Discovery Institute's Blog, page 153

Unprecedented Rash of Retractions in Science Journals Is Excellent News

If I'm right that "science abuse" is the correct metaphor for what you see across a spectrum of areas of controversy -- that is, the unjustified use of science as a shortcut to advance a favored non-scientific agenda -- then the encouraging flip side of the phenomenon is the unprecedented rash of retractions in science journals.

Science is in the process of being stripped of an illusion that once clothed it. It turns out to be a normal field of human intellectual endeavor, rather than a sou...

Listen: Why Do ID Critics Persistently Conflate Intelligent Design with Creationism?

On a second episode of ID the Future, Nate Herbst and Casey Luskin continue their conversation, turning to the question, "Why do people conflate intelligent design with creationism?"

Luskin explains the positive argument for intelligent design from DNA and clarifies key distinctions between the religious view of creationism and the scientific theory of intelligent design.

In Search of a New Metaphor: "Science Abuse," Maybe?

Writing at Townhall, the smart and independent-minded TV journalist John Stossel (pictured above) complains that the trite phrase "War on Science," popularized by Chris Mooney, could as easily be applied to the political Left as to the Right. However, he says, the left-wing version has serious negative ramifications for daily life whereas the right-wing version is basically harmless.

This year is the 10th anniversary of a book [by Mooney] called "The Republican War on Science." I could just...

Evolutionary Computing: The Invisible Hand of Intelligence

Darwinian evolution is characterized by an utter lack of guidance; it is the "blind watchmaker" of Dawkins. It doesn't know where it's going. It doesn't know it is building a watch. It doesn't know what a watch is. There is no goal, no plan, and no target in "natural evolution." Mutations bounce around against environmental constraints, and whatever happens, happens.

William Dembski and Robert Marks have shown that no evolutionary algorithm is superior to blind search -- unless information...

Cardiovascular Function: Sodium's Real Life Consequences

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.

My last two articles in this series showed...

France Debates Slow-Motion Euthanasia

If the euthanasia pushers can't get people dead one way, they try another. The French Senate is currently debating legalizing terminal sedation for the terminally ill who want it. From the Yahoo story:

France's debate over end-of-life care goes to the Senate, with a bill that would allow doctors to keep terminally ill patients sedated until death comes, but stops short of legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Euthanasia is currently legal in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, and...

Listen: Good Advice for Students Learning about Evolution

The current episode of ID the Future is relevant to what I wrote earlier about our updated Educator's Briefing Report. In fact, it's the flipside of what we tell teachers. With regard to evolution and education, Casey Luskin and Nate Herbst discuss the experiences not of educators but of students.

Drawing on their own campus backgrounds, they've got some sound advice that applies equally to high school and college students. First and foremost, don't be a martyr. Be aware that some instructo...

Revealed! The SECRET PLOT to Teach About Evolution in an Objective, Responsible, Engaging Manner!

Actually, Discovery Institute's aim to see evolution treated as a normal scientific idea, subject to question and criticism, is neither secret nor a plot. But vocal members of the Darwin community habitually cast our efforts in paranoid terms, so it's good to be able to report that we've now published an updated Educator's Briefing Packet on teaching evolution and intelligent design.

Yes, if a public school teacher were to write to us asking for information about ID or evolution, this is the...

Euthanasia of the Mentally Ill Should Be Bigger News

We live in a culture of nihilism, in which abandonment is called compassion and true compassion -- the root meaning of which is to "suffer with" -- is denigrated as paternalism.

Brittany Maynard became an international celebrity for killing herself. Meanwhile, euthanasia killings of the mentally ill, elderly, and depressed (in addition to the physically ill and disabled) in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland are mostly ignored. Why? Because the media prefer to serve the needs of assis...

National Geographic Provides a Pulpit for Atheism

With his blog Why Evolution Is True and now a new book pushing atheism, our old friend Jerry Coyne, Censor of the Year for 2014, provides a perennial source of interest and entertainment. The National Geographic Society must think that if one censor is good, two is better. They featured both Coyne and Neil deGrasse Tyson, Censor of the Year for 2015, in the same article recently.

Since Simon Worrall at National Geographic decided to pitch only softballs to Coyne, we have a few follow-up ques...