Discovery Institute's Blog, page 221

September 18, 2014

Coming Next Month, It's The Unofficial Guide to Cosmos: Fact and Fiction in Neil deGrasse Tyson's Landmark Science Series

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If Neil deGrasse Tyson were the type of man to habitually wear a hat, you could say that Sean Davis at The Federalist knocked it clear off his head. Davis has caught some excellent and well-deserved attention for his posts documenting Tyson's serial errors and misrepresentations, including a particularly egregious and repeated story about President George W. Bush.


Read @seanmdav on Neil deGrasse Tyson's totally bizarre anti-George W. Bush fabulism: http://t.co/2fpEXJyCXm

— Ross Douthat (@Douth...
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Published on September 18, 2014 04:20

September 17, 2014

So, Chimps Are Vicious Killers

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Animal rights activists and others sometimes act as if chimpanzees and bonobos are somehow better than humans, not violent like us.


That was certainly the implication of studies conducted to determine if chimp violence was our fault.Nope. They are vicious killers -- not only of preylike monkeys -- but each other. From the New York Times story:


Are chimpanzees naturally violent to one another, or has the intrusion of humans into their environment made them aggressive? A new study, published Wed...

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Published on September 17, 2014 16:45

So, Chimps are Vicious Killers

HugoRheinholdApeWithSkull.DarwinMonkey.2.jpg


Animal rights activists and others sometimes act as if chimpanzees and bonobos are somehow better than humans, not violent like us.


That was certainly the implication of studies conducted to determine if chimp violence was our fault.Nope. They are vicious killers -- not only of preylike monkeys -- but each other. From the New York Times story:


Are chimpanzees naturally violent to one another, or has the intrusion of humans into their environment made them aggressive? A new study, published Wed...

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Published on September 17, 2014 16:45

Surprise! Here's Something You Didn't Know About William Dembski


Savor the irony in this odd fact about the educational background of mathematician, philosopher, and leading intelligent-design theorist Bill Dembski. And while you're doing that, take a moment to pre-order Dr. Dembski's important new book, Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information. It's the next big thing in the field of ID, and the steep 34 percent discount will expire on September 30. The retail price is $34.95 but if you don't dawdle about it you can get the book for $22.95, which...

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Published on September 17, 2014 10:06

A Scientist's Unethical Quote Fabrication

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Neil deGrasse Tyson is supposedly a scientist of such renown that the Fox network decided to build the new Cosmos TV series around him. Fox was repaid -- deservedly -- by really bad ratings. The programs not only were boringbut also revealed one factual misstatementafter another.


Tyson turns out to be a political propagandist for a particular secular agenda, not an objective observer of science. Similarly, Tyson now has been called out by The Federalistfor serial fabrications of quotations on...

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Published on September 17, 2014 05:42

September 16, 2014

At Yale, Official Correctors Are Thwarted; Memories of Meyer, Wells at the University of Oklahoma

360px-Yale_University_Shield_1.svg.pngAyaan Hirsi Ali, women's rights advocate and vocal critic of Islam, spoke at Yale yesterday without incident, despite objections from Muslim and other student groups. At National Review Online, the brilliant Yale computer science professor David Gelernter wrote a scathing and very funny reply to the protest contingent, which in turn caught the eye and won the admiration of -- irony alert! -- Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True. Dr. Coyne, our currently reigning Censor of the Year, wonders wh...

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Published on September 16, 2014 17:43

Forget Cosmos, Here's Further Confirmation of Neil Tyson's Tendency to Commit Taradiddles

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While Neil deGrasse Tyson was rolling out the 13 episodes of Cosmos, we pointed out the many distortions and untruths woven into the program's narrative, pitting science against religion and promoting the idea that neither humanity nor planet Earth is in any way special. How likely was it that Tyson, in the rest of his public activities, has hewed to the truth on science, religion -- or, let's say, politics? Not likely, you would think.



So it's confirming and not all that surprising to read S...

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Published on September 16, 2014 10:21

The "New Atheism" Has a Problem with Women

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A long and fascinating article at Buzzfeed ("Will Misogyny Bring Down The Atheist Movement?") is worth reading if you don't mind a lot of crude language. Reporter Mark Oppenheimer describes the misogynist culture of the atheist-"skeptic"-materialist demimonde, and it's an eye-opener.


I will not quote from it because the most fascinating passages would exceed the limits of tolerance for graphic talk by ENV's family-friendly audience. Suffice to say that, whether the rampant accusations of sex...

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Published on September 16, 2014 04:37

September 15, 2014

Pushing Back Against Human "Dignity Deniers"

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Human dignity should not need defending. But Jefferson's "self-evident" truths are deemed so no longer.


That's frightening because, if nothing else, it is impossible to defend universal human rights if we don't perceive human beings as having unique dignity simply and merely because they are human.


That is why I was glad to see an article in the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics rebutting the "dignity deniers" in the context of an article about why -- as one example -- it is wrong to u...

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Published on September 15, 2014 17:29

Now It's Whale Hips: Another Icon of Darwinian Evolution, Vestigial Structures, Takes a Hit

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In the case presented by advocates of Darwinian evolution, vestigial organs are a star in the firmament, frequently and gloatingly pointed to. Darwin himself cited them as such in The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, referring to body parts like the human appendix that, he believed, no longer serve a function:



On the view of each organism with all its separate parts having been specially created, how utterly inexplicable is it that organs bearing the plain stamp of inutility... shou...

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Published on September 15, 2014 04:05

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