Category: Culture
The Enchantment of Life
Let’s talk about a word I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: enchantment. As often happens to me, and probably to you too, a number of things going on in my life have converged to get me contemplating a particular idea that I hadn’t thought much about before. One is reading Richard Dawkins’s bestselling The Greatest Show on Earth. The famous evangelizing atheist seeks to make the case for Darwinian evolution, defending it against the critiques of naïve creationists and other amateurs whom Dawkins cites and argues with contemptuously — for example, a lawyer who runs a conservative website, a lady who’s an anti-abortion activist, and a guy with an Internet ministry. He meanwhile ignores intelligent design theorists with Read More ›
How to Make Eighteen Equal Twelve
Occidental College professor Donald Prothero, who along with Michael Shermer debated Stephen Meyer and Richard Sternberg on November 30, complains that folks at the Discovery Institute are now attacking him with “everything they have.” Prothero writes on the NCSE’s blog Panda’s Thumb, “Normally, it is not worth dignifying their garbage with a response,” but in this case he wants people “to get the straight facts.”According to Prothero: When evo-devo came up in Monday’s debate, Meyer and Sternberg began arguing with each other about reconstructions of a 12-winged dragonfly that I had published in my book. They tried to get a laugh by claiming that such a bug has never been found. As usual, they completely missed the point of that Read More ›
News Coverage of the California Science Center Lawsuits
WorldNetDaily has been covering the lawsuits filed against the California Science Center by the AFA and Discovery Institute over the cancellation of the pro-intelligent design film Darwin’s Dilemma and the suppression of public documents concerning the Center’s decision: The newest action comes from the Discovery Institute, which is accusing the California Science Center of unlawfully refusing to disclose public documents sought under the California Public Records Act. Discovery officials filed the request for the documentation about the center’s decision-making process when it rejected the video “Darwin’s Dilemma” Oct. 9. The center canceled a contract with the American Freedom Alliance to show the film Oct. 26. The center released 44 pages of documentation Nov. 2 and claimed “no documents have been Read More ›
Jerry Coyne: “Atheists Have Been Humble for Centuries”–If You Don’t Count the Last Three
Sometimes Jerry Coyne makes me spray my coffee. This gem from a post of his on detente in the new atheist-theist wars: Atheists have been “humble” for centuries (who was more humble than Spinoza?) and it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. It’s that crop of new atheist books that have finally created a climate in which atheists need not feel like pariahs… Humble? Atheism’s first assumption of power at the level of the nation-state was in the French Revolution. “Humility” doesn’t do justice to the carnage wrought by French atheism-in-power, nor to the Napoleonic wars and millions of dead that followed in the ensuing decades of “atheist humility.” In the 19th century “atheist humility” incubated in the minds of men like Read More ›
Court Papers in Discovery Institute Lawsuit Against California Science Center
This morning Discovery Institute announced their lawsuit against the California Science Center for unlawfully refusing to disclose public documents requested by Discovery Institute under the California Public Records Act. The petition, filed December 1, 2009, is available for viewing here.