Discovery Institute's Blog, page 491

If Discussing Criticisms of Darwin's Theory Amounts to Promoting Intelligent Design . . .

You'd have to call an awful lot of prominent scientists ID supporters.

A favorite Darwinist conspiracy theory is to claim that education policies requiring critical analysis of evolution are simply a guise for teaching intelligent design (ID). The Knoxville News Sentinel went off the rails on exactly such a conspiracy rant, misrepresenting Discovery Institute's position on science education, and misrepresenting the current academic freedom legislation being debated in the Tennessee...

Richard Lenski, "Evolvability," and Tortuous Darwinian Pathways

Several papers on the topic of "evolvability" have been published relatively recently by the laboratory of Richard Lenski.12 Most readers of this site will quickly recognize Lenski as the Michigan State microbiologist who has been growing cultures of E. coli for over twenty years in order to see how they would evolve, patiently transferring a portion of each culture to new media every day, until the aggregate experiment has now passed 50,000 generations. I'm a huge fan of Lenski et...

When Theory and Experiment Collide

I've argued that Darwin's mechanism probably isn't powerful enough to produce proteins with fundamentally new structures. [1] If that's correct it's a serious problem for the old theory, because we know that new protein structures--new folds, as they are known--appeared well over a thousand times in the history of life. If Darwinism doesn't account for these then whatever else it may be, it isn't a complete theory of biological origins.

New protein functions don't always call for completely...

NCSE's Steve Newton and the "Creationism" Gambit

Last December, I wrote an op-ed in Christian Science Monitor arguing that Darwin lobbyists abuse the first amendment by relabeling scientific critique of evolution as "creationism":

Courts have uniformly found that creationism is a religious viewpoint and thus illegal to teach in public school science classes. By branding scientific views they dislike as "religion" or "creationism," the Darwin lobby scares educators from presenting contrary evidence or posing critical questions - a subtle but ...

Catholics and Intelligent Design, Part Two

This is the second in a series responding to certain Catholic critics of intelligent design. In this installment, we discuss the (proper and improper) role of philosophy in Christian theology, and then explore how Thomas Aquinas uses and modifies Aristotle's distinction between nature and art. This may seem like an obscure issue, but it's actually central to this debate. Finally, by way of contrast, we consider Robert Boyle, a Protestant "teleo-mechanist" who was a staunch critic of A...

Catholics and Intelligent Design, Part 2

This is the second in a series responding to certain Catholic critics of intelligent design. In this installment, we discuss the (proper and improper) role of philosophy in Christian theology, and then explore how Thomas Aquinas uses and modifies Aristotle's distinction between nature and art. This may seem like an obscure issue, but it's actually central to this debate. Finally, by way of contrast, we consider Robert Boyle, a Protestant "teleo-mechanist" who was a staunch critic of...

Recant! Pushing Creeds as Damage Control for Darwin (Update)

Biologist Thomas H. Huxley, the great defender of Darwin, once famously warned that "Science commits suicide when she adopts a creed." Unfortunately, not all modern evolutionary biologists respect such wisdom.

Consider a January, 2011 op-ed at Christian Science Monitor by Steve Newton of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). Mr. Newton boasts that biologist Eugene V. Koonin agrees with the famous Darwinian geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, who once declared, "Nothing biology...

Recant! Pushing Creeds as Damage Control for Darwin

Biologist Thomas H. Huxley, the great defender of Darwin, once famously warned that "Science commits suicide when she adopts a creed." Unfortunately, not all modern evolutionary biologists respect such wisdom.

Consider a January, 2011 op-ed at Christian Science Monitor by Steve Newton of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). Newton boasts that biologist Eugene V. Koonin agrees with the famous Darwinian geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, who once declared, "Nothing biology makes ...

When Politics Holds Science Hostage

It's a familiar narrative that pervades our culture: conservatives let their "values" get in the way of scientific advances that affect the health and happiness of our nation. The truth, which David Klinghoffer points out at National Review Online, is that advocacy groups are manipulating the discussion, particularly in the area of stem cell research:

"The Republican war on science" is a catchy phrase coined by journalist Chris Mooney in a 2005 book of the same name. According to the...

PZ Myers, the Baldwin Effect, "Wolpert abuse," and Quote-Mining

1. Call me a quote-miner, and I'll see you outside -- wait, you didn't even read the article?



I'll have a lot more to say about ontogenetic depth, in a "here's where I think the idea needs to go" vein. This past weekend, however, PZ Myers responded to Parts I and II of the OD series, with what can only be described as a string of non-sequiturs.

That's okay. Even non-sequiturs can provide useful teaching material. Myers' response shows that natural selection does not solve the problem of ...