Response To John Rennie at Scientific American

I appreciate that John Rennie has posted a response to my response to his original post about Kansas on the Scientific American blog. (And I happily forgive the accidental misspelling of my name.) A common tactic in debate is to condescendingly say, “Thanks for proving my point,” when your debate opponent actually refuted all of your points. Other tactics include name-calling, changing the issue at stake, making false accusations, and appealing to authorities as if they are correct simply because they are “authorities.” John Rennie used all of these tactics in his response. Once again, there will be a major difference between my response to Mr. Rennie and his response to me: I will continue to cite scientific literature without Read More ›

Peer-Review, Intelligent Design, and John Derbyshire’s New Bumper Sticker (Part I)

The Talk Origins Bumper Sticker John Derbyshire gave a brief review of Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller v. Dover Decision at National Review Online. Unfortunately, Mr. Derbyshire misses our point about peer-review and ID, and repeats typical Darwinist goalpost-changing tactics on the issue of peer-review.Regarding peer-review, Derbyshire claims that “Judge Jones has way the better of the argument.” Let’s see exactly what Judge Jones says regarding ID and peer-review: “It has not generated peer-reviewed publications” (Kitzmiller v. Dover, 400 F.Supp. 707, 735 (M.D. Pa. 2005) “A final indicator of how ID has failed to demonstrate scientific warrant is the complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting the theory.” (Id. at 744) “The evidence presented in this case demonstrates Read More ›

Kansas Citizens for Misrepresenting the Kansas Science Standards’ Misinformation Promoted by Scientific American

On the Scientific American Blog, John Rennie has perpetuated various myths about the Kansas Science Standards (KSS) promoted by “Kansas Citizens for Science.” Mr. Rennie upholds a recent KCFS news post which says the following: Q. How have the standards changed?The KBOE (Kansas Board of Education) Standards:— Change the definition of science so that it can include supernatural causes.— Change the definition of evolution to imply that evolution conflicts with belief in God.— Add solidly refuted criticisms of evolution that are only part of the creationist literature. It’s difficult to call these anything but plain old fabricated lies. Before delving in, please note that there will be a major difference between my post and Mr. Rennie’s post: my post will Read More ›

It’s Simple: Only Science in the Science Classroom

Some Darwinists have sometimes argued that if ID were taught in schools, then that would risk opening the science classroom to a floodgate of religious ideas about origins, wreaking havoc upon the classroom and turning it into a platform for religious proseltyzation. (For an older example of this objection, see Robert Pennock’s Tower of Babel, pg. xviii.) David Brin repeats this red herring in “The Other Intelligent Design Theories: Intelligent Design is only one of many ‘alternatives’ to Darwinian evolution,” which is the cover story of the current Skeptic Magazine. Brin suggests that if ID is taught, the science classroom will be opened to an onslaught of other “‘alternatives’ to Darwinian evolution” (which he thinks would might offend the sensibilities Read More ›

Canadian Quilters Attack Intelligent Design

After I moved to college, my mom turned my bedroom into her quilting room. Though mom now makes very nice quilts, I am sadly stuck with a long-standing grudge against quilters (who are usually very nice people). Because of my personal history, I found it particularly amusing when I read in “The art of quilting” that a woman named Barbara West (picture, left) won the National Award of Excellence for Innovative Quilts from the Canadian Quilters Association for her quilt, entitled “Myths of our Time: Intelligent Design.” The anti-ID quilt parodies the old story where the famous atheist / agnostic philosopher Bertrand Russell was told that the earth rested on the back of a turtle. Russell then challenged his objector, Read More ›