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Berlinski claims to be a Jewish agnostic. Assuming he's telling the truth, he'd be the first non-theist anti-evolution activist I ever heard of.

Did you know he wrote The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky: Astrology and the Art of Prediction?His buddy Behe said that if ID were to be considered scientific, astrology would be too. Here's Berlinski, trying to do so!

Michael Denton is no longer an anti-evolution activist.

I couldn't find anything about Richard Milton's religious views, so I'll allow that he may be an agnostic of some sort. He sounds like a wacked-out newager.

Here's an excerpt from Richard Dawkins' review of one of his books

All qualified physicists, biologists, cosmologists and geologists agree, on the basis of massive, mutually corroborating evidence, that the earth’s age is at least four billion years. Richard Milton thinks it is only a few thousand years old, on the authority of various Creation ‘science’ sources including the notorious Henry Morris (Milton himself claims not to be religious, and he affects not to recognise the company he is keeping). The great Francis Crick (himself not averse to rocking boats) recently remarked that "anyone who believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old needs psychiatric help." Yes yes, maybe Crick and the rest of us are all wrong and Milton, an untrained amateur with a ‘background’ as an engineer, will one day have the last laugh. Want a bet?

(My bolding) OK, someone who claims to be an agnostic YEC-er. Riiight. I report, you decide.

Wow, I didn't think it was possible, but you seem to have found a couple of agnostic anti-evolution activists; one of whom wrote a book defending astrology, the other of whom appears to be a newage nutcase.

Berlinski claims to be a Jewish agnostic. Assuming he's telling the truth, he'd be the first non-theist anti-evolution activist I ever heard of.

And why is it a big deal either way ? Why SHOULD being an atheist or an agnostic DE-FACTO give your scientific view more credence than Christians like Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Werner Von Braun or Theists like Albert Einstein ?

why should the religious beliefs of agnostic turned Christian like Francis Collins, who helped map the human DNA have ANY BEARING whatsoever on the SPECIFIC issue of whether Random mutation plus natural selection can produce HUMAN LIFE ? The answer is it DOES NOT.

Wow, I didn't think it was possible, but you seem to have found a couple of agnostic anti-evolution activists; one of whom wrote a book defending astrology, the other of whom appears to be a newage nutcase.

LOADED WORDS --- newage nutcase. et. al. Simply because you disagree with their views.

let's take Michael Behe's statement on astrology IN CONTEXT, instead of mis-understanding him. You complain a lot about quote mining out of context. Well, physician, heal thyself. You immediately pounce on Behe and then say to yourselves : "Now we have ID people who want to teach something they themselves admit is on the same scientific level as astrology."

If you heard what he said at the time, weren’t you surprised? I know I was. Funny thing is, if you go to the actual transcript (use your Find feature to look for "astrology" in looking at the Dover transcripts, and then back up a few sentences to get the context), you’ll see that the typical description is very misleading indeed. Behe was explaining why he thought ID was a scientific theory (and hence, why it could be taught in a public school while not violating the separation of church and state). To put it very loosely, Behe said that a scientific theory explains numerous observations about the natural world by reference to some unifying principle, and that this indeed is what ID does in biology. Naturally Behe did not add the caveat, "To qualify as ‘scientific,’ a conjecture must first command the assent of at least 95% of the relevant scientists."

Of course the lawyer pounced and asked Behe if astrology would count as a scientific theory under this definition, to which Behe replied "yes." Now, Behe isn’t an idiot, at least when it comes to publicity ( anyone who attended his public debates knows that he comports himself logically and scientifically). He knew full well why that question was being asked, and he knew his admission would be splashed all over the newspapers. So if he were truly intellectually dishonest, why wouldn’t he dodge the question? Why wouldn’t he act, say, Kerry did during their debates?

But when men like Richard Dawkins says things like :

“It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."

It's OK and he isn't a nutcase ( not even if he insults the majority of Americans with that statement ).

Did you know he wrote The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky: Astrology and the Art of Prediction

Yes I know he did. But ask yourself WHY HE DID IT ?

SEE HERE : http://www.harcourtbooks.com/authorinterviews/bookinterview_Berlinski.asp

EXCERPT OF THE INTERVIEW:

Q: What was your motivation and inspiration for writing a book about astrology and its influence on modern science?

A: I was intrigued by the idea of a failed science, the more so since the science in question has a very long, very curious history. Astrology has been present in Western culture from its very beginning in the Sumerian era. With the advent of mathematical physics in the 17th century, astrology comes to an end both as an intellectual and as a social force. And yet the science that replaced astrology—Newton's science of mechanics—and astrology itself, although differing very considerably in intellectual power, nonetheless share a strong family resemblance—the same strong bones, wide-set eyes, and slightly goofy expression. What I found most interesting about astrology as a failed science is that in some sense it lives on despite its official and widely-noted death rattle. Astrological forms of thought are present in biology, a most astrological endeavor, and even in contemporary mathematical physics itself. Astrology has always been a magical discipline inasmuch as it has always been committed to some form of action at a distance, the very mark of magical thinking. Magical thinking has not disappeared from modern science: It has simply been disguised by a brilliantly effective mathematical screen. Where the screen is thinnest, as in molecular biology, the magic is still very notable.

Beyond this, the problems that the astrologers faced had the quality of great depth—action at a distance, free will, causes that incline but do not compel; and the men and women struggling to meet these problems evoke a sense of shared sympathy—in me, at least.

CONTEXT MEANS A LOT DOESN'T IT ?

Michael Denton is no longer an anti-evolution activist.

I never considered him an activist. He was a SKEPTIC, that's all. Not an activist to the extent he is going on a warpath to stop evolution education. That is not his style.

Be that as it may, you refer me to a web page that mentions this :

-----------------------------

Source: Nature's Destiny. From the impossibility of evolution to the inevitability of evolution: Anti-Evolutionst Michael Denton turns into an 'Evolutionist'. A review by Gert Korthof version 3.1b 23 May 2000

Quote from the book : >BR>
"It is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science - that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended ultimately in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school". According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world - that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies." (page xvii-xviii). ---------------------------------------

1) Note the DATE of the book --- 2000.

2) Denton was never a fan of creationists. That does not make him a non-skeptic of evolution.

3) He came out with a book in 2002 ( two years after the said work you refered to in that website ).

Here it is :

http://www.amazon.com/Natures-Destiny-Biology-Purpose-Universe/dp/0743237625/sr=8-1/qid=1159627851/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3238153-5815259?ie=UTF8&s=books

TITLE : Nature's Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe

From Publishers Weekly

New England biologist Denton continues the assault on Darwinian science, especially the theories of evolution and natural selection, that he began in Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Here, Denton takes a page out of the work of 19th-century natural theologians like William Paley and 19th-century anti-Darwinian scientists like Robert Chambers to contend that, far from being random and without direction, the laws of nature operate by design. Moreover, says Denton, the design of the laws of the universe inevitably lead to one conclusion: "The entire process of biological evolution from the origin of life to the emergence of man was somehow directed from the beginning." Denton marshals a dizzying array of scientific evidence to bolster his conclusions. First, he examines the evidence from physics and chemistry for the inevitability that the development of a universe like ours would have the evolution of life as its goal. He discusses gravity, the nuclear energy levels of certain atoms, water, light, carbon, uranium and more as elements whose existence is perfectly orchestrated to usher human life onto the universe's stage. Denton then discusses evolutionary biology, arguing that the biocentric nature of the universe undermines the Darwinian principles of contingent natural selection. Denton's arguments are weakened by their circular nature (he assumes design in nature and proceeds to make pieces fit his argument whether they do so easily or not), but his prose is engaging and his insights are accessible to readers who lack a deep scientific background. In the growing debate over Darwin's theories, Denton's voice remains one of the most notable and compelling.

Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.