In this clip, CSC fellow Professor John Angus Campbell analyzes the naturalistic rhetoric employed by Darwin in The Origin of Species. Campbell focuses on the Darwinian term “natural selection” and the way Darwin crafts his arguments to convince his audience of this central point of his work.

This DVD is available from Access Research Network.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The most astonishing thing about Premise Media’s new documentary Expelled is the candor with which prominent Darwinist scientists admit their own ideological agenda in science education. In the film, Darwinists admit that atheist metaphysics is essential to their science. They insist that scientific education should erode their students’ belief in God.

Among the most prominent Darwinists interviewed in the film is Dr. P.Z. Myers, an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota-Morris and author of the science blog Pharyngula. Pharyngula is one of the most popular science blogs, and Myers mixes Darwinist science with unvarnished venom for Christianity. Dr. Myers posted one of his more polite descriptions of Christianity on Easter Day:

This is Easter, the day Christians everywhere set aside to celebrate the day they were hoaxed by a gang of Middle Eastern charlatans into believing a local mystic rose from the dead.

In Expelled (video above), Dr. Myers explains his goal for science education:

…what we have to do is get it to a place where religion is treated at the level it should be treated— that is, it should be something fun, that people get together and do on the weekends, and really doesn’t affect their life as much as it has been so far…

What will the world look like, if Dr. Myers gets his wish? Dr.Myers:

…greater science literacy, which is going to lead to the erosion of religion, and then we’ll get this nice positive feedback mechanism going where as religion slowly fades away we'll get more and more science to replace it and that will displace more and more religion which will allow more and more science in and we’ll eventually get to the point where religion has taken that appropriate place as a side dish rather than the main course. And if you separate out the ethical message from religion — what have you got left — you got — you got a bunch of fairy tales, right?

In the midst of a furious national debate about intelligent design, Darwinism, and metaphysical bias and indoctrination in science education, one has to wonder why Dr. Myers would state plainly that the agenda of Darwinists is to advance atheism in the classroom. Why would Dr. Myers state unequivocally on film that a fundamental goal of science education is the suppression of religious belief?

The most parsimonious explanation is that he means it.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 8:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

On June 26, 2000, President Bill Clinton announced the completion of the Human Genome Project, which had just deciphered the sequence of DNA in a human cell. “Today,” he said, “we are learning the language in which God created life.” At the president’s side was Francis Collins, director of the project, who had helped to write Clinton’s speech. “It is humbling and awe-inspiring,” Collins said, “to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God.”

As its subtitle indicates, The Language of God presents evidence for Christian belief. Curiously, however, that evidence does not include DNA, which according to Collins provides “compelling” evidence for Darwin’s theory of evolution instead. In the course of defending Darwinian evolution as “unquestionably correct,” Collins argues that intelligent design not only “fails in a fundamental way to qualify as a scientific theory” but is also “doing considerable damage to faith.”

Read the rest here.

Listen to an interview I did on this with ID the Future here.

Posted by Jonathan Wells at 6:38 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From a release issued by Premise Media:

SANTA FE, N.M.Something amazing happened yesterday. The controversy around Premise Media’s upcoming movie Ben Stein’s EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed became the hottest topic in the blogosphere. According to BlogPulse, a service of Nielsen Buzzmetrics, the issue held the number one slot throughout the day on Monday, March 24th (http://www.blogpulse.com). There were also over 800 results on Technorati (www.technorati.com).

“It is amazing to see the reaction of PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins and their cohorts when one of them is simply expelled from a movie. Yet these men applaud when professors throughout the nation are fired from their jobs and permanently excluded from their profession for mentioning Intelligent Design,” said producer Mark Mathis. Mathis was at the event that has raised this controversy.

Mathis continued, “I hope PZ’s experience has helped him see the light. He is distraught because he could not see a movie. What if he wasn’t allowed to teach on a college campus or was denied tenure? Maybe he will think twice before he starts demanding more professors be blacklisted and expelled simply because they question the adequacy of Darwin's theory.”

Posted by Robert Crowther at 3:52 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Last night was another screening of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, this one in Seattle and sans the infamous partycrasher Richard Dawkins. Still, the downtown theater, AMC Pacific Place, was packed out. Like every other screening, the audience loved it. The movie, whatever you might think of intelligent design, or evolution, or Darwin, is entertaining and at times irresistibly funny. And lucky us, this was the first showing of the actual 35mm print -- exactly what audiences will see across the country when the film opens on April 18th.

Discovery president Bruce Chapman has a good post about it at Discovery Blog.

A crowd of 350 invited guests attended a pre-screening of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed tonight in Seattle's Pacific Place. I can see now why the eminent Richard Dawkins, who crashed a screening in Minneapolis last week, remains so upset about Ben Stein's movie. He must not have realized until he sat in the theater last week and heard people laughing at him on the screen that he had made himself look foolish. On his website he calls the audience "sycophantic."

Among other things, he writes that before he was interviewed he didn't know who actor/economist/columnist Ben Stein was or that his droll monotone had comedic appeal to those strange Americans. He's so "boring," Dawkins writes. (Ferris Bueller thought the very same, Richard.)

Posted by Robert Crowther at 7:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

According The New York Times, arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins is now asserting that the new film Expelled perpetrates a "major outrage" because the film suggests there is a link between Darwinian ideology and ideas like Nazism.

Say what?

In 2005, Dawkins himself declared that such a link existed, responding to an Austrian interviewer that "a Darwinian State would be a Fascist state," which is why he says he opposes trying to run a society "according to Darwinian laws":

No self respecting person would want to live in a Society that operates according to Darwinian laws. I am a passionate Darwinist, when it involves explaining the development of life. However, I am a passionate anti-Darwinist when it involves the kind of society in which we want to live. A Darwinian State would be a Fascist state.

What is interesting in the above comment is not that Dawkins rejects fascism, but that he apparently believes that Darwinism logically applied to government would lead to fascism. This is a far stronger claim, by the way, than the one made in the preliminary cut of Expelled that I’ve seen. The experts interviewed for the film—including historian Richard Weikart and mathematician David Berlinski—are careful to point out that there is no inevitable connection between Darwinism and what happened in Nazi Germany. But that does not cancel out the fact that Darwinian ideology provided the Nazis with one of their key justifications for sterilizing the "unfit" and killing the handicapped. Darwinism similarly provided a rationale for eugenics crusaders in America, which I write about in my recent book Darwin Day in America.

Posted by John West at 3:00 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In this clip, Dr. Jonathan Wells introduces the question “Can ID Guide Scientific Research?” Wells explains how a trip to the Michigan-based company Ideation reinforced the need for intelligent design to solve practical problems. In response, Wells developed his Theory of Organismal Problem Solving, or TOPS, modeled after a Russian problem-solving method named TRIZ. Wells goes on to enumerate scientific fields where practical ID research is already underway, including physics, chemistry, and biology.

This DVD is available from Access Research Network.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 7:39 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Darwinist Mike Dunford is incensed with the manner in which I quoted him in one of my recent posts. I pointed out, using Mr. Dunford’s own words, that the assertion that an understanding of natural selection was essential to laboratory research on bacterial resistance to antibiotics was inconsistent with the Darwinist assertion that the biological evidence for natural selection disproves the theory of intelligent design. It’s a fairly obvious point, when you think about it carefully, and it was refreshing that Mr. Dunford made the point in such a clear (if inadvertent) way. The observation is worth reviewing.

First, two definitions:

Natural selection is selection in nature, presumably arising without intelligent agency. An example of natural selection would be the differential reproduction of organisms in nature, without the evident guidance of an intelligent agent.

Artificial selection is selection caused by intelligent agency. An example of artificial selection would be the intentional breeding of bacteria by a scientist in a research lab.

The distinction between natural selection and artificial selection is at least matter of definition, and perhaps there are empirical differences as well.

What is the relationship between natural selection and artificial selection? There are two possibilities:

1) Natural selection is substantially different from artificial selection. If true, then breeding of bacteria in a research lab in order to study antibiotic resistance doesn’t depend substantially on the theory of natural selection.
2) Natural selection is substantially the same as artificial selection. If true, then breeding of bacteria in a research lab in order to study antibiotic resistance does depend substantially on the theory of natural selection. However, if natural selection is substantially the same as artificial selection, then biological change in nature (natural selection) is in some ways the same as biological change caused by intelligent agency (artificial selection). That’s an assertion that some of the evidence in evolutionary biology is consistent with intelligent design.

What did Mr. Dunford think of my observation about his argument? Mr. Dunford:

...when a dog pisses on a fire hydrant, it’s not committing an act of vandalism. It’s just being a dog. It’s possible to use that analogy to excuse a creationist who takes a quote wildly out of context, I suppose, but I don’t think it’s really appropriate. Creationists might indulge in quote mining with the same casual disregard for public decency as a male dog telling his neighbors that he’s still around, but, unlike dogs, the creationists are presumably capable of self-control...

Comentators on Mr. Dunford’s blog didn’t like my observation either. ‘GvlGeologist’, FCD, wrote:

Mike [Dunford], what are the chances that you could email Egnor directly and ask for an apology for the deliberate twisting of your posting, and CC it to other members of his department, especially the chair of neurosurgery?

Write Egnor a simple one-page request for an apology, detailing his transgressions. Cc: everybody: The chair of neurosurgery, all the neurosurgeons, all the surgeons and anesthesiologists and other specialists, the nurses and office staff, the PR office, the accounting office, the local newspapers and TV stations, the DA and the Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau...wallpaper his world. Google his name to find his office(s) address(es), then Google the building(s) address(es) and sent a copy to everybody in his building(s). Find out every association he's a member of and send it to all the officers, past and present. Send it to the FBI, intimating he's Client Number 8 (naah, maybe that's too low.)

...if Dr. Egnor were practising at my hospital, I would be lobbying for suspension of his antimicrobial prescribing privileges.

Yet there is an important point that Mr. Dunford raises on which I disagree. He writes:

"Darwin's theory" is ...: if a heritable trait makes it more likely that those who possess it will successfully reproduce, the trait will spread through the population. That process drives the spread of antibiotic resistance. That may not be something that Egnor objects to, but it's still part and parcel of "Darwin's theory".

However, the observation that organisms have different degrees of reproductive success is not Darwin's theory. Darwin's theory is this:

All natural biological complexity arose by the mechanism of non-teleological heritable variation (random mutations) and non-teleological differential reproductive success (natural selection).

The essence of Darwinism— from Darwin's orgininal theory to the modern synthesis and all of its variants— is that biological evolution is non-teleological. The inference to teleology in biology is the core of the debate about intelligent design and Darwinism. Differenential reproductive success is only a part of Darwin's theory, and it is not the part of Darwin's theory that is at issue in the ID-Darwinism debate. If Darwin had merely asserted that differential reproductive success played a role in population dynamics of organisms, his theory, while obviously true, would not have caused controversy. In fact, Darwin's invocation of the role of differential reproductive success in population biology was rudimentary; population biology depends heavily on mathematics, and Darwin knew no mathematics. It was for later evolutionary biologists and mathematicians— Vito Volterra, A.J. Lotka, J.B.S. Haldane, Sewall Wright, R.A.Fisher and many others— to develop a meaningful mathematical theory of differential reproduction and population biology. What made (and makes) Darwin's theory so important was his assertion that the mechanism of non-teleological heritable variation and non-teleological differential reproductive success accounts for all natural biological complexity. It was Darwin's denial of teleology in biology that made his theory revolutionary and controversial. His observation that organisms have different reproductive success was only a part— a rudimentary and non-controversial part— of his theory.

Supporters of Darwin's theory (that there is no teleology in biology) invoke his non-controversial observation about differential reproductive success because it is one part of his theory that is demonstrably (and logically) true. It is a way of circumventing the real issue on which that truth of Darwin's theory stands or falls. What is at issue in the ID-Darwinism debate is the issue of teleology; is there any evidence that purpose— design— played a role in evolutionary history? The issue of teleology in evolution is the central question in our debate, and bacterial resistance to antibiotics has no direct bearing on that issue.

The phenomenon of bacterial resistance to antibiotics is tangential the ID-Darwinism debate, and Darwin's theory of the non-teleological origin of biological structure and function plays no scientific role in medical research. If intelligent design theory were true— if there were evidence for teleology in some aspects of biology— medical research would continue, unhindered.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 7:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Like many films in pre-release, Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is being selectively screened around the country to develop a buzz.

Press will be invited to screen the final version in three weeks, I’m told, while the official opening in theaters is April 18. Surprisingly, even the private screenings are causing excitement. Audiences love it.

In January I saw an early version that was screened in Fort Lauderdale and I will be at a Seattle screening soon. The Darwinists who are portrayed in the film -- giving answers to questions submitted in advance! -- are worried about what the public will think of their views when produced incontrovertibly in their own words. What they say is damning, all right, but it’s not much different than what they write in books and say in speeches and other appearances.

There is a growing fear by the producers that Darwinists may be trying get into the showings to make bootleg copies (for the Web?), possibly in hopes of damaging the commercial value. Others may be crashing because they want to trash it before it even gets reviewed by the media. P.Z. Myers, who was not let into a showing last night in Minnesota, probably falls in the latter category.

Amazingly, the best selling Oxford scientist/author Richard Dawkins also crashed a showing of Expelled in Minnesota last night and he not only was let in, but introduced at the end of the showing.

Dawkins apparently acknowledged that he had not been invited and did not have a ticket. A sophomoric side to his ideological campaign is thus revealed.

Dawkins, understandably is nervous about this film, among other reasons because Ben Stein has him on camera acknowledging that life on Earth may, indeed, have been intelligently designed, but that it had to have been accomplished by space aliens! This is hilarious, of course, because Dawkins is death on intelligent design. But it turns out that that view applies only if it includes the possibility that the designer might be God.

Myers, of course, relished being expelled from Expelled, but objective observers know that Myers is the most vociferous advocate of expelling Darwin critics from academia. Not from movie pre-screenings where he wasn’t invited, mind you, but from their jobs. Too bad the film doesn’t show (and I wish it had), his promotion of advice to attack teachers and professors who dare question Darwin’s theory. The whole point of Myers is that he is a take-no-prisoners, crusading atheist scientist who has made it his purpose in life to harass people who disagree with him. Dawkins turns out to be his buddy and mutual admirer.

Frankly, I wish the producers would have a special pre-release screening for the Darwinists who are interviewed in the film -- and invite some of the rest of us who have seen their depredations up close. We’d be glad to debate right there.

Among other things, I’d like to read some of the Darwinists’ statements and charges back to them and ask them to defend themselves. One of the most preposterous is that the well-funded’ Discovery Institute is funding this film! ( 1-They seem to have far more money available to them than we do, and 2-We are saving our pennies for the upcoming Broadway musical comedy, Darwin’s Folly.)

I have to say something else, personally. I have been sandbagged by one TV and documentary crew after another. So have Discovery-affiliated scientists. The interviewers all say they just want to understand the issue. Going in, they are quite clear about definitions, for example, and only start using Darwinist definitions of our positions when they report. They never provide questions in advance and even if they say they will stick to science questions and public policy, almost all sneak in questions about personal religious beliefs. Then, of all the footage, guess what gets on TV or in the documentary?

So it really is pathetic of Dawkins, et al to complain that when they were interviewed for Expelled they didn’t know that the film was inherently unfriendly. These are interviewees who received pre-agreed questions, signed release forms after the interviews were conducted, and actually got paid for their time.

I am getting more excited about Expelled myself and can’t wait to see the finished version. I suspect I’ll wish that the film was twice as long and had twice as much from Dawkins, P.Z. Myers, et al. From what I already have seen, they really expose themselves as the anti-intellectual, bullying poseurs they are -- small men who above all are afraid of a fair contest.

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 4:16 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In late 2005, three biologists published a study in Science which concluded, “Despite the amount of data and breadth of taxa analyzed, relationships among most [animal] phyla remained unresolved.”

In 2008, the relationships among animals are still controversial. A recent news release at Science Daily highlights a new study, “Tree Of Animal Life Has Branches Rearranged.” The story reports, “The study is the most comprehensive animal phylogenomic research project to date, involving 40 million base pairs of new DNA data taken from 29 animal species.”

According to the article, the study yielded surprising results: “Comb jellyfish -- common and extremely fragile jellies with well-developed tissues -- appear to have diverged from other animals even before the lowly sponge, which has no tissue to speak of. This finding calls into question the very root of the animal tree of life, which traditionally placed sponges at the base.”

This is the common theme among systematists trying to produce a grand “tree of life”: Similarities between different types of organisms commonly pop up in places they shouldn’t. Such unexpected similarities were found in this study, forcing one of the scientists to conclude “either that comb jellies evolved their complexity independently from other animals, [or] sponges have become greatly simplified through the course of evolution.”

This study has its own conclusions—but are they the final word? In the past decades, the tree of life has been re-arranged innumerable times. If history is to be our guide, it is likely that future studies will contradict the findings of this study.

The fundamental problem for neo-Darwinism is that phylogenetic trees based upon one gene or characteristic will often conflict with trees based upon some other gene or characteristic. This is why I discussed recently how morphology-based trees commonly conflict with DNA-based trees. Many studies (like this one) thus use many genes in hopes to avoid the conflicts between trees based upon individual genes or proteins. They must use this method because some genes are telling the wrong phylogenetic story; by averaging out the genetic signals, the theory says that you’ll find the true phylogenetic history.

But using this many-gene method might be like someone who asked for directions to Atlantis, but failed to find the lost continent after trying to follow the directions. So instead they asked 50 people for directions to Atlantis, expecting that any conflicts and contradictions in their various bits of advice will all average out, and by combining their accounts – pass the river, go 50 stadia – wait no 45 stadia, then left at the canyon – no then right, then paddle for 3 days towards the north star – no you paddle 2 days west – and you'll somehow find Atlantis. The other possibility is that there is no Atlantis to find and that people are mistaken in their various theories about how to find Atlantis.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists
By Benjamin Wiker
InterVarsity Press, 2002, 327 pages
ISBN 0-8308-2666-1

[The following is adapted from the Foreword by William A. Dembski.]
According to John Maynard Keynes, great intellectual and cultural movements frequently trace back to thinkers who worked in obscurity and are now long forgotten. But some thinkers are both famous and influential. This book focuses on two such thinkers, one largely forgotten, the other a household name. The largely forgotten thinker is Epicurus. The household name is Charles Darwin. The two are related: Epicurus set in motion an intellectual movement that Charles Darwin brought to completion.

Believers in God often scratch their heads about Western culture’s continual moral decline. What was unacceptable just a few years ago is today’s alternative lifestyle and tomorrow’s preferred lifestyle. Abortion, euthanasia, divorce, sexual preferences and drug abuse are just a few of the moral issues that have undergone massive changes in public perception. Too often believers in God take a reactive approach to the culture war and throw their energy into combating what they perceive as the most compelling evil of the moment. In the back of their minds, however, is an awareness that something deeper and more fundamental is amiss and that the evils they are combating are but symptoms of a more underlying and pervasive evil.

Benjamin Wiker has done a brilliant job of tracing the roots of that evil in this book. Insofar as traditional theists sense an underlying cause for the moral decline of Western culture, all roads lead to Epicurus and the train of thought he set in motion. For Epicurus, pleasure consisted in freedom from disturbance. For Epicurus, to allow that God might intervene in the natural world and to take seriously the possibility of an afterlife, (with the moral accountability and judgment it implies) were incompatible with the good life.

To short circuit belief in such a God, Epicurus proposed a mechanistic understanding of nature. Accordingly, Epicurus conceived of nature as an aggregate of material entities operating by blind, unbroken, natural laws. God or the gods might exist, but they took no interest in the world, played no role in human affairs and indeed could play no role in human affairs, since a material world operating according to mechanistic principles leaves no place for meaningful divine action. Moreover, since humans belonged to nature and consisted entirely of material entities, death amounted to a dissolution of a material state and thus precluded any sort of ongoing conscious existence.

