Evolution News & Views

On Monday December 3rd, at a news conference in the Iowa state capitol, Discovery Institute will release a record of secret emails exchanged among faculty at Iowa State University about ISU astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez. The emails demonstrate that a campaign was conducted against him by his colleagues, with the intent to deny Gonzalez tenure because of views he holds on the intelligent design of the universe, expressed in his 2004 book The Privileged Planet.

Gonzalez was denied tenure at ISU earlier this year. While ISU president Gregory Geoffroy claimed that the decision was because Gonzalez “did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect” and not because of his views on ID, it has become increasingly clear that his views on ID are exactly what led to his being forced out. Indeed, the day after the president announced his decision ISU professor John Hauptman published an op-ed in the Des Moines Register in which he contradicted the university and admitted that ID was the specific reason that he voted against Dr. Gonzalez receiving tenure.

Here is Dr. Gonzalez's trajectory of excellence, a trajectory that far outstrips most other faculty at ISU with tenure, even in his own department.

Dr. Gonzalez:

• has authored 68 peer-reviewed scientific articles in refereed science journals.
  
• is an author of Observational Astronomy, second edition (2006), a college-level astronomy textbook published by Cambridge University Press (authors: D. Scott Birney, G. Gonzalez and D. Oesper).
  
• work has been cited in Science, Nature and many other scientific journals. All told, there were nearly 1,500 citations to his articles and research in science journals by the end of 2005.
  
• research led to the discovery of 2 new planets.
  
• is building new technology to discover extrasolar planets.
  
• served on the NASA Astrobiology Institute Review Panel in June 2003 and the National Science Foundation Advanced Technologies and Instruments review panel in January 2005.
  
• has served as a referee for Astronomical Journal, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Astrophysical Journal (and Letters), Icarus, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Nature, Naturwissenschaften, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Origins of Life and Evolution Biospheres and Science.

“This is a clear First Amendment case,” said Discovery attorney for public policy and legal affairs Casey Luskin, who will be presenting at the news conference in Iowa next week. “Dr. Gonzalez’s persecution demonstrates the limits of academic freedom at ISU and similar institutions.”

Posted by Robert Crowther at 2:47 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Behe will be on C-SPAN 2's "Close Up at the Newseum" program airing today at 7 pm EST. From his Amazon blog:

Case Western Reserve University Professor Patricia Princehouse and I recently taped an episode of the program "Close Up at the Newseum", where we discussed intelligent design, Darwinism, The Edge of Evolution, and other topics with an audience of about 40 high school students. The purpose of Close Up is to get students interested in issues of the day, and to become active participants in our democracy. The show will air this Friday, November 30th, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time, on C-SPAN 2.

#1 in Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Bioengineering > Biochemistry
#2 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Agricultural Sciences > Biochemistry
#3 in Books > Science > Evolution > Organic

Posted by Anika Smith at 5:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In this week’s National Review (December 3, 2007), theoretical particle physicist Stephen Barr takes on those who claim that the findings of modern science have banished the ideas of mind or soul.

Barr, with whom many of us at Discovery have misgivings regarding his use of the word “random” in neo-Darwinian theory, nonetheless gives an excellent exposition of philosophy of mind’s intersection with contemporary physics in his article “The Soul and Its Enemies” (sorry: password required).

Barr concludes:

We see, then, that those who confidently assert that scientific discoveries have banished the soul to the realm of myth offer only a limited view of the evidence. Indeed, the very possibility of scientific discoveries points to man’s openness to truth and his ability to grasp meaning. One does not really need a scientist to confirm that one has a spiritual soul, however. Its powers are daily on display in our lives as rational and free creatures. Of course, there are those who disagree with this. And they are quite free to disagree. But their very freedom to disagree is proof that they are wrong.

Posted by Logan Gage at 4:52 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Note: This is one of a series of posts adapted from my new book, Darwin Day in America. You can find other posts in the series here.

From the 1890s into the early years of the twentieth century, a growing number of American doctors advocated castration as a solution for habitual criminals as well as rapists and murderers. Proponents of castration like Frank Lydston derided the failed rehabilitation efforts of the “sentimentalist and his natural ally, the preacher,” and argued that “asexualization” surgery would produce results by preventing criminals from passing down their criminal tendencies to their children, by striking fear into non-castrated criminals, and by changing the personality of the castrated criminal. “The murderer is likely to lose much of his savageness; the violator loses not only the desire, but the capacity for a repetition of his crime, if the operation be supplemented by penile mutilation according to the Oriental method.” Lydston’s views were grounded forthrightly in scientific materialism. “The attempt to reduce criminology to a rational and materialistic basis has constituted a great step in advance—one which marks a distinct epoch in scientific sociology,” he proclaimed in 1896.

