. It does seem fairly obvious. Doctors don’t use Darwinism, at least not since eugenics lost its luster.

Burt rambles a bit, but his main point seems to be that Darwinism is the basis for all comparative anatomy, comparative physiology, comparative pharmacology, etc. He points out that a host of medical miracles would have been inconceivable had evolutionary biologists not told us of the similarity between non-human species and human beings. No Darwin, no insulin. No Darwin, no surgery, no antibiotics, no heart drugs, because we wouldn’t have known to try our therapies on laboratory animals first! It seems that I had been taking comparative medicine for granted, without giving proper credit to its true founders.

Of course we can do comparative physiology, comparative anatomy, and comparative pharmacology without Darwinism. We can do comparative pharmacology because humans have many genetic and physiological similarities to other mammals, such as mice, monkeys, or guinea pigs. It’s simple to observe that mammals are built upon a common blueprint, and that life shares certain similarities. We can learn all of this without Darwin, and regardless of whether these cross-species similarities are the result of common descent or design upon a common blueprint, any non-Darwinian scientist can observe the similarities between humans and other species. This brings us to Galen—who himself made such “comparative” studies millennia before Darwin.

Human dissection was forbidden in the second century A.D., so Galen dissected animals (his favorite subjects for dissection were Barbary apes). His extrapolations to human anatomy were the basis for western medicine and surgery until the 16th century, when Vesalius first dissected humans. If Dr. Humburg is upset with me for my 20 years of failing to credit evolutionary biologists for comparative medicine, imagine his ire with Galen! Two thousand years of ingratitude!

Who knew that evolutionary biologists deserve credit for all of comparative medicine? It looks like Galen and I owe evolutionary biologists, and Dr. Humburg, an apology.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 11:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A recent article entitled "Scientists say Darwin's 'Tree of Life' [TOL] not the theory of everything," published on Physorg.com, explained that increasingly, "a minority of biologists and evolutionists have questioned the accuracy of the TOL hypothesis." The basic problem is that similar genes appear in organisms in patterns which do not fit a universal "tree." As one of the scientists quoted, W. F. Doolittle, elsewhere stated: "Molecular phylogenists will have failed to find the 'true tree,' not because their methods are inadequate or because they have chosen the wrong genes, but because the history of life cannot properly be represented as a tree."

Doolittle attributes his observations to gene-swapping among microorganisms at the base of the TOL, and tries to reassure readers that "[s]urely a tree is the right model for most multi-cellular animals and plants … the TOL is great for fossils and museums and dinosaurs and most of visible life." But another expert, Carl Woese wrote that "[p]hylogenetic [conflicts] can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves." Similarly, in the past few years, Sean B. Carroll studied animal relationships and concluded that "[d]espite the amount of data and breadth of taxa analyzed, relationships among most metazoan phyla remained unresolved." Carroll also concluded that "[t]he recurring discovery of persistently unresolved clades (bushes) should force a re-evaluation of several widely held assumptions of molecular systematics."

It seems that problems in the tree of life exist in the base up to higher branches, but since Carroll is a Darwinist, one assumption he does not re-evaluate is that of common ancestry itself. By invoking insufficient data, horizontal gene swapping, rapid evolution, and other ad hoc explanations, Darwinists reveal that neo-Darwinism is trying explain away the data; it is not explaining the data. Perhaps the inability to construct robust phylogenetic trees using molecular data stems from the fact that common descent is simply wrong.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 2:38 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Daniel Dennett was right, in a way. Scientific naturalism, like Darwinism, is a corrosive acid, eroding every crevice of our society. It’s now seeped into our sulci.

Jeffrey Rosen, in a March 11th New York Times Magazine essay "The Brain on the Stand; how neuroscience is transforming the legal system," tells of the influence of neuroscience on legal concepts of culpability. He quotes Harvard neuroscientist Joshua Greene: “To a neuroscientist, you are your brain; nothing causes your behavior other than the operations of your brain. If that’s right, it radically changes the way we think about the law.” And, of course, it changes the way we think about everything. It isn’t surprising that a leading neuroscientist would cloak a philosophical assertion in a scientific assertion. It’s the currency of scientific naturalism.