Epicurus’ most prominent disciple is without question Charles Darwin. Darwinism is not only the most recent incarnation of Epicurean philosophy but also the most potent formulation of that philosophy to date. Darwinism’s significance consists in the purported scientific justification it brings to the Epicurean philosophy. But the science itself is weak and ad hoc. As Wiker shows, Darwinism is essentially a moral and metaphysical crusade that fuels our contemporary moral debates. Further, Wiker argues that the motivation behind Darwinism today is its alternative moral and metaphysical vision rather than the promotion of science.

Is reality at its base purposive and intelligent or mindless and material? Wiker brilliantly traces this divide to its metaphysical foundations. In so doing, he shows how the challenge of intelligent design to evolutionary naturalism is not the latest flash in the pan of the culture war but in fact constitutes ground zero of the culture war. If you really want to understand why our culture is in its current state, you must read this book.

Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists
By Benjamin Wiker
InterVarsity Press, 2002, 327 pages
ISBN 0-8308-2666-1

Posted by Robert Crowther at 6:20 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Apparently, when the word is evolution, what’s in a word is whatever Darwinists want to put there.

On February 29 I predicted that Darwinists would try to take credit for a recent advance in understanding a mechanism of antibiotic resistance, even though the breakthrough owed nothing whatever to Darwinian theory. Not only did Darwinists Ian Musgrave and P. Z. Myers do as I predicted, but the latter also resorted (as usual) to personal insults – calling me "an appalling fraud" who is "too stupid" to understand the issue.

I responded on March 5. Not to be outdone by Myers, Darwinist Larry Moran jumped into the fray by calling me an "idiot" who is "completely unhinged" and who "makes a virtue out of lying for Jesus."

Neuroscientist Michael Egnor criticized Moran for his vicious personal invective. In the process, Egnor paraphrased my position as follows:

Dr. Wells pointed out that research on antibiotic resistance wasn’t guided by Darwinian evolutionary theory. That evolution occurred — that is, that the population of bacteria changed over time — is obviously true, and obviously was relevant to the antibiotic resistance research. Dr. Wells made the observation that the research owed little to Darwin’s theory that all biological complexity arose by natural selection without teleology.

Maurice et al. (2006) employed evolution by natural selection in their methodology. My position is that evolution by natural selection is not what I mean when I use the word Darwinian.

"Evolution" has many meanings. It can mean simply "change over time." The present is different from the past. The cosmos evolves. Technology evolves. No sane person denies evolution in this sense.

In biology, "evolution" can also refer to minor changes within existing species. Nobody denies evolution in this sense, either. People were observing such changes for centuries before Darwin came long; they were even producing them in plants and animals by artificial selection. Darwin (and Wallace) pointed out that something analogous to artificial selection operates in natural populations, but there is nothing "Darwinian" about artificial selection. Maurice et al. selected for mutant enzymes at one point in their research, but this was artificial selection, not natural selection, so I do not agree with the first sentence in Moran’s statement.

Nevertheless, "evolution by natural selection" does happen in the wild, and it can properly be called "Darwinian" (though it could also be called "Wallacian"). So I do not agree with the second sentence in Moran’s statement.

Lest some people mistakenly conclude that I accept Darwinian evolution broadly defined, I will make two other distinctions. The first is between "microevolution" and "macroevolution," and the second is between "macroevolution" and "Darwinism."

Regarding the first: Almost eighty years after Darwin published The Origin of Species, neo-Darwinist Theodosius Dobzhansky noted that there was still no hard evidence to connect small-scale changes within existing species (which he called "microevolution") to the origin of new species, organs and body plans (which he called "macroevolution"). Dobzhansky wrote: "We are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution, and proceeding on this assumption, to push our investigations as far ahead as this working hypothesis will permit." ¹ Unfortunately for Darwin, there has never been a confirmed case of natural selection producing a new species, much less new organs or body plans.² So in 2008, seventy years after Dobzhansky and a century and a half after Darwin, the extrapolation from microevolution to macroevolution is still just an assumption.

Concerning the second and final distinction: Darwin didn’t just claim that natural selection could produce new species, organs and body plans. He went much further and argued that (a) all species are biologically descended from a common ancestor, and (b) their features were produced entirely by unguided natural processes. He wrote: "There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the winds blow." ³ It is the claim of universal common ancestry coupled with the exclusion of design that I call "Darwinism."

So "Darwinian evolution" can mean changes in existing species ("microevolution") due to natural selection. This is what Egnor referred to as "obviously true," and I agree. But for some people "Darwinian evolution" also includes the extrapolation from microevolution to macroevolution. This is far from obviously true; indeed, the evidence for it is underwhelming, at best.

Many people also use "Darwinian evolution" to refer to Darwin’s claim of universal common ancestry and his exclusion of design – that is, Darwinism. Far from being "obviously true" or even a working scientific hypothesis, Darwinism is really (as Phillip E. Johnson pointed out fifteen years ago ⁴) materialistic philosophy masquerading as empirical science.

Given the underwhelming evidence for macroevolution and the philosophical nature of Darwinism, people who espouse the latter often find it useful to obscure the distinctions among different meanings of "evolution," "Darwinian microevolution," "macroevolution," and "Darwinism."

For example, the National Center for Science Miseducation’s Eugenie Scott recommends: "Define evolution as an issue of the history of the planet: as the way we try to understand change through time. The present is different from the past. Evolution happened, there is no debate within science as to whether it happened, and so on… I have used this approach at the college level." Once Scott gets students nodding in agreement, she gradually introduces them to "The Big Idea" – Darwinism.

There’s a word for this: equivocation.

There are other words for it, too, but I won’t go there.

------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTES:
¹Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species, Reprinted 1982 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), p. 12.

²Jonathan Wells, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2006), Chapter 5 (“The Ultimate Missing Link”).

³Francis Darwin (editor), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (New York: D. Appleton, 1887), Volume I, p. 278-285; Volume II, pp. 105-106.

⁴Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin On Trial, Revised Edition (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993).

Posted by Jonathan Wells at 5:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A recent issue of the journal Science has an article entitled, “Evolution: Crossing the Divide,” which discusses the “painful transition from creationist to evolutionist” of paleontologist Stephen Godfrey. The article tells of the many difficulties Dr. Godfrey faced when he told his fundamentalist Christian family, which taught him to believe in young earth creationism, that he had become an “evolutionist.” The article portrays Darwin-skeptics as young earth creationists, painting a false dichotomy between religion-based creationism or science-based evolution. To elaborate, the false dichotomy goes something like this: Darwinists obviously say that one can accept evolution and religion, but they force a false dichotomy upon Darwin-skeptics by claiming that if you challenge evolution, then you have abandoned science and your view is purely religious. Just like creationists who have promoted a false dichotomy that forces supporters of evolution to abandon religion, Darwinists like the people at Science print articles promoting a false dichotomy that forces would-be Darwin-skeptics to abandon science.

The Science article focuses almost entirely upon efforts to promote young earth creationism. In the one sentence where it mentions intelligent design, it casts it merely as religious “creationism.” Darwinists are promoting a false dichotomy. If you want to have a scientific view about origins, they tell you that your only choice is neo-Darwinism. Otherwise, they tell you that you must believe in religion-based creationism. This is harmful because it tells people that if they want to be both religious and scientific, their only choice is to accept neo-Darwinian evolution. That’s a false dichotomy because it tells people that if they dissent from Darwinism, their only option is a religious view—it willfully ignores scientific skepticism of evolution or science-based ID. While religious persons can of course accept neo-Darwinism if they so choose, this false dichotomy ignores the fact that there are some alternatives to evolution that are scientific (i.e., intelligent design).

The article is also deficient in that many of the young earth creationists mentioned in the article are sadly portrayed as highly intolerant of those who accept evolution. This out-dated caricature goes back to the days of the Scopes trial, and it is commonly called the Inherit the Wind Stereotype.

But what about paleontologist Stephen Godfrey? It seems that he probably would disagree with Judge Jones’ finding that it is “utterly false” to believe that “evolutionary theory is antithetical to belief in the existence of a supreme being.” Here’s what happened after Dr. Godfrey’s “painful transition from creationist to evolutionist”:

He has flirted with atheism but found it too depressing. Several years ago, he stopped attending church for a year before returning. He believes in God today, he says, but tomorrow may be different.

Jennifer Couzin, "Evolution: Crossing the Divide," Science, Vol. 319:1034-1036 (February 22, 2008).

Posted by Casey Luskin at 7:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Wall Street Journal has an article discussing the high scores received by Finnish students in a test measuring science knowledge and intelligence. However, part of the test, which was created by the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, may be a measure of nothing more than whether a student believes in evolution. For example, see the sample test question, Question 3, Evolution:

Which one of the following statements best applies to the scientific theory of evolution?

A The theory cannot be believed because it is not possible to see species changing.
B The theory of evolution is possible for animals but cannot be applied to humans.
C Evolution is a scientific theory that is currently based on extensive evidence.
D Evolution is a theory that has been proven to be true by scientific experiments.

This test's methodology is reminiscent of the Fordham Report, which basically grades state science standards based upon how dogmatically they teach evolution. The more dogmatically they teach evolution, the higher the grade. If a state allows teachers to challenge evolution, it gets a failing grade. Under such a philosophy of teaching science, evolution education teaches students not how to think, but what to think. Sadly, this trend will only harm science education.



---------------------



Update: I received an insightful comment from a reader who commented that Answer A cannot be the correct answer because we do see "species changing." In fact I agree as I wrote earlier, "I think there are problems with all four of those statements." But while this reader was technically correct that we can see species changing, these are usually small-scale changes that are extremely trivial. Yet when using the term "evolution," the writers of the test likely meant more than mere small-scale changes. In the minds of the test-writers, “Answer A” is probably wrong because they are trying to rebut a common objection to neo-Darwinian evolution that “We don’t see large-scale evolutionary change happening.” Of course many people would say that is a valid objection to neo-Darwinism, but many Darwinists don’t require such observations to validate their theory. Such an objection can be valid when framed properly (which is what I tried to do), and thus I believe that A is the "least-wrong" of all four answers. But if we just define evolution as “change in species over time,” then perhaps all these answers are fully wrong.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 7:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

University of Toronto biochemistry professor Larry Moran takes issue with my characterization of his vicious personal attacks on Dr. Jonathan Wells. Dr. Wells has pointed out that superb recent research on bacterial resistance to antibiotics was independent of Darwin’s theory. Dr. Moran said of Dr. Wells:

…the right people hate Idiots…Wells makes a virtue out of lying for Jesus…He should be an embarrassment to the intelligent design creationist cult except that the members of that cult are all incapable of separating fact from fiction when it comes to science…When I first saw the Wells article I seriously wondered whether Jonathan Wells was mentally stable…

Flunk the IDiots...40% of the freshman class [at UCSD] reject Darwinism... the university has become alarmed at the stupidity of its freshman class and has offered remedial instruction for those who believe in Intelligent Design Creationism...UCSD should not have required their uneducated students to attend remedial classes. Instead, they should never have admitted them in the first place...[T]he University should just flunk the lot of them and make room for smart students who have a chance of benefiting from a high quality education.

