Month: August 2007
Essential Reading: The Mystery of Life’s Origin
[Editor’s Note: This is the first of a series of essential readings we’re highlighting in the evolution-ID debate]The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current TheoriesBy Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, Roger L. OlsenThe Philosophical Library of New York, 1984, 228 pagesISBN 0-929510-02-8 A seminal work for the theory of intelligent design, this book provides a scientific critique of the prevailing paradigmatic theories of chemical evolution. The authors include Discovery fellows Charles Thaxton and Walter Bradley, and they conclude that the prebiotic soup from which the first cell supposedly arose is a myth. The Miller-Urey experiments employed an unrealistic gas mixture, and there is no geological evidence for its existence in Earth’s distant past. The “soup” faces a myriad of Read More ›
Questioning Darwin’s Theory in Your Child’s School: You Have the Right to Remain Silent…
We’ve gotten a couple of e-mails challenging my observation in a recent post that questioning Darwin’s theory in a public school is a federal crime. The reader implied that, because there is no federal statute explicitly censoring criticism of Darwin’s theory in public schools, it wasn’t a federal crime to do so. The issue of censorship in science classes in public schools is worth examining more closely. Is it a federal crime to question Darwin’s theory in a public school? In some public schools it certainly is. It’s a federal crime to violate a federal court ruling, such as the ruling by federal judge John E. Jones banning criticism of Darwin’s theory in the curriculum of biology classes in Dover, Read More ›
Paleoanthropologists Disown Homo habilis from Our Direct Family Tree
An Associated Press article titled “African fossils paint messy picture of human evolution” explains that common popular conceptions of human evolution are incorrect: “Surprising fossils dug up in Africa are creating messy kinks in the iconic straight line of human evolution with its knuckle-dragging ape and briefcase-carrying man.” Indeed, the inappropriateness of such “straight line” depictions of human evolution was one of Jonathan Wells’ main points in chapter 11 in Icons of Evolution, “From Ape to Human: The Ultimate Icon.” A Harvard biological anthropologist stated the newly reported fossils reveal, “how poorly we understand the transition from being something much more apelike to something more humanlike.” The Associated Press article goes on to explain why Homo habilis can no longer Read More ›
“A Stealth Creationist Theory” Which Is Neither Stealth Nor Creationist: Discuss!
Stealth: the act or action of proceeding furtively, secretly, or imperceptiblyPronunciation: ‘stelthFunction: nounEtymology: Middle English stelthe; akin to Old English stelan to steal Richard Brookhiser’s recent TIME magazine article “Matters of Morality” is just lovely in its description of intelligent design: In 2005 Bush said that both intelligent design (a stealth creationist theory) and evolution ought to be taught in schools. Wow. First of all, ID is not creationism–and no one is more vociferously insistent about this than the major creationist organizations like Answers In Genesis. We’ve heard this charge before. But stealth? Stealth…like black helicopter stealth? I guess we better take all of our pro-ID websites down. Michael Behe better round back up the quarter million copies of Darwin’s Read More ›
Who Picks Reviewers at the New York Times?
I just threw up my hands when I saw that the New York Times Review of Books had assigned Richard Dawkins to review Michael Behe’s excellent new book, The Edge of Evolution. A more temperate soul, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus of First Things, takes apart the Times’s decision with greater care.