There are many problems with scientific naturalism in neuroscience. Philosophers of the mind refer to the ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ problems of consciousness. ‘Easy’ problems of consciousness are the problems studied by neuroscientists. They are such things as arousal, alertness, and MRI correlates of our thoughts and actions. The easy problems of consciousness aren’t easy, really, but they’re tractable and can be studied by scientists. They can be reduced to matter in motion.

The hard problem is different. It is this: how we are subjects, as well as objects? Why do we experience things, and not just react to them? The hard problem is not tractable by science, and there is no reason to think that it ever will be. The neuroscientists who claim that subjective experience is merely an emergent property of neurons are asserting a belief, not proposing a scientific theory. The assertion that subjectivity arises from matter in motion is not an assertion science can test. Matter in no way presupposes subjectivity.

There is a deeper problem, an old one, raised in recent times by C.S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga. If our brains are mere matter in motion, why should we trust human judgment? If people who violate the law aren’t culpable because of their cerebral physiology, how are neuroscientists culpable for their theories of cerebral physiology? Perhaps the theory that our thoughts are wholly determined by our neurochemistry is caused by poor blood flow in Steven Pinker’s temporal lobe. How can we assert that neuroscience itself isn’t just a byproduct of neurons, without using our own inconstant gyri?

One suspects that the only transcendent truth claimed by scientific naturalists is their transcendently obvious eligibility for NIH funding.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 11:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Imagine that you purchase a “build it yourself” computer kit, and all the instruction manual said is “Step 1: Collect all necessary parts into a box.” This is essentially as far as evolutionary explanations by co-option get: Darwinists assume that by simply identifying the possible origin-location for one or a few structural components that they have explained how all of the parts became properly assembled to interact and produce the final functional structure. Mike Gene has a funny post where he links to computer assembly instructions which simply tell the user to tape the necessary computer parts inside a box. “Exiled from Groggs” thinks that this shows “The limitations of co-option.” It appears that scientists would agree. As one scientist explained in the journal Science when discussing systems biology: “Identifying all the genes and proteins in an organism is like listing all the parts in an airplane. While such a list provides a catalog of the individual components, by itself it is not sufficient to understand the complexity underlying the engineered object. We need to know how these parts are assembled to form the structure of the airplane.” (Hiroaki Kitano, “Systems Biology: A Brief Overview,” Science, Vol. 295:1662-64 (March 1, 2002).) This comment was made in the context of discussing systems biology, but perhaps someday, when it is no longer politically deadly to question Darwin, science journals will regularly explicitly discuss the bankruptcy of evolutionary explanations via co-option.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 1:04 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Some Evolution News & Views (ENV) readers may have noticed that yesterday we posted Michael Egnor’s response to a pro-evolution essay contest for students. Who is Michael Egnor?

We recently reported how Egnor has been asking Darwinists how much information can be produced via Darwinian mechanisms, but has not been receiving satisfactory answers (see here and here). Michael Egnor, M.D. is professor of neurosurgery and pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook and an award-winning brain surgeon who has been named one of New York's best doctors by New York Magazine. He is now an official part of the ENV team, and we'd like to welcome him on board.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 4:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (2)

Dear High School Students,

The folks at the Alliance for Science have sponsored an essay contest for high school students. They ask students to write an essay on ‘Why I would want my doctor to have studied evolution.’ First prize is a copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Second prize is two copies of Darwin’s Origin of Species! (Just kidding.)

Really, it’s a funny question. Think about it. Would anyone sponsor an essay contest on ‘Why I would want my doctor to study anatomy’ or ‘Why I would want my doctor to study physiology’? Of course not, because we all know that these kinds of science are important to medicine. Is evolutionary biology important? If it is, why do they have to ask the question?

Doctors don’t study evolution. Doctors never study it in medical school, and they never use evolutionary biology in their practice. There are no courses in medical school on evolution. There are no ‘professors of evolution’ in medical schools. There are no departments of evolutionary biology in medical schools.

If you needed treatment for a brain tumor, your medical team would include a physicist (who designed the MRI that diagnosed your tumor), a chemist and a pharmacologist (who made the medicine to treat you), an engineer and an anesthesiologist (who designed and used the machine that give you anesthesia), a neurosurgeon (who did the surgery to remove your tumor), a pathologist (who studied the tumor under a microscope and determined what type of tumor it was), and nurses and oncologists (who help you recover and help make sure the tumor doesn’t come back). There would be no evolutionary biologists on your team.