If you were a scientist, how candid about questioning the relevance of Darwinism would you be if your livelihood depended on Darwinist professors like Dr. Myers and Dr. Moran?

Readers may recall that Wells made a really stupid claim that studying antibiotic resistance in bacteria had nothing to do with evolution.

…Darwinian evolution had nothing to do with [the research]…some bacteria happen to have a very complex enzyme (acetyltransferase), the origin of which Darwinism hasn’t really explained…And although an understanding of genetics is important when dealing with antibiotic resistance, Darwin’s theory of the origin of species by natural selection is not…they were not guided by Darwinian evolutionary theory [Emphasis mine]

What’s Dr. Moran’s own view of Darwinism? Dr. Moran gushes:

Charles Darwin was the greatest scientist who ever lived...Darwin discovered natural selection and he promoted and sold the idea of common descent. He founded evolutionary biology. Today evolutionary biology is one of the largest and most exciting fields in all of science.

I am not a Darwinist...Anyone with an IQ above 50 knows that neither PZ [Myers] or (sic) I are Darwinists... We have both posted numerous articles attacking...the emphasis on natural selection as the only mechanism of evolution...In other words, both of us have as much of a reputation for questioning fellow evolutionists as for challenging IDiots like Wells and Egnor.

When Dr. Wells questions Darwinism and natural selection, Dr. Moran calls him an “Idiot.” When Dr. Moran questions Darwinism and natural selection, he calls himself an “evolutionist.”

Surely Dr. Moran doesn't mean that evolutionists are…

Posted by Michael Egnor at 12:23 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Over at Men’s News Daily, editor Mike LaSalle has a post entitled, “Darwin Ist Tot: Intelligent Design is Not Creationism” that observes, “Science is practiced by scientists, not by priests. But recently science and religion appear to have become indistinguishable, as for example in their respective institutional intolerance of competing ideas.” Since leading scientists oppose ID by misrepresenting it as a silly appeal to “magic,” LaSalle observes that “[m]y daily crop of the term ‘Intelligent Design’ on Google News usually brings a plurality of articles that have in common a missionary intent to define Intelligent Design as a hands-down flavor of biblical creationism.” LaSalle offers his witty suspicions about what goes on in the backrooms of the newsmedia:

It's almost as though everyone in the Science-as-Public-Opinion business got a YouTube saying something to the effect, "Attention all Science Opinion contributors in the Main Stream Media: The following is an instruction from the Supreme Politburo at Central Command. You are hereby advised that whenever you are forced to use the two words 'Intelligent' and 'Design' together in the same sentence, you must ALWAYS include 'Creationism' as a qualifier. If you have questions about this, please submit them in writing to your supervisor. That is all."

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:25 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

How is misinformation spread about intelligent design?  In some cases, it's a simple pathway going from lawyers working with the NCSE and ACLU right into the willing hands of the media. 

First, attorneys cooperating with the NCSE and ACLU during the Kitzmiller v. Dover case invented text from the “Wedge Document,” wrongly stating in their “Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” submitting during the Kitzmiller trial that, “The Wedge Document states in its ‘Five Year Strategic Plan Summary’ that the intelligent design movement's goal is to replace science as currently practiced with ‘theistic and Christian science.’”  Next, Judge Jones copied and pasted this misinformation directly into his Kitzmiller ruling, stating: “The Wedge Document states in its ‘Five Year Strategic Plan Summary’ that the IDM’s goal is to replace science as currently practiced with ‘theistic and Christian science.’”  Lastly, Miami Herald reporter Mark Caputo read the Kitzmiller ruling and copied this misinformation into his recent article:

“The ACLU and the judge noted that the Intelligent Design backers, the Discovery Institute, had written something called the ‘Wedge Strategy’ document, which laid out a multiyear plan to introduce ‘theistic and Christian science.’”

The problem for all of them of course is that the “Wedge Document” nowhere says “theistic and Christian science." Instead, it calls for a "science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." There is a world of difference between these two phrases. The actual phrase merely seeks for science to be "consonant with" (i.e., harmonious with) theistic beliefs and this view in no way offends the scientific method. While atheistic Darwinists like Richard Dawkins might find this view objectionable, such Darwinists are hypocritical because they claim that "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (Dawkins' words). Moreover, many people besides modern ID proponents would agree that science and faith can be harmonious. Indeed, this was the view of many of the founders of modern science, and this is even the view of many theistic evolutionists today.

Now I won't blame Mr. Caputo for unknowingly trusting a judge's error-filled ruling. And to Mr. Caputo’s credit, after being challenged on this bogus second-hand quote, he quietly corrected his article. As for Judge Jones, the errors he copied into his opinion will remain forever, enabling future reporters to promote further misinformation about intelligent design.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:37 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Darwinists in Florida are in a tizzy trying to figure out why they oppose the proposed Academic Freedom Act in their state. Sometimes they claim the act isn’t needed because no one who questions Darwin is being denied academic freedom. Other times they insist the act should be rejected because academic freedom is nothing but “smelly crap.” Still other times, they insist the act is bad because it supposedly authorizes the teaching of religion in science class, even though the text of the act clearly says the exact opposite (“This section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.”)

Many times, of course, Darwinists simply declare that no scientific evidence challenging Darwinism exists for academic freedom to protect. But in an article Wednesday in the Miami Herald, even pro-Darwin reporter Marc Caputo had to concede that “indeed, natural selection is under active challenge from evolutionary-developmental biologists, who say multicellular organisms can dynamically change form under certain environmental conditions, producing major evolutionary jumps.” In point of fact, there are lots of scientific criticisms of Neo-Darwinism made by credentialed scientists. Yet teachers and scientists around the country have been harassed and fired for discussing them. That’s the situation the Academic Freedom Act is designed to remedy.

The Florida Darwinists’ latest gambit to scuttle the bill is to refocus the debate on intelligent design. This was the main point of Caputo’s article. Misrepresenting the words of Casey Luskin at Wednesday's press conferences, Caputo insinuates that the point of the Academic Freedom Act is to push intelligent design, despite the fact that the bill doesn’t even mention the term. The bill simply protects the right “to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection.” Does this language protect information about intelligent design? The bill does not decide that question.

Right now, as Luskin correctly pointed out at the press conference, there is a debate raging over whether intelligent design is science. Scientists and philosophers who support ID certainly think it is scientific in precisely the same way Darwinism is scientific. But the proposed Academic Freedom Act does not wade into the design debate one way or another. If and when ID supporters are able to win the debate over whether ID science, then by definition any scientific information about it that pertains to biological or chemical evolution would be protected—just like any other scientific information relevant to those topics. But, again, the bill doesn’t decide the debate over whether ID is science. It leaves that debate alone.

So who would decide what is scientific under the bill?

The same people who currently must make that determination: science teachers themselves in consultation with their science curriculum staff and their school boards. And if they happen to promote something that isn’t science, we can be sure that groups like the ACLU will be ready to police their activities—just like they do now.

Ironically, the only reason Florida Darwinists would have to fear that this bill might protect intelligent design somewhere down the road is if they already have concluded they cannot win the debate over whether ID is science. Indeed, by insisting that intelligent design must be covered by the bill, Darwinists in Florida seem to have admitted that despite their rhetoric, they really believe that intelligent design is science after all! And that may be the most telling admission in the entire debate.

Posted by John West at 5:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

(UPDATE: I've updated this post with two smaller MP3s to make downloading easier. Part 1 features a number of speakers including Rep. Hays describing his bill. Part 2 features Casey Luskin and Ben Stein at the end, among others.)

If you'd like to hear for yourself what was said at the press conference in support of Florida's proposed Academic Freedom Act in Tallahassee yesterday you can download an MP3 part 1 here and part 2 here. The speakers at the press conference included CSC's own Casey Luskin, and Ben Stein, among others.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 3:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Now we know where some Florida legislators who oppose academic freedom in the evolution debate are getting their ideas about evolution. And it’s not from any science textbook. It’s from the bombastic play Inherit the Wind, long discredited by historians for its fantasy version of the history of the Scopes trial.

Last week, Florida’s Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller cited Inherit the Wind in his attack on the proposed Academic Freedom Act in his state that would prevent teachers from being disciplined or terminated “for objectively presenting scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological or chemical evolution.”

According to the Tampa Tribune:

Geller … said he was reminded of his high-school days, when he took part in a production of “Inherit the Wind,” Jerome Lawrence’s and Robert E. Lee’s fictionalized drama about the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in which a Tennessee teacher was tried for teaching evolution.

“I never thought I’d be in the Florida Senate in the 21st century, still having the same debate about evolution,” said Geller, adding he hopes Storms’ bill, which he called “divisive,” never gets heard in committee.

So Geller thinks he knows all there is to know about the evolution debate because he played a part in a high school production of Inherit the Wind?! What next? Will he claim he’s an expert about space exploration because he once dressed up as Mr. Spock at a Star Trek convention? It’s hard to parody the defenders of Darwin’s theory, because they go out of their way to make themselves so ridiculous.

Of course, Geller’s invocation of Inherit the Wind is also ironic because he seems oblivious to the main point of the play, which was that teachers should have the freedom to talk about unpopular ideas in the classroom. Yet now he’s invoking the play as a justification for opposing academic freedom!

