In the News

Bruce Chapman, president of the Discovery Institute in Seattle, got some ink in the Washington Post.

For the full opinion, click HERE.

An excellent article in the East Bay Express by Justin Berton is an indepth overview of the Intelligent Design Movement and its founder Dr. Phillip Johnson. Id has made much impact on the culture, especially during the past couple of years.

To read the article, click HERE.

WorldNetDaily reports on the case of Eugenie C. Scott retracting her false claims against a parent-activist who wants to change how a state school district teaches evolution.

Scott was forced to retract false statements about lawyer Caldwell when threatened with a lawsuit.

Caldwell said, however, he's disappointed it took a lawsuit to get action.

"Unfortunately, Scott and the NCSE have a long history of libeling people in the debate over how evolution should be taught in our public schools; my case is only the most recent example," he said. "Hopefully, it won't take any more libel lawsuits to teach them how to stick to the truth."

For the entire story, click HERE.

In an article by John L. Allen Jr. in the National Catholic Reporter a good amount of posturing seems to be going on in the Church. Catholic leaders and adherents are trying to figure out how to take the recent comments of the archbishop of Vienna on evolution. The term is equivocated, but Michael Behe does bring some clarity to evolution in a Darwinian sense.

For the full article, click HERE.

A new movie about the lives of emperor penguins in Antarctica is more than a documentary. While not an ID film explicitly, you might think it shouts out that the penguins were "designed".

For a review on the film by the USCCB, click HERE.

Dr. Niall Shanks, the man who wrote the 2004 book "God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory" has moved from Tennessee to Kansas, which currently is in the midst of a debate about how evolution should be taught in public schools.

Shanks recently took a job at Wichita State University, filling an endowed professorship that focuses on the history and philosophy of evolution.

For the brief story by AP in the Kansas City Star, click HERE.

The second edition of "Convergence: The Magazine of Engineering and the Sciences at UC Santa Barbara" reads like an ID magazine. The lead article "Real Life" on Systems Biology seems to indicate that it is legitimate to talk about design concepts when they are funding endowed chairs to research the topic.

You can read the entire article by clicking HERE. It begins on page 2.

Peter Slevin of the Washington Post described a group of people who are frightened by the ID movement across the nation. An e-mail seeking support from more than 300 local Democratic campaign volunteers and other potential supporters described efforts across the country to challenge evolutionary theory. It warned against "politically infused theological pseudo-science". Now that is a mouthful.

The group's bigger dream is a statewide repudiation of intelligent design.

For more, click HERE.

Arguments for and against the teaching of intelligent design in Pennsylvania public schools were heard in a pretrial hearing on Thursday, July 14th, once again opening up a debate that has reignited controversy across the nation.

Eight families filed a federal lawsuit charging the school with violation of the separation of church and state. They claim that intelligent design is just another version of creationism.

In the pretrial hearings on Thursday, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union representing the eight families began their attacks on intelligent design.

According to the courts, creationism cannot be taught in public schools because it is a religion. The current lawsuit must determine whether the school district’s policy was motivated by the intent to teach about creationism and religion.

Defense attorneys from the Thomas More Law Center argue that the school district’s motivation was purely educational.

What's interesting is the religion vs science false dichotomy is claimed time and again, when the debate should be framed as science vs science. Also, if it can be proved that just the "intent" of the York school district was to teach "creationism", then it would be unconstitutional. Reminds one of the "intent reasoning" of the recent Supreme Court ruling on the display of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky. They were okay in Texas, but not in Kentucky. Apparently, judges can read minds.

For the article, click HERE.

A reminder about the Uncommon Dissent Forum in Greenville, SC the first week of August.

For the details, click HERE.

The L.A. Times picked up on a story by Ben Feller of the AP on the "attack" of Darwinism in the public schools.

What is interesting is what science teachers are saying about ID. For instance, teachers are saying that the Darwinism - ID "fight" is just political. Faye Haas, a Chemistry teacher states that "to spend half the time talking about things that speak against it (Darwinism) doesn't make any sense." So, we just ignore the gaping holes in the theory, and assert that it is fact??

