Category: Culture
P.Z. Myers: Christianity is Bad; Crimes Against Humanity are Very Very Good
If you want to understand the social and political implications of the atheist/materialist worldview, you need look no further than the science blogsphere’s reaction to the appointments of Francis Collins to head the NIH and John Holdren as President Obama’s science advisor. Collins is a superbly qualified scientist (a leading molecular geneticist) and administrator (former head of the Human Genome Project). He is also a Christian, and holds fairly traditional Christian beliefs. He is not a young earth creationist, and there is no evidence that his Christian faith has hampered his scientific work in any way. The reaction in the scientific blogsphere to Collins’ appointment has been apoplectic. P.Z. Myers, Jerry Coyne, Sam Harris, and other atheists have excoriated the Read More ›
Robert Wright’s Evolution of God
It’s hard for a religious believer not to appreciate, at least in part, the spirit in which Robert Wright presents his new book The Evolution of God. On one hand, he regards the history of religion as the history of an illusion. On the other hand, he argues that the evolution of that illusion represents humanity’s groping toward a truth about the universe that may include the existence of a force operating in human lives, a force that it may even be fair to call God. He writes admittedly as a materialist — for whom the most basic postulate holds that reality can be explained in purely material terms. He sees an “evolution” in the Bible where relatively primitive, even Read More ›
Phillip Johnson and William Provine on Focus on the Family
Recently Focus on the Family aired part one of a two-part series on evolution. Reaching back into the archives, they played selections from a 1994 debate between intelligent design advocate Phillip Johnson (U.C. Berkeley) and Darwin-defender William Provine (Cornell). One thing in particular struck me: ID advocates are often accused of wanting to push ID into the public high school classroom. Yet even in this early debate, Phillip Johnson clearly notes that ID advocates would be happy just to see Darwinism taught fairly with both its strengths and weaknesses made clear. And, more importantly, ID advocates would like to see the academy open up to discussion of intelligent design — not primarily the high school classroom.You can listen to part Read More ›
Eugenie Scott Coaches Scientists to Talk About Evolution Without Revealing Any Weaknesses
Eugenie Scott plays many roles in the evolution debate. Now, in a recent enlightening interview in Science News, she offers her wisdom as a media coach for scientists talking publicly about evolution. Her most important piece of advice? Never use terminology that could imply any real weakness in evolutionary biology. Dr. Scott counsels: To put it mildly, it doesn’t help when evolutionary biologists say things like, “This completely revolutionizes our view of X.” Because hardly anything we come up with is going to completely revolutionize our view of the core ideas of science…. An insight into the early ape-men of East and South Africa is not going to completely change our understanding of Neandertals, for example. So the statement is Read More ›
James Carville Wrongly Frames the Evolution Debate as a Democrat vs. Republican Issue
In a recent post, I explained how James Carville’s new book, 40 More Years: How the Democrats will Rule the Next Generation, badly misrepresents intelligent design (ID) as merely a negative argument against evolution. Carville somehow failed to notice that the passage he quoted from our Briefing Packet for Educators made an entirely positive argument for design. But Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist, has a game plan and he’s not going to let the facts get in his way. The point of Carville’s chapter on evolution is to turn the debate into a club that he can wield in his war against Republicans. Not one to shy away from a rhetorical flourish, Carville writes: “the so-called debate over evolution boils Read More ›