The ID Report

The Executive Committee of the International Society for Science and Religion has issued a statement about Intelligent Design which makes it clear that they do not accept the term 'secularised science' but rather see science as operating "with a common set of methodological approaches that gives freedom to scientists from a range of religious backgrounds to unite in a common endeavor." Here is the key paragraph:

"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."
Source: ISSR Statement on the Concept of 'Intelligent Design'

Most of the committee members have contributed articles or books on the subject which elaborate the above text. Their names are Denis Alexander, Munawar Anees, Martinez Hewlett, Ronald L. Numbers (chair), Holmes Rolston III, Michael Ruse and Jeffrey Schloss.

There are many issues raised by the Statement. One biologist has commented: "I have never seen a refutation of Mike Behe's argument made in DBB that a single photosensitive cell is irreducibly complex." Also: "And what does it mean that something "can be readily understood as a product of natural selection"? As long as you can "understand" something that way you're okay, even if it hasn't been demonstrated? They concede as much in the subsequent sentence."

Philosopher Angus Menuge has provided all the following comments about the science-stopper charge:

And the sad thing is that this is all based on a simple mistake. Inferring design from irreducible complexity does not at all "stop science," but invites investigation into the control program that assembles the IC system, as Behe's latest book details. The problem is a persistent false picture of designer as fairy godmother, rather than designer as computer engineer who works through means. If I infer design from a print-out of the Mona Lisa, I am not at all discouraged from investigating the mechanisms (photography, scanners, computer software and hardware) used to bring that designed product to us. Design isn't committed to the idea that every time a phenomenon is identified as designed, the designer must have immediately brought into existence. This is as silly as thinking that because ID sees design in human beings, it is claiming they were brought into the world by supernatural storks, and not through the means of reproduction.

In truth, 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.)

It is also reinforced by Bruce Alberts' claim that 21st century biologists will need to learn the principles of engineering and computer science (design principles):

"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 fact that these scientists all claim that nature does it all, doesn't show a thing: it is a statement of faith that plays no substantive role in the actual experimental analysis given. Design does all the heavy lifting; then the attributes of the designer are transferred mythologically to natural selection, without evidence. As A. S. Wilkins wrote:

"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.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

North America undergoing religious revolution? No way. Atheism is not growing significantly.

Anti-depressant are definitely NOT the death of the soul, as Tom Wolfe thought
Templeton Foundation offers L2 million pounds to find a.non-spiritual source of belief in God

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Why do scientists sometimes ignore warnings that theories are wrong?

Even great scientists can get it all wrong, and it is interesting to see how and when they do.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Just plain big? How do animals get that way?

Why the exploding palm tree explodes - or why it doesn't

Frog from hell? Well, that's how Nature News is telling it. Apollyon, check your e-mail.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

February 19, 2008
K.D. Kalinsky

(Note from Denyse: An ID theorist asked me to publish this essay on detecting design in nature. It is exactly as the scientist gave it to me except that

- I have linked the sections for easier Web handling

- all the notes have been moved to the end.

- I don't see a font choice for superscripts or subscripts in Blogger, so have decided to enclose the element that would be super or subscripted in two periods. In the number 10.-64. assume that .-64. Is a superscript. In the equation, P.f. = M(E.x.)/N, assume that .f. and .x. are subscripts.

A .pdf version of his paper exists but is not on line as of this writing, so far as I know. I am glad to publish non-abusive comments that focus on the paper, not the author.)

Next: Introduction

Sections:

I. Introduction
II. Defining some terms and concepts
III. The role of intelligent design in science
IV. Functional Information
V. Application to Biological Life
VI. Conclusion
End Notes

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Is the institutional church really dead? Naw!

Neurolaw: Why you are not responsible for your life (but your minders are)

And so what if Grandma was an ape?

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Jonathan Wells reflects on how almost everything Darwin believed is being disconfirmed:

There was a time when I would half-heartedly join in the chorus that praises Darwin as a great scientist, even though some of his ideas were mistaken. Now, when I look for Darwin's positive contributions to biology, I see only that he made a persuasive case that something analogous to artificial selection operates in natural populations (a case also made by others, including A.R. Wallace). That and a few minor studies on barnacles, orchids, and such. But natural selection has never been shown to accomplish anything more than its artificial counterpart -- which is to say minor changes within existing species.

