Author: Keith Pennock
Wise’s Darwinian Double-Speak
Editor’s Note: This was sent to us from a former Discovery policy analyst. Martha Wise is a member of the Ohio Board of Education. She cannot stand anything that is not conclusively and absolutely pro-Darwinian in science education. She is also the chief censor of any scientific criticisms of neo-Darwinian theory. Martha helped to oust the Ohio Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan. Her op-ed in the Cincinnati Enquirer is a wonderful celebration of Orwellian double-speak in the service of Darwin-only science indoctrination: She’s insists she is a creationist, but she opposes creationism. The science standards explicitly disclaim the mandating of ID, but the standards (she claims) mandate ID. In Dover everyone acknowledged they were teaching ID but in OH Read More ›
Wolfson’s Argument From Ignorance
In the January 16 edition of the Weekly Standard in an article titled “Survival of the Evolution Debate” Adam Wolfson recites the long debunked mantra of Darwinists accusing ID of merely residing on Paleyian analogical reasoning and therefore being subject to Hume’s critique. In Wolfson’s own words: In making such claims the IDers are putting old wine in a new bottle. Some version of the design thesis is to be found in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and, perhaps most famously, in the writings of William Paley. The 18th-century English theologian argued that when we find a watch we infer a watchmaker; so too when we discover evidence of design in nature we properly infer a Maker or Creator.
E.O. Wilson’s Argument From Ignorance
In the November-December edition of Harvard Magazine in an article titled “Forum: Intelligent Evolution” E.O. Wilson recites the long debunked mantra of Darwinists accusing ID of merely being “God-of-the-Gaps”. In Wilson’s own words: Many who accept the fact of evolution cannot, however, on religious grounds, accept the operation of blind chance and the absence of divine purpose implicit in natural selection. They support the alternative explanation of intelligent design. The reasoning they offer is not based on evidence but on the lack of it. The formulation of intelligent design is a default argument advanced in support of a non sequitur. It is in essence the following: There are some phenomena that have not yet been explained and that (and most Read More ›
Slate’s Argument From Ignorance: Mind the Gap
Lately there have been a lot of people resurrecting a long debunked charge against ID of merely being “God-of-the-Gaps”. One such person was Slate Senior Editor Dahlia Lithwick. Never one to let the facts of what ID proponents actually propose get in the way of a vacuous potshot Ms. Lithwick says: But the critics are missing the beauty of this new theory. Because the really great thing about intelligent design is that it takes all the awkward uncertainty out of science. It says, “You know those damn theoretical gaps and conundrums that send microbiology graduate students into dank basement laboratories at 3 a.m.? They don’t need to be resolved at all. Go back to bed, sleepy little grad students. God Read More ›
Freeze Dried Protestors Fight for the Establishment…the Scientific Establishment
I would personally like to thank Washington Post reporter Peter Slevin for highlighting the deeply held convictions of the new branch campus of the Darwin-only lobby in Fairfax Virginia. Like the cause-heads of PCU this group of freeze dried protestors “led mostly by Vietnam-era protesters” who “came together in frustration after the November elections, have little political experience, apart from hoisting Kerry-Edwards signs.” Said Richard Lawrence, 63: ‘”We’re just a small group, maybe with a powerful idea. We don’t have a clue, but we’re not letting go.”‘