Perhaps Geller might want to re-read the comments of teacher John Scopes himself, who once declared: “If you limit a teacher to only one side of anything, the whole country will eventually have only one thought… I believe in teaching every aspect of every problem or theory.”

Posted by John West at 5:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

For another story on the press conference today about the Florida Academic Freedom Act, see here. And you can watch a news report here.

Posted by John West at 3:21 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Tallahassee Democrat has just posted an updated article about the Florida Academic Freedom Act press conference earlier today:

Actor and social activist Ben Stein visited Florida's capitol today, urging lawmakers to pass an "academic freedom" bill that would protect teachers and students from questioning evolution under newly adopted science curriculum standards.

Stein also joined John Stemberger, head of the Florida Family Policy Council, and Casey Luskin, a lawyer from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, in defending a private screening of Stein's new film that has been arranged tonight for legislators. They showed a brief preview of the film, in which Stein recounts his meetings with teachers and scientists who have been shunned for questioning evolutionary theory.

Posted by John West at 10:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Discovery Institute's Casey Luskin is in Florida today participating in a press conference with sponsors of the proposed Academic Freedom Act there. The press conference also featured actor Ben Stein, who will be screening a pre-release version of the film Expelled for Florida legislators tonight. The press conference just concluded, and so here is the text of Luskin's prepared remarks. (Because of limited time, some parts of these remarks may not have been actually delivered.)

Prepared Remarks by Casey Luskin, Discovery Institute, for Press Conference on Florida Academic Freedom Act

March 12, 2008
Talahassee, Florida

Charles Darwin wrote that, “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.”

That’s the fundamental premise of the Academic Freedom Bill recently submitted to the Florida State Legislature by Senator Storms and Representative Hays.

Teachers and students should be able to discuss all the scientific evidence relating to Darwin’s theory without fear of being harassed or losing their job.

The old Scopes trial-stereotype of teachers fearing persecution for teaching the evidence for evolution has been turned on its head. Today it’s the teachers and students who are raising questions about Darwin’s theory who are being stifled.

• In Texas, biology teacher Allison Jackson was ordered to stop presenting students with information critical of key aspects of modern Darwinian theory.

• In Washington state, high school biology teacher Roger DeHart was banned from presenting data from mainstream science sources critical of key parts of modern Darwinism. Then he was reassigned from teaching biology altogether.

• In Minnesota, Rodney LeVake was also dismissed from teaching high school biology after expressing doubts about the scientific evidence for Darwin’s theory.

More cases of censorship and intimidation will be told in the upcoming documentary Expelled featuring Ben Stein, who we are thankful is able to be here with us today.

The need for this bill in Florida is especially pressing because of the recent adoption by the Florida State Board of Education of one-sided science standards that seem to allow no room for critical thinking about modern evolutionary theory. These dogmatic standards create a legitimate fear among teachers and students that they may be penalized if they try to discuss the scientific weaknesses as well as the strengths of modern Darwinism.

So what does this bill do? Simply put, it guarantees the academic freedom rights of teachers and students to discuss both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution without having to fear being fired or suffering other negative consequences.

It’s important to point out that this bill equally protects the rights of all teachers and students, both those who favor Darwin’s theory and those who question it.

Evolution proponents commonly complain that some teachers are fearful of presenting the evidence for evolution because of public pressure. This bill protects the rights of those teachers just as much as it protects the rights of teachers who want to present scientific information challenging parts of evolutionary theory.

Predictably, Darwinists are opposing the bill by promoting a lot of misinformation.

First, they are claiming that the bill would sneak religion or creationism into the classroom. Wrong. This bill only protects the teaching of "scientific information,” and the bill expressly provides that it “shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine.”

Critics of this bill need to read the text of the bill, because it invalidates their fear-mongering.

Some critics have also claimed that the bill is intended to decide the debate over whether intelligent design is science and should be taught. Wrong again.

There are a growing number of scientists at universities and research institutions who believe that intelligent design raises legitimate scientific questions. But that’s a debated opinion right now, and this bill does not decide that debate one way or another.

What this bill does decide is that teachers and students should have the right to discuss things currently considered scientific in the classroom even if it happens to be critical of modern Darwinism.

So what are some examples of scientific information that can be discussed under this bill?

- You could talk about the Cambrian explosion, biology’s so-called “Big Bang” where over 500 million years ago nearly all of the major animal phyla appear in the same level of the fossil record without any clear evolutionary precursors.

- Or you might discuss the scientists who believe that the practical contribution of evolutionary biology to science is minimal. In the words of National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell, “None of the great discoveries in biology and medicine over the past century depended on guidance from Darwinian evolution--it provided no support.”

- Or you might talk about the failure of Darwinian natural selection and random mutation to account for much of the highly-ordered complexity we see in biology, a failure admitted by many evolutionists themselves. For example, National Academy of Sciences biologist Lynn Margulis has acknowledged that “new mutations don’t create new species; they create offspring that are impaired.”

So what else is the opposition saying to this bill? Well, Florida Citizens for Science went so far as to call academic freedom, “smelly crap.”

Academic freedom is not “smelly crap.” It’s the foundation of a free society.

Unfortunately, current proponents of evolution don’t seem to understand that fact.

Again, they could learn something from Charles Darwin himself: “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.”

Posted by John West at 9:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Over an eight day period last January, Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity (aka DoctorsDoubtingDarwin.com, a rapidly growing, 277-member, physician group from 17 countries) sponsored a lecture tour in Barcelona, Malaga, Madrid, Leon and Vigo. It was titled "Lo Que Darwin No Sabia," or "What Darwin Didn't Know." Tom Woodward, Ph.D. (author of Doubts About Darwin and Darwin Strikes Back) and myself (author of What Darwin Didn't Know and Billions of Missing Links) lectured on eight occasions to exceptionally large audiences. Santiago Escuain was our translator extraordinaire. Rich Akin, the CEO of PSSI, put in enormous hours into making this trip a huge success.

We were originally scheduled to give ten lectures (two per city), but the University of Leon and the University of Vigo canceled us at the last moment under pressure from certain professors. Fortunately, there was an alternate evening talk. Isaac Lorencez, a Ph.D. from Switzerland, was part of the panel discussions and Antonio Martinez, M.D., an eye doctor from Vigo, was the moderator, sponsor and panel member. Nearly 1300 DVDs of the Spanish translation of Unlocking the Mystery of Life were handed out and hundreds of our books were sold. The talks led to a national debate for Dr. Martinez and numerous interviews with Martinez and Escuain. Media coverage involved at least eight newspapers and even reached TV audiences in New York City. PSSI will have the Madrid lecture DVD available soon.

During those eight days we learned that there is a vacuum in Spain when it comes to challenging Neo-Darwinism on a factual basis.

The stated reasons are varied, but among them are a rebellious nature since the collapse of the Church-Franco connection years ago and a general acceptance of the rising atheism across Europe. This was readily apparent in Barcelona when a local newspaper printed a picture of a single person sitting in an empty auditorium. That purposefully-misleading photo was taken forty-five minutes before the talk, which actually had 200 people in attendance, began.

We got a particularly good taste of some irrational academic opposition in Vigo. The professor who led the charge to cancel the lecture at his school attended the talk at the other site, instantly came out of his seat when it was time for questions, denounced us as believers in the supernatural, and carried out an obviously hostile speech until the mike literally had to be pulled away. Afterwards, several of his students seemed to turn on him, demanding to know why a school would not allow our talk.

Also, there were threatened boycotts and commercial pressures brought, before we ever arrived in Spain, to cancel our venues. Although some newspapers referred to us as Creationists, religion and Intelligent Design were only discussed from a historical perspective.

Our talks were relatively straightforward and designed for the nonscientist and/or non-MD to understand. Dr. Woodward laid out the groundwork, definitions, players and controversies. My talk addressed the incredible and inexplicable complexities within the human body and other biological systems. The discussion was about facts and designs that can readily be found in any biology textbook.

This was a very memorable trip, handled by very hospitable residents and, on all counts, it has to be considered successful. The audiences let it be known how appreciative they were that we had come overseas, in contrast to the newspapers who called it an unsuccessful American invasion. Every audience asked cogent questions and many individuals continue to be engaged in this dialogue.

PSSI has plans to take this type of physicians doubting Darwin lecture tour to Central and South America, as there are over a dozen countries around the world requesting that we speak there.

For additional information, go to www.pssiinternational.com.

Posted by Geoffrey Simmons at 10:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

TALLAHASSEE – “Academic freedom is not ‘smelly crap.’ It’s the foundation of a free society,” says science education expert Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs at Discovery Institute. “That’s why Florida’s proposed Academic Freedom Act on evolution is so important.”

Florida legislators recently introduced SB 2692, the Academic Freedom Act, to protect teachers and students from retaliation for discussing the scientific evidence for and against Darwin’s theory.

Opponents are already trying to scare the public about what the Act is meant to do, falsely claiming it is an attempt to put religion in the classroom. Some have gone so far as to call academic freedom “smelly crap.”

“The Academic Freedom Act expressly does not cover religion. It only protects the teaching of ‘scientific information,’” says Luskin. “The bill gives an express statutory right and protection for teachers to present ‘scientific information’ that is relevant to the full range of scientific views on biological and chemical evolution.”

“The Academic Freedom Act empowers teachers to teach more about evolution, not less,” adds Luskin.

The Act clears up confusion created by Florida’s new science standards and ensures the free flow of scientific evidence and information about evolution in the classroom. Teachers will be able to present students with more information about evolution, without fear of reprisal from either Darwinists or evolution opponents. Additionally, the Act does not require any change to the curriculum and evolution will still be taught as a matter of law when this bill passes.

The Florida proposal was adapted from model legislation released by Discovery Institute last month at academicfreedompetition.com with the express hope of helping to create a free and open environment for educators who teach evolution. Because of the growing number of instances of educators, scientists and even students coming under attack for critically analyzing evolution, the Institute has focused more and more on issues of academic freedom related to the debate over evolution. The website also allows individuals to sign a petition supporting academic freedom.

“Opposition to academic freedom is nothing less than an attempt to censor science in Florida’s public schools,” says Luskin. “I urge Floridians to sign the petition at academicfreedompetition.com and show that academic freedom is alive and well in the Sunshine state.”

