Evolution News & Views

The Missouri House of Representatives' Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education just approved a proposed academic freedom act on evolution by a bipartisan vote of 8-3. The bill now moves to the full House for consideration. Sponsored by Rep. Wayne Cooper, the bill reads in part:

The state board of education, public elementary and secondary school governing authorities, superintendents of schools, school system administrators, and public elementary and secondary school principals and administrators shall endeavor to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues, including such subjects as the teaching of biological and chemical evolution. Such educational authorities in this state shall also endeavor to assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies. Toward this end, teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of theories of biological and chemical evolution.

The full text of the bill can be downloaded here.

Posted by John West at 5:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The quadrennial international convention of the Methodist Church, meeting in Fort Worth, today adopted an historic and detailed resolution deploring the legacy of Darwinian eugenics that saw its 20th century extreme expression in the theories of Adolf Hitler.

Yes, that would be the Nazi ideology that the Darwinists of today—and major media—pretend sprang on the world fresh from the head of Hitler, wholly unconnected to the history of Darwin’s theory, Francis Galton and Ernst Haeckel. For the ten minutes it spent on this topic, the current film Expelled, starring Ben Stein, has been the target of unstinting left wing media attack and revisionist history.

The Methodists’ resolution—adopted by a vote of 836 to 28—apologizes for the denomination’s own failure to resist the eugenics movement in this country in the 20th century. They were not alone, as John West explains in Darwin Day in America. But no other mainline Protestant denomination has yet had the courage to admit to the racism of Darwinist eugenics and the supine attitude that leading American religious leaders, as well as the scientific establishment, adopted towards it.

Perhaps most importantly, the Methodists warn of the danger of eugenics in our own time. This is a significant development in an era of growing and cavalier genetic experimentation. The Methodists are the third largest religious denomination in America and a major force internationally. Their voice matters.

I can’t wait to see Cornelia Dean explain the Methodists’ concerns in The New York Times. Will the Anti-Defamation League rebuke the Methodists for daring to mention the historic link between Darwinism and Hitler? Will Richard Dawkins be quoted calling the resolution “outrageous”? Will MSNBC and other major media that have smeared Ben Stein and Expelled call Stein and his colleagues for their reaction? Or—this being an increasingly sensitive, revealing and inconvenient subject for America’s modern social engineers—will they try to ignore it and hope nobody notices?

The trouble for them is that plenty of people are noticing. The issue is diverse and complex—and consequential.

Click here for full text of the resolution, "An Apology for Support of Eugenics."

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 3:38 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

MSNBC.com columnists sure have it in for Expelled. What about the movie exactly has all their knickers in a twist? It might be easier to ask what doesn’t infuriate them about this film. Last week it was Art Caplan’s ridiculously absurd charge that Ben Stein is a Holocaust denier. This week it is Alan Boyle taking aim at the film, albeit in a less inflammatory manner. At least he, unlike some critics, appears to actually have seen, and reflected on, the movie.

Before I saw the movie, I wondered how wacky it might be. Now I don't think it's wacky. Instead, it's worrisome. The creepiest thing about "Expelled" is that the filmmakers' strategy of casting the scientific establishment as a big bad godless conspiracy just might work.

According to Boyle, Expelled

is also about rallying people who are unfamiliar with the issues to take a stand against mainstream science. For many of the million or so people who have seen the film over the past couple of weeks, "Expelled" might be as close as they come to examining the arguments for and against current evolutionary theory.

In the movie Boyle says,

Ben Stein takes on a quest to find out what's happening to teachers who promote the intelligent-design concept - that is, the idea that some things in the universe are so complex they're best explained as the work of an intelligent designer.

Intelligent design scientists argue in favor of design theory based on the recognition of things like the digital information in DNA and the complex molecular machines found in cells. They do so because invariably we know from experience that complex systems possessing such features always arise from intelligent causes. For instance, the DNA molecule is embedded with an immense amount of information. In our uniform and repeated experience, information only comes from minds (read: intelligence). So why should we attribute the information in DNA to a mindless process like natural selection? ID scientists think we should not. Obviously, ID is an inference from the evidence, not from religious scriptures or practices. While Expelled may not have given this much detail, Boyle could at least use the definition ID scientists use, rather than simply create a straw man he can knock around for rhetorical purposes.

As a counter to the film's points about scientists under persecution, Boyle points readers to the "Expelled Exposed" web site.

Unfortunately, Expelled Exposed presents a plethora of misinformation and downright lies.

I would recommend you start by reading these posts:

• The NCSE Exposed: Clunky Attack on “Expelled” Reveals More Than Intended
  
• Michael Shermer’s Fact-Free Attack on Expelled Exposes Intolerance of Darwinists towards Pro-Intelligent Design Scientists

• Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez And Academic Persecution (see also www.freegonzalez.com)
  
• Homepage of Dr. Richard Sternberg
  
• Sternberg, Smithsonian, Meyer, And The Paper That Started It All
  
• U.S. Office of Special Counsel Letter (2005)
  
• U.S. House of Representatives Staff Report (2006)
  
• U.S. House of Representatives Staff Report Appendix (2006)

Boyle rightly points out that "Expelled" breaks no new ground on the scientific front. But then that isn't the point of Expelled.

Some of the arguments long advanced by intelligent design's proponents are hinted at - for example, the claim that no new genetic information can possibly be created, even though the insertion, duplication and beneficial revision of genetic code are well-established.