All of Darwin's Big Ideas -- universal common ancestry, the origin of species by natural selection, inheritance by pangenesis -- are dead or dying.

Go here for more.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Reading Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, John G. West prompted me to renounce a bad habit that I have shared with many, many people (though that fact is not offered as an excuse). I am referring to the habit of being what fellow Canadian journalist David Warren calls a "dhimmi for Darwin". He means living in a state of perpetual second class citizenship, as is the fate of Christians and Jews in Middle Eastern countries dominated by Islamist extremists.

Dhimmitude exists in the Western world too. Today, it is very dangerous to doubt Darwin. Brilliant scientists have seen their careers wrecked when they refused to worship the secular idol.

And, although in recent years I have begun to voice objections pretty strenuously, I admit that in the past - to avoid useless conflict with nice people who simply cannot face what materialism and its creation story Darwinism are doing to our culture - I have often soft-pedalled.

For example, I have caught myself saying "Well, Darwin was a racist, but almost all upper class Brit toffs were, and Darwin wasn't really any worse than the ... ".

And I noticed that the people around me were nodding approvingly, while we all sipped tea. And I was pleased. That was the right answer, apparently. So, of course, I was pleased.

But it wasn't the right answer. And I knew it wasn't. So here is what I really think:

Next: Part Two: Darwin and scientific racism

Also:
Part Three: Darwin and the Holocaust
Part Four: Ignoring logical contradictions politely, sipping more tea

Darwin put racism on a supposedly scientific basis. In that respect, he enabled the most virulent racism of the twentieth century.

Notice the irony, will you? The writer of THESE passages is widely regarded as some kind of saint, on a par with Abraham Lincoln:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. (The Descent of Man (1871) p.168-169)

Or how about this one?

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. (The Descent of Man (1871) p.201)

Yes, both passages are from Darwin's book-length racist tract, Descent of Man.

Darwin's racism is airbrushed as part of his "cultural context." I, however, am tagged as an extremist for pointing out that he both said and meant those things and that the cultural context in which Darwinism was nurtured was science-backed racism.

Darwin believed in what he was saying in Descent of Man and he entirely deserves to be credited with his dubious achievement.

Next: Part Three: Darwin and the Holocaust

Similarly, we are told - and are expected to believe - that Darwinism had nothing to do with the Holocaust. When I was a dhimmi for Darwin, I have said that myself at times, and thus escaped the charge of impolite extremism.

And I now retract and will say what I know to be true, based on four and a half decades of reading and studying:

Darwin was instrumental in discrediting the traditional way of looking at human beings. This is a fact that everyone admits and many celebrate. How often have you heard that Darwin's great achievement was to knock humanity off its pedestal and show that we are merely evolved animals, accidentally evolved at that? And that had everything to do with the Holocaust.

Traditional Christian anti-Semites have caused massive grief for Jews over the centuries. No honest observer of history could deny that. But traditional cosmologies also argued that Jews had a role to play at the end of the world (according to the Christian version of the script, their role was to prove the Christians right by converting to Christianity, but I haven't read the Jewish version - and would hardly be astounded to learn that it was different ... ).

Anyway, remember Andrew Marvell's famous lines, to his coy mistress about why we can't all just wait around for the world to end?:

...
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
...

But the Jews had to attend the Apocalypse if there was any chance they would convert, didn't they?

The idea of making Jews extinct in the sense that the dinosaurs are extinct - as the Nazis tried to do - was derived culturally from Darwin, not from the Church. Also derived from Darwin and his supporters - rather than the Church - was the view of Jews as simply a gene pool rather than a race/religion/culture/Jesus's family/God's chosen people/essential part of history/essential part of our neighbourhood/people we know. The stew of traditional issues sometimes overflows into violence, but not into a eugenics program.

That is why the Nazis, who were very much influenced by these new Darwin-inspired ideas, killed Jewish-born Christian converts like Edith Stein, as well as all other Jews. Whether Jews were Orthodox, Reform, or atheists made no difference to them - because they treated humans as if they were animals, NOT because the Nazis were egalitarians in any meaningful sense.

