Discovery Institute's Blog, page 99
January 23, 2016
United Methodist General Conference Secretary Responds on Intelligent Design Ban
Rev. Jay Voorhees, Executive Editor of the United Methodist Reporter, has published a short report on his church's ban on intelligent design. As readers will know, the UMC barred Discovery Institute from having an information table at the upcoming General Conference in Portland, Oregon. See here for our coverage of the matter so far.
They have offered a variety of rationales for th...
January 22, 2016
If Intelligent Design Is Based on Science, Why Are We Focusing on the United Methodist Church?
We have recently been highlighting the decision by officials at the United Methodist Church (UMC) to deny Discovery Institute an information table at the UMC's upcoming General Conference.
Some readers might be wondering why the fuss. If intelligent design is based on science, why should we be concerned about what happens in the United Methodist Church? And why did we want to have...
For Darwin Day, February 12, Give Us Your Nominations for Censor of the Year!
February 12 is almost upon us. It will be Darwin Day, anniversary of the great man's birth, which we call Academic Freedom Day in homage to Darwin's wise warning that "a fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."
At Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture, it is our custom for the occasion to recognize a Censor of the Year, a person or group that has done outstanding work in seeking to silence skepticis...
Inquiry-Based Science Education -- on Everything but Evolution
Unfortunately, it's typical for advocates of inquiry-based science teaching to apply their good ideas to everything but evolution. Case in point: here is physician Danielle Teller writing over at Quartz to suggest that teaching science as a collection of facts, rather than a process, has contributed to a lack of "science savvy." Yet in the same article she denounces the public's doubts on evolution -- as if Darwinian theory were one "fact" that they ought to have simply swallowed whole.
Dr....
January 21, 2016
Contacted by Those Who Support Open Discussion on Intelligent Design, United Methodist Bishop Lashes Out
United Methodist Bishop Michael Coyner, based in Indiana, has published an online missive chastising the many United Methodists and others who have been contacting him over the United Methodist Church (UMC) decision to ban Discovery Institute from sponsoring an information table at the UMC General Conference in May.
Bishop Coyner complains that his in-box is being filled with angry...
Behold, the Dreaded Information Table
I thought you might want to see just what has top officials at the United Methodist Church running scared. Above is a photo of the dreaded Discovery Institute information table from which the UMC hierarchy felt bound to protect attendees at the upcoming General Conference. There you see our colleague Donald McLaughlin, a United Methodist himself, manning the table at a recent event...
Modular Paint-Box Explains Butterfly Color Patterns
Butterflies of the Amazon exhibit astonishing beauty and diversity. The Heliconius genus, in particular, is striking for its examples of mimicry, where members of different species have converged on the same color patterns on their wings. Collections of these butterflies can be arranged into series where yellow and red spots grow and shrink, grading into one another. How did this diversity come about?
The usual answer is Darwinian evolution -- a mutation of a gene leading to a novelty, then...
Secular Envy Among the Leadership: Why Every Methodist Needs to Worry
Anyone who follows the sociopolitical issues impacting the United Methodist Church (UMC) these days knows that secularism is on the march and finding a congenial home in my church. A perusal of its most recent resolutions shows (among other things) a concern with being up-to-date on "the latest science." defined, at least in part, as Darwinian evolution. You might call it secular envy.
See, for example, the church's commitment to the Clergy Letter Project, which I noted here yesterday. The C...
January 20, 2016
Listen: John West on What's at Stake in the United Methodist Church ID Ban
On a new episode of ID the Future, John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science & Culture, reviews the facts behind the recent decision by the United Methodist Church to ban Discovery Institute from sponsoring an information table at its upcoming General Conference.
Download the episode by clicking here:
Listen in and get the background on the story, find out what's stake, not just for Methodists, and learn more about what you can do to help.
The Alarming Trend to Deprofessionalizing Medicine
Doctors are becoming less physicians and more "service providers." Patients are now akin to customers. In Canada, this may soon require doctors to kill certain patients on demand.
This has many societal ramifications, brought up in a very good column in the LA Times about a controversy about a Catholic hospital refusing to sterilize a woman because it violates Catholic medical ethics. From "Why a Catholic Hospital Shouldn't be Obliged to do a Tubal Ligation," by Fordham University bioethics...
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