The most common theme is that the workings of biology are just so complex that it would be impossible for life to develop through "random and undirected" processes - even though genetics and computer simulations are telling a different story (and even though the workings of evolution are not always random or undirected).

Contrary to what Boyle asserts, research ongoing at Biologic Institute (the institute’s director Doug Axe appears in Expelled, explaining some of the science Boyle claims isn’t there) is telling a completely different — and much further advanced — story than the Darwinists' tired old computer simulations of past decades.

A key point made in Expelled is that modern evolutionary theory can’t explain where new information — genetic or otherwise — comes from. And on the case of Darwinism specifically, Carroll is sadly mistaken if he thinks the ballgame is over. The next inning is just getting underway and some major non-ID biologists are next up to bat in Altenberg later this year.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Five states are currently considering adoption of academic freedom legislation designed to protect teachers who teach both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory. Introduction of similar legislation is being considered by legislators in several other states, indicating the national scope of this movement.

“Often in this debate the issues at hand get misrepresented, and so our goal is to fully and straightforwardly explain that this is about science and helping prepare the best scientists of the future for our state and for our country,” said Rep. John Moolenaar, sponsor of academic freedom legislation in Michigan. "And a big part of that is enabling them to have the academic freedom to explore and critically examine scientific theories.”

Many of the bills have been adapted from sample legislation developed by Discovery Institute, including a model statute posted online at www.academicfreedompetition.com.

“In many states public school teachers, students, and even college professors have faced intimidation and retaliation when they attempt to discuss scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution,” said biologist Jonathan Wells, a research scientist at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture who holds a Ph.D. from University of California Berkeley. “In educational institutions that receive taxpayer support, it is entirely appropriate for the government to ensure that teachers and students have the right to discuss freely the evidence and scientific arguments for and against evolutionary theory.”

New developments include:

• Today, there will be a legislative hearing on Missouri's academic freedom bill.
  
• Tuesday, an academic freedom bill was introduced in Michigan, bringing the number of states currently considering legislation to five.
  
• Monday, the Louisiana state Senate passed an academic freedom bill 35-0.
  
• Also on Monday, the Florida House passed a bill 71-43 that would require inclusion of scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory in the classroom. The Florida Senate previously passed an academic freedom bill that would protect the rights of teachers to do this. The two bodies must now reconcile their bills before the end of this year’s legislative session.
  
• Last week, an academic freedom bill was introduced in Alabama.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 7:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

An Evolution Academic Freedom Bill (HB 6027) was introduced today in Michigan by Rep. John Moolenaar. The bill is similar to academic freedom legislation introduce in several other states earlier this year and, if enacted, will provide public school teachers with academic freedom to present both the scientific evidence for and against Darwinian evolution.

“Often in this debate the issues at hand get misrepresented, and so our goal is to fully and straightforwardly explain that this is about science and helping prepare the best scientists of the future for our state and for our country,” said Rep. Moolenaar. “And a big part of that is enabling them to have the academic freedom to explore and critically examine scientific theories.”

Discovery Institute has long supported academic freedom for teachers and scientists to explore and explain the strengths and weaknesses of Darwin’s theory of evolution.

“In many states public school teachers, students, and even college professors have faced intimidation and retaliation when they attempt to discuss scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution,” said biologist Jonathan Wells, a research scientist at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture who holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. “In educational institutions that receive taxpayer support, it is entirely appropriate for the government to ensure that teachers and students have the right to discuss freely the evidence and scientific arguments for and against evolutionary theory.”

Posted by Anika Smith at 4:55 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Real Detroit Weekly is one of those free advertisers you can pick up on most downtown street corners in big cities. Some people read them for their announcements of local cultural events, others read them for their erotic personal ads, and still others use them to stay warm while living on the street. As sources of news and educated opinion, though, they’re of even less use than the politically correct mainstream media.

Last week’s issue of the Real Detroit Weekly included a piece by Jay Davis attacking Mark Mathis, one of the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Titled “Unevolved,” Davis’ piece calls Mathis “not qualified” to evaluate scientific aspects of evolutionary theory. In particular, he blasts Mathis for being unaware that “scientists have witnessed speciation, the arisal of a new species from an old one.“ Davis is indignant that Mathis has “just produced a film about evolution, and he’s never heard of the fact that speciation has been observed and thoroughly documented in the scientific literature? I’m stunned. I send him peer-reviewed research confirming this fact via e-mail.”

I am reliably informed that the “peer-reviewed research” Davis sent to Mathis was a link to a 1995 web page that defends Darwinism by allegedly listing “Observed Instances of Speciation.” The web page actually does include some observed cases of speciation in plants due to an increase in the number of chromosomes, or “polyploidy.” But Darwin’s theory requires the splitting of one species into two, which then diverge and split and diverge and split, over and over again. Only this — and not polyploidy — could produce the branching-tree pattern required by Darwinian evolution, in which all species are descendants of a common ancestor that have been modified by natural selection.

Unfortunately for Darwinists, there has never been a published, confirmed report of Darwinian speciation. The starting point for everything else in Darwin’s theory thus lacks any direct evidence. Some evolutionary biologists have pointed this out in the scientific literature. For details and references, see Chapter Five (“The Ultimate Missing Link”) of my Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.