I am a professor of neurosurgery, I work and teach at a medical school, I do brain research, and in 20 years I’ve performed over 4000 brain operations. I never use evolutionary biology in my work. Would I be a better surgeon if I assumed that the brain arose by random events? Of course not. Doctors are detectives. We look for patterns, and in the human body, patterns look very much like they were designed. Doctors know that, from the intricate structure of the human brain to the genetic code, our bodies show astonishing evidence of design. That’s why most doctors—nearly two-thirds according to national polls—don’t believe that human beings arose merely by chance and natural selection. Most doctors don’t accept evolutionary biology as an adequate explanation for life. Doctors see, first-hand, the design of life.

I do use many kinds of science related to changes in organisms over time. Genetics is very important, as are population biology and microbiology. But evolutionary biology itself, as distinct from these scientific fields, contributes nothing to modern medicine.

Without using evolutionary theory, doctors and scientists have discovered vaccines (Jenner, in the 18th century, before Darwin was born), discovered that germs cause infectious diseases (Pasteur, in the 19th century, who ignored Darwin), discovered genes (Mendel, in the 19th century, who was a priest and not a supporter of Darwin’s theory), discovered antibiotics, and unraveled the secrets of the genetic code (the key to these discoveries was the discovery of the apparent design in the DNA double helix). Heart, liver, and kidney transplants, new treatments for cancer and heart disease, and a host of life-saving advances in medicine have been developed without input from evolutionary biologists. No Nobel prize in medicine has ever been awarded for work in evolutionary biology. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that the only contribution evolution has made to modern medicine is to take it down the horrific road of eugenics, which brought forced sterilization and bodily harm to many thousands of Americans in the early 1900s. That’s a contribution which has brought shame—not advance—to the medical field.

So ‘Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution?’ I wouldn’t. Evolutionary biology isn’t important to modern medicine. That answer won’t win the ‘Alliance for Science’ prize. It’s just the truth.

Michael Egnor, M.D.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 3:37 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (2)

Some Darwinists have a tendency to assume that anything coming from the ID camp must be a mistaken attack on them. This can lead to a Darwinist choosing not to read the pro-ID article, then responding to the (still unread) article by misconstruing basic facts, like the name of the website hosting the article, pro-ID books discussed in the article, or even the central argument of the article. Joseph Campana of ResearchID.org exposes these errors in the responses from Pamela Thompson of the John Templeton Foundation and William Grassie of Metanexus to his article, which demonstrated that the New York Times invented claims that Templeton asked for research proposals which “never came in.”

Thompson and Grassie are on the defensive. They're circling the wagons with embarrassingly mistaken responses, misconstruing Campana’s central points with apparent disregard for the fact that they were not the objects of attack. As Campana writes in response, “Pamela Thompson is trying to spin this and seeks to ‘blame the ID guy,’ but the fact remains that, according to Charles Harper [Templeton’s VP], the NYT created a ‘media narrative manufacture.’” Indeed, the Templeton Foundation has confirmed Campana’s central argument, as they agree, “The John Templeton Foundation has never made a call-for-proposals to the ID Community.” For all of Grassie’s and Thompson’s talk about eschewing politics, it is curious that they’ve chosen to go after Campana’s report. It would be more reasonable to blast the New York Times for manufacturing the story. Instead, Grassie and Thompson have directed their attention at the one who blew the story open. They twist and misstate the facts in order to attack the ID guy, whose only crime is searching for the truth behind the story.

Read Campana’s response to Thompson and Grassie here.

Posted by Anika Smith at 3:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Darwinist thought cops in Idaho are at it again. A while back it was the president of University of Idaho issuing a dictum banning the discussion of intelligent design from science courses. (See here, here and here) Now the Idaho Science Teachers Association has put its big hairy foot down and forbidden its teachers from discussing intelligent design in science classes.

Now a local newspaper writer has skewered the ISTA for its incredible open-mindedness.

Writes Ed Iverson:

But our government schools will suffer no alternative to the doctrine of evolutionary Darwinism. This is because evolutionary Darwinism effectively functions as the educrats' approved religion. Questioning Darwinism affects the National Science Teachers Association in the same way that drawing cartoons of Mohammed affects militant Islam. KABOOM!

