Free Republic

The United States has witnessed a very public and ill-tempered debate between the vast majority of scientists on one side supporting Darwin's account of how species have evolved over time, and mainly Christian supporters of "intelligent design" and other variants of creationism on the other, with both sides arguing that schools ought to teach children their version of life's history. What is less well known is that in recent years expensively produced glossy literature and DVDs arguing for the direct creation and fixity of species have also become very popular in many Muslim communities in the UK and Europe. The...

In a veiled attack on creationism, the world's foremost academies of science on Wednesday called on parents and teachers to provide children with the facts about evolution and the origins of life on Earth. A declaration signed by 67 national academies of science blasted the scriptural teaching of biology as a potential distortion of young minds. "In various parts of the world, within science courses taught in certain public systems of education, scientific evidence, data and testable theories about the origins and evolution of life on Earth are being concealed, denied or confused with theories not testable by science," the...

If the ACLU happens to sue your small hometown and then demands $1 million dollars for their lawyers, would you call them generous and charitable? Strangely enough, that's exactly what they’ve done to the small town of Dover, Pennsylvania. Following the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State's (AUSCS) federal trial court victory in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Board (M.D.Penn. 2005), the ACLU recently announced it would "generously" demand only $1 million in costs and attorneys fees. Why $1 million you may ask? According to the ACLU’s Eric Rothschild, “We think it’s important that the public...

You can't help but notice that there is a very vocal sort of a little clique of evolutionists on FreeRepublic, and there has always been a question in a lot of people's minds as to whether or not the theory of evolution is in any way compatible with conservatism. This new book ("Godless") of Ann Coulter's should pretty much settle the issue. Ann does not mince words, and she has quite a lot to say about evolution: "Liberals' creation myth is Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which is about one notch above scientology in scientific rigor. It's a make-believe story,...

Some scientists call for a bigger dose of evolution in doctors' educations Joon Yun, MD, began considering how evolution applies to human health a decade ago, when his first heart disease patients died. These cases disturbed Yun, then a Stanford radiology resident. But they also intrigued him. Having studied evolutionary biology in college, Yun tried fitting these medical failures into that framework. His mind wandered to the early days of humans when heart disease was a rare trigger of death. In the prehistoric era, a more likely cause of death would have been an attack by a predator. The human...

When President Bush declared his support for the teaching of Intelligent Design (ID) theory in public schools along with Darwinian evolution, both he and the theory itself drew a lot of criticism. Among the many lines of attack the critics launch, one theme remains strikingly constant: the notion that ID is a Trojan Horse of Christian fundamentalists whose ultimate aim is to turn the U.S. into an theocracy. In a furious New Republic cover story, "The Case Against Intelligent Design," Jerry Coyne joins in this hype and implies that all non-Christians, including Muslims, should be alarmed by this supposedly Christian...