Discovery Institute's Blog, page 188

At the University of Washington, Ratio Christi Responds to David Barash's Article, "God, Darwin, and My Biology Class"

Many ENV readers will recall that last year University of Washington evolutionary psychologist David Barash wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled "God, Darwin, and My Biology Class." It was about how he uses his science classroom, in a state university, as a platform to attack religion. Each year, as he boasts, Dr. Barash gives a presentation to his students informing them that evolution has refuted the idea of God. He calls it "The Talk." I'm not aware of any repercussions from the un...

On that South Dakota Academic Freedom Bill, Here's More Bad Journalism -- and Science Censorship -- from Patrick Anderson

I have already noted the grossly inaccurate reporting by Patrick Anderson with the Argus Leader in South Dakota, who falsely claimed that the academic freedom bill in that state would bring intelligent design into public schools. Now I've discovered another article by Mr. Anderson, "S.D. plan allows evolution critique in class," which is even more inaccurate.

It opens with the statement that "Creationism would be easier to teach in South Dakota classrooms if a bill in the state Senate become...

With Richard Dawkins's Descent to a Figure of Fun, Atheism Has Lost Its Champion

The spiral to irrelevance is now complete. Read Tim Stanley's hilarious piece in the Telegraph, mocking Dawkins along with Stephen Fry's absurd recent interview in which he indignantly seemed to think he was the first to realize innocent suffering poses a challenge to faith.

The article is funny, but in another way it's dispiriting. Stanley is dead on, observing that "Richard Dawkins’ insanity has now become an English institution -- like warm beer and rain." It seems every day brings someth...

Lamarck Rescued by RNA? New "Level of Organization" Found for Epigenetic Inheritance

Here's the bottom line from a new paper in PNAS: "To our knowledge, these results demonstrate for the first time that a somatic tissue of an animal can have transgenerational effects on a gene through the transport of double-stranded RNA to the germline." Whoa!

The triumphalist history of Darwinism shows Charles Darwin trouncing Lamarck's "inheritance of acquired characteristics" with the new theory of natural selection. The narrative is often given a decisive coup-de-grace with the retelling...

What Does Two Billion Years of "Extreme Evolutionary Stasis" in Bacteria Say About Evolution?

David Klinghoffer wrote earlier regarding that story making the rounds about deep-sea bacteria that seem not to have changed for some two billion years, yet are being cited as powerful evidence for Darwin's theory. As David notes, the ever-dutiful LA Times headlines its article, "By not evolving, deep sea microbes may prove Darwin right," while the Washington Post touts "The mysterious 2 billion-year-old creature that would make Darwin smile." Phys.org goes with a less polemical headline: "S...

Non-Evolving Sulfur Bacteria Are on a March Through the Headlines

I can't decide whether my favorite organism in the news today is King Abdullah, for his righteous wrath and quoting of Clint Eastwood -- or those Australian sulfur bacteria that have stayed stubbornly, exactly the same for two billion plus years, defying what would seem to be evolutionary expectations.

I referred to the latter earlier. They are trending in evolution news currently and generating some priceless headlines. The Los Angeles Times chirps, "By not evolving, deep sea microbes may pr...

It's Coming: Darwin Day in America

It's coming on February 9, just in time for Darwin Day on February 12. Documenting the rise of totalitarian science, it's the expanded paperback edition of Darwin Day In America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, by Center for Science & Culture associate director Dr. John G. West, now with a hard-hitting all new chapter, "Scientism in the Age of Obama -- and Beyond."

From the Preface:

At the dawn of the last century, leading scientists and politicians g...

Sulfur Bacteria, Unchanged for Billions of Years, Confirm Darwinian Evolution. Come Again?

An organism's staying exactly the same for 2 billion years -- in other words, not evolving a bit -- supports the Darwinian theory of evolution, say scientists who studied fossils in rocks from the waters off the West Australian coast and uncovered the "greatest absence of evolution ever reported."

Nope, not The Onion. We read at Science Daily:

An international team of scientists has discovered the greatest absence of evolution ever reported -- a type of deep-sea microorganism that appears not...

What Could Go Wrong? UK Approves Three-Parent Babies

We live in an anything-goes culture in which preventing suffering, or using medicine to achieve anything in life you desire, rules all.

The UK Parliament voted to approve the creation of three-parent embryos. From the BBC story:

The UK is now set to become the first country to introduce laws to allow the creation of babies from three people.

In a free vote in the Commons, 382 MPs were in favour and 128 against the technique that stops genetic diseases being passed from mother to child. During...

On Science and Faith, the "Post-Seculars" Get It

As readers of ENV will know, the 2015 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith is coming up next month, March 20-21, in Bryn Mawr, outside Philadelphia. To register and for more information, go here. The confab will feature renowned Oxford University mathematician John Lennox and Discovery Institute geneticist Michael Denton.

This year the theme is "Cosmos and Creator." On that, some new sociological data is worth chewing on.

In a study just published by the American Sociological Review, re...