Discovery Institute's Blog, page 478

How Was Darwin's Theory Accepted? The Curious History of a Secular Creation Myth, or, Darwin's Cultural Armor, pt. 2

In a post on July 7th I suggested that Darwinian evolution was a "scientific pip-squeak and a suit of cultural armor". Here I would like to examine exactly how that cultural armor was historically constructed. In so doing we will see the stuff of which Darwinism is truly made.

It was Phillip E. Johnson who made the astute observation that "Darwinist evolution is an imaginative story about who we are and where we came from, which is to say it is a creation myth." (Darwin on Trial, p...

Reuters Gets It Wrong: Intelligent Design Isn't Creationism

Reuters made a basic mistake in their recent coverage of the Texas brouhaha over evolution education: they conflated intelligent design and creationism. To wit:

Darwinists Like Religion When It Opposes Human Exceptionalism?

This is so funny. The National Center for Science Education-which spends a lot of time and money castigating my Discovery Institute pals about wanting to teach intelligent design as supposed "religious advocacy" in public schools (they don't)-apparently has no problem with religious argumentation when it supports neo Darwinism and opposes human exceptionalism. From a promo for a lecture by its Director for Religious Community Outreach, Peter M. J. Hess:

Earth's biosphere is poised on...

Jonathan and Paul's Excellent Adventure at the Society for Developmental Biology Annual Meeting

Jonathan Wells and I presented our posters at the 2011 annual meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology this past weekend, and had a great time. For those who don't know what a poster session is, the idea is simple: you summarize your data, experiment, hypothesis, whatever, in the space of a 6' x 4' panel, and then at a scheduled time ("poster session"), stand by your board and field questions from whoever stops by to talk. Jonathan presented his material on Saturday afternoon; you c...

Stephen Meyer on Intelligent Design and Peer Review

Andy Ellington's Citation Bluffs and the Scientific Debate Over the Miller-Urey Experiment

We've seen University of Texas, Austin evolutionary biologist Andy Ellington's low opinion of his fellow Texans who want scientific critique of evolution taught in Texas public schools. Contra Dr. Ellington, this debate is not about "teaching intelligent design or Creationism" but whether we will teach evolution as dogmatic fact. There are legitimate scientific controversies to be taught here.

For example, in his online testimony before the Texas State Board of Education, Ellington takes i...

University of Texas Evolutionary Biologist Andy Ellington Mocks Fellow Texans as "Idiots" and "Laughingstocks" for Doubting Darwin

University of Texas, Austin molecular biologist Andy Ellington has posted a "live-blog" from the Texas State Board of Education hearing on whether to adopt curricula that teach evolution in a one-sided fashion. His blog provides insight into the mind of the average evolutionary scientist at a state university. Let's just say that he looks down upon those who don't agree with him. For example:

He uses ridicule, stating that Texas must "determine whether or not [to be a] laughingstock with...

Eugenie Scott Misrepresents the Law on Evolution Education

Uncommon Descent is reporting that National Center for Science Education (NCSE) executive director Eugenie Scott has stated in a talk: "You cannot teach evidence against evolution. There have been some court decisions that have talked about this including Kitzmiller, but there has not been a really clean test of this idea of teaching evidence against evolution."

Isn't that convenient for Eugenie Scott that she now claims that the courts have insulated evolution from any form of critique in...

Religion Could Be True Only if It Didn't Exist, Reports L.A. Times

As noted already, the Los Angeles Times published a startlingly asinine op-ed by University of Virginia psychiatrist J. Anderson Thomson who "serves as a trustee of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science." ("Science and Religion: God Didn't Make Man, Man Made Gods," July 18.) Writing with medical author Clare Aukofer and citing John Lennon's "Imagine," Dr. Thomson summarizes:

In recent years scientists specializing in the mind have begun to unravel religion's "DNA....

Imagine which came first: God or man?

The authors tell us that brain scans show us that man made God rather than God making man. It's hard to make this stuff up.

The Los Angeles Times has published an opinion piece by J. Anderson Thomson and Clare Aukofer
arguing that brain scans help prove that man creadted God.

In recent years scientists specializing in the mind have begun to unravel religion's "DNA." They have produced robust theories, backed by empirical evidence (including "imaging" studies of the brain at work), that...