Year: 2010
Peloza v. Capistrano Independent Unified School District: Evolution May Be Taught Even if it Conflicts With Religious Beliefs
Peloza v. Capistrano Independent Unified School District is a well-known case from the 9th Circuit in 1994 where a federal court of appeals found that it is legal to teach evolution even if a teacher feels it conflicts with his religious beliefs. While the court was correct to hold that it is perfectly legal to require that evolution be part of the curriculum, unfortunately they expressed no sympathy whatsoever for the millions of Americans who feel that teaching evolution is not religiously neutral. 1. SummaryIn Peloza v. Capistrano, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a teacher can be ordered to teach evolution, even if the theory conflicts with his or her religious beliefs.93 John Peloza, a high school Read More ›
Listen in as Stephen Meyer Debates Peter Atkins on the U.K.’s Premier Radio
UPDATED: Today, Premier Radio UK is airing a debate recorded earlier this week between Signature in the Cell author Stephen Meyer and noted Oxford University chemist and “new atheist” Peter Atkins. The debate is part of the kick off of promotion for Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which arrives in the UK on DVD this month. Both Atkins and Meyer are accomplished scholars with very different viewpoints. The at times testy back and forth between them is as entertaining as it is enlightening. Click here to listen to the debate, which is about an hour long. Dr. Atkins, is a noted critic of intelligent design and author who appeared in Expelled, stating: “Religion, it’s just fantasy … and is evil as Read More ›
Responding to Stephen Fletcher’s Views in the Times Literary Supplement on the RNA World
To the EditorThe Times Literary SupplementThe RNA World Sir:Having with indignation rejected the assumption that the creation of life required an intelligent design, Mr Fletcher has persuaded himself that it has proceeded instead by means of various chemical scenarios. These scenarios all require intelligent intervention. In his animadversions, Mr Fletcher suggests nothing so much as a man disposed to denounce alcohol while sipping sherry. The RNA world to which Mr Fletcher has pledged his allegiance was introduced by Carl Woese, Leslie Orgel and Francis Crick in 1967. Mystified by the appearance in the contemporary cell of a chicken in the form of the nucleic acids, and an egg in the form of the proteins, Woese, Orgel and Crick argued that Read More ›
Critics in the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology Take the Easy Way Out in Attacking Intelligent Design
It’s always easier to refute your opponent’s position by replacing it with an outlandish straw man. The most recent issue of the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology contains a paper by Guillermo Paz-y-Miño of University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Avelina Espinosa of Roger Williams University, titled “Integrating Horizontal Gene Transfer and Common Descent to Depict Evolution and Contrast It with ‘Common Design’” that takes this approach to attacking intelligent design (ID). As suggested by the title, the article attempts to critique the argument that similar features in diverse organisms can be explained by common design. It cites to both a 1996 paper by Paul Nelson in Biology and Philosophy and a response to Francis Collins published by myself and Logan Gage Read More ›
Stephen Meyer Responds to Fletcher in Times Literary Supplement
Signature in the Cell continues to stir up debate and attract attention as Thomas Nagel’s selection of SITC as one of the Books of the Year brought on an interesting series of letters, where Nagel was attacked (he responded, and he was attacked again) by a Darwinist who told people forgo reading SITC and instead just read Wikipedia. This week, author Stephen Meyer himself responds in a letter, with a shortened version published yesterday. (Nagel himself responded with a letter that is published on the same page by TLS.) Below is Meyer’e letter in its entirety. To the EditorThe Times Literary SupplementNatural Selection and the Origin of Biological Information I’ve been honored by the recent attention my book Signature in Read More ›