Posted by Anika Smith at 1:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I had the pleasure of hearing Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss engage in a fireside chat at Stanford this past weekend. For the most part, they agreed with one-another on nearly everything. If I could summarize their conversation in 2 words, it would be "fear" and "evangelism." First, it's clear that they fear intelligent design. They equated intelligent design proponents with "con-men" who are "slimy," "well-funded," and promote "ignorance." (Incidentally, each of these claims is incorrect.) They also appeared to greatly fear religion, as both Dawkins and Krauss held that teaching young children about religion in Sunday School is equivalent to "child abuse." Dawkins even said that his goal is "to kill religion." (Dawkins later tried to qualify this argument, but it was quite weak.) This was the one place where Krauss, who is also an atheist, sharply disagreed with Dawkins' strategy. In fact, I agreed with what Lawrence Krauss said at this point: we should teach science but not with a religious or an anti-religious agenda.

I use the word "evangelize" because there were numerous mentions of "evangelizing for science" during the event. Now promoting science to the public is great and I am all for that. But they defined “science” as necessarily including pure and unfiltered neo-Darwinism, and they hoped to use television, film, kids’ camps, and other means to "evangelize" for evolution to the masses, especially children. They aren't interested in promoting a scientific dialogue over evolution, they want to "evangelize" for evolution as a "fact." Thus, they repeatedly asserted that neo-Darwinism is a "fact," at one point asserting that evolution was as much as a "fact" as the existence of the table on the stage on which they were speaking. With such evangelism, fear, and self-assured dogmatism, it was quite apparent that they resembled the very thing they feared: religion.

But it seems that religion has a bigger appeal at Stanford. The theistic evolutionist Francis Collins recently spoke in the same auditorium at Stanford on science and religion, and an undergraduate friend at Stanford who attended both lectures told me that Collins' lecture was better attended.

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

Recently Channel One News decided to tackle the evolution debate and focused on the Florida state board of education's decision to revise science standards to proclaim Darwinian evolution as the foundation of biolgoy. If you're not familiar with Channel One it probably means you're not a high school student. Channel One is the self-poroclaimed "news and public affairs content provider to teens" and claims to reach six million students across the country every single day.

So, how does Channel One report the issue? Much the way the mainstream media does, poorly.

A public school teacher wrote me about this saying:

Our students watch the Channel One News broadcast every school day. Channel One gets into so many schools because they pay to put televisions in every classroom and pay all expenses. Schools are free to use the equipment for other purposes as long as our students watch the Channel One news program every morning.I wouldn’t mind the arrangement if they weren’t so biased. Every time they bring up the topic of evolution, they discuss the Scopes trial to elicit sympathy for the evolutionists. They always interview scientists on the evolutionary side and pastors or unknowledgeable students on the ID or creationist side.

Clearly, on this issue at least Channel One's reporting leaves a lot to be desired. The video that students watched in their classrooms misrepresented not just what intelligent design is, but the entire debate ongoing in Florida and elsewhere. As the teacher indicated, scientists are interviewed about evolution and a minister is questioned about intelligent design. Not being a scientist or design theorist at all, he gives a poor and unclear definition of ID -- presumably exactly what Channel One wanted.

Remember that in Florida it was the Darwinists who kept talking about intelligent design. No one ever suggested that ID be included in the state's science curriculum, but Darwinist claimed this was what was happening. All that was ever proposed was the dogmatic teaching of only Darwinian evolution sans any critical analysis. A minority report was submitted, but likewise didn't deal with intelligent design at all.

On their website, Channel One continues their misleading ways. Again, as the teacher pointed out above, they are focused more on the past than on the current realities.

It's all about how we got here, and it's always been controversial. Was it a divine creation or did we evolve from other species? Is there a third answer we aren't considering?

Teacher John Scopes was convicted and fined for teaching evolution in his Tennessee classroom. The trial gained national attention and started the debate about what should be taught in schools and who should regulate it.

Of course now the issue in Florida is one of academic freedom. Will Channel One misreport that too?

Posted by Robert Crowther at 6:26 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Zoology graduate student and Darwinist Mike Dunford at Panda’s Thumb has replied to recent posts in which Dr. Jonathan Wells and I pointed out that Darwin’s theory is irrelevant to medical research on antibiotic resistance, and that antibiotic resistance itself is irrelevant to the debate about intelligent design and Darwinism. Remarkably, Mr. Dunford, referring to a recent advance in research on antibiotic resistance, concedes both points. He writes:

The scientists worked in a lab. They artificially replicated a set of conditions (an antibiotic-rich environment) that occur in nature. Finally, they placed the bacteria into this environment - something that happens spontaneously outside the lab…We'll pretend that anything that happens in a lab must be artificial selection, and that it is totally and completely wrong to use the phrase "natural selection" when referring to these experiments.

The differences between what the scientists did in a lab and what happens in nature are small, and not incredibly significant. I find that I'm not as impressed as Egnor is by these differences.

The important medical research on antibiotic resistance in bacteria deals with how the mutations that give rise to resistance arise, exactly what those mutations are and how they work, and what can be done to counteract them. The important medical research involves genetics, molecular biology, and pharmacology. Darwin's theory is of no substantive value to the research because, as Mr. Dunford admits, there is no difference between antibiotic resistant bacteria that emerge through artificial intelligent selection and antibiotic resistant bacteria that emerge through natural selection. Antibiotic resistance is a phenomenon that occurs because there are often a few bacteria in a large population of bacteria that have a mutation that renders them less sensitive to the antibiotic. These bacteria that aren't killed by the antibiotic eventually outnumber bacteria that are killed by the antibiotic. Survivors survive. Does this mundane observation really help Mr. Dunford understand things he may not have otherwise understood? It certainly doesn't advance medical research in any meaningful way. New insights into genetics, molecular biology, and pharmacology do advance medical research.

Darwin's theory is of no value to medical research because the claims 'all biological complexity arose without teleology' and 'survivors survive' are of no tangible value to medical research. Medical researchers know that 'survivors survive' without invoking Darwin, and their research proceeds just fine even if they infer teleology in some aspects of biology. In fact, the inference to teleology may be of benefit to research, as most medical research at the molecular level involves biological reverse-engineering, which implicitly presupposes design.

Antibiotic resistance is irrelevant to the inference to design or to chance in biology, and therefore it is irrelevant to the debate over Darwin's theory. The antibiotic resistance canard aside, let’s move on to the real issues which are relevant to our debate, such as irreducible complexity and the origin of biological information. One has the sense that Darwinists emphatically cling to an issue irrelevant to our debate — antibiotic resistance — because they are uncomfortable with the evidence on issues — such as irreducible complexity and the origin of biological information — that are relevant to our debate.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 5:15 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

Dr. Jonathan Wells has been engaged in a blog debate with several Darwinists about a recent advance in research on bacterial resistance to antibiotics. In a recent post, Dr. Wells observed:

According to a February 26, 2008 report in ScienceDaily, a team of French scientists has unraveled the structure of a protein that allows bacteria to gain resistance to multiple antibiotics. Frédéric Dardel and his colleagues crystallized two forms of the antibiotic-modifying enzyme acetyltransferase and showed that it has a flexible active site that can evolve to enable bacteria to break down various antibiotics and render them useless. The research may aid in the design of new antibiotics to deal with this form of resistance, which is becoming a serious medical problem.
This is very good news! Unfortunately, Darwinists will probably claim — as they have done many times in the past — that their theory was indispensable to the achievement.
Yet Darwinian evolution had nothing to do with it.

Dr. Wells goes on to point out what most unbiased observers would consider obvious. Dr. Dardel’s excellent work was the product of molecular biology, crystallography, physical chemistry, and pharmacology. It is an exemplar of the superb and important work done by researchers studying ways to treat bacterial infections and to combat antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Darwin’s theory was superfluous to the research.

Dr. Well’s mundane observation was met with a fusillade of vicious personal invective from Darwinist scientists. University of Minnesota associate professor of biology P.Z. Meyers:

I despise [Wells]. He's an ignorant buffoon and a professional liar. I hate what he does in his attempts to corrupt public education, but as a human being, I find him simply contemptible….My animus for Jonathan Wells knows no bounds — he's an appalling fraud… Mr Wells: ...you're too stupid to see how the concept of evolution might guide research…

…the right people hate Idiots…Wells makes a virtue out of lying for Jesus…He should be an embarrassment to the intelligent design creationist cult except that the members of that cult are all incapable of separating fact from fiction when it comes to science…When I first saw the Wells article I seriously wondered whether Jonathan Wells was mentally stable…

It may even be that the dogmatic assumption that biological function is not teleological is an impediment to scientific research. The method by which a system is studied is dependent on the assumptions scientists make as to how the system arose. If intelligent design theory is true, and if some aspects of living things show evidence of design, then an effective approach to biological research would include the inference to design. In fact, most researchers already do this implicitly. The question “what is the purpose of this enzyme” or “why is this structure here” is implicitly a design question— a form of biological reverse engineering. Of course, most scientists don’t explicitly acknowledge the inference to design, for their own philosophical reasons or because of concerns about career self-preservation. The explicit inference to design in biology can generate an astonishing vindictiveness from Darwinist colleagues. The viscous personal attacks on Dr. Wells are an example. If you were a scientist, how candid about questioning the relevance of Darwinism would you be if your livelihood depended on Darwinist professors like Dr. Myers and Dr. Moran?

There is another sense in which Darwinism is used in the debate about antibiotic resistance. Darwinists claim that ‘natural selection’— the observation in biology that survivors survive— is indispensible to medical research on antibiotic resistance. Of course, this mundane tautology is of no value to actual research (‘I didn’t make the breakthrough until I realized that the bacteria that survived exposure to the antibiotic were the survivors…’). Biochemistry, microbiology, molecular biology and pharmacology do the heavy lifting in antibiotic research. Evolutionary biologists’ inference to ‘natural selection’ is highly superfluous to the actual work. The inference to natural selection is a rhetorical device, not a meaningful scientific heuristic.