Some doctors went beyond talk and actually began performing castrations.

Dr. F. Hoyt Pilcher operated on 44 boys and 14 girls of the Kansas State Home for the Feeble-Minded during the 1890s. Though he had to curtail his castrations due to public outcry, the Board of Trustees of his institution was unrepentant, insisting that “those who are now criticizing Doctor Pilcher will, in a few years, be talking of erecting a monument to his memory.”

As I discuss in chapter 5 of Darwin Day in America (“Turning Punishment into Treatment”), efforts to cure criminals through “scientific” rehabilitation led to a parade of horrors during the twentieth century as criminals were turned into guinea pigs. This was precisely the result warned about by C. S. Lewis in his 1949 essay “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.”

To order Darwin Day in America click here. To find out more information about the book (and watch the trailer), visit the book’s website here.

Posted by John West at 1:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

What’s the single book that you would most like your friends to read? According to U.K. pro-ID blogger Exiled from Groggs, it is Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt’s book A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature. According to the reviewer, formerly at Cambridge, “Of all the books on the great debate that I have read - and there are a fair few on both sides! - this is probably the one I have enjoyed the most, and the one which ought ideally to have the most potential to influence.” He goes on to explain why:

Wiker and Witt's thesis is that the universe is rich in "meaning" - the dominance of the materialist worldview has blinded us to this. And the "meaning" testifies to a creative genius. To make this case, they start in English literature, looking at Shakespeare, and then move into mathematics and chemistry before revisiting the world of biology. In the process, they identify depth, clarity, harmony and elegance as hallmarks of genius . ... Unsurprisingly, their conclusion is that the meaningfulness that is found at all levels in the universe is indicative of an underlying creative genius.

This book, like only a few others that I have read before ("Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter, "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder, "How Should We Then Live?" by Francis Schaeffer), took a discussion that had reached a sterile impasse and presented it from an entirely new perspective. For theists, this book has the potential to help them see beyond the wrangling over details of materialism again, and remind them of how rich the universe is. For atheists, this book has the potential to lift their eyes from narrow discussion about whether or not it is possible to prove that bacterial flagellum evolved, to take in again the vast panorama which once captivated and amazed them.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:03 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

You can tell when the Christmas season is approaching—by the nip in the air, and by the jump in the level of crankiness exhibited by Darwinists in the blogosphere. This year Christmas apparently has come early for internet Darwinists, who have been raising a kerfluffle on their blogs about Discovery Institute Senior Fellow William Dembski’s usage of a clip of some Harvard-commissioned animation of the cell in a few of his lectures. In typical high dudgeon, Darwinists have accused Dr. Dembski of all sorts of nefarious violations of intellectual property law. Some have even claimed (as usual, without an iota of evidence) that Discovery Institute supports the disregard of copyright laws or even had something to do with Dr. Dembski’s usage of the animation in question. (Wrong on both counts.)

It’s nice to see that internet Darwinists have suddenly become the protectors of America’s copyright laws. However, it’s a rather peculiar role for them. Check out Google Video or You Tube and you will regularly find examples of Darwinists uploading (without permission) huge chunks of copyrighted videos featuring various Discovery Institute Fellows. Indeed, the other week, we discovered a Darwinist who had uploaded the video of Icons of Evolution online in order to denounce it—not just a couple of minutes of the video, mind you, but nearly the entire thing. In the past, we’ve come across other Darwinists who have archived for public use (again, without permission) whole sections of DI’s website. Unlike the internet Darwinists, we don’t usually make a cause celebre out of such wanton violations of the copyright code, although we have been known to contact the parties involved privately and ask them to cease and desist. Now that the internet Darwinists have discovered the glories of copyright, may we hope they will begin to police their own supporters?

Back to Dr. Dembski: Contrary to what some Darwinists seem to suppose, we have better things to do with our time than pre-screen every lecture delivered by the nearly 40 Fellows of Discovery’s Center for Science and Culture, all of whom are quite capable of giving lectures without our aid, and many of whom (like Dr. Dembski) are unsalaried and hold full-time positions at other institutions. In the present case, Discovery Institute played no role whatever in the use, alteration, or dissemination of any animation clip from Harvard that our esteemed colleague may have included in some of his lectures. When we first learned several weeks ago that someone had concerns about Dr. Dembski’s occasional use of this particular clip, we contacted Dr. Dembski directly, and he told us that he had stopped using the material as soon as these concerns had been raised with him. Of course, you can still find the cell animation in question posted all over the internet by persons other than Dr. Dembski from places as far away as Latvia. It will be interesting to see if anyone goes after those sinister Latvians for violating Harvard’s copyright—or, for that matter, the hundreds of professors and teachers who are likely showing the clip to their classes without permission.