Darwin called The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection “one long argument.” Yet he had no direct evidence for the hypothesis represented by the title of his book. Neither do his modern followers. Where Darwin gave us one long argument, modern Darwinists — including Jay Davis — give us one long bluff.

Posted by Jonathan Wells at 2:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

[UPDATE: Application deadline for students to apply for summer seminar series is April 30, 2008, meaning there is only today and tomorrow left to apply.]

Discovery Institute is pleased to announce two intensive summer seminars on intelligent design, science, and culture from July 11-20, 2008 in Seattle. The first seminar is for students in the natural sciences and philosophy of science; the second seminar is for students in the social sciences and humanities (including politics, law, journalism, and theology). Both seminars are designed for highly-motivated college students who seek a deeper understanding of science and its implications for society. Faculty for the seminars will include mathematician William Dembski, author of The Design Revolution; biologist Jonathan Wells, author of the Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design; philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, co-author of Science and Evidence of Design in the Universe; microbiologist Scott Minnich, co-author of Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism; political scientist John West, author of Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science; and Jonathan Witt, co-author of A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature.

Discovery Institute will pay expenses for students who are accepted into this special program (travel, lodging, meals, books and other course materials). The deadline for applications is April 30, and complete information (including an application) can be found at www.discovery.org/summerseminar. Requests for further information should be directed to Summer Seminar Director Dr. Bruce Gordon at bgordon@discovery.org.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 8:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Academic Freedom bills have now passed both the Florida House of Representatives and the Louisiana State Senate. The bills protect the rights of teachers to teach controversial scientific theories objectively, where scientific criticisms of scientific theories (including evolution) can be raised as well as the scientific strengths. The Darwinists in those states do not like this. First Florida Darwinists called academic freedom “smelly crap.” Then Louisiana Darwinists called academic freedom protections a “creationist attack” that is “Just Dumb.” Most recently Florida Darwinists used the “enlightened British will laugh at us argument” to oppose academic freedom. All I can say is, you heard it here first: “For the Darwinists who oppose the bill, this battle is about falsely appealing to people's emotions and fears in order to suppress the teaching of scientific information that challenges evolution.”

Posted by Casey Luskin at 8:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

David Berlinski has a piece up at Pajamas Media today about the scientific pretensions of today's leading atheist, who, it turns out, include many of today's leading scientists. Why is that, wonders Berlinski?

It is curious that so many scientists should have recently embraced atheism. The great physical scientists — Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein — were either men of religious commitment or religious sensibility.

The distinguished physicist Steven Weinberg has acknowledged that this is what the great scientists believed: But we know better, he has insisted, because we know more. This prompts the obvious question: Just what have scientists learned that might persuade the rest of us that they know better? It is not, presumably, the chemistry of Boron salts that has done the heavy lifting.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 2:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

What does the media do if you are Richard Dawkins and you make some embarrassing statements in a movie that basically gives away the store on intelligent design? Apparently, at the LA Times, they let you print 1000+ word op-eds. In his recent op-ed against intelligent design (ID), Dawkins writes the following about the identity of the designer: “Intelligent design ‘theorists’ (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists: ‘For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space.’” He then claims that “All the leading intelligent design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist creationists they truly are.” So I decided to determine if this was how ID proponents really behaved. A Google search for the phrase “For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space”—which Dawkins attributes to ID proponents—turns up only one hit: his article. Of course ID proponents have made it clear that the theory of intelligent design permits the possibility of a natural designer, but the question must be asked, are ID proponents coy about their personal views on the identity of the designer?

Dr. Steven Novella, the dogmatic materialist neurologist at Yale who has insisted that “…every single prediction [of the strict materialist understanding of the brain] has been validated” by science, has found even more scientific evidence for his personal ideology. Dr. Novella recently noted a report in Nature Neuroscience about fMRI correlates of decision-making in the brain.

In the report, “Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain” authors Chun Siong Soon and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in Germany show that brain activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortex may precede conscious decision-making by as much as ten seconds before a decision is consciously made. Each subject was asked to push a button with either the right hand or the left hand. Seven to ten seconds before the conscious decision, brain activity appeared that appeared to correlate with unconscious decision making. Sixty percent of the time, the brain activity correlated with the hand used (no correlation would be fifty percent).

The study is an interesting demonstration that brain activity as measured by fMRI (which measures local blood flow and metabolic activity) correlates to some degree with unconscious processing, as well as the well-known but weak correlation between fMRI and conscious thought. Dr. Novella notes:

What we can say at this point is that brain function is complex (duh), and that taking action involves multiple steps - including planning, preparation/organization, and finally action. We can also conclude that subconscious brain processing contributes significantly to decision-making.[“duh” in original]

Given my recent posts concerning materialism vs dualism (does the brain cause mind), I also want to point out that this research falls squarely in the materialism camp. Causes precede their effects - brain activity precedes conscious awareness and action - the brain causes mind. That much seems pretty clear.

This research “falls squarely in the materialist camp”? That’s a remarkable assertion. Dr. Novella asserts that this bit of evidence for correlation (rather weak correlation) between unconscious mental processing and brain activity supports materialism. But the natural corollary to Dr. Novella’s assertion would be that lack of evidence for correlation between mental processing and brain activity would fall squarely in the dualist camp. But of course most brain activity doesn’t correlate all that well with mental activity. In this study, the correlation with the sidedness of the hand chosen was only 60%, which is quite poor correlation. Fifty percent is no correlation. If Dr. Novella is asserting that evidence for correlation is evidence for materialism, then the evidence demonstrating a lack of close correlation (which is most of the evidence in neuroscience) between mind and brain states is evidence against materialism.

