Free Republic

Pseudoscientists come with various agendas—political, religious, and industrial are common examples. On the extreme left wing, when the overt political agenda fails to convince sufficient voters in the usual democratic exercise of elections, science is presented to gain support for the now-covert political agenda. The typical guise here is any number of popular but scientifically questionable green or sustainable environmental initiatives. While there are certainly plenty of scientifically legitimate environmental issues, the left-wing pseudoscientists infiltrate easily, and readily convince the masses of the scientific credibility of their cause. On the extreme right wing we find the religious pseudoscientists, who also...

Have you ever had this happen: You are minding your own business, teaching your life science course, it's early in the term. A student, on the way out after class (never at the beginning of class, rarely during class) mentions something about "carbon dating." This usually happens around the time of year you are doing an overview of the main points of the course, but before you've gotten to the "evolution module"... The student is talking about C14 dating and how it "has problems." But you are a life science teacher and can't think of a single point in your...

In June, Governor Brad Henry vetoed the “Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act,” a piece of legislature authored by Sen. James Williamson and infamous fundamentalist Rep. Sally Kern. If passed, this bill would have, among other things, guaranteed that “students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions.” You read that correctly. Answer on a test that the universe began 6,000 years ago with a few words from the mouth of an invisible, magical entity rather than 13.73 billion years ago with the expansion...

Florida students would even be expected to learn how their own species fits into the tree of life. Whether the state’s board of education would adopt them, however, was unclear. There were heated objections from some religious organizations and local school boards. In a stormy public comment session, Mr. Campbell defended his fellow writers against complaints that they had not included alternative explanations for life’s diversity, like intelligent design. His attempt at humor came with an edge: “We also failed to include astrology, alchemy and the concept of the moon being made of green cheese,” he said. “Because those aren’t...

The introduction of the article states, “Having moved to the United States in 1961, he [Francisco Ayala] was shocked when, in the mid-1970s, California sought to introduce an antievolution curriculum into its public schools. How could this be, in the most scientifically advanced country in the world? His bewilderment led Ayala to a lifelong study of how evolution is, or is not, taught in public schools.” In The New York Times article, “Roving Defender of Evolution, and of Room for God,” it is said, “Dr. Ayala, a former Dominican priest, said he told his audiences not just that evolution is...

I thought censorship of dissenting opinion was largely a tactic of the Left. Well apparently Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs doesn't take criticism any better than Daily Kos. Of late, Johnson has been devoting many of his posts to an assault on Intelligent Design theory. It's certainly not my place to discern his motivation for such vehemence, or to dictate what he posts on his own website, but because of his crusade, LGF has become a more tiresome place to visit. And not just for me; many of his commenters seem equally annoyed. So I tried to log in...

On cross-examination, Professor Behe admitted that: “There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred.” Additionally, Professor Behe conceded that there are no peer-reviewed papers supporting his claims that complex molecular systems, like the bacterial flagellum, the blood-clotting cascade, and the immune system, were intelligently designed. In that regard, there are no peer-reviewed articles supporting Professor Behe’s argument that certain complex molecular structures are “irreducibly complex.". In addition to failing to produce papers in peer-reviewed journals, ID...

Last November, radio host Michael Medved was made a Senior Fellow at the anti-evolution “think tank” known as the Discovery Institute, and he has some rather interesting things to say about “intelligent design:”

Big Science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom. What they forgot is that every generation has its rebel! Attacked by pro-evolution scientists and others, this film, Expelled exposed the prejudice leveled against scientists who reject Darwinian thinking, and took almost $8 million at the box office at around 700 theaters earlier this year, making it the 12th most successful documentary of all time.

Gods, fairies, magic and the like are ways of saying "we don't know," and one simply can't base a scientific theory on a set of assumptions that includes "and something we don't know, but you can imagine it to be anything you like, happens here." Science is a discipline, a rewarding endeavour to understand things in relation to other things and their interactions. The theory of evolution is not a belief; it is a scientifically useful model. As more data support it, it might be a threat to certain beliefs, but it is not a threat to belief in a...

