The Cracked Haeckel Approach to Evolutionary Reasoning

There’s an old lawyers’ joke about the “cracked kettle” approach to legal argumentation. Jones sues Smith for borrowing her kettle and returning it with a crack in it. Smith’s lawyer then defends her with the following arguments (in order): In my book Icons of Evolution I described a 2000 conference talk in which Kevin Padian (President of the National Center for Science Education) used argumentation very much like this to defend his claim that birds are modified descendants of dinosaurs.1 Darwinists are now using a similar approach to defend Ernst Haeckel’s embryo drawings.

Time’s Darwinist Thought-Cop Accuses Pro-ID Brain Surgeon of Committing “Intellectual Fraud”

In honor of Darwin Day this week we issued our annual update to the Scientific Dissent from Darwin list. Apparently, it is dishonest to point out that 700 scientists are skeptical of Darwinian evolution. Never mind that we have never tried to claim that a majority of scientists are Darwin doubters, not even close. The whole point of the list was to refute the claim in PBS’ 2001 Evolution series that no scientists doubted Darwin. (Then it was ‘no credible scientists’; which became ‘well, not very many scientists’; and so on.) Still. Time magazine journalist Michael Lemonick got himself all in a huff over the list. So much so he even attacked the doctor we quoted in the release about Read More ›

The Origin of Life: Not so Simple (Part II)

Writing in Scientific American Robert Shapiro recounts many criticisms of popular models for the chemical origin of life. Part I recounted why many origin of life theorists reject the possibility that DNA was the first genetic molecule. As noted, Shapiro even takes aim at those who suggest that the Miller-Urey experiment chemistry was important for forming prebiotic molecules on meteorites because studies of these meteorites show “a bias toward the formation of molecules made of fewer rather than greater numbers of carbon atoms, and thus shows no partiality in favor of creating the building blocks of our kind of life.” Due to these deficiencies, Shapiro then notes that increasing numbers of prebiotic chemists now turn to RNA as the first Read More ›

Russian News Service Writer Gets it Right on Darwin Issue

RIA Novosti news service writer Alexander Arkhangelsky discusses culture, politics and science in an insightful article (“Cartoons and Darwin”) that should give Americans pause. Cultural traditions in Russia today simultaneously bounce off the old Soviet values, pre-Revolutionary values (evoking the prominence of the Orthodox Church) and the rather chaotic commercial and political influences of the present. Where Arkhangelsky comes down seems to us eminently sound: “Students should know about Darwinism and anti-Darwinism, the scientific and the religious.” If he means the science on both sides and the religion ON BOTH SIDES, I would have to agree — for Russians. Here in America, we should stick to the scientific case on both sides. That alone would be a huge advantage. But Read More ›

Seattle P.I. Columnist Looks Into the Future

It looks like mainstream journalists are beginning to take notice of the persecution of Darwin-skeptics. Writing in yesterday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Joel Connelly asks us to “Take a look at Seattle in the year 2077.” His satirical history from that vantage point–looking back at today from the future–sees oddities of many kinds. Among them, Darwin-skeptics, including Discovery Institute’s president Bruce Chapman, will be imprisoned because they “refused to recant their criticism of Darwin.” Connelly writes: Conservative scholars of the Discovery Institute refused to recant their criticism of Darwin. Joshua took us past a converted theater on Pine Street reserved for such “hard-core” offenders. The Discovery scholars were forced to watch, 18 hours a day, House speeches by former Rep. Cynthia McKinney Read More ›