It’s a safe bet that this is not at all what Dr. Novella meant. What Dr. Novella means is this: all evidence, regardless of the nature of the evidence, favors materialism.

So what does the observation that there is brain activity that correlates with unconscious mental activity really tell us about the strict materialist-dualism debate? It tells us nothing at all. Both Dr. Novella and I accept the existence of unconscious mental processes. The Nature Neuroscience article shows that brain activity is ongoing during the time that we presume unconscious mental processing is occurring, and that the brain activity correlates (weakly) with the subjects’ choice of right or left hand. But the debate about strict materialism and dualism is a debate about mental causation, not correlation. Does the unconscious mind cause the brain activity, or does the brain activity cause the unconscious mind? Chun’s study doesn’t address that question at all.

Does every bit of relevant scientific evidence support the strict materialistic understanding of the mind, as Dr. Novella claims? It does so only if you start, as Dr. Novella did, with the (unexamined) premise that strict materialism is necessarily true. If you approach the question of strict materialism and dualism with an open mind, interested in truth rather than polemics, the evidence is mixed. Strict materialism asserts that the mind is caused by the brain without remainder. Dualism asserts that the mind is caused by the brain with remainder. Some evidence supports the materialist view, and some evidence supports the dualist view. I believe that the dualist view is better supported by the scientific evidence, but reasonable people can disagree. “Reasonable” implies that you approach the scientific questions with a willingness to consider alternative explanations. But in Dr. Novella’s view, every single piece of evidence supports strict materialism, and people who disagree with him are “creationists” and “punching bags” afflicted with “ignorance”. So you know his scientific conclusion before the question is asked.

The Nature Neuroscience article provides no meaningful evidence either for or against dualism or materialism, but Dr. Novella’s citation of it to support his materialist ideology tells us a great deal about how Dr. Novella approaches scientific evidence. He’s a materialist ideologue. He views the scientific evidence through materialist glasses, and sees evidence for materialism…everywhere.

Posted by Michael Egnor at 8:16 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an influential science organization, but lately it has moved beyond science and now apparently aims to influence people in their choices of movies and religion. This week the AAAS issued a press release officially condemning the documentary Expelled as an instance of “profound dishonesty” because it “badly misrepresents the scientific community as intolerant of dissent.” Ironically, the AAAS's own behavior seems to demonstrate that the scientific community can be "intolerant of dissent"—at least when it comes to Darwinism: in 2002, the AAAS issued a press release condemning intelligent design (ID), providing proof-positive of the intolerance of the scientific community towards dissent from Darwinism. When top-science organizations issue press releases against an idea, with the obvious intent of making that idea taboo in the scientific community, then you know that they are being driven by politics, not science.

It turns out that the AAAS’s anti-ID edict has been invoked by other scientific organizations to justify intolerance towards dissent from Darwinism, the very behavior that the AAAS denies exists. In 2004, the Biological Society of Washington (BSW) cited the AAAS’s anti-ID statement as justification for why they should not have published Stephen C. Meyer's pro-ID paper in their journal. The BSW, promising to obey the AAAS’s edict in the future, wrote: “We endorse the spirit of a resolution on Intelligent Design set forth by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/1106id2.shtml), and that topic [intelligent design] will not be addressed in future issues of the Proceeding.” There you have it: the AAAS's own statements have been used to justify intolerance of dissent from Darwinism, yet the AAAS has the boldness to deny that such intolerance exists. The AAAS seems to continue its approval of persecuting ID proponents, as its present statement against Expelled claims that attempts to teach ID are “divisive and damaging.”

The AAAS also gets involved in the debate over religion and evolution, stating in its press release that Expelled “needlessly drives a wedge between science and religion.” But why is a scientific organization concerned about religion? More importantly, if they are concerned about religion, why are they attacking Expelled rather than the numerous Darwinists interviewed in the film who wield evolution as a club to beat religion? As will be seen throughout the rest of this post, there are other similar examples where the AAAS singles out Expelled for attack when the movie simply reports on the doings of Darwinists in the scientific community.

The AAAS’s “Darwinism” Blunder
The AAAS statement also attacks Expelled through the amusing comment that “[t]he multi-faceted modern science of evolution” is “inaccurately and derisively described in the movie as ‘Darwinism.’” Yet the AAAS’s own journal, Science, commonly has used the term “Darwinism” to describe modern evolutionary biology. In 2005, a Science news article promoted two pro-evolution websites by stating, “In a section on obstacles to teaching Darwinism, this primer from the University of California, Berkeley, profiles different strains of anti-evolutionism.” (“Standing Up for Darwin,” Science, 308:1847, 6/24/2005, emphasis added.) The following year, Science writer Constance Holden wrote in an article in Science titled, "Darwin's Place on Campus Is Secure—But Not Supreme" that “Public controversies over Darwinism have inspired college presidents to defend science and professors to sign petitions.” (emphasis added)

In fact, a literature-search of Science revealed that the journal used the term “Darwinism” over 40 times from 1995-2005. A more recent review of their expanded search engine finds that the journal has printed the word “Darwinism” many hundreds of times.

