Category: News Media
Sacking Little Green Footballs’ Outrageous Claim That “Discovery Institute Is in League With Islamist Creationists” (Updated)
Earlier this year, the popular blog Little Green Footballs (LGF) made an outrageous attempt to link Discovery Institute to the Muslim creationist Harun Yahya (a.k.a. Adnan Oktar). Their post claimed, “Discovery Institute is in league with Islamist creationists, a fact that is indisputably true,” specifically mentioning Yahya / Oktar (“just happens to be a former volunteer for Harun Yahya”). Discovery Institute’s president Bruce Chapman dignified their charges with a forceful refutation, but LGF’s reply to Mr. Chapman was basically a string of ad hominem attacks that relied on a tenuous chain of distorted and incomplete facts. If there was any doubt left that Discovery Institute and Islamic creationists are not “in league,” consider a recent interview with Harun Yahya/Adnan Oktar Read More ›
The Rise and Fall of Tiktaalik? Darwinists Admit “Quality” of Evolutionary Icon is “Poor” in Retroactive Confession of Ignorance (Updated)
[Update 6/16/09: Quote in paragraph 4 clarified to make it clear that the quote did not come from Dr. Catherine A. Boisvert but was rather stated by the journal The Scientist. Any prior lack of clarity on the author of that quote was completely unintentional.] Over the past couple years, Tiktaalik, a fish-fossil touted as documenting key aspects of the transition from fish to 4-legged tetrapods, has become a new celebrated icon of evolution: Clearly, Darwin’s public relations team has invested much rhetorical capital into this fossil. If past experience is to be our guide, the only event that might cause Darwinists to criticize Tiktaalik would be the publishing of a fossil that was claimed to better document evolution. In Read More ›
Evolution by intelligent design: Spore’s designs sweep away common objections to ID
I have thus far refrained from blogging about the new video game Spore that is being widely discussed in the media for one reason: anyone can see that Spore is not really about evolution by the Darwinian mechanism; it’s about evolution by intelligent design (ID). Even in his recent September 2 New York Times article, “Gaming Evolves,” Carl Zimmer reports that “Spore was strongly influenced by science, and in particular by evolutionary biology” but admits that “[t]he step-by-step process by which Spore’s creatures change does not have much to do with real evolution.” One biologist was quoted saying, “The mechanism is severely messed up.” And just what is that “severely messed up” mechanism? The answer is obvious: as an article Read More ›
Brokaw Misconstrues Independent Voter Trends on Teaching Evolution
Last Sunday morning, MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” (hosted by Tom Brokaw) interviewed Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty about whether “creationism vs. evolution … should be taught side by side in public schools.” Pawlenty observed that Brokaw should be talking about intelligent design (ID), not creationism: “In the scientific community, it seems like intelligent design is dismissed. Not entirely, there are a lot of scientists who would make the case that it is appropriate to be taught and appropriate to be demonstrated.” Pawlenty said that the decision should be left to local districts. Discovery Institute, of course, has long-opposed mandating ID in public schools. Continuing to call the issue “creationism vs. evolution” and failing to acknowledge intelligent design, Brokaw then asked political Read More ›
“Random” Samples of Media and Textbook Descriptions of Darwinian Evolution
In his Autobiography, Charles Darwin stated, “There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course the wind blows.” It is thus quite odd that a ScienceDaily.com article earlier this year with the headline “New Findings Confirm Darwin’s Theory” should go on to say “Evolution Not Random.” This study may be confirming some theory, but it isn’t Darwin’s theory. This tactic to push evolution to the public as “non-random” appears to be part of an ongoing campaign on the part of Darwinists to make neo-Darwinism appear more appealing to the public (which tends to be religious). While there are non-random components to natural selection, evolutionary biology Read More ›