The ancient religious quarrel around the central question for Christians, "Who do you say that I am?" is irrelevant in a world where humans are only evolved animals. Animals, after all, can't follow the "wrong" religion. They can only be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which is what happened to about six million European Jews in the early 1940s ...

None of this is said to excuse the Church from centuries of wrongs inflicted on Jews. But all that is amply documented, admitted, and recently apologized for. Not much else can be done with the past, after all.

But we must be clear about what sorts of wrongs the older cosmology could contemplate, versus the ones that the newer one could contemplate.

Extermination camps made much more sense when Darwinism became the creation story of the modern West. If we are all just animals, there is no longer a divine plan to flout - and therefore no final check on hatred that even a fanatic must consider.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Next: Part Four: Ignoring logical contradictions politely

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Another characteristic of dhimmis for Darwin is to politely ignore logical contradictions. Every editorial in favour of teaching "evolution" tells us that Darwin knocked man off his traditional pedestal as the crown or purpose of creation and showed that he was merely an evolved animal.

The same editorial may then go on to claim on the same page that there is perfect harmony between "science and faith" ....

Well, there is certainly no harmony at all between the science that shows that man is merely an evolved animal and the faith that puts man at the centre of creation - that is to say, the Jewish or Christian or Muslim faith.

No one accuses the editorialist of bad faith. Of course not, because no one even notices the contradiction! We are not supposed to notice it. Our social acceptability depends in part on our not noticing it.

As a matter of fact, one can certainly belong to a religion that sees man as simply an evolved animal. But it will not be one of the historic Western monotheist faiths. That any clergy would imagine otherwise says much about the popularity of dhimmitude for Darwin.

Darwinism is a package. Hard on the heels of the "evolved animal" message is the astonishing hypothesis: You are nothing but a pack of neurons.

You are nothing but a pack of neurons ... or else you are not a Darwinist. Anyway, I have decided to stop making any excuses at all for the vile creed that has grown up around Darwin, let alone the hagiography and will most certainly NOT encourage any welcome for it in the church.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Jane Harris has a new article at Design of Life blog about a newly discovered genus of palm in Madagascar (yes, that's right, a new GENUS):
"New findings in science: self-destructive palm puzzles botanists"

The tree waits about 100 years to flower and then explodes in tonnes of flowers and then just dies.

I'm glad local trees in the Toronto area are more measured in their response to sex. (They live many decades but flower decorously every year, and never just explode in flowers and die.) Like, the palm tree's sort of behaviour would be okay for weeds, but ...

And no one has any idea how it got itself to Madagascar.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

In Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, John G. West, a political scientist and associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture looks at the enormous influence Darwin's theory of evolution has had on North American culture.

Darwin's theory of evolution - essentially, that life, including human life, occurs without purpose and perishes without consequence - popularized points of view that would have been considered unacceptable to most Westerners in earlier times. Indeed, that has always been its greatest appeal, to judge from the thousands of editorials on how Darwin's great feat was to show that man is just a two-legged animal - a biped who affects trousers.

Today, many Americans are far readier to celebrate Darwin Day than Lincoln Day. This year Evolution Sunday coincided with the First Sunday in Lent in the traditional Christian year.

Culturally, it is also significant that many churches chose to preach evolution (or possibly process theology, in which God is said to be evolving, along with creation) rather than the creation and fall of man and the temptations in the wilderness (traditional readings for Lent I).

One must choose, I suppose, but choices have consequences ...

Part One: So what are the consequences?
Part Two: Always a political project, always a spin job
Part Three: High deception level warning: "Darwin was not a eugenicist"

Next: Part One: So what are the consequences?

It is those consequences that West examines in a well-researched book, a worthy companion to Richard Weikart's From Darwin to Hitler. Both books are essential reading for anyone who wants to get beyond the patina of popular myths about Darwin, Darwinism and its supporters, and dig into the historical record of their actions and their influence.

Indeed, Darwin Day's great strength is the trove of information that I had never encountered before (and most people who follow the intelligent design controversy probably haven't either): Mainly about how much negative popular culture is a direct outcome of the assumptions that Darwin and his supporters introduced.

