Month: July 2006
Full Page Interview With Traipsing Into Evolution Authors in Washington DC Examiner
The Washington DC Examiner today published a full-page interview with John West and Casey Luskin, two of the authors of Traipsing Into Evolution. After seeing West and Luskin make a presentation about the book in Washington DC Recently, the Examiner decided to interview the authors “to get a better understanding of their arguments against Kitzmiller.” You can read the full interview online, and you can download a PDF of the actual page here. You can purchase the book online at Amazon.com, or order copies by calling 1-800-643-4102. Q Is your main disagreement with Kitzmiller v. Dover over its ultimate rejection of intelligent design (ID)? Or for the way the case exemplified, in your eyes, judicial overreach? A John West: The Read More ›
Kansas 102: Do the Kansas Science Standards Contain Claims Made Only by Intelligent Design Proponents?
Last week I explained how Nick Matzke was wrong to argue that the Kansas Science Standards‘ (KSS) mention of irreducible complexity implies that it requires teaching intelligent design (ID). Most of the rest of Mr. Matzke’s post concentrates on the false claim that the Kansas Science Standards’ section on evolution makes claims that come only from ID literature. This argument is only furthering a conspiracy theory which believes that, when the standards read “do not include Intelligent Design,” they really mean, “do include intelligent design.” Under Mr. Matzke’s reasoning, every science teacher in the state of Kansas is supposed to be in on this conspiracy, which would be the only reason for them to know they are supposed to disregard Read More ›
Senator McCain’s Take: Don’t Censor Intelligent Design
Senator John McCain personally believes in evolution, but he takes a classically liberal view which says that ideas should not be hidden from students — even controversial ideas like intelligent design. Consider this excerpt from a news article on McCain’s take on intelligent design: Mr. McCain, who delivered his prepared remarks in an even, almost perfunctory manner, was at his best in the question and answer session that followed. Responding to a question about a report that he thinks “intelligent design” should be taught in schools, the senator mocked the idea that American young people were so delicate and impressionable that they needed to be sheltered from the concept, which says God had a hand in creation and which has Read More ›
Is Sylvia Mader’s Biology Textbook “Biased” Towards Intelligent Design? Depends on Your Definition of “Bias.”
A recent article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch notes that a Virginia Commonwealth University biology professor Jim Sparks complained that a biology textbook by Sylvia Mader, “Essentials of Biology (McGraw Hill, 2007) “had leanings toward creationism and short-changed evolution.” Another article described Sparks’ view as claiming the Mader textbook was “biased toward creationism and intelligent design.” But how accurate was Dr. Sparks’ description of the textbook? Consider what the textbook actually says about intelligent design: No wonder most scientists in our country are dismayed when state legislatures or school boards rule that teachers must put forward a variety or “theories” on the origin of life, including one that runs contrary to the mass of data that supports the theory of evolution. Read More ›
Nasty E-mails from Kansas Darwinists and the Bacterial Flagellum
Discovery Institute gets a lot of nasty e-mail from name-calling Darwinists. But since the launch of StandUpForScience.com, the amount of nasty e-mailage has gone up about five-fold–something I barely thought possible (this resembles the post-Dover barrage of Darwinist hate-mail). In the past couple weeks I’ve had e-mails from Kansas tell me things like “Patton knew how to handle you fascist bastards,” “Your agenda is clear — secular schools cannot be tolerated, just as your spiritual leader Adolf Hitler said,” and “Religously speaking — GO TO HELL!” (all direct quotes from e-mails I’ve recently received from Kansas). Very interesting! In any case, I have no ill-will whatsoever towards these people, but one recent less-inflammatory but nonetheless name-calling e-mail came from a Read More ›