For the record, those of us at Discovery Institute do believe in—and respect—intellectual property rights. We certainly empathize with the legitimate concerns of the Harvard professors who commissioned this animation. They unquestionably have the right to control and safeguard the use of their intellectual property.

What I find difficult to take seriously are the recent histrionics by members of the Darwinist internet posse. If would take them more seriously if they applied their concerns a tad more consistently. For example, some of the very Darwinists who are now browbeating Dr. Dembski also posted on their blogs video from his lecture, presumably without his permission.

What is apparent from all of this is just how bare the Darwinists’ cupboard must be these days. Every time they try to shift the evolution-ID debate away from the scientific evidence—whether it be by fake reenactments of the Dover trial a la PBS, or through overblown controversies such as this one—they expose the weakness of their position. After all, if they had the evidence on their side, they would be arguing it. Since they don’t, they try to change the subject.

Posted by John West at 5:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

According to a recent article in the Seattle Times, “School officials unite in banning Wikipedia,” because “[t]here have been many cases of incorrect information on the Web site, some of which has been biased.” The article reports that sadly, “A teacher researching Martin Luther King Jr. found white supremacist information in his entry.”

Dr. King is one of my personal heroes. His perseverance in support of a just cause, and his calls for civil, reasoned responses to false personal attacks and persecution should be seen as a model for any ID proponent on how to behave in the present political climate. Thus, it is tragically unsurprising that Wikipedia, which promotes so much incorrect and biased information against intelligent design, should also be a haven for an even more distasteful form of incorrect and biased information about the pathway taken by the civil rights movement to strive towards freedom.

Regardless, there is one piece of good news coming from this article: Wikipedia itself is slowly recognizing its own deficiencies. As the article reports, “

Wikipedia officials recognize the problems with using the Web site for research, said Sandra Ordonez, communications manager for Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit group behind Wikipedia. The company does not recommend using the Web site as a primary research source, she said.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:04 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As part of our response to the PBS-NOVA documentary “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design,” Discovery Institute recently released “The Theory of Intelligent Design: A Briefing Packet for Educators” (available free for download, here). The packet contains numerous resources for educators trying to effectively teach about biological origins in public schools. These resources include:

PBS-NOVA's "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design" documentary has evoked much commentary and response. In fact, we have recently received a flood of e-mails from members of the public who felt that “Judgment Day” was heavily biased and inaccurate, including e-mails from educators and teachers who thanked us for correcting the misinformation promoted by PBS. Other e-mails have not been so nice, showing that sadly, some Darwinists apparently lack the Thanksgiving holiday spirit. Below is a sampling of some of the e-mails we have received recently:

One Darwinist wrote us to explain that he is a "science teacher," showing the type of example that he sets for his students regarding how to discuss controversial scientific and social issues:

"May you rot in the feces you espouse, and than god for helping expose your phony attempts to get creationism into the classroom. I will help fight your kind to the end of time, as will many of my colleagues. Did I mention I'm a science teacher! Next time you try something unconstitutional I hope they ream your lily white a**es into prison where you belong! Eat crap you losers."

“Here's my general inquiry. What do you at this creepy organization really think you're doing, attempting to force your version of religion into public schools with beliefs that are identical to those of radical Islam? I suppose there will never be an end to the machinations of those truly stupid and venal humans among us, a group you represent oh so well. How pathetic.”

“I'm proud of my great ape ancestorial history. At least they aren't destroying the planet like the virus that is humanity.”

“laughed my f***ing a** off at you guys, maybe god created giant a****** for you to put your heads in.No that would be ittelegent [sic] design. maybe change your namr [sic] to discovery prostitute”

Posted by Casey Luskin at 3:29 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As we noted earlier, Mike Behe has a response to another critic, Dr. Ian Musgrave of University of Adelaide, who wrote "An Open Letter to Dr. Michael Behe."

Read Behe's response to Musgrave at his Amazon blog using the links below. Behe has also responded to a number of other critics at that site, including Ken Miller, Sean Carroll and Nick Matzke.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Posted by Anika Smith at 12:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I just posted at Discovery Blog about the remarkable article in The Los Angeles Times by Richard Hayes and what it tells us about the poltiical motivation of scientists who opposed embryonic stem cell research, but were reluctant to speak out because they didn't want to go against the P.C. crowd in science and the media. The relevance to other issues, including Darwin's theory, is obvious.

http://www.discovery.org/blogs/discoveryblog/

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 10:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Recently stories about intelligent design and evolution have been appearing more regularly in the mainstream media. Many of these have to do with ongoing arguments over the scientific evidence for and against Darwinian evolution, and academic freedom cases of scholars and scientists researching intelligent design theory. Here's a rundown of some of the biggest stories of recent weeks.