There is a good reason why I hadn't encountered that information. West hadn't known it himself until he began his methodical research. In his Preface, he writes, "It has been a long journey. Along the way, I discovered that many of the things I thought I knew about the history of science and public policy were wrong, or at least misleading." (p. x)

The misleading material is usually intended to soften us towards Darwinism. It is put forward by earnest, well-meaning people - people who could easily discover that the information they purvey is false or misleading, but they do not dare. Given that support for Darwinism spans the political spectrum (West, p. xv), they choose not to.

West has made a different choice. He digs into the information.

There is also a curious cultural reluctance, particularly in popular media, to be honest about where the passion for materialist evolution leads us - all the while celebrating the supposed insights it provides. That is, few seriously ask, "When people believe that they are merely evolved animals, will they think that they can simply choose to behave well?" Usually, the question is sloughed off as bad faith on the part of the questioner. ("You wouldn't be asking if you weren't a ... ")

Not only does the Darwin popularizer provide no adequate account of how free will can exist, what's more significant is that few even seek such an account from him.

West quotes political philosopher Leo Strauss, explaining that scientific materialism tries " ... to understand the higher in terms of the lower: the human in terms of the subhuman, the rational in terms of the subrational (p. 4).

To test his assumption, take a pop science mag and make a mental note of all the articles on human beings where the implicit or explicit assumption is that human behaviour can be understood in terms of animal behaviour.

On reflection, everyone knows that that is not true. Try to explain 9-11 in terms of animal behaviour and you will see what I mean. Nonetheless, "we think like animals" is the defining falsehood of our time. The falsehood is not argued for, it is merely asserted and assented to by millions of people who should know better.

West has a look at some of the social trends tracked by materialist Darwinian evolution, including eugenics, non-morality-based sex education, and featureless apartment buildings that resemble broiler houses.

Next: Part Two: Always a political project, always a spin job

Darwinism has at all times been an intensely political project, advanced mainly by blackballing dissenters. That is NOT a modern problem; the historical record shows that it was always true.

West shows how Darwin and his allies attempted to discredit those scientists who accepted the occurrence of evolution but did not did not embrace atheistic materialism. For example,

Huxley eventually tried to blackball Mivart from the scientific community, and Darwin vowed to cut off communication after Mivart criticized an article by Darwin's son George that advocated eugenics. (p. 24)

Didn't ever hear that story before? No, because spin takes over. Darwin is portrayed as The Great Enlightened One. Basically, Mivart was a Catholic, so he wasn't likely to support sterilizing people by force because Darwin's supporters considered them inferior.

West goes on to document the ways in which modern Darwinists deny Darwin's materialist sympathies, in defiance of readily available facts. For example, one teacher's edition of a popular Miller and Levine textbook maintains (p. 25) "He remained a devout Christian all his life."

West tells us the facts about Darwin's mature views about religion, especially in his now-available private writings,

In his private writings, Darwin was more direct about his religious skepticism. In his Autobiography, a document originally intended for use by his family, Darwin told of how he "gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine relevation" and had "never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct." Indeed, by the end of his life, Darwin could "hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true." (p. 37)

Darwin was spooked by the doctrine of Hell, noting that it threatened atheists like his father, brother and "almost all my best friends" - making quite clear thereby that Darwinism was a project driven mostly by atheists.

One is staggered by the deception about Darwin on offer, often from academic enterpises and publicly funded bodies. But, in fairness, it is probably self-deception. In the interests of selling materialism - and Darwinism as its creation story - many people simply avoid knowing readily available historical facts, and assert pious fictions instead.

I know, because in the interests of not being painted as an extremist by gullible teachers and clergy, I have done it myself. (See Dhimmi for Darwin no more - a reflection and retraction)

In fact, the evidence is clear that Darwin avoided openly embracing atheism in order to spare the feelings of his family. His Descent of Man explains human life in entirely materialist terms (West, p.41)

Many of his explanations are not very successful, and they pave the way for the nonsensical "evolutionary psychology" propounded in all seriousness in popular science mags today (for an example, see Chapter Four of The Spiritual Brain ("The God Helmet")).

Indeed, as I have shown elsewhere, the whole point of evolutionary psychology is to demonstrate that humans do not make decisions on the basis of mental operations but on the basis of conserved selfish genes that get themselves passed on. The radical materialism that drives the project is best seen in two facts: 1) evolutionary psychologists are not usually expected to identify any actual genes and (2) the behaviour in question can be usually be explained without resorting to evolutionary psychology.

But to make such objections is to miss the point. The point is to insert the pseudo-discipline of evolutionary psychology as a legitimate part of science, not to explain human behavior in an economical and rational way.

Another wakeup call that West's Darwin Day in America provides is about the relationship between Darwinism and the political camps of our time. I had been raised to think that Darwinism had been embraced by the Right but shunned by the Left.

That's easy to understand. My Canadian cultural background is vaguely leftish, so people probably wanted to reduce the sense of conflict between our vestigial Christianity and the materialism whose prophet was Darwin. West painstaking shows that Darwinism has always been part of the bedrock of the Left as well as the Right - because it underscores materialism. One recalls here Joseph Stalin's attempt to hybridize humans and chimpanzees. Funny no one ever told me about that.

Next: Part Three: High spin level warning: "Darwin was not a eugenicist"

I was unprepared for the level of deception involved in the claims that West cites in Darwin Day in America: that Darwin was not a eugenicist.

On the Understanding Evolution website funded by the National Science Foundation, users will find a cartoon showing Charles Darwin yelling "Get out of my house!" to a proponent of eugenics. (p. 128)

So speaks the cartoon Darwin. And here's what the REAL Darwin said, (p.32)

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. (The Descent of Man (1871) p.168-169)

and

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. (The Descent of Man (1871) p.201)

Yes, you did read that right. Darwin thought that black people were nearer gorillas than white people.

And THAT is the man that the Darwin Day folk compare to Abraham Lincoln, saying

February 12th, 1809
On this date, two great men were born -

Abraham Lincoln, Emancipator of American Slaves

and

Charles Darwin, Emancipator of the Human Mind

Their Positive Legacies Still Endure

Let's have some Lincoln-Darwin Celebrations

That Darwin Day flaks say this isn't significant. Presumably, they say whatever they think will sell their cause. What's significant is the tacit willingness of opinion leaders to let them get away with it.

Actually, I think the deception is mostly self-deception. The National Science Foundation writer, for example, needs Darwin to be against eugenics. Arranging not to know what he really thought, the writer collects her cheque and opinion leaders cooperate without comment. Welcome to Darwin Day in America.

Can there be Darwinism without materialism? No, for the same reason as there can't be communism without violation of human rights. What communists actually believed meant that violating human rights was an integral part of their system, not an exception to it. And what Darwin's heirs actually believe means that interpreting human behaviour as if it were animal behaviour is an integral part of the system and not an exception to it. All the rest follows.

Back to: Introduction: Review of Darwin Day in America

See also: Dhimmi for Darwin no more: A reflection and retraction

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Charles Walcott. director (secretary) of the Smithsonian, had found the equivalent of Noah's Ark. He found every animal phylum, or - as physicist Gerald Schroeder puts it - the "basic anatomies" of all animal life forms today.

Cause for rejoicing?

No, because there was a problem. The problem was that the find obviously did not support Darwin's theory of evolution:

So what did he do?

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

(Posted for Jane Harris)

At one time, hybrids were thought to be common among plants but rare among animals. But as more animal hybrids are found, some scientists ask whether hybrids are not a more common means of creating new species than previously thought. ...

An intense focus on Darwin's theory that natural selection is the main cause of new species has often meant that other possibilities are neglected.

For more, go here.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Christianity Today features news item on young astronomer denied tenure

Catholic Darwinists to congregate in Rome?

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Did math really evolve? Or is it just us connecting to the universe?

Also:

Today at The Mindful Hack and other blogs

The myth of the Christian Right: What happens when you ask Democrats if they too are born again?

God must exist, otherwise he wouldn't be able to enjoy this debate!

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Well, he could be, at least about some things.

Don't shoot! Look, no one expected that the human being would have only a few more genes than the worms that survived a space shuttle blowup and were returned to their owners. We could be wrong about lots of other things too.

Anyway, here's Jane Harris-Zsovan's story, just up at The Design of Life:

Lolle's 2005 paper with Robert Pruitt of Purdue University, Genome-wide non-mendelian inheritance of extra-genomic information in Arabidopsis", suggested that a mutant variety of this species overrides its genetic code and does indeed revert back to its wild state.

Starting in the 1990s, the researchers began using specimens of A. thaliana to study plant cuticles.

Lolle and Pruitt bred plants with a mutant gene called Hothead (HTH2). The plants used in their research received the HTH2 gene from both parents.

Hothead mutants have fused reproductive organs, making breeding with wild A. thaliana plants from outside their study unlikely. Lolle and Pruitt should have had only HTH2 mutants to conduct their future research with. That's not what happened ...

Read more here.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Recently, Bill Dembski and Jonathan Wells published a textbook supplement called The Design of Life.

It's pretty controversial, as you will be able to tell by all the ignorant remarks and insults at the Amazon site.

The book explains all the reasons why Darwin was wrong. Stuff you won't find in the textbook your taxes pay for (or your student loan pays for if your prof puts it on the course.)

You can find out more about the book (or even buy it) here.

Meanwhile, trusty Canadian bloggers Jane Harris-Zsovan and I blog at the Design of Life blog on items that help explain why the book was written: To help students understand the facts of life that don't mesh with Darwinism.

Now, maybe you know all this stuff. Great! Have you considered encouraging friends or family who don't know it to have a look?

Remember, your nearest and dearest are always hearing from legacy media, museums, and schools why Darwin was right (your tax dollars at work again, in many cases). If you don't help them understand why that's no so, can you really blame them for just saying, "Okay, whatever ... whatever they want me to believe, I'll just believe, so they will shut up and go away ... "?

For example, here are some stories that someone you know might appreciate:

Origin of life: Popular science media solve the origin of life every few weeks. Huh?

Origin of species? Check out the beefalo and see if you still believe the textbook.

Explosions of life: Yes! Not brought to you by Darwinian competition

By the way, did you ever hear of the Avalon explosion of life, nearly 600 million years ago? Possibly not. It was not a Darwinian event, so ...

And then nothing much happened for millions of years ... Yes, the real history of life is NOT constant Darwinian competition and survival of the fittest leading to fantastic life forms. After an initial explosion, usually, nothing much happens.

Oh, and remember that molecular clock you've heard so much about, that will reveal Darwin's truth for all time? It is right about twice a day.

The Copernican myth and other myths - you know, how Copernicus showed that our planet isn't special? Flapdoodle. But ... in lots of popular and educational media, the undead still walk. Don't walk with them. Lots of myths fronted in pop science media debunked here.

Anyway, read and enjoy these posts, and there will soon be lots more at the Design of Life blog.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

In the wake of the fact that Guillermo Gonzalez's appeal has been dismissed by the Iowa Board of Regents (this was expected, actually, and more later), Discovery Institute has launched an Academic Freedom petition:

Across America, the freedom of scientists, teachers, and students to question Darwin is coming under increasing attack by self-appointed defenders of the theory of evolution who are waging a malicious campaign to demonize and blacklist anyone who disagrees with them. You can help by signing the Academic Freedom Petition

If you are an American, you can go here to sign.

By the way, academic freedom is under severe attack in many forums, not just the study of design in the universe. Go to The Fire to find out the rights you no longer have on many campuses. You can see Indoctrinate U on line, which gives you the idea.

Relax, it's actually worse in Canada. But you must hear publisher Ezra Levant's opening salvo against the tyranny of vague "human rights" charges.

Also: Will the Expelled film be ignored by its friends as well as its foes?

Excerpt: "Establishment savvies knows that most people - even those who should make the time to see the film - won't bother if there isn't a big razzmatazz about it in the media controlled by the establishment. And there isn't one."

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

The problem is not, as is sometimes popularly held, that religion opposes science. The problem is that religion has joined science. -- Cornelius G. Hunter, Science's Blind Spot, the Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism

Sunday, February 12, 1809 witnessed the birth of two babies destined to change the world. One lived a life so momentous he is remembered today with his iconic bearded visage engraved on paper money and a special day set aside in February to honor his birthday. The other is U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Charles Darwin, looking quite bum on the backside of Her Majesty's ten-pound note, is the one set to give the global community its first unholy holy-day. Move over Lincoln, make room for the "emancipator of the mind" as this February we all celebrate Darwin Day with the most anti-religious religion on earth: Humanism.

Touted as "an international recognition of science and humanity," this year's Darwin Day Celebration is a sponsored program of those whose "program" also includes a theology of active God-denial--The Institute for Humanist Studies. Humanists are those thought-suppressing free thinkers bound up in the faith of naturalism who prattle about preaching a Godless hope for the future (their Godless hope for the past speaking for itself). Believing themselves free, contemporary Humanists are simply the latest group happily enslaved to atheism. And while Darwin is certainly responsible for gifting Humanists with intellectual fulfillment, "celebrating" may be the wrong response for all who recall last century's frequent outbursts of "science and humanity".

Complementing Darwin Day by complimenting Darwin's Way are a host of Humanists and their Darwinist allies pushing this year's Evolution Weekend. Coming to a church-like facility near you, Evolution Weekend represents the religious outreach arm of Darwinism. Realizing God-thoughts come in many varieties, Evolution Weekend replaces past year's overly exclusive Evolution Sunday as one religious group's "attempt to be more welcoming to members of all religions." Like a gift horse of the Trojan style religious Humanists are rolling (with open mouth but no one looking) into traditional religious orders everywhere offering "sermons" and "meaningful conversations" to show that "religion and science are not adversaries."

Holy Cow(ards)! Darwinists succumb to theophobic spasms every time someone whispers "intelligent design" within a mile of a public school, and yet they wish to breeze into traditional churches to have "meaningful conversations"? Cowards all! Such Darwinists are adversarial poltroons who forbid meaningful conversation in the school building but nevertheless wish to freely trumpet their trumpery in the church building. And, sadly, it's working. No longer required to don ill-fitting sheep skins, wolves in wolf clothing now mingle freely among the sheepish they find conveniently unattended by anyone versed in twaddle detection. Religion and science not adversaries? It depends on which religion and what science. But be warned, wolves and sheep are not adversaries either, for long.

History shows that transparent duplicity thrives among ideologues high on certainty and low on tolerance. Certainty, like safety, is better in numbers, and Darwinists know they have the upper cultural hand in a world steeped in the faith of naturalism--the philosophical idea that all nature can be explained as the sole result of unguided physical processes. Regardless of the actual truth of the matter, with Origin of Species in one hand and a sword in the other, Darwin's miscreant recreants believe might makes truth-be-damned right. As a result the world is faced with a growing number of distorted-truth brokers in a new breed of merciless humans: religious Darwinists. Whether Holy, Wholly, or Holey, Darwin may not be Lord or God, but he is almighty.

Holy Darwinists find Darwinism not merely a scientific theory but the necessary creation story for a Godless faith they call atheism. Ironically, being strong in Darwin and the power of his might doesn't stop Holy Darwinists from spending more time talking about God than do most Christians, Jews or Muslims. Seemingly obsessed with God-thoughts, Holy Darwinists write books about Him, make speeches about him, engage in debates about Him, and generally prove his existence by displaying their utter hatred for Him. Being coarse and generally uncultured in speech and action, Holy Darwinists are nevertheless the vanguard of the breed. Like an embarrassing zealot of any faith, the faithful are loath to intervene in their blasphemous mission to roll over any opposition; after all, they consider, Holy Rollers may be an embarrassment, but they are our embarrassment.

Wholly Darwinists are those for whom Darwinism is simply a convenient creation story said to unify all of biology, a narrative uncritically accepted with little or no thought. Likely the largest of the Darwinian tribes, these Cultural Darwinists fail to understand why anyone really cares about the "origins debate" in the first place. Convinced there is no controversy, and wishing to avoid argument on a subject for which disagreement is merely another academic distraction and unproductive exercise, Wholly Darwinists abide by the maxim: "Darwin said it, I believe it, that settles it." However, like a pew-warming Methodist confronted by a Bible-bashing atheist, Wholly Darwinists can get downright feisty when confronted with faith-challenging facts. With nowhere to go but a faith in another's faith, Wholly Darwinists are prone to vocally hold to the dogmatic line they were told is true. Believing that all scientific challengers to naturalistic Darwinism are automatically religiously motivated, Wholly Darwinists would rather fight than switch. And for a group that denies having a god in this fight, Wholly Darwinists can be a scrappy little bunch.