A DUP MLA has sparked controversy calling for creationism to be taught alongside evolution in science classes. Education Committee chair Mervyn Storey's demand comes amid fresh debate over the origins of mankind, in the run-up to the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's famous work On the Origin of Species

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Roughly three-in-five adults in Canada side with the theory of evolution, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 58 per cent of respondents believe human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years. Conversely, 22 per cent of respondents think God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years, while 20 per cent are not sure. Charles Darwin’s "The Origin of Species" was first published in 1859. The book details the British naturalist’s theory that all organisms gradually evolve through the process of natural selection. Darwin’s views...

A map of President Bush's motorcade to Camp David was found last week in the possession of a teenager accused of stockpiling weapons and bomb-making materials, according to prosecutors. With the possibility that the motorcade was a target, federal authorities have joined police in investigating Collin Matthew McKenzie-Gude, 18, who allegedly was storing the weapons and materials just outside Washington, D.C., at the Bethesda, Md., home where he lives with his parents. MyFOXDC.com reports that Assistant State's Attorney Peter Feeney disclosed the discovery of the map of Camp David during a court hearing on Tuesday in Rockville, Md. The map...

Look, I apologize, this is a self serving vanity post. I want this to be short -- I am not driven by any religious viewpoint. Yes, I was raised that way and can still point out the arguments they make. I don't want to do that right now. I want to hear from people who discount evolution from a strictly non-dogmatic point of view.

In his capacity as a scientist his efforts should be directed at safeguarding the longevity of Darwinism which, with the unsettling figure given by the British Humanist Association that at least 40 UK schools teach creationism, has the potential to be under attack from certain organs of the religious community. But given his more demanding role as fundamentalist, cedes all religiosity as dangerous, thus quashing any potential union to debilitate the creeping infection that is intelligent design, a topic where moderate atheists and those of faith can meet eye to eye. Indeed, Darwinism is not under attack from the religiously...

It's the kind of story that turns heads and stomachs alike, especially in a small town. A well-known and popular middle school science teacher known for strong religious beliefs is charged with branding the shape of a cross onto the forearm of an 8th-grade student. The teacher is in big and possibly career-ending trouble, a quiet college town is bitterly divided and, rightly or wrongly, the Bible is at the center of it. The case of John Freshwater, a 21-year veteran of Mt. Vernon City School District, has split this pleasant central Ohio community into squabbling camps—those who see Freshwater...

"Most devout Muslims are creationists so when you go to schools, there are a large number of children of Islamic parents who trot out what they have been taught," Prof Dawkins said in a Sunday newspaper interview. "Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with. The Government could do more, but it doesn't want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come." Prof Dawkins, professor for the public understanding of science at Oxford University, is author of books including the...

Creation Museum, Petersburg, Kentucky, by A.M. Kinney Associates. At a time when museums are accused of turning themselves into theme parks, along comes a bizarre new institution that makes Walt Disney World seem like the Albertina. This is not surprising, since the displays of cartoonish dinosaurs and humanoids at the Creation Museum—devised to supplant Darwin’s theory of evolution with a Bible-based fantasia of the world’s origins—were dreamed up by a former Universal Studios designer, Patrick Marsh. I use the term “institution” in both the museological and the psychiatric sense, because this only-in-America loony bin is no more a museum than...

H.L. Mencken said during the Scopes Trial in 1925 that "those religious groups leading the war against the teaching of evolution are conspiracies of the inferior man against his betters." The proponents of teaching the God-creation theology in public schools have not given up despite the U.S. Supreme Court rulings like the 1987 case where Louisiana tried to use code words for teaching creationism, calling it the Balanced Treatment Act. Other code words for sneaking God into science class are "intelligent design" and "academic freedom." And these anti-evolutionists lobby state legislatures and put political pressure on school boards to subvert...

don't remember when I first learned about the theory of evolution, but nowadays I find myself reading of it a great deal in the popular press and hearing it discussed in the media. As my daughter enters elementary school, I find myself anxious to discuss with her teachers what they will cover in science class and where in their curriculum they plan to teach evolution. OUR COUNTRY HAS LAWS THAT SEPARATE church and state. Public institutions like schools must be neutral on the subject of religion, as required by the Constitution's First Amendment. Our courts have mandated that creationism is...

Readers of this blog will have to indulge me from time to time so that I can respond to personal attacks from creationists. I write about science, and I strive to do so accurately. I also point out misinformation about science and explain why it’s wrong. So when someone claims I can’t admit a mistake when I make one, or that I suffer from an overactive imagination, I have to respond. The Discovery Institute, which promotes Intelligent Design, tried to cast doubt a couple weeks ago on a transitional fish-tetrapod called Tiktaalik. The author of the post, Casey Luskin, wanted...

