In the News

This is not exactly NEWS...but the story comes from ground zero...Dover.

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From Evolution News & Views, their recent podcast interview with Robert Marks, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University, discusses his new Evolutionary Informatics lab at Baylor University.

Additionally, Mario Lopez recently has posted an interview with William Dembski at the IDEA Center's website discussing Dembski's research with Baylor's Evolutionary Informatics lab. Dembski thinks the lab's research puts ID "in a position to challenge certain fundamental assumptions in the natural sciences about the nature and origin of information."

Dembski's work has long-been a lightning rod for ID-critics who take a science-stopping approach to ID by alleging that areas of Dembski's continued ID-research actually represent unsolvable problems for the science of ID. In essence, some of Dembski's critics have taken an approach that goes like this: "If Dembski hasn't yet finished the research to provide what I consider would be a full answer to my objections, then I'm going to engage in character assassination against Dembski."

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On Galatctic Interactions, Rob Knop discusses the idea of "compartmentalizing". He comments that ID proponents have biases that inform their scientific conclusions. He states that "Scientists who conclude that there is "evidence for design" in the Universe are not scientists who are really making good scientific conclusions from the data; they are torturing the scientific process in order to allow for it to produce the result that their philosophical preconceptions led them to".

Of course, the other side have no such materialistic biases.

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In Evolution News & Views, it is pointed out that Darwinists seem to be trying to erase the historical fact that Darwinism led to the long-standing presumption that non-coding DNA was largely genetic junk. In the latest issue of The Scientist, editor Richard Gallagher does no less, citing sources that wrongly imply that Neo-Darwinism did not hinder research into function for junk-DNA, and even stating that "[t]he latest iniquity to befall junk DNA is the attempted hijack by proponents of Intelligent Design."

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In the Mail & Guardian online, Paul Davies has figured it all out...how nature rigged itself to be incredibly fine-tuned. Seems a little fishy.

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The European Centre for Law and Justice went to bat to keep intelligent design as a viable teaching in European schools.

The ECLJ put together a 14-page document in response to proposed legislation that would - in essence - outlaw the discussion of Creationism in the classroom.

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In Evolution News & Views, a review of Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism
By: Cornelius G. Hunter (Brazos Press, 2007)

In law, one who sells a product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user is held strictly liable for the physical harm to the injured party. One way for the injured party to win a case is to successfully argue that there is a design defect in the product. Put another way, the plaintiff is entitled to damages because there is something wrong with the blueprints for the product. At this point, expert witnesses are found to testify to the design's integrity or its defectiveness.

Perhaps the most common blind spot that inhibits the proper functioning of a product is the quite literal blind spot we experience when driving our cars. If modern science and the pre-suppositions that support it were an automobile, then Dr. Hunter's new book would be the testimony of an expert witness who has found a significant design defect. The defect has created a blind spot that is not necessary for the proper functioning of science.

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Mark Bergin, for World Magazine, writes that two years after Intelligent Design advocates lost a key court battle, some biology classrooms and ID supporters are finding a balanced approach to evolution that, so far, is lawsuit-proof.

For 15 years Doug Cowan has taught the scientific evidence for and against Darwinism to biology students at Curtis High, a large public school several miles southwest of Tacoma, Wash. Over that time, the popular teacher and athletic coach has drawn periodic criticisms from community activists and local media. But he has faced no lawsuits and never worried over losing his job.

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Marvin Olasky, for World Magazine, interviewed Michael Behe. Scientific discoveries on the foundations of life, argues Behe in his new book, fatally strike the theory of random mutations.

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Christianity Today reviews Michael Behe's book, The Edge of Evolution.

Richard Dawkins famously asserted that "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Prior to Darwin, all an atheist could do was to repeat with Hume that in an infinite amount of time anything is possible, including the complex design we see in nature. The Edge of Evolution makes it much more difficult for an atheist to find fulfillment in Darwin.

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On Stabroek News, a letter to the editor denies that the tools of science can detect intelligent agency.

There are so many problems with this letter it is difficult to know where to begin.

Given the materialists definition of science, that only naturalistic causes can be entertained, then ID is not science. But, given that restrictive definition, science can never determine whether someone died of natural causes or at the hands of intelligent agent causation (a murderer). Science cannot determine whether an object found in the desert in Utah was sculpted by natural forces, or was crafted by a member of the Fremont people. Science cannot determine whether signals from outer space were generated by a pulsar, or by an extraterrestrial intelligent civilization. According to the materialists, material intelligent agency can be detected by science. But, when extra-material intelligent agents are suggested...well...that's going too far...and that's not science. You can't have it both ways.

Once again, the important question is, "Are we attempting to find the Truth about Reality, or are we trying to find the best naturalistic explanation for a phenomenon, even if that naturalistic explanation is counterintuitive, or just plain silly?"

