Category: Culture
Anti-ID Legal Scholar Jay Wexler Thinks Judge Jones Made Extraneous Findings
Jay Wexler is one of the most published anti-ID legal scholars, but apparently he would agree with our arguments in Traipsing Into Evolution and in our amicus briefs that Judge Jones should not have extended the judicial arm into areas inappropriate for the judicial branch by finding that ID is not science. While I disagree with much of what Wexler argues, I agree with the emboldened portions listed below in the abstract for Wexler’s upcoming lecture at Boston University School of Law: When Judge John E. Jones, III, a United States District Court judge appointed by President George W. Bush, ruled in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that a Pennsylvania school board’s intelligent design (ID) policy violated the First Read More ›
Response to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account Part VI: Three Conspiracy Theories about Pro-ID Expert Witnesses
[Editor’s Note: A single article combining all ten installments of this response to Barbara Forrest can be found here, at “Response to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account.” The individual installments may be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.] Barbara Forrest has posted an article documenting her Kitzmiller experience here. In it, she does a lot of namecalling, saying ID-proponents are “creationists,” “legal mincemeat,” “jaw-droppingly stupid,” “evangelical scholars,” “part of the Religious Right,” “mean-spirited,” having “contempt for the judicial system,” promoting “warmed-over creationism,” having “cocksure confidence,” using “nastiness,” because “they make things up and/or slander their opposition,” using “long-discredited pro-ID arguments,” reduced to “peddling ID” and Read More ›
Darwin’s Misogyny
“It’s official, men have higher IQs than women.” Incredibly, that was an actual headline last week. Some others were a bit more objective, but make no mistake: the latest study by white nationalist J. Philippe Rushton (a fellow of the AAAS) will be used (as he perhaps intended) to “prove” male superiority via Darwinism. Today’s story in the Daily Mail trumpeted the “battle of the sexes” and quoted Rushton making the ridiculous claim that men are smarter than women: He claims the ‘glass ceiling’ phenomenon is probably due to inferior intelligence, rather than discrimination or lack of opportunity.
Ken Miller Look Out: Brown University Colleague Endorses Empirical Detection of Design in Natural Objects
Today NPR covered an exciting archeological find. It appears to be the oldest writing known in the Americas. Although archeologists do not know the meaning of the symbols on this newly found stone block in Mexico, they are certain it is designed and not the product of, say, wind and erosion. How do they know this?
Chris Mooney Speaks in Seattle
I just returned from hearing Chris Mooney speak at The Elliott Bay Book Company in downtown Seattle (which is a very cool place!). As discussed in this press release, tomorrow I will be posting live my complete response to Mr. Mooney’s chapter in The Republican War on Science against intelligent design. I’d like to give a brief account of the talk and commentary on my exchange with Chris Mooney. I was impressed by Chris Mooney. He’s clearly intelligent, articulate, and has spent a lot of time immersed in the issues he writes about. As will be documented tomorrow, his attacks against intelligent design unfortunately are based upon a straw-man version of the theory. Much of Mr. Mooney’s talk was about Read More ›