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In a thought-provoking paper from the March issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology , Elliott Sober (University of Wisconsin) clearly discusses the problems with two standard criticisms of intelligent design: that it is unfalsifiable and that the many imperfect adaptations found in nature refute the hypothesis of intelligent design. Biologists from Charles Darwin to Stephen Jay Gould have advanced this second type of argument. Stephen Jay Gould's well-known example of a trait of this type is the panda's thumb. If a truly intelligent designer were responsible for the panda, Gould argues, it would have provided a more useful tool...

Tens of thousands of French schools and universities have received copies of a Turkish book refuting Darwin's theory of evolution and describing it as "the true source of terrorism." The education ministry said Friday that it had warned school and university directors that the textbook is not in line with the recognized curriculum and that they should disregard it. Entitled "The Atlas of Creation," the 770-page book by Turkish author Harun Yahya quotes several passages from the Koran and asserts that "human beings did not evolve (from another species) but were indeed created." "We believe that there are lots of...

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com A historic judicial ruling against intelligent design theory hailed as a "broad, stinging rebuke" and a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" actually was "cut and pasted" from a brief by ACLU lawyers and includes many of their provable errors, contends the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. One year ago, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones' 139-page ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover declared unconstitutional a school board policy that required students of a ninth-grade biology class in the Dover Area School District to hear a one-minute statement that said evolution is a theory and intelligent design "is an...

Ministers to ban creationist teaching aids in science lessons · Schools will be told not to use special pack · Intelligent design group asks for meeting The government is to write to schools telling them that controversial teaching materials promoting creationism should not be used in science lessons. The packs include DVDs and written materials promoting intelligent design, a creationist alternative to Darwinism, that were sent to every school in the country by the privately-funded group Truth in Science. Advocates of the theory argue that some features of the universe and nature are so complex that they must have been...

Logan Gage, whom I met last month in Washington, and who works for the Discovery Institute, makes what I think is a solid point here at the DC Examiner.com, about "Evangelical Atheists." On that note, see this link at Discovery about an anti-ID talk given last week at the University of California at San Diego by Robert Pennock, paid for by the Council of Provosts of the university. What's interesting about this is that all first-quarter freshman are required to attend. Who says mandatory chapel can't be held at public universities? I've noticed, too (I'd have to be asleep not...

In the last couple of years, a number of conservative writers have urged conservatives to embrace Darwin's theory of evolution. Some of these "Darwinian conservatives" have even argued that Darwinism will help rescue conservatism. I happen to think that that the Darwinian conservatives are wrong, and in a new book to be released this month, I explain why. The book is titled Darwin's Conservatives: The Misguided Quest, and it is being published this month by Discovery Institute Press. Below is an excerpt from the book's introduction. * * * * * * *DARWIN'S CONSERVATIVES: THE MISGUIDED QUEST INTRODUCTION The debate...

Does Accepting Evolution Matter? A recent admission by a well-known evolutionary biologist takes the steam out of a common charge made against intelligent design by some scientists. Evolutionary biologists frequently express concern that if intelligent design (or creationism) were taught in public schools alongside the theory of evolution, it would lead to a decay of science literacy and place the US at an economic disadvantage compared to the rest of the world. But as Jerry Coyne acknowledges in a recently published book review, "If truth be told, evolution hasn?t yielded many practical or commercial benefits? Evolution cannot help us predict...

It has been almost a year since Hunter Rawlings gave his important speech on intelligent design and evolution. But the issue is still being widely discussed at Cornell. As a Christian, I believe that God is the Creator of heaven and earth, including human beings. At the same time I consider evolution to be the best scientific theory we currently have for explaining the origin of species, and I do not think intelligent design (“ID”) qualifies as legitimate science.How these two assertions fit together I shall not address here. Suffice it to say that the relationship between science and religion...

In an unusual foray into electoral politics, 75 science professors at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have signed a letter endorsing a candidate for the Ohio Board of Education. The professors’ favored candidate is Tom Sawyer, a former congressman and onetime mayor of Akron. They hope Mr. Sawyer, a Democrat, will oust Deborah Owens Fink, a leading advocate of curriculum standards that encourage students to challenge the theory of evolution. Elsewhere in Ohio, scientists have also been campaigning for candidates who support the teaching of evolution and have recruited at least one biologist from out of state to help....

That transition from water to land has long fascinated scientists, but the fossil record of how it occurred is still incomplete. The new finding suggests that certain aspects of tetrapod ears and limbs can be traced much further back in "fishy looking" fish than had been previously known, says John Long, head of sciences at Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. "They were just cunningly disguised in the fossil record by their more fishlike overall features," he said in an email interview. "They tell us that evolution progresses steadily but often hides the evidence until a really well preserved fossil like...

----cut---- The notion that Intelligent Design theory is fundamentally "unscientific" is based on the philosophy originated by Karl Popper (1902-1994), who postulated a set of rules for science known as "Falsificationism." The main idea is that a hypothesis or theory does not qualify as "scientific" unless it is "falsifiable" (which is independent of whether it is actually "true" or "false"). Popper is revered by evolutionists, but certainly even they would agree that we should not blindly accept his word as revealed truth. So let us consider some of the implications of his "falsifiability" criterion. ----cut---- The ultimate irony here is...

A Mathematician's View of Evolution Granville Sewell Mathematics Dept. University of Texas El Paso The Mathematical Intelligencer 22, no. 4 (2000), pp5-7 Copyright held by Springer Verlag, NY, LLC In 1996, Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe published a book entitled "Darwin's Black Box" [Free Press], whose central theme is that every living cell is loaded with features and biochemical processes which are "irreducibly complex"--that is, they require the existence of numerous complex components, each essential for function. Thus, these features and processes cannot be explained by gradual Darwinian improvements, because until all the components are in place, these assemblages are...

“In the final analysis (God) used evolution to set us free.” Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller used this quote from his book “Finding Darwin’s God” as a central point in his speech about simultaneously believing in evolution and religion. Miller spoke to more than 500 people Thursday evening in the Kansas Union Ballroom. He testified for the pro-evolution side in the recent lawsuit against the Dover, Pa., school district, where a federal judge ruled against the district’s teaching of intelligent design in biology classrooms. He said it was creationism in disguise. Conservatives on the Kansas State Board of Education approved...

A participant at the Pope's closed door symposium on creation and evolution, Jesuit Fr Joseph Fessio, has denied speculation about a change in the Church's teaching on evolution, saying nothing presented at the meeting broke new ground and that American debates on Intelligent Design did not feature in discussions. Catholic News Service reports that the annual gathering of former doctoral students of Pope Benedict, which was hosted in part by the Pontiff at his summer villa in Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome, discussed the relationship among faith, reason and science. This year's topic was "Creation and Evolution," and one of the...

Advocates of American-style "intelligent design" (ID) have had a tough year. Their anti-evolution arguments have been soundly rejected by the scientific community, they lost spectacularly in a highly-publicised federal trial on the issue of ID in schools, and most recently the voters in Kansas rejected ID school board candidates in a statewide election. So they may surely be forgiven for hoping that Pope Benedict's discussions on evolution this month with his former students could bring some rare good news.

A comparison of peoples' views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower. Among the factors contributing to America's low score are poor understanding of biology, especially genetics, the politicization of science and the literal interpretation of the Bible by a small but vocal group of American Christians, the researchers say. “American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalist, which is why Turkey and we are so close,” said study co-author Jon Miller of Michigan State University. The researchers combined...

10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design (Part III) [Note: This is the third part in the list of ways in which neo-Darwinist critics are helping to promote the theory of intelligent design.] SEE HERE FOR PART 1: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1677236/posts HERE FOR PART 2 : http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1679245/posts #8 By separating origins of life science from evolutionary explanations. – Nature is too complex to be encompassed in any one field. That is why it’s necessary for scientific disciplines (physics, biology, chemistry) to be broken down into sub-disciplines (cosmology, zoology, biochemistry, etc.). But while most scientists may not have no problems thinking in unconnected categories,...

Just out of curiosity, I did a little research about Google trends to see which countries other than the USA are interested in the issue of Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. SEE THE RESULT HERE : http://www.google.com/trends?q=Intelligent+Design&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all Now, Click on the “regions” tab. What is interesting is... it shows that our good ally in the War on Terror, Australia has about half the searches for Intelligent Design that we do. But please note that Australia’s population is about 20 million. The USA on the other hand has about 280 million people. This shows that Australia's INTEREST for ID is about 6...

10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design (Part II) [Note: This is the second part in the list of ways in which neo-Darwinist critics are helping to promote the theory of intelligent design.] See : 10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design (Part I) #6 By invoking design in non-design explanations. Anyone who wonders why so many people find intelligent design explanations plausible need only to listen to scientific community discuss the evolutionary process. Scientists have a complete inability to talk about and explain processes like natural selection without using the terms, analogies, and metaphors of design and teleology. Take, for instance,...

The Human Factor :A man of science face Darwin and the Deity. by David Klinghoffer The Language of God A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins Free Press, 304 pp., $26 ------------------------------------- Head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins is among the country's foremost author ities on genetics, a staunch Darwinist, and a prominent critic of Intelligent Design. He's also an evangelical Christian who dramatically describes the moment he accepted Jesus as his personal savior. If that sounds like it might be a paradox, read on. Collins was hiking in the Cascade Mountains of western Washington...