Category: Free Speech
WANTED: Biologist Jonathan Wells For Crimes Against Darwin
NCSE and the Pro-Evolution-Science & Theology-Only “Understanding Evolution” Website
I report with great sadness that my friend Wesley Elsberry of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has a publicly stated a strategy of trying to paint ID-proponents as liars: If you want to drive a wedge between an audience of evangelical Christians and the professionals in the ID movement, you need a third approach: show that the ID advocate on stage with you has been lying to his followers. Show misquote after misquote; demonstrate error after checkable error, and make the audience understand that if the ID advocate claims that the sky is blue, their next step had better be to look out the window to see for themselves. Evangelicals do want to take Christ’s message to the Read More ›
Kansas Citizens for Misrepresenting the Kansas Science Standards’ Misinformation Promoted by Scientific American
On the Scientific American Blog, John Rennie has perpetuated various myths about the Kansas Science Standards (KSS) promoted by “Kansas Citizens for Science.” Mr. Rennie upholds a recent KCFS news post which says the following: Q. How have the standards changed?The KBOE (Kansas Board of Education) Standards:— Change the definition of science so that it can include supernatural causes.— Change the definition of evolution to imply that evolution conflicts with belief in God.— Add solidly refuted criticisms of evolution that are only part of the creationist literature. It’s difficult to call these anything but plain old fabricated lies. Before delving in, please note that there will be a major difference between my post and Mr. Rennie’s post: my post will Read More ›
Kansas 102: Do the Kansas Science Standards Contain Claims Made Only by Intelligent Design Proponents?
Last week I explained how Nick Matzke was wrong to argue that the Kansas Science Standards‘ (KSS) mention of irreducible complexity implies that it requires teaching intelligent design (ID). Most of the rest of Mr. Matzke’s post concentrates on the false claim that the Kansas Science Standards’ section on evolution makes claims that come only from ID literature. This argument is only furthering a conspiracy theory which believes that, when the standards read “do not include Intelligent Design,” they really mean, “do include intelligent design.” Under Mr. Matzke’s reasoning, every science teacher in the state of Kansas is supposed to be in on this conspiracy, which would be the only reason for them to know they are supposed to disregard Read More ›
Nasty E-mails from Kansas Darwinists and the Bacterial Flagellum
Discovery Institute gets a lot of nasty e-mail from name-calling Darwinists. But since the launch of StandUpForScience.com, the amount of nasty e-mailage has gone up about five-fold–something I barely thought possible (this resembles the post-Dover barrage of Darwinist hate-mail). In the past couple weeks I’ve had e-mails from Kansas tell me things like “Patton knew how to handle you fascist bastards,” “Your agenda is clear — secular schools cannot be tolerated, just as your spiritual leader Adolf Hitler said,” and “Religously speaking — GO TO HELL!” (all direct quotes from e-mails I’ve recently received from Kansas). Very interesting! In any case, I have no ill-will whatsoever towards these people, but one recent less-inflammatory but nonetheless name-calling e-mail came from a Read More ›