PBS' NOVA aired its review of the Dover intelligent design trial and misrepresented what intelligent design is and what its proponents say about it.

Federal judges don’t ordinarily travel around the country speaking about their judicial rulings, but Judge Jones is no ordinary federal judge. While promoting the PBS-NOVA special on intelligent design, he recently appeared the Lehrer Newshour, where he made striking admissions that demonstrate the activist nature of the Kitzmiller ruling.

Two hallmarks of judicial activism are (1) the tendency to resolve questions outside the scope of the judiciary, which are best left to other branches of government, and (2) the intent to make policy and influence parties outside of the case. Judge Jones’ own admissions on the Lehrer Newshour demonstrate that both of these criticisms correctly apply to his Kitzmiller ruling.

Judge Jones’ Expansive Intrusion into Legislative Questions
First, Judge Jones admitted that a key question his ruling answered was whether intelligent design was “good science,” and he states that “after six weeks of largely expert testimony, I came to the conclusion that it simply was not good science” (emphasis added). This proves his judicial activism because it shows that, in his mind, a key question was not the constitutionality of Dover’s policy in particular, but rather a broad sweeping question about whether ID is “good science,” something that is totally inappropriate and unnecessary for the federal judiciary to answer in such a case over the constitutionality of a science curriculum. As I co-wrote with David DeWolf and John West in Montana Law Review, Judge Jones confused the proper question he was supposed to answer:

Unfortunately, Judge Jones appears to have confused the question of whether he finds ID personally convincing with the question of whether ID is a scientific theory. Because he was not convinced by the scientific arguments made by ID proponents, Judge Jones ruled that ID must not be science in principle. But it was not Judge Jones’s place to determine the ultimate truth or falsity of ID’s scientific arguments…

Even if Judge Jones believed that ID is false, he should have remembered that “the 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.” If it is really true that “[s]tates and local school boards are generally afforded considerable discretion in operating public schools,” then what matters is that the school board sincerely believed that ID has scientific merit, not whether a federal judge is convinced of its ultimate scientific truth.

I wrote the opinion in a comprehensive way because I knew that the dispute was possibly going to be replicated someplace else. And what I wanted to do was make the opinion sort of a primer that people could read. You're absolutely correct. It's not precedential outside of the middle district of Pennsylvania, but I thought that if other school boards and other boards of education could read it, they would possibly be more enlightened about what the dispute was all about. And, in fact, in Ohio, in Kansas, in California, and some other places, it was reacted to in a positive way.

Proclaiming that one is not an activist judge does not make it so. And claiming that those who charge “judicial activism” simply disagree with the ruling and have nothing better to say does not mean that reasonable arguments cannot be raised that Judge Jones’s ruling intruded into inappropriate territory or had factually incorrect findings. Judicial activism is not just a meaningless epithet; it is a term applied to judges who succumb to the temptation to “increase their impact as policymakers.” Judicial activism has the tendency to displace other branches of government, or other institutions in society, that are arguably better equipped to resolve a dispute.

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

We had a "heads up" yesterday from Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith to expect a breakthrough on the issue of embryonic stem cells, and now he has published on it.

Read more here.

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 12:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

One way you can tell an ideologue is if he ditches an old friend because the old friend no longer agrees with him. It has happened to me occasionally on the issue of Darwinism, and I rather relish it, frankly. I have been a card carrying member of the Centrist Establishment my whole adult life, so I experience a certain excitement in being stigmatized as an extremist by the Leftist Establishment. Me? An extremist? Why thank you so much!

The same thing is happening to Anthony Flew now, in double dosage, and I hope he, too, is enjoying the notoriety.

The New York Times -- media headquarters for the Give No Quarter to Darwin Doubters campaign -- decided to respond to the recent apostasy of England's hallowed Professor of Atheism by intimating that the old man must be daft. Never let it be said that NYT lacks for objective anaylsis and journalistic professionalism on science issues. They simply are following the lead of that noted Darwinian ethicist, Richard Dawkins.

But Flew is fighting back. I may be old and slow, he says, but stop your carping insinuations about my intelligence and your egregious age discrimination (okay, I added that last twist myself). Let my recent book speak for itself, he says.

Lovely. I say that the AARP (or their UK branch) should file a suit against The Times.

Meanwhile, let The New York Times wallow in its patronizing zeal. When the history of our real times is written, it will be noted that The Times newspaper was no more accurate about trends in science in the early 21st century than it was about the nature of communism in the middle of the 20th. It is easily addled by its ideology.

I had the honor as a young man to write editorials for the late, great New York Herald Tribune. We distrusted The Times then and I can't find any reason to think better of it as years go by.

Cross-posted at DiscoveryBlog

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 9:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Nearly 20 years ago, a small non-profit in Texas, The Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE), published a short supplemental textbook called Of Pandas and People (Pandas). This event did not go unnoticed.