Therefore, to end this futile back and forth, allow me to quote from the National Academy of Sciences: “Scientists no longer question the basic facts of evolution as a process. The concept has withstood extensive testing by tens of thousands of specialists in biology, medicine, anthropology, geology, chemistry, and other fields. Discoveries in different fields have reinforced one another, and evidence of evolution has continued to accumulate for 150 years.” This statement confirms overwhelming support of evolution from the American scientific community. Mr. Brown is right. I would not allow a creationist to teach that theory in a science classroom...

The Vatican seems keen to clear up lingering misunderstandings about the church's stance on faith and science, creation and evolution. Confusion apparently still exists -- especially after Cardinal Schonborn wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times in 2005 that was critical of certain aspects of evolutionary thinking and said "neo-Darwinian evolution is not compatible with Catholic doctrine." He later clarified his views, saying that evolution as a body of scientific fact was compatible with Catholicism but that evolution as an ideological dogma that denied design and purpose in nature was not.

Though its proponents often call evolution a theory, Grohman cited a textbook that also calls it a fact: "They call it a theory but say it's a fact." He added, "They say nobody disputes whether it's happened, but they don't have a mechanism" to explain it. "You look at old textbooks, encyclopedias, whatever, they used to teach in the '50s that the whole universe is 5 or 6 billion years old, and then it grew to 10, 12, 15, 18, 20. We're up to 20 billion years for the age of the universe. That means in the last 40 years,...

From Turkey to Germany to the States, religious people are intent on taking us back to the middle ages To the alert eye the connection is direct. Admirers of the Catholic culture of Poland will assuredly be delighted by its success in making the unclothed human frame an object of disgust. Admirers of Islamic culture will be delighted to find that Turkish Islamists are encouraging more women to hide that automatic trigger of unbridled male lust, the tresses on the female head.

Whatever happened to parents and churches taking the responsibility for teaching their young about the values that their faith promotes? What about the "concerned" asking themselves if they are the kind of role models and mentors whom youth can relate to as having the highest values inclined in human nature? Have the "concerned" decided that it would be better if public schools teach the "values" that they should be teaching?

Intelligent design and previous creationist debates appear to center on where humans came from. A less public yet similarly powerful motive of activists is their belief that the materialist underpinnings of evolutionary theory harm children's values. For example, the defender of fundamentalism in the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," Williams Jennings Bryan, was motivated by his conclusion that Darwinism taught "the law of the jungle" and had led to World War I by subverting the morality of the Germans. More recently, "the Wedge," an infamous leaked strategy document of intelligent design proponents, suggests that advocates are not as concerned about the...

"My dear, let us hope that it isn't true!" the wife of the bishop of Worcester is reputed to have exclaimed 150 years ago, on hearing that human beings might be descended from apes. "But if it is true, let us hope that it doesn't become widely known!" When it comes to sociobiology - better known these days as "evolutionary psychology" - the bishop's wife has modern counterparts: The religious right and the secular and supposedly scientific left are remarkably on the same page, both sides inclined to dispute or misrepresent the relevance of evolution to human beings. The former,...

A proposal before the Texas Board of Education calls for including the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution in the state's science curriculum. This initiative is understood by supporters and opponents to be a strategic effort to get around First Amendment restrictions on teaching religion in science class. The proposal is a new round in an old debate, and, if it fails, creationists will innovate once again, just as they have since the 1920s.

Creationism is much more specific and much less plausible. Its central claim is that the precise mode of creation has been revealed in the Bible, and follows the pattern set out in the first chapter of Genesis. In thus identifying God’s action with a particular series of events and a particular timetable, rather than as the ultimate mystery underlying all reality, it lays itself open to the possibility of direct conflict with alternative scientific explanations. The main motive for risking this potential conflict has been to uphold belief in the verbal inerrancy of the Bible, and the literal interpretation of...

In the State Board of Education races, simple math could start another round in the long-running fight in Kansas about evolution. Five seats on the 10-member board are up for election this year, and of those, three are held by moderates who are not seeking re-election. Moderates now hold a 6-4 advantage over social conservatives on the board, so flipping one of those moderate seats to a conservative would create a 5-5 tie. Flipping two moderate seats would produce a conservative majority and could renew the battle against evolution that has brought attention to Kansas several times during the past...

Richard Dawkins is that rare specimen, a public intellectual, a knight of the mind who goes into battle against the ignorance and foolhardiness of the populace. Unlike the French, who worship their public intellectuals, giving them pet names such as les intellos, and airing them regularly on serious television and in print, the British like to shove academics into a musty corner, or laugh at them. This was not always the case: the Victorians, with their public lectures and royal societies, gloried in debate and celebrated the thrills of fresh knowledge. The nearest we get to this now is celebrating...

What they found was 12 percent of United States high school biology teachers consider creationism a "valid scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species," and believe "many reputable scientists view these as valid alternatives to Darwinian theory."

In the past, I have observed that the newsmedia and scientific establishment commonly promote the Darwinist bias against intelligent design (ID), where the media "carefully selects the sources of information it will broadcast to the public on this issue." (To see how various groups in the establishment serve as checkpoints to prevent scientific information that challenges neo-Darwinism from reaching the public, observe the diagram at left.) National Geographic (NG) is doing its job as a media checkpoint, promoting biased information to the public on ID.

The discovery of a missing link in the evolution of bizarre flatfishes—each of which has both eyes on the same side of its head—could give intelligent design advocates a sinking feeling. CT scans of 50-million-year-old fossils have revealed an intermediate species between primitive flatfishes (with eyes on both sides of their heads) and the modern, lopsided versions, which include sole, flounder, and halibut.

Jim Geraghty takes a look at longstanding blog buzz over Barack Obama’s birth certificate, which the campaign refused to release to the St. Petersburg Times in April: We tried to obtain a copy of Obama’s birth certificate, but his campaign would not release it and the state of Hawaii does not make such records public. Has anyone seen it? Why shouldn’t the record be in the public domain for presidential candidates? Geraghty walks through various rumors now circulating in the wake of the Obama campaign’s birth certificate blackout, including this one: Rumor Three: His mother did not want to name...

In a major change of policy, the Transportation Security Administration has announced that passengers refusing to show ID will no longer be able to fly. The policy change, announced on Thursday afternoon, will go into force on June 21, and will only affect passengers who refuse to produce ID. Passengers who claim to have lost or forgotten their proof of identity will still be able to fly. As long as TSA has existed, passengers have been able to fly without showing ID to government agents. Doing so would result in a secondary search (a pat down and hand search of...

As the Indiana polls opened at 6:00 am on May 6, opponents of Indiana’s Photo ID law eagerly anticipated word from our more than 5,500 precincts that the state’s requirement that all voters show a photo ID at the polls was causing havoc. It’s what they told the United States Supreme Court would happen. To them, it was time to watch Indiana’s most highly anticipated presidential primary in generations collapse under the weight of the requirement. In Indiana, our election officials and voters are fully committed to increasing confidence in and the integrity of our elections. We have invested a...

Army Sgt. Aeren Nauman served on active duty for nearly two years, part of that time in Iraq, and even stood to recite the Infantryman's Creed at a memorial service for a fallen comrade. But when he decided to buy a home on his return to the Twin Cities last fall, he found his credit ruined by identity theft. The alleged thief: his dad. "What kind of dad is this?" asked Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman after his office charged the father, Leonard Gus Nauman, 61, of Long Lake. "He waits until his kid is overseas; he creates these forged...

In a world where a snob like Michael Moore and a smug manipulator like Al Gore can win Oscars for "documentaries" that play fast and loose with the truth, it's ironic that Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which makes a serious effort to tell the truth about a problem that's seriously damaging our civilization, not only won't get nominated for an Oscar but will certainly be attacked as anti-scientific. This is the opposite of the truth, or very nearly so. Ben Stein's film project was to expose the way rigid insistence on Darwinist dogma is expelling not only brilliant...

Rarely has a movie subtitle so capably assessed a movie’s content as does "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." There is not a shred of intelligence on display in this just released "documentary" purporting to be a careful examination of the fight over teaching creationism and evolution in America.... This is the core of what is ethically rotten about this movie. Darwinism did not lead to Nazism in Germany. Nor does Darwinism inherently contain the seeds of Nazism. There were many nations, such as Brazil, where Darwinism led to no political ideology. There were some such as Britain which embraced Darwinism but...

