Q. You express some doubt that even under “the right conditions, the influx of stellar energy into a planet could cause atoms to rearrange themselves into nuclear power plants and spaceships and computers.” This, you say, ought to be “considered an open question” at least by scientists and the public alike. Why isn’t it?

A. A typical college physics text I read contains the statement “One of the most remarkable simplifications in physics is that only four distinct forces account for all known phenomena.” Most people just haven’t ever thought about things in this way, that if you don’t believe in intelligent design, you must believe this claim, that the four unintelligent forces of physics caused atoms on Earth to rearrange themselves into nuclear power plants, spaceships and computers. When they do think about it, they may start to see things a little differently. This is part of the “broader view” that is often missed by biologists, but noticed by mathematicians and physicists.

Also, a heads up for those of you in Seattle. Dr. Sewell will be presenting his book at Discovery Institute on February 23rd. And for everyone else, next week ID The Future will podcast two interviews with Dr. Sewell about his views on intelligent design, origin of life theories, and why he thinks Darwin's theory about the struggle for life "easily the dumbest idea ever taken seriously by science."

Leading off was today's interview of ARN Executive Director Dennis Wagner, who discussed with Casey Luskin the expelling of Ben Stein from the University of Vermont, the censorship of Michael Behe's Bloggingheads.tv interview, and the lawsuit against the California Science Center over their cancellation of the pro-ID film, Darwin’s Dilemma.

Stay tuned to the entire series of podcasts this week at IDtheFuture.com.

We just received a review copy of "What Darwin Got Wrong", the new book attacking Darwinian evolution by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, two thorougly materalistic scientists. Why does that matter? Because typically materialists have been the most ardent defenders of Darwin's theory of natural selection. With the publication of this book, that is likely to change.

For those of you wondering what this is all about let me back up to 2007 when Fodor published his first piece of heresy in the London Review of Books, "Why Pigs Don't Have Wings". That article led to Stanley Salthe, another materialist scientist who doubts Darwrinian evolution (and has signed the Dissent From Darwin statement to boot), to convene an e-mail discussion group that became what is now known as the Altenberg 16.

Science writer Susan Mazur reported on that meeting, and later wrote an entire book about the 16 scientists who were basically affirming what we'd been saying here at ENV for years -- Darwinian evolution is dead. She wrote:

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.

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".

Since these doubts aren't anything new to many scientists who've been saying this for years, I thought I'd ask them what their initial thoughts about this book are. Here are a few responses.

On his website David Berlinski, author of The Deniable Darwin writes in part:

What is encouraging about Jerry Fodor's and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini's arguments in What Darwin Got Wrong is just that Fodor and Piattelli- Palmarini had the nerve to make them. What is discouraging about their arguments is just that it has taken them so long to acquire their nerve. Where have you been fellahs?

Every argument that they advance others have advanced before them. Who in particular? Me, for sure. I have called attention to the striking analogy between Skinner and Darwin for more than fifteen years now.

Darwinian propagandists would like the public to believe that there is no scientific debate about the adequacy of evolutionary theory--though scientists have actually been debating it ever since The Origin of Species was published in 1859. Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini's book, What Darwin Got Wrong, is the latest contribution to this long-standing scientific controversy.

Darwin considered natural selection--survival of the fittest--to be the "most important" mechanism of evolution, but Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini (like many scientist before them) argue that it is not. Although they accept Darwin's idea that living things are descended from a common ancestor, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini cite abundant evidence against natural selection.

They call much of the "vast literature" on this subject "distressingly uncritical" and write "it is high time that Darwinists take this evidence seriously."

So the scientific debate continues--the debate that Darwinian propagandists say doesn't exist.

The smoke from Darwin’s 200 birthday candles had barely dissipated when Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini announce “What Darwin Got Wrong” — evolution’s mechanism. Natural selection just can’t cut the mustard, they explain. But since the proposal of a natural mechanism for evolution is the very reason for Darwin’s scientific and cultural importance, his achievement apparently has been way overblown by pretty much the entire biological community. Now, I wonder who else has been saying that for the last few decades?

