Author: Casey Luskin
For Darwinian Evolution, It’s One Step Forward, Acknowledging Two Steps Back: Taking A Look at Tiktaalik
I love it when new “missing links” are discovered, because it’s then–and only then–that Darwinists admit how precious little evidence had previously existed for the evolutionary transition in question. When reports came out this week of an alleged example of a fossil representative of the stock that might have led from fish to tetrapods — Tiktaalik roseae — evolutionists finally came clean about the previous lack of fossil evidence for such a transition: “The relationship of limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) to lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians) is well established, but the origin of major tetrapod features has remained obscure for lack of fossils that document the sequence of evolutionary changes.” (Edward B. Daeschler, Neil H. Shubin, and Farish A. Jenkins, “A Devonian tetrapod-like Read More ›
AAAS Fears Academic Freedom, Free and Open Inquiry, in Oklahoma
A great opinion article in Friday’s Tulsa Today reiterates a point I made in an ENV post last week: Darwinists oppose academic freedom legislation because they want to censor scientific evidence which some scientists think challenges biological evolution. In the article, Jonathan Bartlett critiques Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), who opposed the Academic Freedom Bill in Oklahoma: “First, the bill only covers scientific views and scientific information. Therefore, Intelligent Design can only be included if it is scientific. If Intelligent Design isn’t scientific, Leshner has nothing to worry about. If Intelligent Design is scientific, then Leshner is playing politics with science by trying to limit scientific views by law.” Bartlett is absolutely Read More ›
Support Evolution Research; But Don’t Support Anti-Scientific Attitudes
Last week reports stated that a Canadian evolutionist education expert, Brian Alters, was denied funding of a project entitled “Detrimental effects of popularizing anti-evolution’s intelligent design theory on Canadian students, teachers, parents, administrators and policymakers.” While I am skeptical that design proponents have a desire or capability to stifle evolution-based scholarship, I make my primary point: no one should have his or her funding denied simply because it would support an unpopular position among those holding the funding purse-strings. For this reason, pro-evolution and pro-ID research should both be absolutely supported. Individuals at the SSHRC had no right to deny funding to Dr. Alters’ research if their reason was that they disagreed with his strong pro-evolution viewpoints. But perhaps they Read More ›
Science Plays Politics, but Implies Behe and Snoke (2004) Supports Irreducible Complexity and ID after all
Last September, a blogger with The Scientist used the old Darwinist line that Michael Behe and David W. Snoke’s 2004 article in Protein Science neither supports irreducible complexity nor ID. The blogger did this to challenge my claim that Michael Behe has authored a peer-reviewed paper in a scientific journal which supports ID. Yet supporting my original claim is an article in the current issue of Science which implies that Behe and Snoke’s arguments are precisely about irreducible complexity, and also ID. In the current issue of Science, Christoph Adami has an article where he concedes that enzyme-substrate interactions can be irreducibly complex (they think they refuted irreducible complexity for one enzyme-substrate system), and that design theorists use this precise Read More ›
Personal Persecution Story Inspired Alabama Academic Freedom Bill
Introduction The Alabama Academic Freedom Act was originally proposed by Senator Wendell Mitchell (Democrat) in the Alabama State Legislature in 2004 to protect the rights of teachers and students to present scientific views and hold positions regardless of their views on biological evolution. It was re-proposed this year. This legislation is needed in light of the threat to teacher academic freedom to present scientific evidence that might challenge evolution, prohibited by Judge Jones in his Kitzmiller ruling. Sadly, it looks like the bill will not pass this year because Alabama State Senator Jim Preuitt (Democrat) pulled an unfair political power-play and demanded that the bill have its application to the K-12 grade levels removed if he were to permit it Read More ›