Evolutionists don't own the facts. What they own is a "story." Any facts not fitting their story are ignored or defined away. Any investigator putting together a different story is defined as a religionist and cast out of the fraternity. By the use of these and many other stratagems, science is kept pure and kids aren't confused by controversial alternatives.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 2:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Late last year senior fellow Jonathan Wells visited Japan to deliver two speeches on intelligent design and evolution.

Dr. Wells' first lecture (in English, with simultaneous translation into Japanese) was to an international philosophy conference. More than 150 people attended, including scientists and scholars from Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Greece and Mongolia. A few Americans were present, along with participants from Bangladesh, France, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic (who brought along a copy of the new Czech edition of Icons of Evolution). According to Wells, the audience was polite, the questions were penetrating and the Q&A was lively.

The second lecture (in English, with alternating translation into Japanese) was to an audience of about 70 at Kokugakuin University. Kokugaku means "Japan studies," and this university (with an enrollment of about 5,000) is one of two in Japan accredited to train Shinto priests. Again, the audience was very polite. Even though questions hadn’t really been expected, the Q&A went on for 40 minutes. Japanese biology classes teach straight Darwinism, with all the usual icons, so the audience was fascinated by the revelation that their children are not being taught the truth. Furthermore, although Shintoism is animistic rather than theistic, it apparently doesn’t regard humans as mere accidents.

Interest in ID in Japan, and indeed across all of Asia, has been growing. Recently Sekai Nippo, a daily newspaper in Tokyo, ran a series of articles about ID and featured interviews with Wells and also with William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe and others.

What was most interesting was the cartoon they published depicting ID scientists assailing Darwin's castle. We have now received permission to post it here. Take a look at the full-size cartoon (download hi-res version here) and see if you can identify the characters. If you get stumped, you can click here for a guide to who is featured in the cartoon.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 1:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A student at Boise State University recently published an opinion article in the campus newspaper, the Arbiter Online, defending intelligent design. In the article Aaron Vandenbos observed that there is a difference between how ID-proponents and evolutionists behave when in debate: “In my experience, IDists, knowing that they are the underdog, are careful to be objective and factual. On the other hand, I have noticed that evolutionists tend to spend most of their time questioning their opponents’ credibility, belittling their opponents’ intelligence, demolishing straw men and then doing victory laps.” He then explained that evolutionists have defined the terms of this debate so as to settle it before it has even begun. Mr. Vandenbos wrote:

Now, I certainly do not claim to be an expert by any means, but as far as science is concerned, my GPA can’t get any higher. Does that count for anything? Apparently not, considering my origin’s views. Unfortunately this is the typical treatment for all dissenters from Darwinism. I am viewed as a poor scientist because I do not adhere to evolution and I do not adhere to evolution because I am a poor scientist. Interesting, isn’t it?

Evolutionists have won a great battle in the culture wars by defining science as it suits their purpose. Many people know that a literal interpretation of science is knowledge, yet the vast majority of evolutionists hold to a definition of science that presupposes purely naturalistic mechanisms, deliberately excluding non-naturalistic explanations.

In other words, the war is won by default before it has even begun.

(Aaron Vandenbos, "Evolution is just as religious as Intelligent Design," 2/1/07, Arbiter Online)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A couple weeks ago I watched some video footage of the American Museum for Natural History’s 2006 Darwin Exhibit, which showcased a number of Darwinian scientists who were religious. These included Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Richard Fortey, all of whom were portrayed discussing their acceptance evolution and some form of religion (their specific religious persuasions were not specified in the exhibit footage I saw). No Darwinists were shown stating views which opposed religion. I also recently purchased John Dupré’s book Darwin’s Legacy: What Evolution Means Today (Oxford University Press, 2003). It’s a fairly short book, and given that Dupré is both professor of philosophy of science and Director of the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society at the University of Exeter in the UK, he has a viewpoint worth reading. In short, Dupré believes that evolution doesn’t mean you can’t be religious, but he believes that “the growth of evolutionary theory that he [Darwin] launched has provided a fatal injury to the pretension of religion.” (pg. 42) That view is not popular to discuss among some Darwinists today who only showcase those Darwinists who fully embrace evolution and religion. Hence the inspiration for the rhyming title of this blog post. Here are some more interesting quotes from Dupré’s short book:

“While seen by some as providing a novel account of God’s ways of world-making, others have seen the theory as the last essential element in a naturalistic and materialistic view of the universe, and as thereby removing the last hiding place for God or gods.” (pg. 2)

“…prior to the development of a convincing theory of evolution there was an argument of sorts for belief in God. … this argument, always problematic, was entirely undermined by the development of a convincing account of evolution. Consequently, I claim, we now have no good reason for belief in God. This is, of course, a very major contribution to our world-view.” (pg. 46)

“Darwinism undermines the only remotely plausible reason for believing in the existence of God. And, some extreme liberal versions of Christianity apart, belief in the existence of God does seem to be a minimal condition for Christianity. Consequently, and contrary to the orthodox philosophical view of the matter, I believe that Christians—not merely fundamentalist Christians—are quite right to try to undermine Darwinism, and Richard Dawkins is quite right that, since their attempts to do this are wholly unsuccessful, there is nothing worthwhile left of the argument from design. More contentiously, I want to insist that without the argument from design there is nothing very credible left of theism generally, and Christianity in particular. Hence Ruse’s argument for compatibility, while generally successful, seems to me largely beside the point.” (pg. 46)

“The most profound implication of evolution is that it should finally make clear to us that we neither have nor need an all-powerful father figure to take on the tasks that seem presently beyond us.” (pg. 62)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As I recently noted, anti-ID legal scholar Jay Wexler believes that Judge Jones went too far by trying to address whether ID is science. Continuing this line of argument, self-described “liberal First Amendment theorist” Arnold H. Loewy makes a point that Judge Jones missed: “it is not the Court's job to distinguish good science from bad in the realm of education.” (pg. 85) Our form of government requires a separation of powers. During lawsuits alleging violations of the Establishment Clause in school curricula, courts are allowed to determine if the curriculum establishes religion, but that’s it. Yet Judge Jones found that ID’s claims have allegedly “been refuted by the scientific community” as he sought to address scientific questions about whether the flagellum evolved from a type three secretory system or whether our adaptive immune system evolved from a more primitive form. These are interesting questions, but regardless of whether you agree with Judge Jones’ answers, they are questions about good science vs. bad science in a curriculum, NOT about establishment of religion. Whether ID's claims constitute good science or bad science would be a question for the legislative branch to address; addressing such matters "is not the Court's job," nor is it even the Court's right. At least one appellate court dealing with establishment concerns in a public schoool curriculum grasped this crucial distinction, declaring: “[T]he wisdom of an educational policy or its efficiency from an educational point of view is not germane to the constitutional issue of whether that policy violates the establishment clause.” (Smith v. Bd. of Sch. Commr. of Mobile Co., 827 F.2d 684, 694 (11th Cir. 1987).) If only Judge Jones had recognized that point.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 9:02 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

See http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/anim_innerlife.html for a computer demonstration of how our bodies respond to sites of inflammation. I find it amazing that Darwinists cite mere sequence similarity between different genes as evidence that such complexity of the cell originated from a random and blindly-selective process.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 7:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Municipality of Istanbul's conference on intelligent design apparently turned out to be a precedent-setting hit. We can't think of anything comparable in the Middle East. At least one follow up conference is planned. (See this post from earlier today.) Some photos have just come in that illustrate the impressive venue:

Discovery Senior Fellow David Berlinski flew in from Paris to describe the failures of Darwinian theory.

Some 500 people participated—scientists, students, government officials and journalists. There were interviews in the Turkish and European press, plus the Canadian Broadcast Corporation.

Noted Oxford University professor John Lennox was droll as well as informative in his discussion of mathematics and information theory.

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 3:55 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Advocate today gives a big hip-hip-hooray for Darwin's "process." They worry that the public doesn't accept Darwinian evolutionary claims to explain the complex diversity of life and the universe. Must be that they just don't understand. Their solution?

Perhaps the “law of evolution” would be more easily understood by the public than the “theory” of evolution.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 11:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

On February 24, an audience of approximately 500 students, journalists, scholars and scientists gathered to hear five speakers present an international perspective on intelligent design in Instanbul’s Cemal Resit Rey Concert Hall. The conference, which was sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, featured speakers from Turkey, Britain, and America. Already recognized as a success by the local leadership, the conference introduced intelligent design to the people of Turkey and was covered by mainstream Turkish media.