Fodor correctly understands that natural selection, Darwin's designer substitute mechanism, lacks the creative power that has long been attributed to it. Natural selection by definition only "selects" or favors functional advantage. What we have learned in biology over the last 50 years shows that at every level in the biological hierarchy -- whether we are talking about novel genes, proteins, molecular machines, signal transduction circuits, organs, or body plans -- functional advantage depends upon the occurrence of a series of vastly improbable and tightly coordinated mutational events. Careful quantitative analysis has shown that these events that are so improbable as to put thresholds of selectable function well beyond the reach of chance. The selection and mutation mechanism does not work because the mechanism of natural selection depends on too many improbable things going right before there is anything to select at all.

The past week’s startling news of backpedaling from the “primordial soup” theory rang a bell, though I wasn’t instantly able to say whose comedy routine it put me in mind of. Hm, was it Monty Python? ScienceDaily carries the story:

For 80 years it has been accepted that early life began in a “primordial soup” of organic molecules before evolving out of the oceans millions of years later. Today the “soup” theory has been overturned in a pioneering paper in BioEssays which claims it was the Earth's chemical energy, from hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, which kick-started early life.

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/primordial_soup_would_you_beli.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/primordial_soup_would_you_beli.html Faith and Evolution Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:01:54 -0800 A popular Darwinian meme is that humans and chimp genomes are ninety-something percent identical. It varies a bit, but usually hovers close to 99%. The meme hides all sorts of assumptions, of course, but the take home lesson for the headline reader is plain enough: we’re almost exactly the same as chimps.

Though the 99% number has received some qualifiers, and has even been referred to as a “myth” in Science, the basic idea remains firmly entrenched in the media collective consciousness.

But evidence seems to be piling up that the similarities are not nearly what has been advertised. Geneticist Richard Buggs has reflected on this, and has even predicted “that when we have a reliable, complete chimpanzee genome, the overall similarity of the human genome will prove to be close to 70% (and very far from 99%).”

It will be interesting to see how Buggs' prediction holds up over time. If he’s right, this will be one more switch from “meme” to “myth” in the Darwinian ledger.

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/are_chimps_and_humans_really_a.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/are_chimps_and_humans_really_a.html CSC News & Views Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:23:35 -0800
If that dictum looks like a bumper sticker, I apologize — but it’s true all the same. Most of the philosophy of science can be captured by a handful of bumper stickers. Anyway, keep the dictum in mind. In this second installment of the “Seeing Ghosts in the Bushes” blog series — part 1 is here — we’ll ask how the theory of common descent could be tested by fossils. The principle of “what evidence cannot question, evidence cannot support” will be our main guide.

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/seeing_ghosts_in_the_bushes_pa.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/seeing_ghosts_in_the_bushes_pa.html CSC News & Views Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:26:50 -0800

Download the "Truth or Dare" with Dr. Ken Miller Lecture Guide Permission Granted to Copy and Distribute for Educational Use.

Over the past few months, we've posted excerpts of a lecture guide to the claims of Dr. Ken Miller. The purpose of this guide was to give you an alternative viewpoint on many of Ken Miller’s arguments and to help you critically evaluate his claims. Now that the guide is complete (and available for download at right), we hope you have learned more about the debate over ID and evolution and have been able to think critically about Professor Miller’s arguments.

The segments of this guide have included:

Science and Religion: Is Evolution “Random and Undirected”?

Misrepresenting the Definition of Intelligent Design

Confusing Evidence for Common Ancestry With Evidence for Darwinian Evolution

The Name-Dropping Approach to Transitional Fossils

Spinning Tales About the Bacterial Flagellum

Misrepresenting Michael Behe’s Arguments for Irreducible Complexity of the Blood Clotting Cascade

Ken Miller and the Evolution of the Immune System: “Not Good Enough”?

