Category: Culture
MSNBC Jumps on the Transhumanist / New-Age Evolutionary Bandwagon
MSNBC loves to promote the view that humans evolved from anthropoid ancestors (see here or here for a couple examples). Now MSNBC has created an online exhibit (and accompanying article) entitled “Before and After Humans” that not only promotes standard views of humans evolution, but also supports transhumanism: the view that humans will evolve into a new, higher species. MSNBC’s “possible futur[e]” for the human species goes something like this: Within one million years, global gene mixing eliminates the races and the “Unihumans” develop a global “monoculture.” That sounds reasonable enough. Next some global catastrophe kills off large portions of humanity, and the “Survivalistians” must adapt to extreme conditions, evolving “night-vision” and “radiation-shielding skin.” If that sounds a little weird, Read More ›
No News to Report about Texas School Board Stance on Science Education
Dallas Morning NoNewsNo News To Report About Texas School Stance on Science Education Dallas — In a stunning development there is no news in Texas. There is no news. Nothing to report. “I don’t see any news here,” said the board president.However, another board member said, “The board hasn’t created news yet, but just wait there’ll be some news eventually.” News was sought across the state, but unable to be found.“We haven’t been making news, I don’t see any news now, nor is there any news forthcoming” said one board member.“I like news,” commented another, “but we’re not making any.” In the past both President Bush and Governor Perry have made news. “The news must be there, no matter what Read More ›
Essential Reading: No Free Lunch
No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without IntelligenceBy William A. DembskiRowman & Littlefield, 2002, 404 pagesISBN 0-7425-1297-5 No Free Lunch, the sequel to mathematician and philosopher William Dembski’s Cambridge University Press book The Design Inference, explores key questions about the origin of specified complexity. Dembski explains that the Darwinian search mechanism of random mutation coupled with natural selection is incapable of generating novel complex, specified information (CSI).
PZ Myers on Academic Freedom Then and Now
PZ Myers Then: Comment #35130 Posted by PZ Myers on June 14, 2005 07:50 AM (e) (s) Here I am, a biologist living in the 21st century in one of the richest countries in the world, and one of the two biology teachers in my kids’ high school is a creationist. Last year, the education commissioner in my state tried to subvert the recommendations for the state science standards by packing a hand-picked ‘minority report’ committee to push for required instruction in intelligent design creationism in our schools. All across the country, we have these lunatics trying to stuff pseudoscientific religious garbage into our schools and museums and zoos. This is insane. Please don’t try to tell me that you Read More ›
Correcting Misconceptions about Intelligent Design in Jewish Action Magazine
You cannot critique a theory for inappropriately concluding “X” when indeed the theory does not conclude “X.” Jewish Action Magazine has an article entitled “Revisiting Intelligent Design” that repeats this common flawed argument for intelligent design. First, the article misrepresents Michael Behe’s arguments as saying that ID proposes “the existence of a supernatural being, whom he calls the ‘intelligent designer,’ meaning, of course, God.” Of course Behe does believe that the designer is God, but Behe has made it clear that as a science, intelligent design does not try to address religious questions about the nature of the designer. So while the designer may be God, the empirical data cited by Behe–information in DNA and complex machines in the cell–do Read More ›