For other thoughts from educators, read the article HERE.

Eugenie Scott recently stated on NPR that real scientists should not debate ID in public because most people are "naive". Name calling and implying that the vast majority of people are stupid is a good sign that the end is in sight. This seems to be an opening for ID proponents because it makes clear that we are committed to a culture of rational discourse and the other side is not.

William Dembski blogged on this "foot-in-mouth" disease of Scott. Click HERE for the blog.

Earlier this week, two members of the Kansas Science Committee and one other member of the Board offered further revisions to the June 9 draft of the Science standards which essentially made that draft consistent with the Minority Report and the provisions that 23 experts validated during the hearings in May.

An article by Diane Carroll in the Kansas City Star provides an inaccurate description of the actions taken.

The article illustrates the strategy of the opposition evolving from "you are putting ID into the standards," to "you are putting in the standards a concept "friendly to ID." Since they are friendly to ID, they should not be allowed. This essentially means that criticisms of evolution are not allowed because all criticisms are going to be friendly to ID. This elevates evolution to the status of an ideology. Of course, the State can not promote an ideology.

One of the major misstatements in the Star article is relevant to this issue. The article incorrectly states that

"There was, however, at least some new language added to the standards. The following paragraph, offered by Bacon, was adopted: "We also emphasize that the science curriculum standards do not include intelligent design, the scientific disagreement with the claim of many evolutionary biologists that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion. While the testimony presented at the science hearings included many advocates of intelligent design, these standards neither mandate nor prohibit teaching about this scientific disagreement."

Substantively this is not a new addition.. The language has been in the minority report from inception:

"According to many scientists a core claim of evolutionary theory is that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion. Other scientists disagree. These standards neither mandate nor prohibit teaching about this scientific disagreement."

The language is significant because it provides a defintion of ID that shows on its face to be "scientific." Hence, even though ID is not being added, it is being appropriately defined.

Thanks to John Calvert for the clarifications above.

For the full article (you may need to register), click HERE.

The Weekly Standard weighs in on ID vs naturalism via Isaac Constantine.

For the entire article, click HERE.

The latest on the Kansas State Board of Education science standards...changes are coming.

For the full story by Josh Funk in the Wichita Eagle, click HERE.

The Discovery Institute has filed a public records request with the Ohio State University (OSU) seeking all documents related to Darwinist attacks on OSU doctoral candidate Bryan Leonard. The request was submitted under the Ohio Public Records Act.

In June, Leonard's dissertation defense in the area of science education was suddenly postponed after three Darwinist professors at OSU attacked Leonard's dissertation research because it analyzed how teaching students evidence for and against macroevolution impacted student beliefs. According to a news report in The Columbus Dispatch, the professors admitted at the time that they had not read Leonard's dissertation.

Discovery Institute feels that Leonard may be the target of a payback, since he helped draft Ohio's innovative "Critical Analysis of Evolution" lesson plan adopted last year for use in schools statewide by the Ohio State Board of Education.

For the full story, click HERE.

Bill Dembski gives some insight into the recent article on ID in the New Scientist.

For information, click HERE.

The New York Times reporter Cornelia Dean not only writes "news" stories but dabbles in op-ed pieces as well. It just goes to show why her "news" stories are so bias in the New York Times.

In her op-ed piece in the York Dispatch, she weighs in on the inadequacy of "creationism" and "intelligent design". She says that evolutionists "cite radiocarbon dating to show that Earth is billions of years old, not a few thousand years old, as some creationists would have it". Interesting, because radiocarbon dating can reliably date things that have been alive from around 900 years to 35,000 years ago, perhaps 115,000 years ago as an outer limit. She confuses radiocarbon dating with radiometric dating. We might ask, "What else is Dean confused about?"

One other point. Just because a bunch of scientists named "Steve" think ID is untenable, doesn't mean ID is truly untenable. It means there are alot of scientists named "Steve" who hold to a materialistic world view. The same goes for other scientific and social issues. For instance, something may be legal in a society, but it may be objectively immoral.

At least, from now on, when you read a "news" story from Dean, you know her underlying biases.