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) soon thereafter published numerous reviews condemning Pandas as a “creationist … ’equal time’ tract” that presented “a pot pourri of half-truths, untruths, and nonsense.” Law review articles were published hoping to prove Pandas unconstitutional. In 2005, a federal judge banned Pandas outright from science classrooms in Dover, Pennsylvania — but only after denying FTE the right to appear before the court to defend the book. Most troubling, the judge largely ignored the published text of Pandas, instead scrutinizing long-forgotten pre-publication drafts, alleging constitutional defects in pages that no student had ever read. Today, the NCSE’s website hosts over 100 individual web pages attacking Pandas.

Why have Darwinists gone to such lengths to attack Pandas? It's simple. While Discovery Institute opposes mandating ID in public schools or adopting Pandas in public schools, Pandas nonetheless scared Darwinists because it offered a potent, comprehensive critique of Darwinian evolution and proposed a legitimate scientific alternative, intelligent design (ID).

Fast forward to 2008, and Pandas’ successor, The Design of Life, written by leading ID theorists William Dembski and Jonathan Wells, brings readers up to speed on the numerous advancements of ID over the past 20 years. Design of Life is more than twice as long as Pandas, recounting many of the peer-reviewed scientific papers, scientific books, and laboratory studies completed by ID theorists. It offers an excellent up-to-date account of ID for any reader.

For the newcomer to ID, Design of Life offers clearly written and well-illustrated chapters explicating ID’s basic scientific concepts, such as irreducible complexity and specified complexity. Design of Life even gives accessible discussions of more complex issues, such as the “irreducible core,” or explaining how specified complexity is detected in the research of Douglas Axe, who found that the odds of obtaining a functional β-lactamase domain are less than one in 10^64.

For the ID-guru, Design of Life covers many hot topics. This includes a lucid explanation of the integrated, unevolvable complexity in the neck of the giraffe, a potent critique of the alleged transition from reptiles to mammals, and a critical analysis of the evidence used to support the hypothesis that whales evolved from land-mammals. The advanced reader will devour the General Notes, which expose the bankruptcy of Darwinist attacks on Stephen Meyer’s article “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories” and also explain why Darwinists have thus far failed to explain the evolution of the bacterial flagellum.

All readers will appreciate Design of Life’s devastating critique of chemical origin of life hypotheses and hypotheses about universal common descent. The book provides piles of examples where the molecular data has conflicted with expectations of universal common ancestry and refutes the Darwinist icon that pseudogenes demonstrate that humans share common ancestors with other mammals. In other highlights, Dembski and Wells address SETI’s objections to ID and perform Lasic surgery on the common Darwinist icon that the vertebrate eye exhibits bad design.

Design of Life is unafraid to confront the sensitive topics. “Supernatural explanations invoke miracles and therefore are not properly part of science,” write Dembski and Wells, further explaining that “[e]xplanations that call on intelligent causes require no miracles but cannot be reduced to materialistic explanations.” Design of Life even has an epilogue squarely addressing the Kitzmiller ruling, concluding, “In the end, not any court rulings or public policies or Hollywood films, will decide the merit of intelligent design.”

So how do we decide the merit of intelligent design? According to Design of Life, the crucial question is, "What is the origin of new biological information?" With over 100 pages of footnotes and general notes, the book gives an immense amount of accessible data and scientific arguments supporting the view that “the source of that functional information is a designing intelligence.” But make no mistake: If Darwinists reacted strongly in fear over the scientific arguments in Pandas, they will go supernova after reading The Design of Life.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 2:23 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Law, Darwinism, and Public Education: The Establishment Clause and the Challenge of Intelligent Design
By Francis J. Beckwith
Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, 185 pages.
ISBN 0-7425-1430-7

Legal scholar Francis J. Beckwith recounts the legal history of court battles over the teaching of biological origins. Though many thought that the landmark Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard would permanently settle these questions by ruling creationism unconstitutional, Beckwith observes that intelligent design poses a new challenge to legal scholars. Beckwith provides a thorough treatment of the subject.

After recounting the history of cases which involved the “Creator in the courtroom,’ Beckwith turns to analyzing intelligent design. Under various legal definitions of religion, Beckwith contends that design is not religion as conventionally understood because it derives its support from empirical data and philosophical arguments. Intelligent design, Beckwith explains, is distinct from creationism, for it derives its support from the scientific argument rather than religious texts such as the book of Genesis. Design also fails other legal tests for “religion,” such as the “parallel position test” because it does not function as a religion in the lives of its proponents. While design may come to conclusions shared by some religions, this does not necessarily make it “religion” for legal purposes. After all, Beckwith observes, courts have acknowledged that “a decision respecting the subject matter to be taught in public schools does not violate the Establishment Clause simply because the material to be taught ‘happens to harmonize with the tenets of some or all religions.’”