Yet, remarkably, many Darwinists seem not even to understand natural selection. Dr. Dardel, the study’s author, posted this comment on Panda’s Thumb:

Actually, we did indeed use darwinian (sic) evolution within this work (something unusual in structural biology). In order to obtain an enzyme with increased stability (a critical point for structural studies), we used selective pressure to obtain mutants of the enzyme. We selected for bateria (sic) with increased aminiglycoside (sic) resistance, by plating them on antibiotic containing medium. It turned out that some bacteria evolved such stabler (sic) enzymes variants which made this whole study possible!

Dr. Dardel’s observation that the use of Darwin’s theory in structural biology is “unusual” is true enough, but understated. Darwin’s theory is an historical inference in evolutionary biology, of debatable verity, and is worthless to structural biology. Dr. Dardel’s assertion that Darwin’s theory was essential to his recent research was remarkably uninformed. He bred the bacteria he wanted, and it had nothing to do with ‘natural’ selection.

So I ask Dr. Well’s Darwinist critics: exactly what aspect of ‘natural' selection was indispensible to Dr. Dardel’s work? Please be specific. Please phrase your answer this way: 'The theory that 'Natural selection of heritable non-teleological variation accounts for all biological complexity'— which is Darwin's theory— was indispensible to this research because...'. Furthermore, please demonstrate how the intelligent design inference— 'Some aspects of biological complexity are consistent with design'— would have hindered this research. And an appeal to Darwinist tautologies ('but Darwin proved that survivors survive!') doesn’t count.

Appeal to artificial selection doesn’t count, either. That’s just microbial breeding— intelligent design, actually.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 7:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (1)

In the past we’ve often seen Darwinists debating the controversy over intelligent design that they say doesn’t exist. The latest volley in the controversy that doesn’t exist comes from U. Kutschera, a biologist at the University of Kassel in Germany. Kutschera is a vocal critic of ID who wrote in the first issue of the new NCSE-acclaimed journal Evolution: Education and Outreach that people reject evolution because of “religious indoctrination.” Now Kutschera writes in Annals of Botany, “This spontaneous generation of complex design ‘without an intelligent designer’ evolved independently in the protective ‘skin’ of plants, animals and many other organisms.” The problem is that Kutschera’s study is not even about biological origins, and he mistakes his own amazement at the processes of genetically pre-programmed plant growth for evidence of the power of evolution.

When one reads Kutschera’s paper, one is immediately struck by the fact that it is not about evolutionary origins. It’s an empirical study that describes the composition of cell walls in plants, and it investigates how cell walls grow during plant development. Indeed, his empirical study concludes, “In this article the specific helicoidal cellulose architecture of the growing OEW [outer epidermal wall] is described…” and it is titled, “The Growing Outer Epidermal Wall: Design and Physiological Role of a Composite Structure.“

In short, this paper is not about biological origins, it’s an empirical study of the processes of cell wall growth in plants. (As an afterthought in his paper, Kutschera does observe that there are striking similarities between the growth of helicoidal structures in both plants and insects, but he finds that these must be convergent similarities and no where attempts to explain how cell walls evolved.) Why would Kutschera claim that this is evidence against intelligent design?

Fundamentally, intelligent design investigates the origin of the information in life. What Kutschera has done is analogous to a person who opens up a computer and does nothing more than describes how it works. One can study a computer and find that a good one will work without any intelligent oversight as long as it’s plugged into a power source. But that doesn’t mean that the complexity underlying the computer’s operation evolved by a natural process. Such a study may describe how a computer works, but it does not explain how the computer arose in the first place. Thus, Kutschera’s empirical study is worthwhile. But such types of studies do not explain mechanisms of the origins of the first computer—nor of cell walls.

What Kutschera fails to realize is that intelligent design is a theory about biological origins. It explains how the specified complexity in life came to exist. Kutschera might have aptly explained the processes of plant cell wall growth. But his descriptive study has not explained how the genetic programs that produce plant cell walls arose in the first place.

Kutschera is amazed at the morphological complexity that is produced by the genetically pre-programmed processes that control the development of plants. For all Kutschera knows, his empirical study may have described a finely-tuned genetic processes that resulted from intelligent design. In the end, however, this all his paper did was offer us a fine empirical study of the processes of plant cell wall growth:

Extracellular structures serving supporting function are composed of large, water-insoluble, inextensible molecules that self-assemble into helicoids in order to achieve a low state of free energy (Neville, 1993). It should be noted that molecular self assembly of helicoidal structures in extracellular matrices is a striking example of the occurrence of complex design in biological systems without an ‘intelligent designer’

(U. Kutschera, “The Growing Outer Epidermal Wall: Design and Physiological Role of a Composite Structure,” Annals of Botany, Vol. 1–7 (2008).)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 7:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The media in Florida are all aflutter this week on a bill introduced into the state legislature by state senator Ronda Storms, called the Academic Freedom Bill. Discovery Institute has recommended such legislation in the past. We even maintain a website at www.academicfreedompetition.com that has a model of an academic freedom bill. So we’re happy that Storms has taken the ball and run with it.

Not everyone is happy though, which is clear from reading the newspaper stories on this latest development in the debate over how to teach evolution. Darwinists are downright unhappy, so much so those at Florida Citizens for Science think academic freedom is “smelly crap.”

This academic freedom stuff is merely the next evolutionary step as anti-science folks continue their attempts to shove creationism into the public school classroom. First, there was blatant creationism. Next there was intelligent design. Both failed miserably. Now comes along academic freedom. Same smelly crap, different packaging.

Over at the St. Petersburg Times Jeffrey S. Solochek’s article ("Storms joins Darwin debate") is, not surprisingly, inaccurate and misleading. It states that the academic freedom bill recently introduced by Sen. Storms would "ban penalizing teachers for teaching alternatives" to evolution. This is simply not true.

In The Ledger, John Chambliss’ article ("Science Standards Options Proposed") has a totally false subhead. It states that the academic freedom bill would "allow the teaching of alternatives to evolution in science classes." This also is absolutely not true.

At the Ledger.com’s blog, another reporter gets it wrong as well:

State Sen. Ronda Storms has filed a bill that would give teachers the right to teach different theories other than evolution, i.e. intelligent design.

The Academic Freedom Act introduced in Florida’s Senate reads in part:

An act relating to teaching chemical and biological evolution; providing a short title; providing legislative intent; providing public school teachers with a right to present scientific information relevant to the full range of views on biological and chemical origins; prohibiting a teacher from being discriminated against for presenting such information; prohibiting students from being penalized for subscribing to a particular position on evolution; clarifying that the act does not require any change in state curriculum standards or promote any religious position; providing an effective date.

Students need to learn more about evolution, not less. When evolution is presented in the classroom, of course teachers should present the scientific evidence that supports the theory. But if a teacher also presents some of the scientific evidence that challenges the theory, they should not be reprimanded. Teachers and students both need the academic freedom to be able to learn and discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of any theory, including evolution. This is much different from teaching alternatives to evolution.

Now that Darwinists have successfully ingrained in Florida’s state science standards the "fact" that Darwinism is the "the fundamental concept underlying all of biology," they are quickly moving to make sure that teachers and students not be allowed to even question evolution.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 3:52 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

CT Movies reviewer Brett McCracken has seen Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, and his thoughtful review is available online. It’s worth noting that McCracken, in his own words, “came into this film very, very skeptical . . . But I was pleasantly surprised with Expelled on a number of levels.”

McCracken seems to get the point of the film, that it’s an argument against censorship.

Indeed, the film hits a nerve in its critique of the contemporary American academy. As a graduate student immersed in academia and all its idiosyncrasies, I can attest to the pervasive and disturbingly hypocritical sense of close-mindedness that stifles the spirit of progressive discourse. It goes beyond the scientific communities in higher education and touches many disciplines. Quite simply: if you are not on the “right” side of the wall (whatever wall it may be), your voice is stifled, your work discredited, and your intelligence questioned. It’s gone beyond political correctness and is now something altogether more militant and sinister. Sadly, the academy today is less about the sharing and discovery of truth as it is about the wielding and protecting of power.

We know a few scientists who can attest to the “more militant and sinister” wielding of power in the American academy — but their stories are ignored more often than not. This is why it’s so important to encourage your friends and neighbors to go see this film – especially those inclined to write off intelligent design and the scientists who support it. As McCracken notes, Expelled

is trying to argue that there is (or should be) room at the table for both sides, for multiple arguments on any issue. But more than likely the film will be denied wide distribution or much (if any) press coverage, just as Intelligent Design theory is either ignored or laughed out of most cultural discourse. Whatever you may think of ID or evolution (and I’m not saying either is wrong or right) it’s hard to argue against the injustice of denying the discussion. But unfortunately that’s just what is happening.

Posted by Anika Smith at 2:31 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As Johnny Cash reputedly once said, “It’s good to know who hates you, and it’s good to be hated by the right people.”

Darwinist bloggers P. Z. Myers and Ian Musgrave hate me. In fact, Myers writes, “My animus for Jonathan Wells knows no bounds.” Well, at least he (unlike Musgrave) spells my name right.

The most recent outbursts by Myers and Musgrave were provoked by my February 29 blog on Evolution News & Views, in which I predicted that Darwinists would try to take credit for a recent French discovery regarding antibiotic resistance. And indeed they did.

In the course of claiming credit for Darwinism, Musgrave claims that I completely misrepresent evolution, molecular biology, genetics and history. Wow. At least I get points for comprehensiveness. As proof of my misrepresentations, Musgrave cites Wikipedia, which everyone involved in this controversy knows is about as balanced and reliable on this issue as P.Z. Myers’s Pharyngula or The National Center for Science Miseducation’s Panda’s Thumb.

The main points in my original blog post were these:

I. Darwinism provides no explanation for the origin of complex enzymes (such as the one described in the French study) except to invoke “imaginary mutations over unimaginable time scales.” Musgrave counters that the enzyme in the French study “isn’t particularly complex, it’s a simple 201 amino acid long protein.” Of course, it doesn’t take much of a skeptic to doubt that a 201 amino acid enzyme could originate by random mutation and natural selection. But instead of tackling that problem Musgrave simply describes how single mutations have been demonstrated to alter the properties of existing enzymes.

