Category: News Media
Entrenched Science Departments Call for Censorship at Southern Methodist University
DALLAS–Darwinists at Southern Methodist University issued a demand this week that the university withdraw permission for a scientific conference about intelligent design to be held on campus. Discovery Institute and the SMU Christian Legal Society obtained permission to rent McFarlin Auditorium for a two-day conference on “Darwin vs. Design,” featuring presentations by the nation’s leading intelligent design scientists. The Departments of Anthropology, Biological Sciences, and Geological Sciences reacted with a letter objecting to the university’s agreement to host the conference. The Institute described the letter as an effort to censor scientists and stifle debate.
Darwin and Eugenics: Happy Birthday, Karl Pearson
On Friday, March 23, 2007, the Royal Statistical Society, the British Society for the History of Mathematics, and the British Society for the History of Science will sponsor the Karl Pearson Sesquicentenary Conference to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of one of the founders of mathematical statistics. The papers to be presented are a cornucopia of praise. The abstracts describe Pearson as a “Renaissance man” who created “the modern world view.” Yet several of Pearson’s most important contributions to the modern world view get no notice at the conference.
Updated Schedule for Knoxville Darwin vs. Design Conference, March 24th
The Darwin vs. Design conferences will kick off at the Knoxville Convention Center this coming Saturday, March 24th. Here is an updated agenda for the day’s events. If you haven’t registered yet, you can still do so online before Noon EST Wed., March 21. Otherwise, you’ll have to try and purchase tickets the day of the event, but if it’s sold out you’ll be out of luck. It’s better to get those tickets now while you still can. See below for the full schedule.
Evolutionary paleoneurology. The mind reels.
This is your assignment. You are to read the mind of someone named “Lucy.” Actually, you are to find out where Lucy’s mind came from. You can’t meet Lucy. She’s been dead for 3.2 million years. Your only data will be a fragment of Lucy’s fossilized skull and genetic analysis of some apes, men, and lice. This isn’t a bad dream. This is an exciting new branch of evolutionary biology, and it’s on the cover of Newsweek magazine. And they’re serious.
Another post from a ‘Bastion of S***headed Ignorance’
Darwinist blogger and computer scientist MarkCC (why don’t they use their real names?) called me a lot of names a couple of days ago. The most profane was that I am a ‘bastion of s***headed ignorance.’ Profanity seems to be a particular problem with the computer-math Darwinists. A dysfunctional clad, perhaps. They’re dysfunctional because, as Aristotle wrote, effective rhetoric has three characteristics: logos, ethos, and pathos. Effective rhetoric appeals to the best in reason, ethics, and emotion. When I’m called unprintable names merely for expressing my skepticism about the relevance of Darwin’s theory to the practice of medicine, I’ve already won the ‘ethos’ and ‘pathos’ skirmishes. I can concentrate on the logos. Mark’s blog is worth reading, if you’re over Read More ›