Category: Faith & Science
Francisco Ayala, “Renaissance Man of Evolutionary Biology,” says “Darwin’s greatest discovery: Design without designer”
Fancisco J. Ayala is an esteemed evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine, who was dubbed the “Renaissance Man of Evolutionary Biology” by the New York Times. Ayala is not only former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), but he helped found, chair, and organize the AAAS Dialogues on Science, Ethics, and Religion. He’s widely acclaimed by the Darwinian scientific community as a guru on science and religion. So what does Ayala say about evolutionary biology and religion? In May, 2007 Ayala published an article in the prestigious journal Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences USA entitled “Darwin’s greatest discovery: Design without designer,” explaining that “evolution conveys chance and necessity jointly enmeshed in Read More ›
Another Way to Defeat the ID = Creationism Meme
Darwinian logic often contends that because a given proportion of ID proponents are creationists, ID must therefore be creationism. It’s a twist on the genetic fallacy, one I like to call the Darwinist “Genesis Genetic Argument.” As noted, it implies that each and every argument made by a creationist must be equivalent to arguing for full-blooded creationism. This fallacious argument is easy to defeat on logical grounds by pointing out that some ID proponents are not creationists, and in fact have been persuaded to support ID in the absence of religion. Thus something other than creationism or religion must be fundamental to the set of views underlying ID (big hint: it’s the scientific data indicating real design in nature)! Michael Read More ›
Evolution for a Few or Evolution for Everyone? A Survey of Hypotheses about the Evolutionary Origin of Religion
Why did religion arise in the human species? Stanley Fish has a blog post at the New York Times observing that Richard Dawkins, “finds that the manufacturing and growth of religion is best described in evolutionary terms: ‘[R]eligions, like languages, evolve with sufficient randomness, from beginnings that are sufficiently arbitrary, to generate the bewildering — and sometimes dangerous — richness of diversity.’” Dawkins isn’t the only scientist who takes this kind of approach. David Sloan Wilson is getting a lot of attention these days regarding his views on the evolutionary origin of religion. Wilson is much more serious in his approach than Dawkins, but Wilson has been frank regarding how many academics view religion through an evolutionary perspective. In his Read More ›
Iowa State Promotes Atheist Professor Who Equates Bible with Mein Kampf While Denying Tenure to ID Astronomer
While Iowa State University denied tenure this spring to gifted pro-ID astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, it turns out that it decided at the same time to promote to full professor outspoken atheist Hector Avalos, religious studies professor and faculty adviser to the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society. Avalos has led the charge against Gonzalez and intelligent design on ISU’s campus, helping to draft a 2005 petition denouncing intelligent design that ultimately was signed by more than 120 ISU faculty. Apparently ISU professors who are horrified by the supposed mixing of metaphysics and scholarship on the part of ID proponents have no qualms about supporting Avalos’s explicit anti-religious propaganda, including his effort to equate the Bible with Hitler’s Mein Kampf (for more Read More ›
“Angry Astronomer” Provides Great Example of Anti-Intelligent Design Intolerance
A blogger named “Angry Astronomer,” an undergraduate at the University of Kansas, has exemplified how anti-ID intolerance is passed on to the next-generation. The “angry” Jon Voisey assumes that Guillermo Gonzalez does not deserve tenure because Dr. Gonzalez displays “dishonesty” in “extension activity” simply because Gonzalez supports intelligent design. Mr. Voisey has no evidence of dishonesty on the part of Dr. Gonzalez, but simply assumes that supporting intelligent design necessarily implies dishonesty. In Mr. Voisey’s vision of academia, ID proponents need not apply. We should feel for college undergraduates like this who have been led down the path of intolerance by University of Kansas professors who model knee-jerk prejudice against proponents of intelligent design**. The “angry astronomer” then cites Discovery Read More ›