Even prominent scientists use the term in their popular writings. Richard Dawkins writes that "There are people in this world who desperately want to not have to believe in Darwinism." (The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton, 1996, pg. 250) The term "Darwinism" has over 20 entries in the index to Stephen Jay Gould's magnum opus, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.

Again, if the AAAS objects to using the term “Darwinism,” it should stop attacking Expelled and start scrutinizing its own journal and the many leading scientists who employ the term.

The AAAS’s Misrepresentations on the Origin of Life
The AAAS statement against Expelled also implies that scientists understand how the origin of life occurred: “Such verifiable evidence explains how species gradually evolved on Earth, beginning with single-celled organisms approximately 3.5 billion years ago.” This seems like an attempt to cover-up the damage done in Expelled by Richard Dawkins, who openly admits in the film that we don’t understand how the first cell arose. As Bruce Gordon puts it, “Toward the end of the film, in an interview with Ben Stein at the British Museum, Dawkins confesses he has no idea how life originated on earth — nor does anyone, he admits — but, as Nobel laureate Francis Crick once theorized, it could well be explained by having been seeded here by an alien intelligence.”

Like the case of using the term “Darwinism,” if the AAAS objects to scientists admitting that we don’t understand the origin of life, then it needs to start policing its own journal.

In 2002, Science reported on an experiment investigating the hypothesis that life originated on the surfaces of crystals. (Another hypothesis discussed in Expelled.) One scientist promoting that theory argued that a primordial soup “was probably much too dilute to bring the chemicals together to react in the first place” but “[a] mineral surface is a good way to concentrate the compounds.” However, one critic of the crystal-hypothesis, Scripps Institution for Oceanography researcher Dr. Jeffrey Bada, observed that “Life is not just chemistry. Life as we know it is based on the passage of genetic information from one generation to the next.” Another critic observed that the chemicals produced in the mineral experiments were either irrelevant or insufficient: "Acetic acid and pyruvate, adds RPI's Ferris, ‘are still pretty simple compounds. The real question is how do you build more complex biomolecules.’” (See Science, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," Vol. 295:2006-2007 (March 15, 2002).)

The answer to that question, at present, is that nobody really knows. Yet Science’s present edict bluffs that we do understand the origin of the first cell, misrepresenting the facts of the issue. Yet in “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” Science itslef admitted that there are “questions that remain unanswered.”

Admitting, and then Denying, Intolerance towards Dissent
But what about the AAAS's denial that the scientific community is intolerant towards dissent? In 1970, the famous and influential historian of science Thomas Kuhn observed that, “No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others.’” Apparently the AAAS disagrees with Kuhn, for in its statement against Expelled the AAAS claims that the film “badly misrepresents the scientific community as intolerant of dissent.”

Ironically, the article “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” also admits that even scientists who promote alternative naturalistic paradigms on the origin of life face harsh opposition:

Overturning long-cherished theories, especially ones that underpin a whole field, can be a thankless task. Few theories are as iconic as the prevailing explanation of how simple chemicals in a cozy puddle of primordial soup first assembled themselves into the precursors of the earliest forms of life some 4 billion years ago.

To say that Intelligent Design is controversial is to offer a truism. It is opposed, often bitterly, by the scientific establishment. Journals such as Science and Nature would as soon publish an article using or favourable to Intelligent Design as they would an article favourable to phrenology or mesmerism – or, to use an analogy to the claims of the Mormons about Joseph Smith and the tablets of gold, or favourable to the scientific creationists’ claims about the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs. Recently, indeed, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the organization that publishes Science) has declared officially that in its opinion Intelligent Design is not so much bad science as no science at all and accordingly has no legitimate place in the science classrooms of the United States.

(Michael Ruse & William Dembski in “General Introduction” to Debating Design, pg. 3-4 (Cambridge University Press, 2004); emphasis added.)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 4:52 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In the week since Expelled came out in theaters, I’ve been startled not so much by the juvenile name-calling directed at me for defending the movie (“self-hating Jew,” “Hitler sympathizer,” “Jewish Uncle Tom,” “hired hit-pen and journalistic hatchet job expert,” etc.). That’s something that publicly admitted Darwin-doubters quickly get accustomed to.

Much more surprising is the sheer flat-out lying done by critics bent on denouncing the movie’s controversial linking of Darwinism and Hitlerism.

Now, I happen to think that the Darwin-Hitler link is pretty darn well established, as I’ve argued on National Review Online, Jewcy, and in this space. The major Hitler biographers agree with me that Hitler in Mein Kampf and elsewhere used transparently Darwinian arguments to motivate fellow Jew-haters to actuate the Final Solution.

I don’t care if somebody insists on disagreeing with my interpretation of the relevant texts – though frankly that would be hard to do if your powers of reading comprehension rise above sixth-grade level. Just please don’t lie in your representation of what I’ve written.

Yet that is exactly what a variety of fancy-pants professors along with prominent and obscure bloggers have done. By these Darwinist propagandists, it is asserted that I agree that “Hitler was right about the Jews,” that I “participate in this demonizing of the atheist ‘other,’” that I “excus[e] Christians from their role in the Holocaust.” Not a bit of which is remotely true. Obviously.

Somebody called Sahotra Sarkar is a professor of “Philosophy and Integrative Biology” at the University of Texas. He writes on Jewcy and grotesquely distorts my argument as follows: “If you believe in the theory of evolution, you are an anti-Semite.”