Finally, Beckwith argues that intelligent design does not fit under the Edwards test for religion because it lacks a historical connection with the Scopes Trial and other Genesis-inspired anti-evolution endeavors. Teaching about intelligent design could be justified on the basis that it improves the religious “neutrality” of a curriculum.

Beckwith provides a deep and thorough treatment of the legal arguments raised by critics of teaching design in public schools. Those interested in studying the relevant technical legal arguments surrounding the teaching of intelligent design will require an understanding of Beckwith’s well-reasoned position explained in this book.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 6:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In his review of Michael Behe’s book The Edge of Evolution, Paul Gross wrongly claims that cosmic fine-tuning is rejected by mainstream physicists. Gross writes that "as proof of intelligent design [Behe] now hitches it to the strong anthropic principle: a universe fine-tuned for human life, and not by accident. ... mainstream … cosmology remain[s] unimpressed."

First, cosmic design is a minimal component of Behe's book, which primarily focuses on biological design. Second, there are a variety of respected physicists who believe that cosmic find-tuning is a valid inference from the data. Indeed, Gross seems to have forgotten that numerous physicists have in fact supported the view that the universe was finely-tuned for life. Physicist Paul Davies, who is not a theist, writes that the consensus view is increasingly impressed with the evidence for “some sort of design” of the cosmos:

The temptation to believe that the Universe is the product of some sort of design, a manifestation of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgment, is overwhelming. The belief that there is ‘something behind it all’ is one that I personally share with, I suspect, a majority of physicists.

This view has been echoed by numerous physicists, including Nobel Prize winning physicist Charles Townes, who doesn’t necessarily endorse design in biology, but seems very impressed with arguments for cosmic design:

Intelligent design, as one sees it from a scientific point of view, seems to be quite real. This is a very special universe: it's remarkable that it came out just this way. If the laws of physics weren't just the way they are, we couldn't be here at all. The sun couldn't be there, the laws of gravity and nuclear laws and magnetic theory, quantum mechanics, and so on have to be just the way they are for us to be here. Some scientists argue that "well, there's an enormous number of universes and each one is a little different. This one just happened to turn out right." Well, that's a postulate, and it's a pretty fantastic postulate — it assumes there really are an enormous number of universes and that the laws could be different for each of them. The other possibility is that ours was planned, and that's why it has come out so specially.

(Charles Townes quoted in Bonnie Azab Powell, “’Explore as much as we can’: Nobel Prize winner Charles Townes on evolution, intelligent design, and the meaning of life,” UC Berkeley NewsCenter, June 17 2005.)

Gross has misrepresented the current state of thinking on this matter. Mainstream physicists and cosmologists are not “unimpressed” with the view that the universe shows fine-tuning evidence of cosmic design.

Conclusion
In conclusion, Gross asserted in his review that “it would need a book longer than The Edge to restate the model together with its already noticed (in print and online) errors and omissions.” Yet as we have seen in this 4-part series, it is Gross who has made fundamental misrepresentations of Behe’s arguments, printing the following errors:

This weekend Discovery Institute is moving its Seattle offices crosstown. For the locals in the know, we'll be saying goodbye to the exciting corner of Third & Pike, and heading south closer to Pioneer Square (here's a pic of the new digs). The new street address is 208 Columbia. More on the move here.

Moving servers, phone systems, and everything else is a chore. So, if the blog goes down for a while, well you've been warned. And if you're having trouble reaching us between now and Monday, have patience.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 11:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

November 13th PBS' NOVA program aired Judgment Day a special program on the Dover ID trial. For the truth about the Dover intelligent design trial go to www.traipsingintoevolution.com.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 10:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s edition of the student newspaper at Baylor University carries a devastating investigative report exposing new details of the university’s shameful treatment of pro-ID engineering professor Robert Marks. Anyone who thinks Baylor science faculty have academic freedom to research and write about ID should read this article, which provides extensive documentation of the lengths to which some Baylor administrators will go to censor and shut down open discussion and research about intelligent design. From reading the article, it appears that the intolerance of pro-ID faculty comes from the very top of the institution. This account makes a mockery of Baylor’s own Faculty Handbook, which promises faculty that

1. Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results …

Given the heavy-handed efforts by Baylor administrators to stamp out any expression of dissent from Darwinian orthodoxy by Prof. Marks, perhaps Baylor’s Faculty Handbook should be rewritten thus:

1. Teachers at Baylor University should expect academic censorship and persecution in research and in the publication of results, especially if their research in any way questions the dogmas of Darwinian evolution. Teachers who persist in wanting academic freedom in their research should consider looking for another job.