For the full op-ed, click HERE.

A followup article by Cornelia Dean and Laurie Goodstein in the New York Times regarding the op-ed piece by the Archbishop of Vienna tries to confuse the Catholic church's official postion on Darwinism. The headline reveals the bias of the article.

The writers assert, right from the talking points of Darwinists, that "Darwinian evolution is the foundation of modern biology. While researchers may debate details of how the mechanism of evolution plays out, there is no credible scientific challenge to the underlying theory."

A question; why must a researcher believe in Darwinism to do practical scientific reasearch? Unless, of course, he is a professor who is specifically trying to advance the Darwinian paradigm.

The article goes on to give examples of Christians who hold to theistic evolution, such as, Dr. Kenneth Miller. Miller said he was already hearing from people worried about the cardinal's essay. "People are saying, does the church really believe this?"

Well, a recent Harris poll shows that around 10 percent of people believe in Darwinism in the U.S., so the vast majority of Americans are really not shaking their heads, wondering why the church doesn't hold to Darwinism.

For the full article, click HERE.

An article about a sponge on the MSNBC website offered by Daniel B. Kane had me eagerly soaking up the information.

Turns out, this lowly deep-sea sponge, the Venus' Flower Basket, is quite an engineer, moreso than me or other folks interested in ID. Joanna Aizenberg from Bell Labs/Lucent Technologies explains that "the number and placement of the diagonal (glass) beams fits an equation engineers use to calculate the minimum number of reinforcements needed to achieve the maximum stability. The sponge uses exactly what’s needed but nothing more.”

The sponge glass cage is then wrapped in spiraling surface ridges that protect it from being squeezed like an empty can of soda. And lastly, the sponges are anchored to the soft sediments of the sea floor in such a way that they do not break off due to the stress and strains of ocean currents.

“It puzzles me. In my wildest dreams I can’t imagine how these fibers are assembled to make the nearly perfect, highly regular square cells, diagonal supports and surface ridges of the cage,” said Aizenberg.

Yes, how all these intricate structures came together through random mutation and natural selection would, indeed, be puzzling to a materialist. A question for the materialists; How could random mutation and natural selection provide such specified complexity? Please give a detailed account of the evolutionary pathway(s). Their answer; it just did, and it had to, because it's the only player on the field.

Oh really...

For the article, click HERE.

Craig Holdrege of the Nature Institute discusses the varying Lamarckian and Darwinian explanations for the length of the giraffe's neck. After surveying and critiquing a number of ideas, he concludes that there may be a more mysterious explanation, which takes into account the entire body plan of the giraffe. Holdrege is looking for an explanation that comports with naturalism. An intelligent designer need not apply, thank you.

The Nature Institute's Mission Statement contains that odd language that grants Nature with a capital N powers that should be given only to intelligent agents. For instance, "we do not yet fathom her depths, and our actions to do not embody her wisdom...we work to create a new paradigm that embraces nature's wisdom..."

For the entire article, click HERE.

Christoph Schonborn, the Roman Catholic cardinal archbishop of Vienna, has an op-ed piece published in the New York Times.

In the piece, he points out that Pope John Paul II never endorsed Darwinism, as Darwin proponents constantly assert. He did, however, leave the door open for theisitic evolution (common ancestry).

The archbishop of Vienna says that "neo-Darwinists recently have sought to portray our new pope, Benedict XVI, as a satisfied evolutionist. They have quoted a sentence about common ancestry from a 2004 document of the International Theological Commission, pointed out that Benedict was at the time head of the commission, and concluded that the Catholic Church has no problem with the notion of "evolution" as used by mainstream biologists - that is, synonymous with neo-Darwinism."

Nothing could be further from the truth, for the Pope said in his homily at his installation that "we are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."

The disingenuousness of Darwinists who make the claim that the Catholic Church's position is that Darwinism is true is apparent, and must be challenged.

For the full commentary, click HERE.

Put on your waders...the proponents of naturalism have always tried to point out that the world is full of examples of lousy design, therefore, the intelligent designer is bumbling and inept. The latest commentary comes via the L. A. Times by Dr. David P. Barash, a psychologist.

