Category: Culture
Smith vs. Derbyshire On Human Exceptionalism
Discovery Institute senior fellow and nationally acclaimed bioethicist Wesley J Smith is having it out with NRO’s John Derbyshire over human exceptionalism.
Scientific Controversies Remain as Molecular Machines Can’t Be Forced Out of the Cell in an Election
In the wake of US elections, which largely focused on international issues such as terrorism and the war in Iraq, there have been some who think that this somehow means that scientists should ignore evidence for intelligent design, such as the fact that digital code in DNA and molecular machines in cells exist. Canadian science writer Denyse O’Leary (first of Post-Darwinist, now of Mindful Hack fame) commented on our tendency in the US to think that elections here set the pace for everything else in the world. I hope no one will mind me saying this but many American intelligentsias are very, very parochial.Do they think they have a patent on the ID controversy?Do they think everyone knows or cares Read More ›
Anti-ID Bias in Journal of the History of Biology
David Sepkoski’s recent literature review (“Worldviews in Collision: Recent Literature on the Creation*Evolution Divide”) in Journal of the History of Biology provides another illustration of the fact that many science journals are biased against intelligent design. He uses pejorative language against ID, claiming its proponents engage in a “guerilla campaign,” calling specified complexity “Dembski’s hobby-horse,” and asserting that Stephen Meyer’s article contains a “confused interpretation of the Cambrian explosion” (though Sepkoski provides no specifics to bolster his point). Given the pejorative language, could the anti-ID bias in the scientific community be any clearer? Sepkoski’s omissions are more interesting than what he includes. He reviews no books by scientific proponents of intelligent design, such as The Privileged Planet, which was published Read More ›
Cornell Professor: Intelligent Design Bashing Okay in Class, Support of ID Not Okay in Class
Cornell Professor Emeritus Richard A. Baer has an opinion piece in the Cornell Daily Sun that is right on target in several areas but completely lost when it comes to freedom of scientific inquiry and intelligent design. Baer rightly points out instances where staunch Darwinists such as Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins have clearly crossed out of the realm of science and into philosophy by making dogmatically materialistic statements such as Sagan’s famous line that “The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” Baer explains that in his experience: A far more serious problem at Cornell and at most universities is the many illegal border crossings that go on in the opposite direction: claims made Read More ›
TIME: Dawkins vs. Collins
TIME magazine this week has an interesting discussion between Richard Dawkins, author most recently of The God Delusion, and Francis Collins, author of The Language of God. It is worth reading. Two observations: