Inconstant Gyri

Daniel Dennett was right, in a way. Scientific naturalism, like Darwinism, is a corrosive acid, eroding every crevice of our society. It’s now seeped into our sulci. Jeffrey Rosen, in a March 11th New York Times Magazine essay “The Brain on the Stand; how neuroscience is transforming the legal system,” tells of the influence of neuroscience on legal concepts of culpability. He quotes Harvard neuroscientist Joshua Greene: “To a neuroscientist, you are your brain; nothing causes your behavior other than the operations of your brain. If that’s right, it radically changes the way we think about the law.” And, of course, it changes the way we think about everything. It isn’t surprising that a leading neuroscientist would cloak a philosophical Read More ›

‘Why would I want my doctor to have studied evolution?’

Dear High School Students, The folks at the Alliance for Science have sponsored an essay contest for high school students. They ask students to write an essay on ‘Why I would want my doctor to have studied evolution.’ First prize is a copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Second prize is two copies of Darwin’s Origin of Species! (Just kidding.) Really, it’s a funny question. Think about it. Would anyone sponsor an essay contest on ‘Why I would want my doctor to study anatomy’ or ‘Why I would want my doctor to study physiology’? Of course not, because we all know that these kinds of science are important to medicine. Is evolutionary biology important? If it is, why do they Read More ›

Templeton and Metanexus Darwinists Decide to Attack the Messenger

Some Darwinists have a tendency to assume that anything coming from the ID camp must be a mistaken attack on them. This can lead to a Darwinist choosing not to read the pro-ID article, then responding to the (still unread) article by misconstruing basic facts, like the name of the website hosting the article, pro-ID books discussed in the article, or even the central argument of the article. Joseph Campana of ResearchID.org exposes these errors in the responses from Pamela Thompson of the John Templeton Foundation and William Grassie of Metanexus to his article, which demonstrated that the New York Times invented claims that Templeton asked for research proposals which “never came in.”

Darwinist Thought Police in Idaho Busy Stamping Out Any Mention of Intelligent Design

The Darwinist thought cops in Idaho are at it again. A while back it was the president of University of Idaho issuing a dictum banning the discussion of intelligent design from science courses. (See here, here and here) Now the Idaho Science Teachers Association has put its big hairy foot down and forbidden its teachers from discussing intelligent design in science classes.

Japanese Scientists Growing More Interested in Intelligent Design

Late last year senior fellow Jonathan Wells visited Japan to deliver two speeches on intelligent design and evolution. Dr. Wells’ first lecture (in English, with simultaneous translation into Japanese) was to an international philosophy conference. More than 150 people attended, including scientists and scholars from Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Greece and Mongolia. A few Americans were present, along with participants from Bangladesh, France, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic (who brought along a copy of the new Czech edition of Icons of Evolution). According to Wells, the audience was polite, the questions were penetrating and the Q&A was lively.