Odd that a naturalist would try to make a theological argument about the nature of God (intelligent designer), by asserting that the designer wouldn't do it this way. There may be an optimum design in Dr. Barash's imagination, but given the nature of the cosmos and the "laws" that govern it, and the specified complexity of biological systems, trade-offs in design are likely necessary. Therefore, in actuality, the design is the best available for the various functions of the creature in question.

A doctor would weigh in by stating that the naturalist's conclusion just begs the question, because you could raise the bar by asserting that our bodies couldn't have been intelligently designed because we're not immortal.

Dr. Barash whines about the ineptitude of the designer with regard to the male genitourinary system, which is set up to allow for the two separate male functions, while protecting each system from each other. In addition, the testicles actually do descend in order to allow for adequate fertility.

For the commentary, click HERE.

Emile Schepers, contributor to the People's Weekly World Newspaper online, takes a swipe at ID...and misses.

The lead paragraph is misleading at best. Emile conflates creationism with ID and states the goal of ID is to get it taught in public schools. This is straight from the nonsensical "talking points" of anti-ID proponents.

Emile then asserts that the intelligent designer must be stupid for creating such a "bizarre array of species in nature". Why 85 different species of salamanders of the genus Bolitoglossa, which range from Mexico to the jungles of South America? Or, better yet, from my recollection, why a quarter million species of beetles worldwide? First, the idea of species must be defined. Can these salamaders or beetles interbreed, or do they just choose not to? In addition, how does Emile exhaustively know how each species fits into its ecosystem? Maybe, just maybe, each performs a needed function in a local area?

From the Christian perspective, God describes himself as not only the Creator of life, but as a playful artist, enjoying the creatures he has designed ex nihilo. Maybe if the salamanders (choose any other group of being) from one area to another don't perform needed functions in each local ecosystem. Perhaps God takes infinite pleasure in variations on a theme?

To Emile, "it would have been more intelligent to design just a single species and make them infinitely tougher and more adaptable, say the size of crocodiles, with claws, poison fangs, fur (for cold snaps) and pterodactyl wings, instead of fragile little things that fit in the palm of your hand and that curl up and die if you leave them in the sun for two minutes. What’s intelligent about designing them like that?" This unreasoned approach reminds one of Dr. Stephen Hawking's complaint that God (intelligent designer) should have just created one sun, one earth, and been done with it, not realizing that the cosmos, in all its size and gradeur is necessary, given the fine-tuned nature of the "laws" of physics. There is much that underlies the surface observations of Emile and Stephen. Yes, why not just have a dozen or so super-tough creatures and man, and be done with it! Maybe there is something to the "playful artist" concept of an intelligent designer, and perhaps an intricately complex ecosystem is necessary for the collective good of all species alive at this time in earth history?

Finally, Emile complains that ID does not even bother to answer the question, "who designed the designer?" First, the ID discipline is under no obligation to answer the question, because it is a philosophical/ theological question, not a science question. ID deals with proximal causes not ultimate causes. He states, "to posit the existence of a vast intelligence and will behind nature, and then expect people to take this on faith, is a religious-mystical stance, not a scientific one." This is a curious, self-indicting statement because materialists are doing exactly the same thing. Some ID proponents ultimately appeal to an uncaused intelligent designer, but materialists also appeal to an uncaused "creator", whether it be the materialistic "intelligence" that birthed the cosmos, or the unintelligent multiverses in the present or past (but this just pushes back the infinite regress). Reasonably and logically, material things cannot come from absolutely nothing, and it takes just as much, if not more, faith to believe that stuff comes from absolutely nothing as it does for an intelligent designer to have created the material universe. Both worldviews make a claim to some uncaused cause. In the case of materialism, the uncaused cause is ultimately absolutely nothing. The theist appeals to a non-contingent intelligent being. Emile, or any other atheist or agnostic, has not thrown down the trump card when they ask, "who designed the designer?" This needs to be pointed out to them, in a respectful and gentle manner.

For more on the question of "who designed the designer, go to the IDEA Center by clicking HERE.

For Emile's full commentary, click HERE.