According to this report, “The Origin of Life on Earth” conference covered:

• Mustafa Akyol’s criticism of Turkish intellectuals who equate science with materialism.
  
• David Berlinski’s critique of Darwinism.
  
• Paul Nelson’s introduction to the theory of intelligent design.
  
• John Lennox’s analysis of reductionism in science and ethics.
  
• Alpaslan Açıkgenç’s explanation of how Islam looks at science, nature, and life.

The report was made available on The White Path, Mustafa Akyol’s excellent website, which covers a wide array of intriguing subjects in Turkey, not the least of which is intelligent design.

Posted by Anika Smith at 12:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

On Wednesday, February 28, Bryan Fischer debated Kitzmiller plaintiffs' attorney of the ACLU, Witold “Vic” Walczak, over teaching intelligent design in schools. The debate was sponsored mostly by the ACLU. Mr. Fischer reports that the pro-ACLU crowd cheered supportively when Fischer read a statement by Darwinist biologist P.Z. Myers advocating academic intolerance towards proponents of ID. Fischer reported:

Perhaps the most telling moment came when I read this quote from evolutionary biologist Paul Myers of the University of Minnesota, telling us what he thinks should be done with intelligent design advocates:

The only appropriate response should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy, far-right politicians…I say, screw the polite words and careful rhetoric. It’s time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots.

The pro-ACLU crowd actually clapped in approval in response. I suggested that evolutionists are now the new McCarthyites, conducting a new inquisition, with the intimidating question this time being, “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the intelligent design community?”

(Bryan Fischer, “ID debate: scientific arguments go unanswered,” March 1, 2007)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 4:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As noted recently, anti-ID legal scholar Jay Wexler believes that Judge Jones went too far when he tried to address whether ID is science in the Kitzmiller ruling. Wexler also complains that “The Judge Did Not Explain Why He Addressed the "Is it Science?" Issue” and argues that Judge Jones gives “no coherent answer” to that question: “If there is no coherent answer, then Judge Jones' explanation that consideration of the science issue will be useful to other courts likewise falters.” (Jay D. Wexler, “Kitzimller and the ‘Is It Science?’ Question,” 5 First Amendment Law Review 90, 108, 109 (2006).) The implication is that Judge Jones’ ruling on whether ID is science, which was largely copied from the ACLU, is hardly the final word on these issues. But what reason has Judge Jones given publicly as to why he tried to determine whether ID is science?

Last year Judge Jones twice explained to reporters why he decided whether ID is science. Speaking to Dickinson Magazine he declared:

“I thought it was incumbent upon me to make that call as part of my decision so that we wouldn’t have this litigation replicated someplace else and another school board wouldn’t be exposed to the high fees that this school board exposed itself to.”

“I had a fervent hope that although some people would likely disagree with the opinion, it could serve as a primer for school boards and other people who were considering this.”

(Judge Jones quoted in Lisa L. Granite, One for the History Books, 28-Aug. Pa. Law. 17, 22 (2006).)

“[P]olicymaking is inherent in the work of the courts, but judges have some control over the extent of their involvement in policymaking. In deciding cases, judges often face a choice between alternatives that would enhance their court’s role in policymaking and those that would limit its role. . . . When judges choose to increase their impact as policymakers, they can be said to engage in activism; choices to limit that impact can be labeled judicial restraint.”

(Lawrence Baum, American Courts: Process and Policy 316 (4th ed., Houghton Mifflin Co. 1998).)

"A common thread [in judicial activism is] a refusal by the court deciding a particular case to defer to other sorts of authority at the expense of its own independent judgment about the correct legal outcome. [This] sort of behavior, then, tends to increase the significance of the court’s own institutional role vis-à-vis the political branches, the Framers and Ratifiers of the Constitution, or other courts deciding cases in the past or in the future.”

(Ernest A. Young, Judicial Activism and Conservative Politics, 73 U. Colo. L. Rev. 1139, 1145 (2002) (internal citations omitted).)

It is understandably easy to celebrate when a court reaches a decision that comports with one's own view of a controversial issue. … … Today's victory can easily become tomorrow's defeat. ID opponents would be wise to downplay this controversial portion of the Kitzmiller decision and to protect vigilantly against its future abuse. (Wexler, pg. 110-111.)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 1:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)