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/truth_or_dare_with_dr_ken_mill_1.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/truth_or_dare_with_dr_ken_mill_1.html Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Download the full "Truth or Dare with Dr. Ken Miller" Lecture Guide Permission Granted to Copy and Distribute for Educational Use.

Brown University biologist Ken Miller often attacks ID proponent Michael Behe, and in doing so usually misrepresents his arguments, just as he has done when talking about the origin of the immune system.

In Only a Theory, Miller claims that when the plaintiffs' attorneys at the Dover trial did a literature-dump bluff on Behe during cross-examination—placing before him over 50 papers and nearly a dozen books purportedly explaining the evolution of the immune system—that Behe said that they were "not 'good enough.’" Miller even goes so far as to characterize Behe's response as follows: "Even when presented with every opportunity to make their case, the defenders of design resorted to little more than saying 'It's not good enough for me' in the face of overwhelming evidence for evolution."⁴¹ What did Behe really say?

If by overwhelming evidence for "evolution," Miller meant neo-Darwinian evolution, where random mutation and natural selection are the driving force generating biological complexity in an adaptive, step-by-step fashion, then Behe is on quite firm ground in doubting Miller's assertion of "overwhelming" evidence for the evolution of the immune system. Behe knew this, and thus stated during his cross examination about the immune system: "In many of [the papers] they're not actually discussing mutation. They're discussing similarities and sequences between parts of the immune system in vertebrates and some elements of transposons."⁴²

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/ken_miller_and_the_evolution_o.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/ken_miller_and_the_evolution_o.html Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:00:00 -0800 Florida has all the fun. Fresh on the heels of the Signature in the Cell event in Tampa, we have learned from our friends at the C. S. Lewis Society that Discovery Senior Fellow David Berlinski will be speaking at a couple events this week, including "The Deniable Darwin: Has Science Buried Religion?" this Thursday, Feb 4th at 3:30 pm. The presentation will take place at Florida International University's Graham Center Room 140.

Following that, there will be Darwin vs. Design "Pizza Bash" featuring Dr. Berlinski and Dr. Tom Woodward this Saturday:

Pizza Kick-off: On Saturday, Feb 6th at 6:00 pm, at the First Alliance Church of Ft. Lauderdale (900 SW 31st Ave.) Dr. Tom Woodward and the C. S. Lewis Society are hosting a pizza-bash "meet and greet Berlinski/Woodward" for interested persons in the Ft. Lauderdale area and beyond. There is no charge; there will be a basket for free-will donations. RSVP is requested; email twdwrd@tampabay.rr.com to list name, phone and number of group coming.

Main Course at 7:00 pm: Dr. Woodward will give a powerpoint overview of the current Darwin-vs-Design clash. Then he will introduce and interview Dr. David Berlinski about the flaws that he sees in Darwinian theory and in the preachings of the "New Atheists" such as Richard Dawkins. Dr. Berlinski, self-described as a secular Jew, has emerged as one of the world's most powerful critics of Darwinian theory. His sizzling critique of the New Atheism, The Devil's Delusion, along with the newly released The Deniable Darwin, have caused a buzz about his startling insights.

For more information, contact Dr. Tom Woodward, Director of C. S. Lewis Society, at 727-642-8574 or twdwrd@tampabay.rr.com.

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/david_berlinski_to_speak_at_fl.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/david_berlinski_to_speak_at_fl.html Berlinski Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:55:05 -0800 Over the past couple of months at Jerry Coyne’s blog, Why Evolution Is True, he and Matthew Cobb have written several blog posts attacking Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell -- by my count, five posts. The most recent by Coyne accuses Meyer of dishonesty:

Meyer does not mean well. He is spreading lies and confusing people by distorting real science. Is that the unfortunate result of “meaning well”? Do you think that because somebody is a “Christian brother,” he’s incapable of lying for Jesus?

Isn’t it strange, though, that for all the persistent attacks on Meyer, in quite personal terms, Professor Coyne hasn’t dared to actually read Steve’s book? That’s obvious because Coyne’s throwaway summary of its contents -- Signature “maintains that cells must have been designed by God because they’re too complex to have evolved” -- is an absurd misrepresentation. Even someone who had only read reviews of the book would know as much. Has Coyne in fact read the critical review of Signature, by Darrel Falk, on which he bestows approval? Or Meyer’s detailed response to Falk, which Coyne dismisses as “more of the same ID pap”? Unless he’s a very poor reader -- and being a professor at the University of Chicago would presumably indicate otherwise -- you do get the strong impression that he’s commenting upon a bunch of writing by other people without having read it, certainly not with any care. Maybe he’s too busy playing with his cats that he makes so much of on his blog. Or maybe he’s sloppy. This is the same Dr. Coyne who earlier characterized Steve Meyer as a “young-earth creationist,” which of course he’s not.

But I dunno, attacking someone else for writing something that you haven’t read or even carefully read about strikes me as just plain old dishonest. If you add to that Coyne’s braying slurs against Steve Meyer as “lying for Jesus,” a “lying liar,” etc., then to the charge of dishonesty I think you’d have to add hypocrisy as well.

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/lying_for_darwin_1.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/lying_for_darwin_1.html Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:45:52 -0800 In this LeVake v. Independent School District, the Minnesota Court of Appeals did NOT find it was illegal to offer scientific critiques of evolution. What they did find is that administrators may exercise tight control over the curriculum, and may discipline teachers who would express doubts Darwin in the classroom. Cases like this show the need for academic freedom legislation to protect the rights of teachers to discuss both the evidence for and against evolution in the classroom. For podcast interviews with the plaintiff in this case, Rodney LeVake, see here and here.

1. Summary

In LeVake v. Independent School District, high school biology teacher Rodney LeVake was reassigned after he allegedly failed to adequately cover the curriculum requirements for evolution and told his administrators that he intended to teach scientific criticisms of evolution.¹²⁷ LeVake stated, “I will accompany [the] treatment of evolution with an honest look at the difficulties and inconsistencies of the theory without turning my class into a religious one.”¹²⁸ There was no indication that Mr. LeVake intended to teach creationism or intelligent design.¹²⁹ LeVake was subsequently transferred to teach a ninth-grade natural science class.¹³⁰ LeVake brought suit alleging violation of his right to free exercise of religion, free speech, freedom of conscience, as well as due process and academic freedom rights, maintaining that the material he wanted to teach his students was lawful.¹³¹ The issue in LeVake became whether or not Mr. LeVake’s speech rights as a teacher trumped the district’s ability to exercise control over the science curriculum.¹³² The Minnesota Court of Appeals sided with the school district, holding that “LeVake's responsibility as a public school teacher to teach evolution in the manner prescribed by the curriculum overrides his First Amendment [free speech] rights as a private citizen.”¹³³

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/levake_v_independent_school_di.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/levake_v_independent_school_di.html Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:00:00 -0800 You can watch the live "Signature in the Cell" intelligent design one-night event featuring some of the leading voices challenging Darwinian evolution including Stephen Meyer, Michael Medved, David Berlinski and Tom Woodward.

The event will be broadcast LIVE tonight from 7:05-9:00pm, on the internet You can stream it live from either of these radio websites: AM 570 and 910 or AM 860 WGUL.

To listen to the event in its entirety, click here.

Click here to register for this event

Discovery Institute senior fellow and national radio personality Michael Medved will lead a two-hour discussion about the evidence for intelligent design and the challenges it proposes to modern evolutionary theory. Joining him will be Signature in the Cell author, Stephen C. Meyer, leading Darwin skeptic and author of The Deniable Darwin, David Berlinski, and scientist, scholar and writer, Thomas Woodward, author of Darwin Strikes Back.

