NCSE’s Program Director Josh Rosenau: Human Dependency Obviates the Right to Life

National Center for Selling Evolution Science Education’ s Program and Policy Director Josh Rosenau has made disturbing arguments in favor of abortion. On his personal blog Thoughts from Kansas, Rosenau, who has been a doctoral candidate in evolutionary biology at the University of Kansas, asserted that children in the womb were nearly indistinguishable from… cancer. Later in his post, Rosenau defends abortion by asserting: Is an embryo a discrete human being? I think not. An embryo is dependent on its living host… An old-fashioned term for the “living host” of an embryo is… mother. Rosneau frames the mother-child relationship charmingly: he compares the relationship between a mother and her unborn child to the relationship between a host and a parasite. Read More ›

Science and Worldviews: Slate Sees the Light

Slate — yes, stet that, Slate — carries an excellent essay opening up the interesting question of whether political and philosophical presuppositions distort what we think of as mainstream science (“Lab Politics: Most scientists in this country are Democrats. That’s a problem“). Author Daniel Sarewitz notes that among scientists, self-identified Republicans make up a dismal 6 percent, while Democrats are 55 percent (the rest are independents and I-don’t-knows). Though Sarewitz doesn’t mention evolution, he ought to have done so. But never mind. While folks on the political right have been strangely slow to pick up on the political resonances of Darwinism, his illustration from the climate debate makes the same point: Could it be that disagreements over climate change are Read More ›

Arsenic and Old News

The media has been buzzing about NASA’s claim that scientists that have discovered “life as we do not know it” (MSNBC)–purportedly finding bacteria that can use arsenic instead of phosphorous in its DNA. David Klinghoffer already blogged about this story here, interviewing astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez (who has conducted research on astrobiology) on the find. The public first became aware of this story last week when NASA announced it would be holding a press conference that would reveal “an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.” NASA’s announcement inspired a chorus of speculative excitement among materialists and UFO true-believers alike, who stated things like: NASA is holding a press conference on Thursday to make an announcement. Read More ›

Why Doesn’t the NCSE Have an Atheism Project?

Jerry Coyne has an amusing post on the National Center for Science Education’s outreach effort to Christians. Coyne, in a post titled “NSCE Becomes BioLogos,” laments the rigorous efforts of the NCSE’s Faith Project, which is a major outreach program to Christians and other people of faith. Coyne quotes the NCSE: The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit, membership organization providing information and resources for schools, parents and concerned citizens working to keep evolution in public school science education. We educate the press and public about the scientific, educational, and legal aspects of the creation and evolution controversy, and supply needed information and advice to defend good science education at local, state, and national levels….The National Center Read More ›