In fact all I said was that Hitler drew on Darwinian theory, and yes, that should give us pause about what Darwin wrote. No more than that.

A picture of reality, after all, such as the one Darwin offers in his books, naturally suggests ethical corollaries. But maybe, if judged strictly from a Darwinist perspective, Hitler drew the wrong corollaries. On that point I’m agnostic. But certainly, given that Darwin in The Descent of Man prophesied the extermination of the inferior by the superior races, it should surprise nobody that Hitler, influenced by the Darwinian worldview, sought to bring Darwin’s prophecy to fruition.

Of course sometimes Darwinists aren't lying. They are simply unaware of the facts. Thus on National Review Online, John Derbyshire chides me: "As always when the Darwin-Hitler business comes up, I note that guilt by association cuts two ways. Islamic fundamentalists are Darwin-hating creationists to a man."

Anyone who believes John's simplistic assertion should consult Andrew G. Bostom's useful new book The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism. Bostom recounts how certain Islamic sources "differentiate" Muslims from unbelievers "quite graphically in a derogatory, Darwinian manner. Thus Jews are compared with apes, Christians with pigs, and women with dogs." However, another Muslim text refers to the "Jewish ape Darwin."

Also on National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg graciously admitted his unintended goof: "I think I was unfair to the narrow claims in Klinghoffer's piece."

Jonah made the honest mistake of not reading me carefully.

Is there, in any case, something in the psychological profile of many a Darwin-partisan that leads such a person not simply to misunderstand or insult those who disagree with him but to purposefully misrepresent what we say?

Posted by David Klinghoffer at 8:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

From a press release sent out for the Expelled producers:

Yoko Ono and others have now filed lawsuits challenging the film's use and critique of John Lennon's song Imagine. One of the suits seeks to ban free speech through preliminary injunctive relief which essentially means that they are trying to expel EXPELLED as it is now being shown in theaters. ...

But the irony of this lawsuit was not lost on the film's star Ben Stein, "So Yoko Ono is suing over the brief Constitutionally protected use of a song that wants us to 'Imagine no possessions'? Maybe instead of wasting everyone's time trying to silence a documentary she should give the song to the world for free? After all, 'imagine all the people sharing all the world...You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the World can live as one.'"

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

Those like Arthur Caplan who claim that Nazi ideology did not draw on Darwinism should watch this clip from a 1930s Nazi propaganda film justifying forced sterilization. Near the beginning of the clip the narrator warns that modern society is transgressing against a fundamental law in preserving the unfit. Just what law is he talking about? (Hint: You find it mentioned repeatedly in The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.)

Posted by John West at 8:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Orlando Sentinel and Florida Baptist Witness report that the Evolution Academic Freedom Act was passed by the Florida Senate today.

Posted by Anika Smith at 4:07 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 23, 2008

Executive Producers of EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed Statement on Lawsuit by Yoko Ono

The fair use doctrine is a well established copyright principle based on the belief that the public is entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism.

We are disappointed therefore that Yoko Ono and others have decided to challenge our free speech right to comment on the song Imagine in our documentary film.

Based on the fair use doctrine, news commentators and film documentarians regularly use material in the same way we do in EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed .

Premise Media acknowledges that Ms. Yoko Ono did not license the song for use in the Film. Instead, a very small portion of the song was used under the fair use doctrine.

Unbiased viewers of the film will see that the Imagine clip was used as part of a social commentary in the exercise of free speech and freedom of inquiry. Unbiased viewers of the film will also understand that the Imagine clip was used to contrast the messages in the Documentary and that the clip was not used as an endorsement within Expelled.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 3:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Center for Science and Culture supports Biologic Institute, a research lab opening new frontiers for scientific discovery. Biologic Institute demonstrates the value of intelligent design for the practice of biological science and tests specific empirical claims of neo-Darwinism, intelligent design, and other theories of biological origin.

Building off of the theoretical work of the scientists and researchers before them, scientists at Biologic Institute have been quietly and patiently working in the laboratory to test the predictions of intelligent design.

Heading up this team is Biologic Director and former Cambridge University research scientist Douglas Axe, whose work has appeared in journals like Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry, and has been reviewed in Nature.

Senior scientists at Biologic include Dr. Axe, evolutionary biologist Dr. Richard Sternberg, and Dr. Ann Gauger, a former post-doctoral fellow at Harvard and recipient of both a National Science Foundation pre-doctoral fellowship and an American Cancer Society post-doctoral fellowship.

Posted by Anika Smith at 2:34 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

For those of you lucky enough to be National Review subscribers, you will be treated to an insightful review of David Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion by our own George Gilder:

The Devil’s Delusion is an incendiary and uproarious work of learned polemical writing, unique in its scientific sophistication and authority. Rather than criticizing science from the outside, Berlinski excoriates its atheist pretensions from within. Refusing to defer to scientistic credentialism, he makes the compelling argument that the anti-God fetish of modern science has driven many scientists into a mad nihilism that has crippled their scientific work as well.

The Devil’s Delusion is a promethean work that clears away this debris of modern science and culture. It liberates conservatism from its thralldom to a spurious scientism and establishes the foundations for a realignment with real scientists, among whom there are many potential friends. Bill Buckley, in his final days, declared: “Berlinski’s book is everything desirable; it is idiomatic, profound, brilliantly polemical, amusing, and of course vastly learned. I congratulate him.” Buckley was right, as usual. It is the definitive book of the new millennium.