On the positive side, small but growing numbers steadily discover the Darwinian Underground, virtual catacombs filled with those conflicted souls who understand Darwinism fully. Because Darwinism wholly understood is Darwinism understood as holey, Holey Darwinists live like doubters in a monastery, convinced of a new truth but vested in the old. With every passing day bringing a flood of indoctrination-defying evidence, Holey Darwinists live lives of exceptionally quiet desperation. Like modern Galileo's convinced of data over dogma, Holey Darwinists are understandably hesitant to challenge religious authorities Galileo-style. Watching their openly doubting brothers get flattened by the Holy Rollers causes Holey Darwinists to carry on cautiously, devotedly partaking in public services while feeling forsaken in private devotions.

While Holey Darwinists blog under assumed names and Wholly Darwinists enjoy a state of bliss, Holy Darwinists reign over a merciless hierarchy of ecclesiastical thugs. Ready to crush dissent at the first whiff of non-Darwinian incense, Holy Darwinists are hell-bent on ending careers, ruining reputations, and disrupting the personal lives of every person who seeks in any way to seriously propose material, observable evidence that threatens el-Darwin. Employing the ACLU, tenure boards, and foul-mouthed blogs of adult junior-highers, Holy Darwinists resemble the Papal Inquisition, sans integrity. After all, even 12th century heretic chasers never dreamed of infiltrating the Bons Hommes et Bonnes Femmes of the Cathars with "Catholic Weekend".

By singling out "evolution" as "science" in search of peace with religion, dogmatic Darwinists finally have solid evidence for something: the true nature of the question, "where do we come from?" With no thought of "Gravity Weekend" or "Photosynthesis Weekend", Evolution Weekend emissaries reveal the true ideological conflict not as "religion versus science" but as "science in the service of naturalism versus science in the service of truth". After all, if Evolution Weekend warriors were informed and honest (the probability of the combination being almost nil) they would admit that true religion and false science are indeed adversaries. But Darwinists believe neither exists except, perhaps, among redneck creationists, so who cares?

As with all duplicitous endeavors, there is tragic irony in Evolution Weekend. Like the self-righteous man on the gallows seeking last second support from above, today's Darwinist missionaries may find their desires fulfilled in unexpected ways. Ignoring St. Huxley's warning against science suicidally adopting a creed, Darwin's religious proselytizers mistake the gallows for a stage and misjudge the gathered crowd as entirely adoring. But as they grandstand atop the trap door of religious motivation wrapped in scientific piety, many there watch with mixed emotions, not only at the spectacle, but at the specter of creed-laden origins science falling to a sudden end.

NEW! Now you can comment on this essay by linking to IDnet Ohio's Blog on Truth

Roddy Bullock is the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio (www.idnetohio.com) and is the author of The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science, published by Access Research Network. Send comments to: roddybullock@idnetohio.com.

Copyright (c) 2008 Roddy M. Bullock, all rights reserved. Quotes and links permitted with attribution.

References:

Cornelius G. Hunter, Science's Blind Spot, the Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism
http://www.amazon.com/Sciences-Blind-Spot-Scientific-Naturalism/dp/158743170X/ref=pd_sim_b_img_2

Darwin Day info: http://www.darwinday.org/

Humanist Info: Institute for Humanist Studies
http://humaniststudies.org/hm3.html

Evolution Weekend info:
http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evolution_weekend_2008.htm

Info on the Inquisition against the Cathars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism

Thomas Henry Huxley quote: Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

I've been meaning to catch up with the Catholic side of the controversy over Darwinian evolution, and now at last I have a moment: Recently, Pope Benedict XVI gave a talk in which he said explicitly:

"Man is not the fruit of chance or a bundle of convergences, determinisms or physical and chemical reactions," he told a meeting of academics of different disciplines sponsored by the Paris Academy of Sciences and Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

This sort of language explains why Catholic Darwinist Ken Miller got so upset with Christoph, Cardinal Schoenborn, a close B16 associate, over his famous 2005 op-ed in the New York Times.

Miller was upset because he knows as well as anyone that this and other instances of Cardinalspeak and Popespeak are a polite way of saying that the Catholic Church does not support materialist theories of evolution like Darwinism, a point made in 1996 by John Paul II, but widely misrepresented ever since. Clearly, Schoenborn did not believe Miller's claim that Darwinism is not inherently atheistic. Indeed, he should not, when 87% of evolutionary biologists are atheists or agnostics