Category: Evolution
Darwin, Derbyshire and the Dogma of the Gaps
John Derbyshire of The Corner, and Darwinists on every street corner, insist that we should never cram God into the gaps of our scientific knowledge. As if detecting design meant cramming the designer into the work itself: Imagine Leonardo da Vinci trapped inside the Mona Lisa. Derbyshire proceeds apace: “History shows that these puzzles always get resolved sooner or later in a natural way, … sending the ‘God of the Gaps’ traipsing off to find a new place where he can hang his starry cloak for a while.” Bracket off for the moment that this particular history of modern science is an urban legend. Derbyshire’s argument falls apart all by itself, apart from the historical record. Because more and more Read More ›
Darwinists Prove Computers Work!
In a recent post at The Corner, John Derbyshire wrote that “we are actually quite close to a point where we CAN do evolution in the lab.” To make his point, Derbyshire cited an article by Carl Zimmer in the February, 2005, issue of *Discover* Magazine: “Testing Darwin: Scientists at Michigan State University Prove Evolution Works.” We don’t buy it. Discovery fellow (and Ph.D. biologist) Jonathan Wells found the claims in Zimmer’s article laughable, and he was moved to write a satirical review that we are posting here. Although the tone is tongue-in-cheek, the quotes from Zimmer’s article are real, as is the force of Wells’ argument. Darwinists at Michigan State University Prove Computers Work by Jonathan Wells For centuries Read More ›
Derbyshire III: Soft Bodies a Femme Fatale for Darwinism
As we saw in Derbyshire II, the pattern of the fossil record doesn’t fit the Darwinian prediction of a gradually branching tree of life, even where punctuated equilibrium is invoked to shoehorn the transitional intermediates into those gaps John Derbyshire puts such faith in. The problem gets even uglier when Darwinists try to explain away the fossil record leading up to the Cambrian Explosion. What story do these strata tell? Animals didn’t exist; and then they did — not just dozens of species but dozen of phyla. If you want some idea of how large a category phyla is, consider that sharks, mice, humans and otters are all members of the same phylum. If natural selection working on random genetic mutation Read More ›
Bias Front and Center at Houston Chronicle
Finding bias in MSM newspapers like the Houston Chronicle is like finding design in nature, not at all hard to do. Sunday, The Chronicle decided to publish Michael Behe’s op-ed that appeared last week in The New York Times. The headline the Chronicle perched atop Behe’s column nicely illustrates the petty biases of the paper’s editorial board: “Intelligent design: Creation explained or quackery?” This didn’t surprise me. Two years ago in the midst of the Texas controversy over error-ridden biology textbooks a Chronicle editorial board member sent us one of the tackiest letters we’ve received from the media. We approached the Chronicle and asked them to meet with us to talk about textbooks and challenges to Darwinian evolution — much Read More ›
Barb’s at it Again!
Barbara Forrest is at it again. In her latest review of Meyer & Campbell’s Darwinism, Design & Public Education Forrest substitutes strident affirmation for science and scorn for reasoned argumentation. Forrest never chooses to engage the arguments of design theorists but rather questions their qualifications: “John Angus Campbell, who also serves on the journal’s editorial board, is a rhetorician. Stephen C. Meyer is a philosopher.” What pray tell was your Ph.D. in Barbara? And why is it you don’t apply that same standard to Robert Pennock when he deigns himself fit to comment on evolution? What Forrest more often than not fails to comprehend is that merely asserting that “there is no argument” and “ID is not science” doesn’t settle Read More ›