Darwinists Begin Their Attacks on New Mexico Academic Freedom Bill

I recently predicted that Darwinists in New Mexico would oppose an innocuous academic freedom bill which protects the teaching of science, and science only, in the science classroom, even if the science challenges neo-Darwinism. As the bill states, “‘Scientific information’ does not include information derived from religious or philosophical writings, beliefs or doctrines,” but teachers will be given “the right and freedom, when a theory of biological origins is taught, to objectively inform students of scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses of that theory.” How could this bill possibly allow the teaching of anything but science in the science classroom? Darwinists’ attacks upon the bill have already begun, as Marshall Berman presented a talk at Los Alamos National Read More ›

“The evolutionary puzzle becomes more complex at a higher level of cellular organization.” No kidding.

The January 25th issue of Nature carries a “Progress” paper by Poelwijk et al that’s touted on the cover as “Plugging Darwin’s Gaps,” and cited by its authors as addressing concerns raised by proponents of intelligent design. The gist of the paper is that some amino acid residues of several proteins can be altered in the lab to produce proteins with properties slightly different from those they started with. A major example the authors cite is the work of Bridgham et al (2006) altering hormone receptors, which I blogged on last year. That very modest paper was puffed not only in Science, but in the New York Times, too. It seems some scientists have discovered that one way to hype Read More ›

Albuquerque Journal Colludes with Darwinist Bloggers to Misconstrue New Mexico Academic Freedom Bill

John Fleck, a science writer with the Albuquerque Journal, has praised the evolution blog Panda’s Thumb on the Albuquerque Journal website, even linking to the Darwinist blog. The Albuquerque Journal headlined the academic freedom bill as a “‘Creationism’ Measure” while Fleck called it “the latest ‘intelligent design’ bill in the New Mexico legilsature [sic].” The bill says nothing about intelligent design or creationism, and it only protects the teaching of “scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses” of a theory of biological origins. Both articles leave off a crucial portion of the bill which explicitly does not protect the teaching of “information derived from religious or philosophical writings, beliefs or doctrines.” Why would anyone oppose this bill? It’s simple: Read More ›

Check it out, Darwin Day is almost here

Penn State’s Center for Infectious Diseases is having a Darwin Day celebration with: THE WORLD’S LARGEST EDIBLE TREE OF LIFE Boy, it seems like Darwin Day comes earlier and earlier every year. It’s only two weeks away and I haven’t even finished my shopping or got my Darwin Day lights put up.

Undeceived and Still Questioning

Forthekids, a blogger who writes regularly at Reasonable Kansans, has been keeping things interesting since August of last year, holding the Kansas media accountable and getting to the truth of the matter, especially in regards to the debate over intelligent design. She had a great post Sunday on the nature of science and how those involved in the debate often are mischaracterized and misunderstood. Forthekids’ response to Jeremy, a commenter who claimed she was “being deceived” by the *ahem* slick army of ID proponents, follows below: