In the News

In The Humanist, Paul Sims blogs on Hitchens performance with Jay Richards.

"It was hardly a fair contest pitching the Hitch against Richards, whose links with the ridiculous Discovery Institute preclude him from being taken seriously by pretty much anyone, and if reports are anything to go by it seems the atheist champion didn't take long to floor the arguments in favour of ID."

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After Hitchens pointed out the obvious, that Richards is an orthodox Christian, he declared the debate essentially over. Of course, Hitchens is confusing science with his scientism, and shows his blatant anti-theism. Just because someone believes that rare miracles occur, doesn't mean that that person cannot practice good, objective science. Can you say non-sequitir? Seems Sims is caught in his scientism and materialism webs as well.

ENV repoprts that technology often aims to imitate biology. But sometimes engineers find that biology itself is a superior replacement for our best technology. This may increasingly be the case for nano-technology, as MSNBC reports that the "[f]lagellum could potentially provide locomotion to send future nanobots or other tiny medical devices zooming around the human body." According to the article, engineers have found that a useful mechanism for transporting ATP, an energy-molecule of biology, is found within the energy-transport system that runs along the cilia of sperm (cilia are also sometimes called flagella, as is the case in this MSNBC article). The article reports that there are plans to integrate other components from biology into nano - biomedical devices.

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Shelby Martin, of the Stanford Daily reports on the debate, moderated by Ben Stein.

"There are no atheists in foxholes, but there are plenty in universities," said host Ben Stein,

"I can't imagine it'll take me 14 minutes to demolish intelligent design, as I refuse to call it," quipped Hitchens.

He cited the existence of evil as evidence against a benevolent designer.

"Whose design?" asked Hitchens, to applause from many audience members, including a dozen wearing "Atheists of Silicon Valley" T-shirts. "What kind of design? What kind of caprice, what kind of incompetence, what kind of cruelty?"

Richards congratulated Hitchens on his rhetoric, but dismissed the atheist's perspective.

"A sneer is not an argument," said Richards.

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CREV reports that a veteran origin-of-life researcher died last October: Leslie E. Orgel of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Orgel had co-authored Origins of Life on the Earth (1973) with Stanley Miller, the man whose spark-discharge experiment launched the modern origin-of-life craze in the 1950s. Orgel worked in the field for decades and was familiar with all the different approaches.

Apparently Orgel was working on an essay when he died. Gerald Joyce (Scripps Institute), who wrote a eulogy to Orgel in Nature last November submitted Orgel's manuscript to PLoS Biology. It was published posthumously this week on January 22. Origin-of-life [OOL] researchers will not find much encouragement in Orgel's last scientific will and testament.

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Salvo, an edgy, educated-youth/student-oriented magazine deals with social issues from a conservative perspective. It's published by the publishers of Touchstone Magazine. Their 4th issue is all about intelligent design. For details see...

http://www.salvomag.com/new/mag/salvo4.php

Casey Luskin will be on the Frank Pastore Show on KKLA, Los Angeles, Friday, January 25th at 5 p.m. PST. Be there...

Link to KKLA...

On ID the Future Web site, the latest podcast is an interview by Anika Smith. She interviews CSC program officer Casey Luskin on the history of the National Academy of Sciences report, titled "Science, Evolution, and Creationism." Luskin takes us back to the first two editions of this booklet, tracing the evolution of this document by the NAS's design.

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Tony Campolo, opines in the Philadelphia Inquirer, about the ramifications of Darwinism.

Arguing for what they believe is a nonprejudicial science, Darwinists contend that children in public schools should be taught Darwin's explanation of how the human race evolved, which they claim is value-free and depends solely on scientific evidence.

They, along with the rest of us, should really fear the ethical implications of Darwin's original writings.

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Seattle Times editorial writer Bruce Ramsey has a short review of John West's Darwin Day in America.

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ScienceDaily reports that a newly discovered parasite so dramatically transforms its host, an ant, that the ant comes to resemble a juicy red berry, ripe for picking, according to a report accepted for publication in The American Naturalist. This is the first example of fruit mimicry caused by a parasite, the co-authors say.

Presumably, the dramatic change in appearance and behavior tricks birds into eating infected ants - parasites and all - so that the bird can spread the parasite in its feces. The fruit-eating birds' droppings, which are mostly seeds and insect parts, are gathered by other ants who then feed and unwittingly infect their young.

I will be interesting to see how the evolutionists try to explain this one. Oh wait, they will make up a just-so story.

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Dinesh D'Souza writes in TownHall.com...If you haven't yet seen my Cal Tech debate with atheist Michael Shermer - a debate held December 9 before an audience of more than a thousand - you can watch it at

michaelshermer.com

One point I did make was that the new atheists - people like Richard Dawkins - who use science to promote atheism are in fact an embarrassment to science. They are abusing science for ideological ends.

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Who: Christopher Hitchens (author, God is Not Great) vs. Jay Wesley Richards (author, The Privileged Planet)
Hosted by Ben Stein and Moderated by Michael Cromartie

What: Atheism vs. Theism and the Scientific Evidence of Intelligent Design
When: SUNDAY January 27th - Doors open 2:45 PM -- SHUT @ 3:30 PM -- LIVE Broadcast on CCN Commences 3:55 PM
Where: Dinkelspiel Auditorium
How: Get FREE tickets w/ SUID at White Plaza 12-1 PM Tuesday-Friday or at the Ticket Office

This debate is sponsored by the IDEA Club, The Stanford Review, and Vox Clara: A Journal of Christian Thought at Stanford.

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Christopher Hitchens is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School. He regularly writes for the Atlantic Monthly and Slate, and is the author of numerous books, including Letters to a Young Contrarian and Why Orwell Matters. He was named one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Britain's Prospect. As foreign correspondent and travel writer, he has written from more than sixty countries on all five continents. From 1982-2002, he wrote a column called the "Minority Report" for The Nation. Since 1992, he has been columnist and contributing editor at Vanity Fair and, at different times, Washington editor and columnist for Harper's magazine, American columnist and correspondent for the Spectator, the New Statesman, the Times Literary Supplement, Sunday Today, and the Sunday Correspondent. .

Jay W. Richards is Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy and theology with honors from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was formerly a Teaching Fellow. He also has a Th.M. from Calvin Theological Seminary, and an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. He is the author of many scholarly and popular articles in publications such as the Washington Post, National Review Online, and Washington Times, as well as several books, including The Untamed God and The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez. He is executive producer of the documentary, The Call of the Entrepreneur (Acton Media, 2007), and is currently writing The Christian Case for Capitalism (HarperCollins/HarperOne, 2009).

Michael Cromartie (Moderator) is Vice President at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and he directs both the Evangelicals in Civic Life and Religion & the Media programs. On September 20, 2004, Mr. Cromertie was appointed by President George W. Bush to a two-year term on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and elected chairman the following year. He is a senior advisor to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and a senior fellow with The Trinity Forum. He is the host of Radio America's weekly show "Faith and Life"; an adjunct professor at the Reformed Theological Seminary; and an advisory editor of Christianity Today. He is also on the Board of Directors of Mars Hill Audio, and served as an advisor to the PBS documentary series With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Christian Right in America. He is the co-editor, with Richard John Neuhaus, of Piety and Politics.

Ben Stein (Host) is a multi-talented journalist, economist, author, actor and lawyer. Well known for his acting career and signature role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the highly talented Stein graduated with honors from Columbia University and was elected as valedictorian of his Yale Law School graduating class. He has worked as a poverty lawyer in New Haven and Washington, D.C., a trial lawyer in the field of trade regulation at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., and a university adjunct at American University in Washington, D.C., the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA. In 1973 and 1974, he served as a speech writer to Presidents Nixon and Ford. He has been a columnist and editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal and a syndicated columnist for numerous papers and magazines. He has written and published sixteen books, seven novels and nine nonfiction books.

Casey Luskin, of the Discovery Institute, responds to a booklet put out by the National Academy of Science.

With a picture of a cute baby chimp on its cover, the NAS's new Science, Evolution, and Creationism booklet states, "Evolutionary biology has been and continues to be a cornerstone of modern science." This sweeping statement does not speak for all NAS members.

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CNS (Cybercast News Service) interviews Ben Stein on his take of the persecution of ID proponent in academia, and about the upcoming documentary "Expelled".

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Catholic World News reports that a group of Italian academics have protested plans for a visit by Pope Benedict XVI to a leading university in Rome, charging that the Pope should not be honored in an academic setting because he has shown hostility toward scientific advance.

Some 67 professors signed a protest statement calling for cancellation of a visit by the Holy Father to La Sapienza university on January 17. Led by Andrea Frova, a physics professor at La Sapienza, the protesters said it would be "inappropriate" for an institution committed to scientific progress to honor the Pope, arguing that the Church has worked to suppress science.

Another example of anti-theist scientists...

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Tim Harlow, of the Star-Tribune, reports that Minnesota Atheists are taking their message to the air waves with a new radio program that will debut in January on the talk station Air America Minnesota.

Called "Atheists Talk" - the same name as a show the organization airs on cable access television - the live radio broadcast featuring news, interviews, listener call-ins and special guests is believed to be the first show of its kind in Minnesota, said August Berkshire, a spokesman for the Minnesota Atheists.

The show will air Sundays from 9 to 10 a.m. on AM 950 starting Jan. 13 when Oxford professor, evolutionary biologist and renowned atheist Richard Dawkins will be the featured guest.

Call in, as the program will be live-streamed.

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Rachel Courtland, in NatureNews, reports that by mating blind fish from distant underwater caves, researchers have bred offspring that can see.

The results, published this week in Current Biology 1, show that the two populations took different evolutionary paths to blindness.

This is another example of micro-evolution at work, for these blind cave fish have sighted cousins outside of the caves.

In some recent anti-intelligent design blogs it is remarkable that the authors continue to say that proponents of intelligent design do not believe that species can experience genetic drift and lose or enhance certain characteristics that would be more advantageous in a certain environment. Setting up a straw man and knocking him down does not refute ID.

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At a public hearing in Jacksonville, Florida, religious conservatives, school teachers and others hotly debated evolution and intelligent design.

The state school board is considering revisions in science standards that would substitute the word evolution for so-called "biological changes over time."

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ScienceDaily reports that a coalition of 17 organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Institute of Physics, and the National Science Teachers Association, is calling on the scientific community to become more involved in the promotion of science education, including evolution. According to an article appearing in the January 2008 issue of The FASEB Journal, the introduction of "non-science," such as creationism and intelligent design, into science education will undermine the fundamentals of science education.

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Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.

Of course, if you are a scientist who goes against the "consensus", you may be called a moron, crackpot, etc., similar to what evolutionists call IDers.

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This story has really been making the rounds.

Imagine how this symbiosis evolved. Can you?

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