Discovery Institute's Blog, page 135

In Covering Intelligent Design, Wikipedia Engages in "Information Sabotage"

Back in March, I discussed an article in PLOS ONE that protested against "quote mining" and other sloppiness in what it called "creationist texts." The article itself, however, sloppily misquoted a piece that Logan Gage and I co-wrote in response to Francis Collins. Now a new article in PLOS ONE, "Content Volatility of Scientific Topics in Wikipedia: A Cautionary Tale," has been published that is equally blind to its own biases.

The article concerns Wikipedia, and it offers the uninteresting...

In Covering Intelligent Design, Wikipedia's Editors Engage in "Information Sabotage"

Back in March, I discussed an article in PLOS ONE that protested against "quote mining" and other sloppiness in what it called "creationist texts." The article itself, however, sloppily misquoted a piece that Logan Gage and I co-wrote in response to Francis Collins. Now a new article in PLOS ONE, "Content Volatility of Scientific Topics in Wikipedia: A Cautionary Tale," has been published that is equally blind to its own biases.

The article concerns Wikipedia, and it offers the uninteresting...

Cardiovascular Function: Heart Failure Is a Problem for Patients -- and for Evolutionary Theory

Editor's note : Physicians have a special place among the thinkers who have elaborated the argument for intelligent design. Perhaps that's because, more than evolutionary biologists, they are familiar with the challenges of maintaining a functioning complex system, the human body. With that in mind, Evolution News & Views is delighted to present this series, "The Designed Body." Dr. Glicksman practices palliative medicine for a hospice organization.

Since the body is made up of matter, it mus...

How Salmon Adjust from Fresh Water to Salt Water, and Back Again

In the salmon sequence of Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earth, one of the stories documentary producer Lad Allen wanted to tell was about osmoregulation. That is, the control of body fluids and ions during the transition from fresh water to salt water and back again. This is an important transition in the life of every Pacific salmon.

Allen's crew researched this fascinating topic, but in the final cut they only had time to mention it briefly, stating, "In preparatio...

Casey Luskin and Cornelius Hunter Discuss Darwin's Predictions

On an episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin talks with Dr. Cornelius Hunter -- a Discovery Institute Fellow, adjunct professor, and author -- about his website Darwin's Predictions.

On the site, Dr. Hunter critically examines 22 fundamental predictions of evolutionary theory. In this first podcast of a series, he discusses why he was inspired to pursue this work.

A Tale of Two Mountains: Introducing Intelligent Design

Editor's note: At Evolution News & Views, we're aware that our audience is diverse, including readers who have followed the debate about intelligent design for decades and others who are brand new to it. For the latter, an introduction to the basics of the subject is warranted and, we hope, welcome. Trained at the graduate level in both law and earth sciences, Casey Luskin is Research Coordinator for Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture. His is a co-author of Science and Human...

What If People Stopped Believing in Darwin?

What if people stopped believing in Darwin? Let's say they just suddenly stopped one day, awakening as from a brain fog of misty narratives and just-so stories? I mean they stopped believing in things like the grand sweeping stories of eons of time giving rise to the vertebrate I, or new body plans springing from the brow of the Cambrian whole and entire, or things like whale evolution or "sudden radiations" of whole new classes of animals or plants. Imagine those ideas going away overnight,...

From Historian Richard Weikart, Not One but Two Important Forthcoming Books

Congratulations to our colleague Richard Weikart who has not one but two important books forthcoming. The Death of Humanity: Confronting the Secularist Attack on the Value of Human Life and Hitler's Religion have both been accepted for publication by Regnery and should appear in early 2016.

The former includes two chapters that discuss the impact of Darwinism on the value of human life. The latter includes two chapters that discuss the role of Darwinism in Hitler's thought; its main argumen...

Good Grief, Now It's "River Rights"

Anti-human exceptionalism is becoming epidemic. Now it's "river rights."

An Indian environmental activist has won an award for improving water systems in his home country. Good for him. But now, Rejendra Singh wants to engage the UN to adopt very radical -- and anti-human -- policies. From the story in The Guardian:

In 2017, Singh will visit the office of the United Nations high commissioner for human rights in Geneva to push for the recognition of the right to river water and access to nat...

Can a Non-Person Have Down's Syndrome?

From the New York Times:

Ohio Bill Would Ban Abortion if Down Syndrome Is Reason

Opening a new front in the abortion wars, abortion opponents are pushing Ohio to make it illegal for a doctor to perform an abortion if a woman is terminating her pregnancy to avoid having a baby with Down syndrome...

Mike Gonidakis, the president of Ohio Right to Life, said his group had made the bill here a legislative priority because Down syndrome is so recognizable, so easily diagnosed in pregnancy -- and s...