Message to Baylor alumni: Does this crusade to suppress Prof. Marks’ research make you proud of your university? If not, what are you doing about it? Every dollar you donate to Baylor helps to enable the continued persecution of Prof. Marks.

Posted by John West at 12:20 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

“John West’s book is a deep and comprehensive study of scientific materialism’s morally corrupting effects on American public policy. Although some readers (like me) will not find his attack on Darwinian science persuasive, anyone who wants to think about the moral and political implications of modern science will have to ponder his arguments.”— Larry Arnhart, Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University and author of Darwinian Conservatism

Larry Arnhart is the most articulate defender of the idea that Darwinism supports conservatism, and I have enjoyed interacting with him over the past couple of years (we debated again tonight at Seattle Pacific University). Unfortunately, Arnhart has a habit of mischaracterizing my actual positions, and so he often ends up attacking a straw man. (He’s done the same thing to historian Richard Weikart.) Arnhart is at it again, criticizing my book Darwin Day in America on his blog for a position it doesn’t even uphold. This is the same book Arnhart earlier praised (see above). Since we disagree about Darwin’s theory, I fully anticipated that Arnhart would criticize parts of my book. But I had hoped that he would critique something that was actually in the book, which would allow for a much more interesting discussion. Alas, that was not to be.

Arnhart’s basic complaint (found here and here) is that Darwin Day “blame(s) Darwinian science for all of the bad thinking and bad policies attributed to scientific materialism.” Indeed, according to Arnhart, my book makes “ridiculously contrived efforts at connecting all of this [“the deleterious effects of scientific materialism on American public policy”] to Darwin.”

Except that it doesn’t. My book isn’t just about Darwin. It’s about scientific reductionism in general. That’s why in my book’s introduction I clearly state:

While Darwin’s theory is featured prominently in several chapters (and the book’s title), the scope of this study is broader than just Darwin. The overall aim is to examine the impact of materialistic reductionism on public policy and culture, and Darwinism is only one part of that larger story. (emphasis added)

So of course not everything in the book is directly tied back to Darwin. As I explain in my book (chapter 1 especially) materialist reductionism goes back to the ancient Greeks and is a much larger problem than Darwinism. Darwinism, to be sure, is a critical part of the overall story, but it is far from the only kind of scientific materialism.

This fact makes most of Arnhart’s specific criticisms of Darwin Day inapt. At one point, he contends that my book “concludes… Darwin must have been responsible for modern architecture,” to which he responds that he doesn’t “see that there is any kind of inevitable connection to Darwinian science.” But my book doesn’t claim that there is an “inevitable connection” between Darwinism and modern architecture. This is another straw man.

From reading some of Arnhart’s other comments, I have come to the conclusion that he needs to re-read my book more carefully. For example, he faults a brief summary statement in chapter three where I state that Darwin struggled with the ideas of free will and personal responsibility. According to Arnhart, West “never even explains exactly why and how Darwin ‘struggled’ with ‘free will and responsibility.’” Except that I do. In chapter two (see page 31).

As I said earlier, this isn’t the first time Arnhart has misrepresented my positions in order to attack a straw man. He previously claimed that I reject “evolutionary science as totally false” and even that I “insist that Biblical morality is the only reliable source of moral norms.” Wrong on both counts (see here).

It’s nice of Arnhart to make it so easy for me to rebut his claims. But it would be far more intellectually stimulating to be able to engage him on something I actually wrote or said.

I’m beginning to wonder whether Arnhart attacks a straw man version of my arguments because he really has no serious critique to offer to them. Or perhaps his Darwinist friends have abused him for initially praising my book, and so he feels compelled to do penance.

Whatever the case, in Arnhart’s last blog post on my book he unfortunately descends into the muck and tries to smear my book as part of a nefarious “secret plan” by Discovery Institute to defeat scientific materialism through a master “public relations strategy.” (For the truth about this supposed “secret plan,” see here.) Such garden-variety Darwinist rhetoric is beneath Arnhart. Fortunately, in our debate at Seattle Pacific University tonight, he was back to his usual model of civility and reasonableness, which is something I have always appreciated about him. At that debate, I think we both were able to present our respective positions clearly and without rancor. Unlike many Darwinists, Arnhart is to be commended for a genuine commitment to rational debate and discussion.

Posted by John West at 11:13 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Note: This is one of a series of posts adapted from my new book, Darwin Day in America. You can find other posts in the series here.

Perhaps the most celebrated defense attorney in the first half of the twentieth century, Clarence Darrow is best known for his role at the Scopes “monkey trial” in the 1920s. But he also was an early champion of the idea that criminals should not be held responsible for their crimes. Darrow’s debunking of criminal responsibility was based squarely on his worldview of deterministic materialism.