National Review isn't the only place to highlight Berlinski's book — The Chicago Tribune says The Devil's Delusion is "what you should be reading."

Posted by Robert Crowther at 2:00 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In an over-the-top “review” of the film Expelled, bioethicist and MSNBC columnist Arthur Caplan has made the preposterous claim that Ben Stein is a Holocaust denier. Caplan's so-called review is so inaccurate that one can’t help but wonder whether Caplan even watched the film he denounced. If he did, he obviously didn’t pay attention. For the record, here's a catalog of Caplan’s most egregious errors:

The movie seeks to explain why, as a matter of freedom of speech, intelligent design should be taught in America’s science classrooms and presented in America’s publicly funded science museums.

Actually, it doesn’t. The film does not focus on what "should be taught" in public school classrooms or museums. Instead, it simply defends the academic freedom of individual scientists and college professors to research, write, and speak publicly about their intelligent design views.

what is really on display in this film is … a very repugnant form of Holocaust denial from the monotone big mouth Ben Stein.

Given that Expelled explicitly discusses the horrors of the Holocaust (and Stein visits Nazi killing centers at Hadamar and Dachau), the charge of Holocaust-denial is patently absurd. Caplan obviously doesn’t like Stein’s exploration of the intellectual roots of Nazi ideology. But it is dishonest—indeed, ethically contemptible—for him to claim that Stein somehow denies the Holocaust.

We get a long running start toward irresponsibility early in the film in the form of case studies of persons supposedly fired from their jobs for subscribing to a belief in intelligent design. The movie implies that this is just the tip of a McCarthyesque cleansing of the faculty ranks by jack-booted Darwinians. In fact, in the few cases presented in the movie, the removal of faculty members seems more closely tied to their either wandering away from the subjects they were hired to teach or getting into subject areas outside their area of expertise. At most universities that I am familiar with, a belief in intelligent design would make you the object of gossip but hardly the target of dismissal.

At the same time he demonizes anyone who believes in intelligent design, Caplan feigns disbelief that they would face any persecution in academia. How reassuring! If you want to know the real story about what can happen if you challenge Darwin or embrace intelligent design as a scientist, start here.

we get deep, sincere ruminations mainly from some monumentally pompous thinker no one has ever heard of who is nevertheless stylishly attired and living in a gorgeous apartment in Paris.

The speaker Caplan thinks “no one has ever heard of” is mathematician and writer David Berlinski, a Discovery Institute Fellow whose current book The Devil’s Delusion was #226 on the Amazon sales list this morning, and whose previous books include A Tour of the Calculus (Pantheon 1996), The Advent of the Algorithm (2000, Harcourt Brace), Newton's Gift (The Free Press 2000), The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky (Harcourt, 2003), and Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics for the Modern Library series at Random House (2004). In the words of The Chicago Tribune, “David Berlinski plus any topic equals an extraordinary book.” If Caplan doesn’t know who Berlinski is, he simply displays his own parochialism. As for who is “monumentally pompous,” Caplan might try looking in the mirror.

Then, and most culpably in terms of the downright immorality of the movie and everyone associated with it, we are presented with what will happen if we keep teaching Darwinism in our schools. The logical consequence of Darwinism is Nazi eugenics: the state directed murder of the handicapped, mentally ill, political dissidents and racial "inferiors"! ...

Stein finishes this sequence by bravely visiting a statue of Darwin where he stares the long deceased now marbleized evil-doer down while making it clear who is directly to blame for Hitler, the sterilization of tens of thousands of German children, the death of 6 million Jews and the deaths of countless other millions of victims of Nazism and those who died fighting the Nazi regime.

This is called attacking a straw man. The film nowhere claims that Darwin “is directly to blame for Hitler.” In fact, the experts interviewed in the film such as David Berlinski and Richard Weikart make clear that Darwinism in and of itself is not sufficient to produce Nazism. What they do claim is that Darwinism played a key role in Nazi ideology, and despite Caplan’s protestations to the contrary, that point is substantiated by a mountain of evidence. For the evidence, go here.

Ben, who calls upon each one of us to rise up in defense of freedom and knock down a few walls in order to get creationism back into the curriculum at Iowa State, Baylor, and other dens of American secular iniquity.

Another straw man. The cases of persecution discussed in the film at Iowa State and Baylor have nothing to do with creationism, and indeed, they aren’t primarily about what should be in the curriculum at those schools. They are about the freedom of scientists to research, write, and speak publicly about their views on intelligent design free of harassment and discrimination.

There were many nations, such as Brazil, where Darwinism led to no political ideology. There were some such as Britain which embraced Darwinism but saw a considerable number of their population killed trying to eliminate Nazism. There were other nations, such as the Soviet Union, where Darwinism was seen as so dangerous and subversive to state sponsored dreams of social engineering that those who espoused it were killed or exiled and a complete biological fairy tale, Lysenkoism, put into classrooms and agricultural policy ultimately leading to the deaths of millions from starvation.

Again, the film makes clear that it is not claiming Darwinism inevitably leads to Nazism. But it does suggest that there is a logical connection between Darwinism and the devaluation of life found in Nazism, and there is. And this link between Darwinism and the devaluation of life can certainly be found in many other countries, including Britain, the Nordic countries, the United States, and Russia. As for the debate between the Mendelians and Lysenkoists in the Soviet Union, Caplan apparently doesn’t understand that BOTH sides of that debate considered themselves Darwinists. For documentation, see chapter six of my book Darwin Day in America.

