Month: September 2007
MSNBC Jumps on the Transhumanist / New-Age Evolutionary Bandwagon
MSNBC loves to promote the view that humans evolved from anthropoid ancestors (see here or here for a couple examples). Now MSNBC has created an online exhibit (and accompanying article) entitled “Before and After Humans” that not only promotes standard views of humans evolution, but also supports transhumanism: the view that humans will evolve into a new, higher species. MSNBC’s “possible futur[e]” for the human species goes something like this: Within one million years, global gene mixing eliminates the races and the “Unihumans” develop a global “monoculture.” That sounds reasonable enough. Next some global catastrophe kills off large portions of humanity, and the “Survivalistians” must adapt to extreme conditions, evolving “night-vision” and “radiation-shielding skin.” If that sounds a little weird, Read More ›
Baylor University Denies Research Scientist’s Academic Freedom
“Baylor University has proven yet again that academic freedom has been thrown off campus and academic persecution is now the norm,” said Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin in reaction to Baylor University’s deletion of a professor’s research website, which focused on evolutionary systems and informatics. “It is simply unconscionable that a major university would so trample a scientist’s right to freedom of scientific inquiry,” Baylor University has taken offline the Evolutionary Informatics Laboratory website that had been administered by Robert Marks, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor, because the administration claimed there were anonymous complaints linking the lab to intelligent design.
Nine Gorilla Teeth and a Confession of Evolutionist Ignorance
As I’ve noted before, it is often only after Darwinists report a new fossil discovery that they retroactively admit how little they previously knew about a given evolutionary transition. This happened again recently as a team of paleoanthropologists reported finding 6-7 million year-old fossil gorilla teeth that Nature News claimed “helps to fill in a huge gap in the fossil record.” Accompanying this find, however, was a striking admission of ignorance regarding the evolution of humans: “The human fossil record goes back 6 to 7 million years, but we know nothing about how the human line actually emerged from apes,” the researchers said in a statement on Wednesday that accompanied publication of their study in the journal Nature. “Chororapithecus gives Read More ›
Academic Freedom Expelled from Baylor University
According to CSC senior fellow and leading ID theorist William Dembski, what follows is: “[A] big story, perhaps the biggest story yet of academic suppression relating to ID. Robert Marks is a world-class expert in the field of evolutionary computing, and yet the Baylor administration, without any consideration of the actual content of Marks’s work at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, decided to shut it down simply because there were anonymous complaints linking the lab to intelligent design.” Read on if you care at all about academic freedom and protecting the right of scientists to freedom of scientific inquiry.
The Privileged Planet: Such a Dangerous Idea Its Author Had To Be Stifled
Regular visitors to ENV know well the recent trials and tribulations of astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, who was denied tenure in spite of his stellar credentials. Now it seems the rest of the world will learn about Gonzalez’ persecution for being a proponent of intelligent design. Expelled, the forthcoming film that explores the academic persecution of pro-ID scientists, apparently will be featuring some of Gonzalez’s story. After his tenure was denied earlier this year, a faculty member at ISU on the tenure committee admitted he voted against Gonzalez because of his support for, and research into, intelligent design theory. While he didn’t teach about ID in his classes at Iowa State University, Gonzalez did co-author an important ID book, The Privileged Read More ›