Author: Keith Pennock
Did Complex Flight Feathers “Emerge”?
Consider something you know is intelligently designed: for example, software code for an app that flies a drone.
Q: Is Bush Science’s Nemesis? A: No
Kudos to Richard Gallagher & Alison McCook from The Scientist for being gutsy enough to do an even-handed piece on President Bush’s record on science, and for asking the question in Gallagher’s editorial, “Is Bush Science’s Nemesis?” in more than the conventional rhetorical fashion. McCook’s piece “Sizing Up Bush on Science” answers with a resounding “no,” or at least no more than past presidents, including Bill Clinton.
Is Sylvia Mader’s Biology Textbook “Biased” Towards Intelligent Design? Depends on Your Definition of “Bias.”
A recent article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch notes that a Virginia Commonwealth University biology professor Jim Sparks complained that a biology textbook by Sylvia Mader, “Essentials of Biology (McGraw Hill, 2007) “had leanings toward creationism and short-changed evolution.” Another article described Sparks’ view as claiming the Mader textbook was “biased toward creationism and intelligent design.” But how accurate was Dr. Sparks’ description of the textbook? Consider what the textbook actually says about intelligent design: No wonder most scientists in our country are dismayed when state legislatures or school boards rule that teachers must put forward a variety or “theories” on the origin of life, including one that runs contrary to the mass of data that supports the theory of evolution. Read More ›
Setting the York Daily Record Straight, Again
We have made it well known that we wish the Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania had taken our advice. This has been reiterated countless times — before, during and after the litigation and decision. (WE even recently published an entire book about the Dover decision, Traipsing Into Evolution.) Our long-standing policy has been to urge a more robust treatment of evolution in public schools, so that students might learn both the scientific weaknesses and strength’s of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory and chemical origin-of-life scenarios. But this is NOT the path that was taken in Dover. This too has been communicated all throughout the Kitzmiller saga. But an article from two weeks ago in the York Daily Record shows that some Read More ›
Pennock on Pennock
In 1897 Mark Twain reportedly sent a cable from London to the Associated Press in New York, saying “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” after a mistaken obituary announcement appeared in a newspaper. The mistaken announcement is not unlike Robert Pennock’s article of March 6th in Science & Theology News which also greatly exaggerates the significance of Dover for the ID movment. Robert Pennock has made a career of critiquing ID; thus it comes as no surprise that he is now trumpeting the Dover decision. But Ph.D. though he may be, there are so many logical fallacies in his article that it is ripe fodder for Irving Copi’s Introduction to Logic. Robert Pennock may be a third, or Read More ›
