Is Edward Humes, Monkey Girl Author, a Partisan? (Part III): Glowing Endorsements from Darwinists

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] Last year I was contacted by Edward Humes, a reporter who wanted an interview for a book he was writing on the Dover trial. In his original emails (which he now refuses to grant me permission to quote), Humes claimed to be fair and non-partisan. I felt suspicious because reporters that take great lengths to tell me they are neutral usually write highly biased and partisan anti-ID stories. What did Humes write? As I discussed Read More ›

William Buckley on the Heresy of Intelligent Design

Friday saw a column by William Buckley at National Review regarding the announcement that US Senator John McCain is speaking at a luncheon in Seattle co-hosted by Discovery Institute next week. The luncheon is about McCain’s vision of the United States’ role in the world and the co-sponsors are the CityClub of Seattle and the Settle World Affairs Council. It is hardly an intelligent design related event. But, some critics of ours can’t help but get all in a lather about things like this. So much so that even William Buckley has heard from them. His response in National Review is concise, succinct and to the point. (You expected anything else?) Buckley goes right to the heart of the matter, Read More ›

The Cracked Haeckel Approach to Evolutionary Reasoning

There’s an old lawyers’ joke about the “cracked kettle” approach to legal argumentation. Jones sues Smith for borrowing her kettle and returning it with a crack in it. Smith’s lawyer then defends her with the following arguments (in order): In my book Icons of Evolution I described a 2000 conference talk in which Kevin Padian (President of the National Center for Science Education) used argumentation very much like this to defend his claim that birds are modified descendants of dinosaurs.1 Darwinists are now using a similar approach to defend Ernst Haeckel’s embryo drawings.

Time’s Darwinist Thought-Cop Accuses Pro-ID Brain Surgeon of Committing “Intellectual Fraud”

In honor of Darwin Day this week we issued our annual update to the Scientific Dissent from Darwin list. Apparently, it is dishonest to point out that 700 scientists are skeptical of Darwinian evolution. Never mind that we have never tried to claim that a majority of scientists are Darwin doubters, not even close. The whole point of the list was to refute the claim in PBS’ 2001 Evolution series that no scientists doubted Darwin. (Then it was ‘no credible scientists’; which became ‘well, not very many scientists’; and so on.) Still. Time magazine journalist Michael Lemonick got himself all in a huff over the list. So much so he even attacked the doctor we quoted in the release about Read More ›

Russian News Service Writer Gets it Right on Darwin Issue

RIA Novosti news service writer Alexander Arkhangelsky discusses culture, politics and science in an insightful article (“Cartoons and Darwin”) that should give Americans pause. Cultural traditions in Russia today simultaneously bounce off the old Soviet values, pre-Revolutionary values (evoking the prominence of the Orthodox Church) and the rather chaotic commercial and political influences of the present. Where Arkhangelsky comes down seems to us eminently sound: “Students should know about Darwinism and anti-Darwinism, the scientific and the religious.” If he means the science on both sides and the religion ON BOTH SIDES, I would have to agree — for Russians. Here in America, we should stick to the scientific case on both sides. That alone would be a huge advantage. But Read More ›