Ben Stein apparently understands none of this. He flags Darwin but does not bother to go and stare at the busts of Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer, Ernst Haeckel, Thomas Malthus so much beloved by American proponents of survival of the fittest.

If Caplan had watched the film, he would have known that Ben Stein explicitly highlights the role of Thomas Malthus, who according to Darwin himself was the key inspiration for Darwin’s theory of natural selection. When Stein brings up the role of Malthus, it’s the director of the museum at Hadamar who responds that Darwin was more influential on German thought—so the Nazis got the influence of Malthus through Darwin. But the film certainly recognizes the role of Malthus.

And there were some nations where Darwinism was greeted with glee because it seemed so compatible with the prevailing ideology of the day. In particular the United States at the turn of the 20th century where robber-baron capitalists like the Carnegies, Mellons, Sumners, Stanfords and yes, even Jack London, could not stop rattling on about how the "survival of the fittest" justified crushing unions, exploiting immigrant labor or being left unregulated to amass huge fortunes while administering monopolies.

The one place Caplan acknowledges the impact of Social Darwinism, he gets his facts wrong, relying on an outdated caricature of the past supplied by left-wing historians like Richard Hofstadter. As I document in chapter six of Darwin Day in America, few capitalists actually drew on Darwin to promote capitalism. In fact, many of them disliked Darwinism because of its link to Malthus’s pessimistic view of the world. As for Jack London, Caplan apparently doesn’t realize that London was a socialist who supported unions and opposed survival-of-the-fittest policies applied to crush workers. Again, for a discussion of London’s views, see Darwin Day in America.

Worse yet, while frowning at Darwin’s statute in a manly fashion, Stein makes no mention of the key factors driving Nazi ideology — racism, homophobia and hatred of the mentally ill and disabled.

It’s hard to believe that Caplan—a distinguished bioethicist—is quite so breathtakingly ignorant of the roots of Nazi ideology. Racism and hatred for the mentally ill and disabled were certainly key factors in driving Nazi policies. But how did the Nazis justify racism and hatred for the disabled? By appealing to the doctrines of Darwinism, especially natural selection! The same was true for the leaders of the eugenics movement in America, who thought we were sinning against natural selection by trying to care for the poor and the handicapped, and who also believed that natural selection had made blacks inferior to whites. I document this fact extensively in chapter 7 of my book Darwin Day in America. (You can read a free excerpt from this chapter here.)

Posted by John West at 10:16 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Freegonzalez.com website launched to raise research funds

Des Moines, IA – Iowa State University alumni — upset by the recent denial of tenure to former ISU assistant professor Guillermo Gonzalez — are taking matters into their own hands.

“As alumni at ISU, we are appalled that the current Iowa State administration would stoop to expelling a brilliant young scientist and gifted instructor from the classroom, not for teaching about intelligent design or even mentioning it in his classroom, but for simply committing the thought crime of advocating it as science,” said ISU alumnus David Eaton.

After reviewing evidence showing that Gonzalez’s tenure denial was based on his personal convictions rather than on his record as a professor, a group of concerned ISU alumni met at the ISU Memorial Union during Dr. Gonzalez’s tenure appeal. As the Iowa State Board of Regents denied Dr. Gonzalez’s request to defend his position in writing or in person as they reviewed his case, this alumni group decided to take action on his behalf, forming FreeGonzalez.com in order to publicize Dr. Gonzalez’s tenure situation and provide financial support for his continuing research.

“Academic freedom is supposed to be the foundation of Iowa State University, yet Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure there because of his support for intelligent design,” Eaton said. “Something is very wrong with the ISU administration, and as committed ISU alumni we have the responsibility to do what we can to fix it.”

To that end, FreeGonzalez.com has set up a fund to support Dr. Gonzalez’s continuing research into the properties of stars with planets and the Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ), a concept he invented which has been featured in Science and Nature and featured on the cover of Scientific American.

With what amounts to Dr. Gonzalez’s termination by ISU this May, the fund will help provide the resources he needs to keep his groundbreaking research moving ahead.

For more information on the fund and how to support Guillermo Gonzalez, visit www.FreeGonzalez.com.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:20 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

It does not seem that Arthur Caplan, the toast of MSNBC, has even seen the film Expelled, his representations of it are so uninformed. Yet he is prepared to charge in public that Ben Stein is a "Holocaust denier," someone whose name should be forever "a source of scorn."

Would this be same Ben Stein who takes his Expelled audience through Dachau to show them where the Holocaust took place? Some denier!

So Caplan is smearing Stein, that is all there is to it. He distorts the message of the movie and then attacks it as a straw man. He probably should add to his list of scorn targets David Berlinski, Richard Weikart (also in the film) and a host of historians who have written about the Nazi era (See these articles).

Darwin himself didn’t cause the Holocaust and no one is saying he did. Darwinian theory, as promoted in Germany in the decades before Hitler took power, did strongly influence both the eugenics and race theories of the Nazis. The film shows that.

But do the facts even matter?

Reckless name-calling is all the rage. I see in the past couple of days that Bill Clinton is being called a "racist" and Hilary a "bigot." Whatever the Clintons’ failings, those terms are simply false. Then there is the amusing kerfluffl