Discovery Institute's Blog, page 187

Fifty Shades of Green

The war on humans continues as attacks againsthuman exceptionalism from the environmental movement keep on coming.

A recent essay in High Country News pushes the meme that Mother Nature should have standing to bring lawsuits in court. From, "Should Nature Have Standing to Sue?" by Adam Sowards, environmental historian at the University of Idaho:

Today, global climate change, biodiversity losses and habitat fragmentation are creating unprecedented social and ecological problems. Environmental...

South Dakota Academic Freedom Bill Dies in Senate Education Committee

I am in Pierre, SD, today where the South Dakota Academic Freedom Bill, SB114, died in the Senate Education Committee by a vote of 4-2. Proponents of the bill who testified included Senator Jeff Monroe (the lead sponsor of the bill), Dr. William Harris (a PhD biochemist who holds a faculty position at the Sanford School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota), Terri Jorgenson (Education Coordinator for Concerned Women for America of South Dakota), and myself (as Research Coordinator a...

How Can We Believe in Naturalism if We Have No Choice?

There is no shortage of argumentsagainstfree will. So many thinkers say they couldimprove human natureif they could just force enough people to co-operate with their various programs.

New Scientisteditor Graham Lawton, for one,puts the science case againstfree will in terms of physics:

We live in a deterministic universe. Given enough information about its present state, we could extrapolate to any past or future state with 100 per cent accuracy. Everything that has or will happen was determin...

Opponents of South Dakota Academic Freedom Bill Turn Their Campaign into an Anti-Religious Crusade

The local media in South Dakota have been claiming that the current academic freedom bill in the state would allow teaching religion in public schools. That's false, as I've already made clear. Meanwhile, aside from a local South Dakota political journal, reporters have completely ignored a related story that has the merit of actually being true.

Look at this photo taken under the rotunda of the South Dakota State Capitol. It shows a group of protestors demonstrating against the academic fr...

Problem 7: Convergent Evolution Challenges Darwinism and Destroys the Logic Behind Common Ancestry

Editor's note: This is Part 7 of a 10-part series based upon Casey Luskin's chapter, "The Top Ten Scientific Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution," in the volume More than Myth, edited by Paul Brown and Robert Stackpole (Chartwell Press, 2014). Previous installments can be found here: Problem 1, Problem 2, Problem 3, Problem 4, Problem 5, Problem 6. When the series is complete, the full chapter will be posted online.

In Problem 6 of this series, we saw that the main assumption unde...

New Edition of Darwin Day in America Exposes the Rise of "Totalitarian Science" in the Age of Obama

Is America entering an era of "totalitarian science"? In the expanded paperback edition of Darwin Day in America (ISI Books, February 2015), political scientist John G. West describes the growing misuse of science to curtail basic freedoms, erode time-honored ethics, and circumvent democratic accountability. The paperback edition includes a brand new chapter titled "Scientism in the Age of Obama -- and Beyond."

Read an excerpt from the new chapter published in World Magazine.

See the trailer f...

In World Magazine, John West Takes on "Scientism in the Age of Obama"

The great issue standing behind the evolution debate is the picture you carry around in your mind of what a human being is. A human is either a creature whose emergence on Earth reflects the purposeful guidance of a caring designer who had us specifically in mind -- or, as World Magazine's Marvin Olasky crystallizes the alternative, we are no more than an "overachieving worm," cast up by chance through uncaring, material cosmic processes.

Published originally in 2007, John West's book Darwin D...

Journalistic Malpractice in South Dakota: Argus Leader Won't Correct Misleading Story

Casey Luskin has done an admirable job chronicling the poor reporting by Patrick Anderson at the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in South Dakota. The saga continues. Both Anderson and the paper's editor have now refused to correct one of Anderson's most egregious misrepresentations in a story relating to proposed academic freedom legislation in his state.

As Casey explained previously, one article by Mr. Anderson implied that Discovery Institute had lied to him when it said it wasn't trying to push...

For Censor of the Year, I've Just Tossed Another Name into Our Selection of Nominees

We're still mulling this year's Censor of the Year award -- to be announced next week for Darwin Day -- and officially the nominating process has closed. However, I'm going to take advantage of my privilege as editor and add one more name: Patrick Anderson at the Argus Leader in South Dakota.

Casey Luskin wrote about him yesterday, "On that South Dakota Academic Freedom Bill, Here's More Bad Journalism -- and Science Censorship -- from Patrick Anderson."

I tweeted Casey's article to Patrick, an...

In Canada, Supreme Court Imposes Belgian-Style Euthanasia Regime

The Canadian Supreme Court just unleashed the evils of Belgium euthanasia on all of Canadain a unanimous vote. From the Reuters story:

The Supreme Court of Canada overturned a ban on physician-assisted suicide on Friday, unanimously reversing a decision it made in 1993 and putting Canada in the company of a handful of Western countries where the practice will be legal.

The top court said it would be allowed in the case of consenting adults who are suffering intolerably from a severe and incu...