Richard Lewontin, a brilliant Harvard professor and materialist, is surprisingly honesty when he says:

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises...because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that Materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

We know, by their own admission, in times when their thoughts are unguarded, what the materialists are all about...they are close-minded and dogmatic.

Two other comments on the letter. To provide ad homenim attacks is not an argument against ID. Also, to attack an idea such as ID by questioning the MOTIVES of its adherents or proponents is disingenuous. It can just as easily be said that Darwinists believe in evolution because they are motivated by there desire to not accept the supernatural. The arguments for and against a worldview should rest on the soundness of the arguments and evidence, not on the motivation of the investigators.

To put it bluntly, M. Xiu Quan-Balgobind-Hackett is intelligent, but a sloppy thinker. And there are millions more.

The letter to the editor...

In Evolution News & Views, and look at the book responding to Richard Dawkins book...and more.

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If you are looking for a great Web site for teens and college students to get them interested in worldview, do yourself a favor and check out the completely new SalvoMag Web site

From Evolution News & Views...Richard Dawkins reviewed Mike Behe's new book The Edge of Evolution in the June 30 New York Times Book Review. Dawkins offered no surprises. Much of the review was simply a sneer:

I had expected to be as irritated by Michael Behe's second book as by the first. I had not expected to feel sorry for him…[this] is the book of a man who has given up. Trapped along a false path of his own rather unintelligent design, Behe has left himself no escape. Poster boy of creationists everywhere, he has cut himself off from the world of real science.

Nothing new here. Dawkins uses the standard Darwinist ad-hominem attacks.

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From Evolution News & Views...one of the key expert witnesses for the ACLU in the Dover trial was Barbara Forrest, a Professor of Philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University. She recently authored a paper entitled "Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals," (May 2007) in which a major theme is that, since nearly all of the leading intelligent design proponents are Christians who have expressed a preference for a Christian influenced culture, their scientific efforts cannot be trusted as bona fide science.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Monday, July 2, 2007

The Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center (IDURC) is proud to present the 2007 Casey Luskin Graduate Award, presented annually to a deserving college graduate for excellence in student advocacy of intelligent design.

The recipient of the 2007 Casey Luskin Graduate Award will remain anonymous for the protection of the recipient. The many students, professors, and scientists who have been denied degrees or tenure, and removed from positions and jobs for no other reason than acceptance of - or even sympathy to—intelligent design theory is very telling of the importance of keeping these bright young minds out of the crosshairs of those opposed to open-minded investigation and critical thought.

The recipient of this year's award is a graduate earning degrees in chemistry and chemical biology and mathematics. This student has demonstrated excellence and courage in research and promotion of intelligent design. The recipient will receive a certificate of achievement, a $100 award, and an autographed copy of Dr. Michael J. Behe's newest book, The Edge of Evolution: the Search for the Limits of Darwinism.

In addition, the IDURC is proud to name Mr. Casey Luskin, a graduate of the University of California at San Diego, an honorary recipient of the Casey Luskin Graduate Award. Luskin, for whom the award is named, was the first student truly to step out of his comfort zone as an undergrad and take a stand for intelligent design - a stand that would be seen across the nation. His founding of the Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center has been a great step forward for the intelligent design movement and, more importantly, for academic freedom everywhere. Today, Luskin continues his work with the ID movement as a lawyer and legal analyst for the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture in Seattle, Washington. Students everywhere today are indebted to the work that Luskin has done.

We are proud to name the IDURC's graduate award after Mr. Casey Luskin and delighted to name him an honorary recipient. Casey will receive a certificate of achievement and be listed as a recipient of the award which now bears his name.

Each July, the IDURC will present the Casey Luskin Graduate Award to an outstanding student who has just completed his or her undergraduate degree and has demonstrated exemplary dedication to both the rigorous investigation and the widespread promotion of intelligent design. This year's recipient joins the recipients from past years, since the award was initiated in 2005, in demonstrating such excellence.

Much thanks needs to be given to the board of directors at the IDURC for their work in preparing this year's award and for their efforts year round. A very heartfelt thank you also goes to Dr. Michael J. Behe of Lehigh University for his support of the work we do at the IDURC and for his autographing and inscribing The Edge of Evolution for this award.

As always, I must thank Mr. Dennis Wagner and Access Research Network for the donation of the $100 prize money and for their continuous and generous financial support of the IDURC.

Samuel S. Chen
Director, Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center

In Evolution News & Views, Logan Gage, says that perhaps the most striking feature of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion is its lack of science. He had thought that this was an anomaly, but Dawkins' New York Times review (out Sunday) of Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism is the same patchwork of fallacies devoid of science as The God Delusion.

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