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/signature_in_the_cell_tampa_ba.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/signature_in_the_cell_tampa_ba.html CSC News & Views Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:06:38 -0800 Stephen Meyer's Signature in the Cell is stirring up a thoughtful debate over at Biologos' blog, Science and the Sacred, where Darrel Falk and Francisco Ayala both reviewed Meyer's book. Today, Meyer's response to Falk is posted:

In 1985, I attended a conference that brought a fascinating problem in origin-of-life biology to my attention—the problem of explaining how the information necessary to produce the first living cell arose. At the time, I was working as a geophysicist doing digital signal processing, a form of information analysis and technology. A year later, I enrolled in graduate school at the University of Cambridge, where I eventually completed a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science after doing interdisciplinary research on the scientific and methodological issues in origin-of-life biology. In the ensuing years, I continued to study the problem of the origin of life and have authored peer-reviewed and peer-edited scientific articles on the topic of biological origins, as well as co-authoring a peer-reviewed biology textbook. Last year, after having researched the subject for more than two decades, I published Signature in the Cell, which provides an extensive evaluation of the principal competing theories of the origin of biological information and the related question of the origin of life. Since its completion, the book has been endorsed by prominent scientists including Philip Skell, a member of the National Academy of Sciences; Scott Turner, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York; and Professor Norman Nevin, one of Britain’s leading geneticists.

Nevertheless, in his recent review on the Biologos website, Prof. Darrel Falk characterizes me as merely a well-meaning, but ultimately unqualified, philosopher and religious believer who lacks the scientific expertise to evaluate origin-of-life research and who, in any case, has overlooked the promise of recent pre-biotic simulation experiments. On the basis of two such experiments, Falk suggests I have jumped prematurely to the conclusion that pre-biotic chemistry cannot account for the origin of life. Yet neither of the scientific experiments he cites provides evidence that refutes the argument of my book or solves the central mystery that it addresses. Indeed, both experiments actually reinforce—if inadvertently—the main argument of Signature in the Cell.

The central argument of my book is that intelligent design—the activity of a conscious and rational deliberative agent—best explains the origin of the information necessary to produce the first living cell. I argue this because of two things that we know from our uniform and repeated experience, which following Charles Darwin I take to be the basis of all scientific reasoning about the past. First, intelligent agents have demonstrated the capacity to produce large amounts of functionally specified information (especially in a digital form). Second, no undirected chemical process has demonstrated this power. Hence, intelligent design provides the best—most causally adequate—explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life from simpler non-living chemicals. In other words, intelligent design is the only explanation that cites a cause known to have the capacity to produce the key effect in question.

Click here to read the rest.

For more of Dr. Meyer's responses to critics, visit his website, SignatureInTheCell.com.

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/stephen_meyer_responds_to_darr.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/stephen_meyer_responds_to_darr.html CSC News & Views Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:32:19 -0800 Discovery Institute is proud to announce a series of Academic Freedom Day events at the University of Arkansas happening on February 11 (Darwin Day Eve!).

First, there's a free screening of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed starring Ben Stein. Q & A about the movie with Casey Luskin, Program Officer in Public Policy and Legal Affairs at the Discovery Institute, will follow.

Time: 5 pm
Location: University of Arkansas Union Theatre

Following that is a lecture, "The Positive Scientific Case for Intelligent Design and Why it’s being Expelled from Academia," by Casey Luskin.

Time: 7 pm
Location: University of Arkansas Union Theatre

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/academic_freedom_day_events_in.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/academic_freedom_day_events_in.html Academic freedom Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:00:00 -0800
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is now available on DVD in the United Kingdom in a newly expanded edition with 44 minutes of never-before-seen interviews.

Interest in intelligent design is growing in Britain. Earlier this month, Stephen Meyer, who appears in Expelled, defended both the film and ID in a debate with atheist Peter Atkins, which you can listen to here.

The "Bad Boy UK Version" promises to be a hit in a market that has been dominated by the likes of Richard Dawkins, whose appearance in the film and startling admission that intelligent design exists — coming from aliens, of course — might raise a few eyebrows in his native land.

What's the old saying about prophets and honor in their homeland?

]]> http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/expelled_now_available_in_the.html http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/expelled_now_available_in_the.html CSC News & Views Wed, 27 Jan 2010 09:26:41 -0800