Discovery Institute's Blog, page 495

Tennessee House Education Committee Passes Academic Freedom Bill

An academic freedom bill passed out of the Tennessee House Education Committee today by a vote of 9-4.

This follows after scientists and educators testified in support of the bill at a hearing 2 weeks ago. The bill states:

Neither the state board of education, nor any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrator, or any public elementary or secondary school principal or administrator shall prohibit any teacher in a...

NO PEER-REVIEWED I.D. RESEARCH. Just ask Lauri Lebo!

I've never quite understood what serious purpose political bumper stickers are intended to serve. Do drivers really think they're influencing anyone? You put "VOTE FOR SMITH" on your bumper and then the guy in the car behind you who was all set to vote for Jones slaps his forehead and says "Oh, it says 'VOTE FOR SMITH.' That sounds pretty emphatic. I guess poor old Jones will have to do without my support this year!"

Only among Darwinists do bumper-sticker type slogans really seem to aid in...

Michael Behe Hasn't Been Refuted on the Flagellum

Those of us who have been reading the literature surrounding the ID/evolution controversy for any length of time will be quite acquainted with the standard Darwinian retort with regards the "Behean" argument for irreducible complexity as far as the bacterial flagellum is concerned. There seems to be this unanimity of opinion among Darwinian theorists that the claims of irreducible complexity with respect to the bacterial flagellum have been refuted, and that we ID proponents are...

Michael Behe Hasn't Been Refuted on the Flagellum!

Those of us who have been reading the literature surrounding the ID/evolution controversy for any length of time will be quite acquainted with the standard Darwinian retort with regards the "Behean" argument for irreducible complexity as far as the bacterial flagellum is concerned. There seems to be this unanimity of opinion among Darwinian theorists that the claims of irreducible complexity with respect to the bacterial flagellum have been refuted, and that we ID proponents are constantly...

The Defenders Darwin Wouldn't Claim

David Klinghoffer recently authored a thoughtful article in the Washington Post titled "How Evolutionary Theory's Other Discoverer Could Heal the Darwin Divide," an article that drew the predictable responses from Darwin's defenders demonstrating the usual lack of civility, faulty logic, and historical errors. Nevertheless, the fact that these comments are so predictable and typical is worth a response if only because they are exemplary in exposing their utter vacuousness.

There is little...

Tennessee Academic Freedom Bill Backed by Scientists

Tennessee House Bill 368 will move to a vote by the House General Subcommittee of Education after expert testimony from scientists and educators who expressed their concern that students need to learn more about science and develop critical thinking skills.

Among those who testified in favor of the bill were Ph.D. biologist Robin Zimmer, Executive Director of Center for Biomedical Research in Knoxville, and Harold Morrison, a recently retired biology teacher with 30 years experience...

Coppedge Lawsuit Against NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab Amended to Allege Wrongful Termination

In light of his being fired in January, David Coppedge's discrimination lawsuit against Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has been amended to allege wrongful termination.

We covered this story when it first broke, explaining that Mr. Coppedge was fired after serving on NASA's Cassini Mission to Saturn since 1997. JPL of course claims the firing resulted from downsizing in the face of budget issues, but Coppedge was one of the most senior members of the team that oversees the computers o...

Behe's Critics' Scaffolding Falls Down

In their response to Michael Behe in Quarterly Review of Biology, Maarten Boudry, Stefaan Blancke, and Johan Braeckman raise a common objection to irreducible complexity, claiming that even if an irreducibly complex system cannot function if it loses parts, it might still function if it gains parts. The problem is that this "scaffolding" argument lacks biological analogues.

If we trace backward along the evolutionary pathway, perhaps the system first gains parts until there is a sort of...

Michael Behe's Critics Misunderstand Irreducible Complexity and Make Darwinian Evolution Unfalsifiable

When Michael Behe published a paper in Quarterly Review of Biology (QRB) in December, 2010, the journal's editors apparently felt compelled to also publish in the same issue a companion article, titled "Irreducible Incoherence and Intelligent Design -- a look into the conceptual toolbox of a pseudoscience." The title alone gives a hint at its rhetorically charged nature.

The paper apparently serves as QRB's penance for publishing Michael Behe's paper, which had far more measured arguments...

Venter vs. Dawkins on the Tree of Life -- and Another Dawkins Whopper

Another Dawkins Whopper: The Universality of the Genetic Code

Since at least the publication of The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Richard Dawkins has claimed that the genetic code is universal across all organisms on earth. This is "near-conclusive proof," he writes, that every living thing on this planet "descended from a single common ancestor" (1986, p. 270) at the root of Darwin's universal tree of life.

More recently, Dawkins repeated the claim in his bestseller The Greatest Show On Earth