Month: July 2007
A More Sensible Solution to Religious Bias in Science
One of the key expert witnesses for the ACLU in the Dover trial was Barbara Forrest, a Professor of Philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University. She recently authored a paper entitled “Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals,” (May 2007) in which a major theme is that, since nearly all of the leading intelligent design proponents are Christians who have expressed a preference for a Christian influenced culture, their scientific efforts cannot be trusted as bona fide science. Forrest’s claim, echoing a common theme of Darwinists, is that since the vast majority of intelligent design promoters are Christians, their scientific work must necessarily be so biased by their religious beliefs as to be compromised. On this basis, Read More ›
Jack Russell Terriers and Cockroaches: A Challenge to Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins reviewed Mike Behe’s new book The Edge of Evolution in the June 30 New York Times Book Review. Dawkins offered no surprises. Much of the review was simply a sneer: I had expected to be as irritated by Michael Behe’s second book as by the first. I had not expected to feel sorry for him…[this] is the book of a man who has given up. Trapped along a false path of his own rather unintelligent design, Behe has left himself no escape. Poster boy of creationists everywhere, he has cut himself off from the world of real science. Nothing new here. Dawkins uses the standard Darwinist ad-hominem attacks. What’s remarkable about the review is Dawkins’ lack of substantial Read More ›
Dembski, West Make Olasky’s Book List
WORLD Magazine Editor in Chief Marvin Olasky is a reader whose impeccable taste is matched only by his voracious appetite. In the last seven years he has noted around 400 “books worth reading,” and now he has culled them down to 100 favorite books from July 2000 to now. William Dembski’s Signs of Intelligence and Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing were both included on the list, as was John West’s Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest.
Sean Carroll Fails to Scale The Edge of Evolution (Part IV): Mistaking Protein Sequence Similarity for Natural Selection
[Editor’s Note: This is Part 4 of a 4-part response. The full response can be read here.] In Part I of this series, I discussed Sean Carroll’s misrepresentations of Michael Behe’s arguments in The Edge of Evolution. Part II exposed a citation referenced by Carroll which, rather than refuting Behe, actually confirms him. Part III explained the fact that many of Carroll’s citations discuss meager examples of evolution that Behe finds fall well within the humble creative capabilities of Darwinian evolution. Carroll has thus far failed to engage Behe’s actual arguments. Carroll does make an attempt to tackle the origin of a couple complex biological features. Yet these attempts fail because they confuse the evidence for common descent from sequence Read More ›
Dawkins Attacks Behe in New York Times, But Where’s the Science?
Perhaps the most striking feature of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion is its lack of science. I had thought that this was an anomaly, but Dawkins’ New York Times review (out Sunday) of Michael Behe’s The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism is the same patchwork of fallacies devoid of science as The God Delusion. Let me count the ways…