Darrow once told prisoners in a county jail that there was no difference whatever in the moral condition between themselves and those still in society. “I do not believe people are in jail because they deserve to be,” he declared. “They are in jail simply because they cannot avoid it, on account of circumstances which are entirely beyond their control, and for which they are in no way responsible.” According to Darrow, “there ought to be no jails, and if it were not for the fact that the people on the outside are so grasping and heartless in their dealing with the people on the inside, there would be no such institutions as jails.” He added that he knew why “every one” of the prisoners committed their crimes, even if they did not know the reason themselves: “You did these things because you were bound to do them.” Those prisoners who thought they made a choice to commit a crime were simply deluded. “It looked to you at the time as if you had a chance to do them or not, as you saw fit; but still, after all, you had no choice.”

Darrow even suggested that police were the real criminals, and he concluded by claiming that pleasure was the ultimate basis for morality: “I believe that progress is purely a question of the pleasurable units that we get out of life. The pleasure-pain theory is the only correct theory of morality, and the only way of judging life.”

Darrow’s outspoken denial of personal responsibility came to the forefront when he chose to defend Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb for their cold-blooded murder of a young boy in Chicago in the 1920s. The story of the Leopold-Loeb case and Darrow’s involvement in it can be found in chapter 3 of Darwin Day in America, “Criminal Science.”

To order Darwin Day in America click here. To find out more information about the book (and watch the trailer), visit the book’s website here.

Posted by John West at 11:16 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Paula Apsell was the executive producer of PBS/NOVA’s “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design” documentary, which tries to inaccurately paint ID as a creationist idea that has been refuted by science. But in fact, a few years ago Ms. Apsell produced a different NOVA documentary entitled “Mystery of the Megaflood.”

For a geologist like me, it’s a fascinating tale about how mainstream geologists took decades to accept the view that a giant post-glacial flood was responsible for much of the bizarre geological features found in eastern Washington. According to Apsell’s “Megaflood” documentary, a geologist in the early 1900s named J. Harlen Bretz proposed a catastrophic local flood theory to explain this geology.

Bretz was ridiculed by his contemporary geologists because his ideas reminded them of a creationist Biblical global flood. The documentary says that Bretz challenged the “orthodox view” and was labeled as promoting creationist “heresy” that “defied all scientific convention.” Of course, Bretz’s theory was not a creationist explanation. He did not propose a global flood—he simply proposed that a localized post-glacial flood in eastern Washington caused the geological features he observed. But his critics used the “creationist” label to oppose his views as unacceptable. That is, until the evidence won out.

About 80 years later, Bretz’s view has been vindicated because the evidence won out over false accusations that he was promoting creationism. Does this story sound familiar? Paula Apsell’s “Judgment Day” documentary does to ID precisely what Bretz’s contemporaries did to him: it tries to marginalize ID with false claims that it is creationism and makes fallacious claims that ID has been scientifically refuted. Emboldened by the misguided opinion of one federal judge, Apsell's latest documentary, "Judgment Day," similarly labels ID as creationist “heresy.”

Perhaps Apsell should review her own “Megaflood” documentary and take a lesson from history: 100 years from now, after ID’s scientific revolution is complete, Paula Apsell’s “Judgment Day” documentary may be shown in high school science classrooms studying ID to warn students not to wrongly label powerful scientific ideas as “creationist heresy” simply because they challenge the orthodox scientific view.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 6:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

UPDATE: A tenth PBS blunder is addressed, where PBS makes the false insinuation that intelligent design is no more scientific than astrology. Scroll down to read more.

More than 50 years ago two playwrights penned a fictionalized account of the 1920s Scopes Trial called "Inherit the Wind" that is now universally regarded by historians as inaccurate propaganda. Last night PBS aired its "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design" documentary, which similarly promotes propaganda about the 2005 Kitzmiller trial and intelligent design (ID). Most of the misinformation in "Judgment Day" was corrected by ID proponents long ago. To help readers sift the fact from the fiction, here are links to articles rebutting some of PBS's most blatant misrepresentations:

1. PBS falsely claims that Discovery Institute sent the Dover Area School Board the "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" documentary and supported Dover's ID policy.
In an attempt to rewrite history and claim that Discovery Institute encouraged Dover to pass its ID policy, PBS claims that "Unlocking the Mystery of Life," a documentary about ID, was the "DVD that [Bill Buckingham] got from Discovery Institute." This is a completely false statement. Discovery Institute never sent that DVD to anyone on the Dover School Board, but rather sent Bill Buckingham the Icons of Evolution DVD, which is not about ID and simply focuses on scientific critique of evolution. Discovery Institute has long-opposed mandating ID in public schools, and adamantly opposed Dover's desire to pass a policy using Of Pandas and People and requiring the teaching of ID. For more information, see: