Discovery Institute's Blog, page 4

Fake News: Washington Post's Valerie Strauss "Reports" on South Dakota Academic Freedom Bill

Over at the Washington Post, reporter Valerie Strauss engages in fear-mongering over South Dakota's academic freedom bill (SB 55). Unfortunately, this is not her first time misrepresenting such bills.

Strauss provokes alarm about a lack of accountability -- "maverick teachers" who can teach whatever they wish. However, SB 55 offers very limited freedoms. Indeed, the language of the bill says that teachers can only present information in an "objective scientific manner." Under this legislatio...

Washington Post Fake News Purveyor Valerie Strauss "Reports" on South Dakota Academic Freedom Bill

Over at the Washington Post, reporter Valerie Strauss engages in fear-mongering over South Dakota's academic freedom bill (SB 55). Unfortunately, this is not her first time misrepresenting such bills.

Strauss provokes alarm about a lack of accountability -- "maverick teachers" who can teach whatever they wish. However, SB 55 offers very limited freedoms. Indeed, the language of the bill says that teachers can only present information in an "objective scientific manner." Under this legislatio...

What Darwinists Don't Tell You: Valentine's Day Edition

Darwinism is replete with salesmanship, some of it thoroughly deceptive. Pushing the false dichotomy of evolution versus Young Earth Creationism, as if there were no alternative to these two, is one way that evolutionists bully and mislead non-scientists. Sadly, they are joined in this by some creationists.

Tom Bethell, author of Darwin's House of Cards: A Journalist's Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates, points out that from Darwin himself on up to today, advocates of the theory have habitua...

Eye Evolution: A Closer Look

In a previous article I described how theories of innovation provide insight into the limits of natural selection. I will now apply those concepts to hypotheses regarding the evolution of the vertebrate eye, a subject that, since the time of Charles Darwin, has been near center of the debate over the creative power of natural selection. As Darwin himself stated in the Origin of Species:

To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distance...

A Son Realizes the Irrepressible Truth

Recently while seeing a new hospice patient with severe heart failure, I encountered the man's son, who happens to work in manufacturing. The younger man sought to better understand his father's medical condition and with it the relevant treatment options. So, beginning with the anatomy of the heart and its role within the cardiovascular system, we quickly moved on to what happens when the heart fails and how this had manifested in his father.

The son proved to be an astute interlocutor, as...

With Fresh Funding, ENCODE Team Continues Demolition of "Junk DNA" Myth

Is there treasure in the DNA's so-called "junk" pile? Well, as the first half of a popular saying goes, money talks. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) just funded five centers to explore what the "dark matter genome" (the non-protein-coding part) is doing. Two of the centers will be at the University of California, San Francisco, which describes the new project:

"The Human Genome Project mapped the letters of the human genome, but it didn't tell us anything about the grammar: where the...

Happy Darwin Day! German Natural History Museum Is Our 2017 Censor of the Year

The often-heard assertion that a scientific "consensus" exists in favor of orthodox Darwinian theory is true on the surface, but otherwise deceptive. Yes, a large majority of scientists if pressed, especially in public, would hastily affirm that neo-Darwinism explains the development of complex biological forms.

We know, however, that this apparent agreement conceals a great deal of intellectual and personal turmoil, just behind the facade. The unanimity is maintained by a tight discipline t...

With Darwin Day Coming Tomorrow, Here's Tom Bethell on Darwin's Deception

Update: Darwin Day is also Academic Freedom Day. Be sure to check back in here after midnight to find out who our 2017 Censor of the Year will be!

This year, Darwin Day falls on a Sunday -- tomorrow, February 12. Of all the Darwinist talking points, the most transparently false may be the claim that this 19th-century materialist theory of origins poses no challenge whatsoever to serious, sincere religious belief.

Oh, please! Do they really think we're that gullible? Well, maybe they are not...

"Revolutionary" Michael Behe Tours Florida

Over 500 Floridians came out to hear biochemist Michael Behe in a pair of Tampa Bay premieres of the new documentary Revolutionary, followed by Q&A sessions that went on for an hour or more at two locations.

At the University of South Florida, the discussion period was "fantastic," according to one organizer, and the time allotted had to be extended. Many who knew little of design theory, or who had doubts based on limited previous awareness, were on hand. At a gathering at Calvary Church in...

The Truth about Soviet Science and Darwinian Evolution Isn't as Darwinists Would Like Us to Believe

As an article at The Conversation by Professors Ian Godwin and Yuri Trusov observes, "The tragic story of Soviet genetics shows the folly of political meddling in science."

There is much truth in the article, but its authors assume that during the era of Trofim Lysenko the Soviet government persecuted people who "embraced evolution and genetics." On this point, they quote "Australia's Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, [who] mentioned him [that is, Lysenko] during a speech at a meeting of chief s...