Author: Jonathan Witt
Dover Trial: Miller Argues from Ignorance
One of the most rhetorically effective portions of evolutionist Kenneth Miller’s testimony in the Dover trial was his PowerPoint discussion of pseudogenes. As Ted Davis describes it here, “For evolution, he gave several such examples, esp. the recent discovery of pseudogenes in identical locations for humans and some other primates–a “fact” that favors the “theory” of evolution over a theory of a common design plan, since the genes have no known functions and thus a designer would have no reason to give them to all of these organisms.”
Dover Generates Intellectual Ferment
The Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial has generated much talk on the internet about Darwinism and the theory of intelligent design, some of it trenchant, much of it stimulating. The American Scientific Affiliation is discussing it here. One ASA member, Ted Davis, a friendly critic of intelligent design interested in more open debate on the question of origins, provides a favorable review of evolutionist Kenneth Miller’s expert testimony, describing it as “superb testimony … on all counts.” He also provides intriguing if less flattering analysis of Friday’s expert testimony here:
Dembski’s Expert Testimony in Dover Trial
Design theorist William Dembski reports that “last spring The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) hired me as an expert witness in the Dover area school district case regarding ID (Kitzmiller v. Dover)” and that “because the focus of that case and trial is a book titled Of Pandas and People and because I am the academic editor for the publisher of that book (i.e., The Foundation for Thought and Ethics [FTE]), when FTE tried to intervene in the case, TMLC decided to drop me as an expert witness, citing a conflict of interest.” Before that occurred, however, Dembski prepared “an expert witness report as well as a rebuttal of the opposing expert witness reports.”
Boilerplate Seeking Baptist
Having been at the federal courthouse for three days watching Kitzmiller vs. Dover unfold from the press side of the gallery, let me just say that this is so accurate it isn’t even funny. On the first day I spotted biologists Kenneth Miller and Michael Behe, expert witnesses for the two sides of the lawsuit; they were approached now and again by some member of the media. But who was this, during the break, mobbed by cameras and reporters outside the courthouse? Some Nobel Laureate called in to testify for the ACLU? Philosopher Antony Flew fetched over from England to testify for the defense? Who could this slight, intelligent-looking older man possibly be to generate such excitement? It turned out Read More ›
Robert Pennock Takes the Stand in Dover Trial
Methodological Materialism and What If The third morning of Kitzmiller vs. Dover found philosopher of science Robert Pennock testifying for the plaintiffs that science is a search for natural explanations of natural phenomena — a limitation known as methodological naturalism (or methodological materialism). Pennock presented this as the definition of science, and said proponents of intelligent design are “trying to overturn” it, but later he conceded that there was a controversy among philosophers of science concerning whether methodological naturalism was essential to the definition of science. Earlier in the trial, the ACLU led its first expert witness, biologist Kenneth Miller, through some counterfactual (or “what-if”) reasoning, an investigative tool often used by philosophers. I wish one of the attorneys had Read More ›