Discovery Institute's Blog, page 469

Darwinism and 9/11 Conspiracy Theories: The Parallels

David Berlinski dismisses the bulk of professional scholars in the West as "a native conspiracy class. They'll believe anything. And once they believe something the conspiracy is held very tenaciously." He's poking fun and exaggerating. Yet undeniably there's a paranoiac inclination among many academics.

When I was in college, for example, the fashionable imaginative construct held that society was in the grip of a shadowy white male conspiracy, the Patriarchy. It was a bit like...

At National Review TV, Berlinski on the "Laws of Heaven and Earth"

Asked about the consequences of allowing morality's transcendent base to corrode, under the influence of various forms of what Ben Weiker would call moral Darwinism, David Berlinski on National Review TV cites Samuel Johnson: "All 'the laws of heaven and earth,' Dr. Johnson remarked, are unable to prevent man from his crimes. Surely relaxing the laws of heaven and earth shall not dispose man to better behavior. That seems to be self-evident." Part 4 of David's excellent interview...

Intelligent Design and the Origin of Biological Information: A Response to Dennis Venema

What does intelligent design (ID) say about the origin of biological information? Simply put, ID claims that we can find in nature the type of information that, in our experience, comes from intelligence.

To make this positive scientific inference to design, ID begins with observations about the types of information that are generated by intelligent agents. ID theorists observe that in our experience, high levels of complex and specified information come from intelligence. As Stephen ...

On National Review Online TV, Berlinski Explains What's "Disturbing and Moving" About the Big Bang

Are the Big Bang and the super-finetuning of the physical constants of the universe merely consistent with a Judeo-Christian understanding of creation or do they constitute a more actively suggestive kind of evidence that should positively incline the thoughtful person in favor of such an understanding? That's one good question that Peter Robinson puts to our David Berlinski in Part 3 of National Review Online's video interview. Berlinski:

It's certainly moving and disturbing that...

At National Review Online, Berlinski Skewers Darwinism as "a String of Wet Sponges on a Clothesline"

David Berlinski is the William F. Buckley Jr. of Darwin doubters, so there's a certain fitting (as well as entertaining and enlightening) quality to the series of interviews with Dr. Berlinski being serially aired at National Review Online. Part 2 is now up for view. Peter Robinson, firmly on Berlinski's side on the evolution question, conducts the conversation with a pleasing, modest everyman's sort of manner. Berlinski, of course, is a great talker.

Regarding Darwinian...

Divining Darwin in Butterfly Genes

When you look into the crystal ball of DNA, do you see evolution? A team of scientists carefully examined genomes of a butterfly and a silkworm. What they found was interesting, but dubious as an example of evolutionary ancestry.

Publishing in PLoS ONE, scientists from the U.S., Netherlands, and Portugal took partial data from the African Bush Brown Butterfly (Bicyclus anynana), known for the dazzling array of eyespots on its wings. (The photo above depicts androconial scales; credit: ...

George Will on the Sociology of Science

George Will's column asks tough questions of Republican candidates. We wondered if he would ask about evolution, and he sort of did. But interestingly he poses the question not to Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann but to Jon Huntsman, who brags about believing in evolution and global warming.

You, who preen about having cornered the market on good manners, recently tweeted, "I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." Call you sarcastic. In the 1970s...

Berlinski on Swedish Nudism and the Inordinate Sponginess of Scientific "Naturalism"

Hoover Institution's Peter Robinson does a terrific job of interrogating David Berlinski at National Review Online. The NRO TV interview will come out in five parts. In Part 1, in the context of a discussion of his recent book The Devil's Delusion, Berlinski comments among other things on scientific naturalism:

These dominating terms -- natural, naturalism - when you try to look at them more clearly they turn out to be inordinately spongy. There's really nothing under the term itself...

On the Fundamental Difference Between Darwin-Inspired and Intelligent Design-Inspired Lawsuits

At his blog, Darwin's-God, Discovery Institute fellow Cornelius Hunter has been providing commentary on the recent settlement in the American Freedom Alliance (AFA) v. California Science Center (CSC) lawsuit. In one post, "Why the CSC Case is Important," he asks:

But is this anything more than the sordid tale of a rogue department gone wrong? Were not the usual lines of authority broken and was not this department operating independently of the greater evolution movement? Surely...

Meet an Ajaja Ajaja

In a gesture of what I'd like to imagine as premature scientific inclination, our twins (age 4) have expressed a desire to purchase one of these -- the Roseate Spoonbill, a South American native a/k/a Ajaja Ajaja, or Platalea ajaja -- as a pet and even volunteered to regularly take it out on walks.