Michael Behe’s dialogue with Jerry Coyne

Now that Michael Behe has started addressing his critics over at his Amazon blog, some of them are beginning to take notice. Jerry Coyne, University of Chicago evolutionary biologist, has posted a reply to Behe at TalkReason.org. Now Behe is including a few of his salient points and his responses to them on his Amazon blog so we can all keep track of the conversation. So far he has posted part 1 here — hopefully part 2 isn’t far behind.

A Science Myth from the New York Times

On June 26 the New York Times ran an article by Douglas H. Erwin, senior scientist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, in which he stated as demonstrated fact the power of natural selection to create the eye. We now can see (forgive the pun) that natural selection “is the primary agent in shaping new adaptations.” His example? “Computer simulations,” he declares, “have shown how selection can produce a complex eye from a simple eyespot in just a few hundred thousand years.” Really, Dr. Erwin? Where is your proof of this important fact? What computer simulations, published where and when and by whom? Just a citation or two will do.

Pat Sullivan and Marketing Darwin

On June 18th, blogger Pat Sullivan posted his thoughts on the difficulties that Darwinists are having with the public acceptance of their theory. Pat is an entrepreneur and a marketing expert who is the creator of ACT! and SalesLogix, software programs that help businesses with marketing and customer relations. When it comes to marketing, he knows what he’s talking about. He observes: What interests me as a marketing observer is this; after tens of thousands of exposures to the Darwin marketing “message” only some 34% of people buy the message. And with almost NO exposures to the contrary message except in Sunday school and mom and dad, 66% of people believe we were created by a designer. Personally, I believe Read More ›

The Dawkins Delusion:” Right on Dawkins, Wrong on Intelligent Design

When my copy of Alister and Joanna Collicut McGrath’s The Dawkins Delusion: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine recently arrived, I was struck by its short length. I immediately wondered if it was short because Richard Dawkins himself provided scant substance in his The God Delusion to which to respond. According to the McGraths, my suspicions were correct: It is, in fact, actually rather difficult to write a response to this book [The God Delusion]–but not because it is well-argued or because it marshals such overwhelming evidence in its favor. The book is often little more than an aggregation of convenient factoids suitably overstated to achieve maximum impact and loosely arranged to suggest that they constitute an argument. Read More ›

John West’s Forthcoming Book: Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science

Next Fall ISI Books will release CSC associate director Dr. John West’s important book, Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science. Darwin Day in America tells the disturbing story of scientific expertise run amuck, exposing how an ideological interpretation of Darwinian biology and reductionist science have been used to degrade American culture over the past century through their impact on criminal justice, welfare, business, education, and bioethics.