Fine. Except that the issue is not how existing enzymes can be altered, but how they originated in the first place. As in the case of whole organisms, mutation and selection can explain minor changes in existing species, but not the origin of species. Yet that’s what Darwin’s theory was supposedly about.

II. Darwinism played no role in the current research. The principal researcher in the French study disagrees, and >wrote to Musgrave’s blog that “we did indeed use Darwinian evolution within this work (something unusual in structural biology). In order to obtain an enzyme with increased stability (a critical point for structural studies), we used selective pressure to obtain mutants of the enzyme.”

So the researchers used artificial selection to good advantage. But artificial selection is not Darwinism. People were using artificial selection for centuries before Darwin came along, and they didn’t need Darwin to explain it to them. Darwin argued that an analogous process also operates in natural populations – and so it does. But he and his devoted followers went much further and claimed that it also explains the origin of new species, organs and body plans, which it doesn’t.

The question remains whether our understanding of antibiotic resistance would owe anything to Darwinian theory even in the limited (and true) sense that selection operates in natural populations. I don’t think so. Antibiotic resistance arises in clinical situations that are anything but natural. In 1956 Selman Waksman, the discoverer of streptomycin, pointed out that the isolation, purification and clinical application of antibiotics is highly artificial and has no counterpart in nature. According to Waksman, the application of Darwinian theory to antibiotics in nature was “totally unjustified.” (Waksman, “The Role of Antibiotics in Natural Processes,” Giornale di Microbiologia 2 (1956): 1-14.)

So I repeat the question with which I concluded my original blog post: “How, exactly, is Darwinian evolution essential to understanding and overcoming antibiotic resistance — as the Darwinists claim it is?”

Posted by Jonathan Wells at 12:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

At Scoop freelance reporter Suzan Mazur pulls back the veil on one of science's dirty little secrets — Darwinism is dead as a theory of evolution. This won't be surprising to the early adopters here at ENV, but it will come as a surprise to many in the media who have lazily just regurgitated the tired old refrain of the NCSE that Darwinian evolution is the be-all and end-all of modern biology.

Mazur reports on an upcoming conference at the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Altenberg, Austria which she thinks will be the Woodstock of evolution.

What it amounts to is a gathering of 16 biologists and philosophers of rock star stature – let's call them "the Altenberg 16" – who recognize that the theory of evolution which most practicing biologists accept and which is taught in classrooms today, is inadequate in explaining our existence. It's pre the discovery of DNA, lacks a theory for body form and does not accommodate "other" new phenomena.

Mazur seems a bit surprised to find out something that intelligent design advocates have known for years. It is not safe to doubt Darwin.

A wave of scientists now questions natural selection's relevance, though few will publicly admit it. And with such a fundamental struggle underway, the hurling of slurs such as "looney Marxist hangover", "philosopher" (a scientist who can't get grants anymore), "crackpot", is hardly surprising.

In an act of near-heresy, Fodor wrote:

In fact, an appreciable number of perfectly reasonable biologists are coming to think that the theory of natural selection can no longer be taken for granted. This is, so far, mostly straws in the wind; but it’s not out of the question that a scientific revolution – no less than a major revision of evolutionary theory – is in the offing. Unlike the story about our minds being anachronistic adaptations, this new twist doesn’t seem to have been widely noticed outside professional circles. The ironic upshot is that at a time when the theory of natural selection has become an article of pop culture, it is faced with what may be the most serious challenge it has had so far. Darwinists have been known to say that adaptationism is the best idea that anybody has ever had. It would be a good joke if the best idea that anybody has ever had turned out not to be true.

When I called Fodor to discuss his article, he joked that he was now in the Witness Protection Program because he'd been so besieged following the LRB piece. ... Fodor also told me that "you can't put this stuff in the press because it's an attack on the theory of natural selection" and besides "99.99% of the population have no idea what the theory of natural selection is".

Eminent biologist Stanley Salthe read Fodor's piece and was inspired to start an e-mail debate among a number of leading biologists, which looks to have led to this Altenberg meeting. Interestingly, Salthe, long having been a Darwin dissenter, is pretty straightforward in what he thinks about it all:

"Oh sure natural selection's been demonstrated. . . the interesting point, however, is that it has rarely if ever been demonstrated to have anything to do with evolution in the sense of long-term changes in populations. . . . Summing up we can see that the import of the Darwinian theory of evolution is just unexplainable caprice from top to bottom. What evolves is just what happened to happen."

Curiously, when I called Kevin Padian, president of NCSE's board of directors and a witness at the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover trial on Intelligent Design, to ask him about the evolution debate among scientists – he said, "On some things there is not a debate." He then hung up.

Regardless, there is a debate (whether the NCSE will admit it or not) and a paradigm shift is on the way.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 1:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR), a group founded in 2002, recently issued an ill-informed statement attacking intelligent design as a "science stopper." But as today's guest columnist, Dr. Angus Menuge, points out, ISSR got things backwards. A professor of philosophy at Concordia University-Wisconsin, Dr. Menuge is author of the excellent study, Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science (Rowman and Littlefield) and a contributing author to Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA (Cambridge University Press).

Comment on the ISSR Statement on Intelligent Design

by Angus Menuge, Ph.D.
Professor of Philosophy
Concordia University-Wisconsin

The ISSR statement includes the following paragraph about Intelligent Design (ID):

We believe that intelligent design is neither sound science nor good theology. Although the boundaries of science are open to change, allowing supernatural explanations to count as science undercuts the very purpose of science, which is to explain the workings of nature without recourse to religious language. Attributing complexity to the interruption of natural law by a divine designer is, as some critics have claimed, a science stopper. Besides, ID has not yet opened up a new research program. In the opinion of the overwhelming majority of research biologists, it has not provided examples of "irreducible complexity" in biological evolution that could not be explained as well by normal scientifically understood processes. Students of nature once considered the vertebrate eye to be too complex to explain naturally, but subsequent research has led to the conclusion that this remarkable structure can be readily understood as a product of natural selection. This shows that what may appear to be "irreducibly complex" today may be explained naturalistically tomorrow.

In truth, as has been often mentioned by proponents of ID, it is Darwinism that is a science stopper and/or retarder, because it allows people to accept non-functionality too easily and to accept non-testable just-so stories because they are the sort of thing that "just has to be true," regardless of the evidence. As with scholastic science, why bother to look if "the philosopher" (then, Aristotle; now, Darwin) has proclaimed it must be thus and so?

What's more, design is already promoting research because methodological design is more useful than methodological materialism. This is the point of Michael Ruse:

We treat organisms-the parts at least-as if they were manufactured, as
if they were designed, and then try to work out their functions. End-directed thinking-teleological thinking-is appropriate in biology because, and only because, organisms seem as if they were manufactured, as if they had been created by an intelligence and put to work.--Michael Ruse, Darwin and Design, 268.

Why do we call the large protein assemblies...machines? Precisely
because, like the machines invented by humans...these protein assemblies contain highly coordinated moving parts.--Bruce Alberts, "The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists," Cell, Vol. 92, 1998, p. 291.

The subject of evolution occupies a special, and paradoxical, place within biology as a whole. While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky's dictum that nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one.--A.S. Wilkins, Evolutionary processes: a special issue, BioEssays, December(2000), 22, 1051-2.

Posted by John West at 8:04 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Intelligent design does not necessarily mean optimal design. Yet the realm of human technology is a realm of intelligently designed objects, many of which strive to optimize energetic efficiency. It is therefore intriguing that designers of human technology would find solutions to technological needs from the biosphere—a realm which neo-Darwinian scientists tell us is the result of blind, random processes. I recently discussed how biologists are turning to natural flagellar biochemical pathways to help improve biomedical technology. A new article in Business Week confirms that this is a common trend in industry, observing that engineers are increasingly turning to nature for guidance and inspiration in producing human technology:

Spot the common theme: a bullet train with a distinctly bird-like nose; massive wind turbines whose form was inspired by the shape of whales' fins; ultra-strong, biodegradable glues developed by analyzing how mussels cling to rocks under water. The creators of each product used nature as their guide.

( Using Nature as a Design Guide, Business Week, Feb. 11, 2008)

The article goes further to explain that biology may also provide environmentally-friendly solutions to the needs of industry by providing “nonpolluting, energy-efficient manufacturing technologies.”

Another fascinating project discussed in the article was employed by Ford’s Volvo division to develop “an anti-collision system based on the way locusts swarm without crashing into one another.” Additionally the article explains that IBM is developing a system to mimic “the way abalone shells form by melding microscopic particles of calcium carbonate chalk in a process called ‘self-assembly.’ They're now applying the same principles to the development of a series of processors. While still experimental, results reduce energy consumption by some 35%.”

Biology is now helping us improve our methods for protecting the environment, avoiding car crashes, and building better, more energy-efficient computer chips. Unfortunately, the article presumes that these biological features “have evolved in the natural world over billions of years.” Nonetheless, it is surprising that the alleged products of blind Darwinian processes are outperforming human technology, which is the product of intelligent design: To reiterate, intelligent design does not require optimal design. But one would not expect that complex systems that in many instances outperform human technology would be the result of a random and blind process. Might this indicate that nature is not the result of blind processes after all?

Biologists and engineers who still believe that life’s complexity results from neo-Darwinian processes may wish to continue to repeat Francis Crick’s mantra: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved."

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

Minnesota Public Radio just posted online an hourlong program featuring actor, comedian, speechwriter, economist and historian Ben Stein. It's a delightfully funny interview. Stein is at his best when allowed to tell funny stories that are always quite insightful. One of the best such anecdotes is about his recent stint on VH1's America's Most Smartest Model and his opinion that there's an education crisis today and it's not the fault of teachers, but rather the fault of students themselves (about 10 minutes in).

It's a wide ranging discussion, including Q&A at the end, and only briefly touches on Stein's involvement in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (about 46:00 minutes in).

If an hour seems overly long, it isn't You'll quickly get caught up in his story telling and before you know it the hour has flown by.

If that's too daunting for you, there's another option. For a less intellectual — but no less funny or insightful — interview, you can check out Stein's recent appearance on his old sidekick Jimmy Kimmel's late night show.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)