Month: June 2007
Darwin, Conservatives, and the State of Debate
Tom Bethell of The American Spectator was present at the recent debate on Darwin and conservatism held at AEI. I am delighted that he was there or we would not have his droll, apt description of the event in the July-August number of the Spectator. We are watching the Darwinists launch bold and deceitful attacks on all critics of their man’s theory. And they go farther–as witness Cornelia Dean, queen of The New York Times Science Page, in her assault Tuesday on the Catholic Church and the Christian effort to reserve the soul, at least, as something more than material expression.
It’s Not Easy Being a Materialist
P.Z. Myers and I have been discussing this question for a while: is the brain sufficient for the mind? It’s clearly necessary for the mind, in everyday experience. Strokes and ethanol affect the brain and alter the mind. But necessity is not sufficiency. Is the brain alone — just matter — entirely sufficient for the mind? I think the mind needs an immaterial cause, like the soul. Myers doesn’t. How, from a scientific standpoint, could we resolve our disagreement? We would have to show, empirically, whether matter alone could, under the right circumstances, give rise to a mind. This is an experimental question, and it turns on the ability to create artificial intelligence (A.I.). If we could build machines that Read More ›
Sean Carroll Fails to Scale The Edge of Evolution (Part I): How Carroll Misrepresents Michael Behe’s Arguments
[Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 of a 4-part response. The full response can be read here.] A few months ago we discussed my review of Sean B. Carroll’s book The Making of the Fittest, the book in which Carroll intimates that the salvation of our species hangs upon accepting Darwin. Carroll has now invoked his own religious metaphors in his review of Michael Behe’s book The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism in Science. While Michael Behe himself responds to Carroll here, I have a few comments which follow. Carroll postures himself as Thomas Henry Huxley debating Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in a famous 19th century debate over evolution. Carroll even opens the review by invoking Read More ›
Can Biology Textbooks Recover from Over-Praising Darwin?
They say that admitting a problem is the first step on the road to recovery. I’ll admit that I’m something of a bookaholic: I’m constantly picking up books, especially books on evolution. It’s been fascinating to read how Darwin is praised not only as the patron saint of “Western thought,” but sometimes as if he invented sliced bread and cupholders in cars. For example, Douglas Futuyma’s textbook Evolutionary Biology stated that “it was Darwin’s theory of evolution … that provided a crucial plank to the platform of mechanism and materialism–in short, to much of science–that has since been the stage of most Western thought.” John Dupré rejoices that “Darwin’s theory provides the last major piece in the articulation of a Read More ›
Behe Responds to Propaganda Attacks Against The Edge of Evolution
Fenton Communications, the left wing public relations firm that handles the Darwinist propaganda machine (along with groups like Moveon.org), undoubtedly has been anticipating the publication of Michael Behe’s new book, The Edge of Evolution, and helping to promote book reviews against it. Our friends at the Darwinist lobby, National Center for Science Education, are also on the case. They erroneously think that they can strangle this Hercules in his crib. In terms of the interests of real science, it is a shame, though no surprise, that the initial Darwinist reviews are defensive and tendentious.We have asked Dr. Behe, a senior fellow of Discovery Institute, to reply to some of them and he has agreed, starting with Jerry Coyne’s review from Read More ›