Author: Casey Luskin
Responses to the San Diego Union Tribune’s anti-ID editorial
The recent actions by the Kansas State Board of Education have given a site like Evolution News and Views, which is dedicated to help correct misinformation in the media about the debate over Darwin, an endless supply of material. This time, however, the IDEA Center has also posted some good responses to the San Diego Union Tribune’s (SDUT) recent anti-ID editorial chastely titled “Voodoo Science.” The SDUT piece makes a number of mistakes about the recent events in Kansas.
Don’t Bash it ‘Til You’ve Tried It: A response to Krauthammer and Kriegel
In the last week, two anti-ID editorials have been posted on various major media sites. This includes an article by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post entitled, Phony Theory, False Conflict and an article at Tech Central Station by Uriah Kriegel entitled, Is Intelligent Design a Bad Scientific Theory or a Non-Scientific Theory?. Both articles critique intelligent design, but Krauthammer’s misrepresents the theory quite badly. Kriegel makes some interesting arguments about ID and falsification–if only he would understand that ID theory is structured to disallow explanation by natural selection because natural selection is a fundamentally non-intelligent cause, and then apply his Popperian demarcation criteria to evolution as well. Citing to Unfriendly Authorities Krauthammer’s line of attack is to imply that Read More ›
Dirty Politics: Soil Science Society of America and other Aggie Organizations Unwittingly Expose Political Opposition to ID
Is opposition to ID based upon science or politics? Lisa Anderson recently reported that: Every major scientific organization in the United States has issued a statement opposing intelligent design as non-scientific and denying any debate over the validity of evolution. (Kansas school board approves changes to science standards) Anderson is a well-established reporter, so it’s safe to assume her facts are correct. So, I could end this blog post right here and just say “enough said,” the answer to the question posed above is “YES!” Against what other theory do science organizations release condemning press edicts? This is completely political and unscientific behavior for these “scientific” organizations. In particular, what business does the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society Read More ›
“Independent Online” has a Fact-Independent Kansas Article which they need to take Offline
The good people of South Africa have been grossly misinformed about Kansas. Below is a slightly edited (for grammatical purposes) version of a letter I submitted to Independent Online: Dear Editor, Maxim Kniazkov’s article, “Conservative US state pushes Darwinism aside” contains numerous factual errors. Firstly, the article implies that evolution will not be taught in Kansas under the new science standards. This is not true, as the standards themselves contain over 30 references to teaching evolution. The change is that evolution will not be taught DOGMATICALLY. Evolution is still taught in great detail, but now students can learn about the evidence which supports evolution, but also now they will learn about the scientific evidence which challenges evolution. (see https://evolutionnews.org/2005/11/oops_head_of_national_associat.html for Read More ›
Chicken Little: Why The Sky is NOT Falling in Kansas, Even Though “Pro-Darwin”-Only Proponents Say Otherwise
Critics have been loudly proclaiming that the sky is falling because Kansas is daring to teach lines of scientific evidence which challenge Neo-Darwinism (evidence which is based in mainstream peer-reviewed literature). These critics have provided a parade of horribles that these standards will lead to everything from “teaching creationism,” to “teaching religion,” to “teaching intelligent design,” to ridicule, and worst of all, God. Yet the latest draft posted on the Kansas State Board of Education website (from August 9, 2005) says the following about teaching intelligent design: We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design, the scientific disagreement with the claim of many evolutionary biologists that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion. Read More ›