The U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling on Indiana's voter ID law will rank as among the court's worst – up there with Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 ruling allowing forced separation of the races. It wasn't overturned until 1954. Here's hoping it doesn't take 58 years to overturn Monday's misguided decision. The Indiana law is aimed at a phantasm: in-person voter fraud at the polls. In the words of the court's majority, "The record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history." To find fraud, the justices went back to New...

By upholding Indiana's voter identification law, the U.S. Supreme Court has virtually ignored the nation's ignominious history of disenfranchising certain groups and sanctioned an overly restrictive solution in search of a problem. While the court's 6-3 ruling is not expected to have a major effect on the coming presidential election, it is likely to encourage more states to follow Indiana's lead, guaranteeing that more Americans could be denied one of the most basic rights in a democracy. Maryland should stick to its convictions and continue rejecting stricter voter ID requirements. The Indiana law requires voters who show up at the...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES EDITORIAL - Monday's 6-3 Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana's voter-identification law has unhinged Democrats and their allies on the political left. Within hours of the ruling, the ACLU was wringing its hands about the judgment of the court that requires someone to produce photo identification in order to vote was not unconstitutional. Sen. Charles Schumer, New York Democrat, complained that it was "a body blow to what America stands for — equal access to the polls." But a careful reading of the opinions of the six justices who voted to uphold the Indiana law shows this assertion...

Showing ID to vote? The horror. Seattle Post-Intelligencer runs whiny AP writer's complaint about Indiana voter law What is it with Democrats and showing ID at the polls? This article from an AP national writer certainly doesn't fit any reasonable standard for a wire service. It's just short of a screed, with no balance...just a minor jeremiad against asking people to show ID at the polls: The Supreme Court's refusal to strike down an Indiana law requiring government-issued photo identification at the ballot box could disenfranchise minority and elderly voters at next week's primary and prompt other states to pass...

During a segment on Monday’s "The Situation Room," host Wolf Blitzer and CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena framed the Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana’s "strict" voter ID law according to the liberal view (a law so "strict" that it calls for the voter show photo ID before voting). Arena’s report offered three critics of the decision to only one supporter, who happened to be Indiana’s Secretary of State. One of the three critics was a quadriplegic who apparently "had to pay more than $100 to get documentation to prove who she was" before getting an ID in Indiana. After Arena’s...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 04/28/2008 Pelosi Statement on Supreme Court Decision on Voter ID Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement in response to the Supreme Court’s decision today on Indiana’s voter identification case: “The Supreme Court’s decision is disappointing. The Court’s decision today places obstacles to the fundamental rights of American citizens—especially the poor, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities—to participate in the electoral process. Requiring American citizens pay for underlying documents needed for an identification card and travel to distant motor vehicle locations for processing hinders—and diminishes—their right to...

Bartenders serve up drinks, customs checks Policy at 2 halls called unfair to immigrants Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By Maria Sacchetti Globe Staff / April 24, 2008 All the 33-year-old illegal immigrant wanted was a beer. After nearly a decade in this country, the Irish national knew to steer clear of police and federal agents. But he was stunned this month when a bartender at the Orpheum refused to serve him because his passport lacked a US Customs stamp.

“Intelligent Design” is of no scientific value in determining the origins of life in the universe. A designer would have to be supernatural (i.e. not subject to the laws of physics) or natural and subject to those laws. If the designer is natural in origin, then it would have to have been designed by another designer –again supernatural or natural. Ultimately come to an original designer that either evolved from a lower state of matter, or was created by a supernatural being. You will note that this is back to where we started. Science does not deal with supernatural phenomena...

I like rebels, especially ones who go against type. Take Ben Stein in his latest film, Expelled, which comes out this Friday. Dressed in a sport coat, tie, and tennis shoes, he’s not who you expect — the deadpan, monotone-voiced but ever-likable teacher he portrays in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Wonder Years. Stein retains his characteristic deadpan affect, but this time he’s playing himself — a deceptively erudite and well-educated interviewer, who is passionately skeptical of evolutionary biology and its leading proponents. The film’s endeavor is to respond to one simple question: “Were we designed, or are we...