“Expelled Exposed” Is Wrong: Materialists Allowed to Challenge Neo-Darwinian Orthodoxy, Intelligent Design Proponents Are Not

[Note: For a more comprehensive rebuttal to “Expelled Exposed,” please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org] We’re often told that the evidence for neo-Darwinian evolution — where unguided natural selection acting on random mutations is the driving force generating the complexity and diversity of life — is “overwhelming.” But hints of dissent from this position can be found throughout the mainstream scientific literature. One article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution last year acknowledged that there exists a “healthy debate concerning the sufficiency of neo-Darwinian theory to explain macroevolution”.[1] Likewise, Günter Theißen of the Department of Genetics at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany recently wrote earlier this year in the journal Theory in Biosciences: while we already have a quite Read More ›

Founding Father Thomas Jefferson on Intelligent Design

ID the Future podcast has a special edition worth checking out today: Founding Father Thomas Jefferson on Intelligent Design Click here to listen. Critics of intelligent design sometimes claim they are defending the principles of American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson in trying to ban discussions of intelligent design. In the words of one writer, “Thomas Jefferson makes it quite clear that there was not a consensus of support among the authors of the Constitution… to support theological doctrines such as intelligent design.” But would Thomas Jefferson himself agree? In this special July 4th edition of ID the Future, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow John West explores the real views of Jefferson on intelligent design.

Did Vision Evolve?

Those textbook diagrams showing the supposed evolution of vision reveal a real blind spot. There are at least three big problems with this evolutionary narrative. First, the biochemistry, even in primitive eyes is numbingly complex. The notion that it evolved is nowhere motivated by the scientific evidence. Second, if a new vision capability did just happen magically to arise, it would be worthless since there would be no interpretation of the new signals in the brain. And third, speaking of signals, the signal processing that goes on between the initial signal transduction and the brain is profound. The signal transduction, as phenomenally complex as that is, is only the beginning.