Category: Intelligent Design
New England Journal of Medicine Traipses Into the Kitzmiller Decision (Part I)
[Editor’s Note: The three individual installments of this series can be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. The final complete article, New England Journal of Medicine Traipses Into the Kitzmiller Decision, can be found here.] In a New England Journal of Medicine article entitled “Intelligent Judging — Evolution in the Classroom and the Courtroom,” George J. Annas lavishes the Kitzmiller decision with praise. Ironically, Mr. Annas lauds some statements by Judge Jones which others have viewed as undermining the Judge’s credibility. For instance, Mr. Annas applauds the following proclamation of judicial superiority by Judge Jones: After a six week trial that spanned twenty-one days and included countless hours of detailed expert witness presentation, the court is confident that Read More ›
Science Editorializes over Discovery Institute
The current issue of the journal Science gave us further proof that the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has no interest in being a neutral or fair participant in the debate over ID and evolution. In what purports to be a news article, Constance Holden wrote: “It’s ‘a victory as it throws out the problematic ruling [made by] the trial court,’ says Casey Luskin, a lawyer at The Discovery Institute, creationism’s main think tank in Seattle, Washington.” (“Court Revives Georgia Sticker Case,” by Constance Holden, Science Vol 312:1292 (June 2, 2006)) By labeling Discovery Institute “creationism’s main think tank,” Holden engages in blatant editorializing and abandons her role as reporter for that of mouthpiece for ID’s critics. Read More ›
Traipsing Into Evolution Book Release Event Notes
Below are excerpts from some notes I used during a book release event for Traipsing Into Evolution on May 16, 2006. (Jonathan Witt previously posted his notes here): As I first read the Kitzmiller decision, I kept having this strange sensation of déjà vu: Where had I heard all these types of arguments before? Then I remembered: I’d heard them during plaintiffs closing arguments which I witnessed live on the final day of the trial–arguments which were based upon a false, straw definition of ID, and misconstrued much evidence about ID. We could spend hours talking about this, so in 4 minutes, here are the primary problems with what Judge Jones said about science in the decision. First Judge Jones Read More ›
Misquoting Michael Behe in the U.K.
“Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellow” John Kelleher has made an egregious misquote of Michael Behe in the Times’ Educational Supplement (TES Teacher, May 5 2006, pages 8-11). The article is “The Inside Story In the beginning: evolution, creationism or intelligent design?” It is the cover story with wording “BLUEPRINT FOR LIFE EVOLUTION OR INTELLIGENT DESIGN?,” and does not appear to be available online, but those who read it report that Kelleher’s article wrongly implies that Michael Behe is an odd sort of creationist that believes the fossil record does not reflect any earth history. Not only does this article completely misrepresent Behe, who accepts an ancient age of the earth and even accepts common descent, but it twists a passage out of Read More ›
Evolution By Intelligent Design is Intelligent Design
A short news article in Molecular Systems Biology is another example of scientists discussing the controversy that doesn’t exist over irreducible complexity. In an article discussing how some molecular biologists increased the selectivity of certain enzymes for their substrates by inducing mutations, they conclude: “Finally, they assumed that the mutations were additive–that the effect on selectivity of combining two mutations could be predicted by adding the effect of each mutation done singly. With this assumption, it was straightforward to predict combinations of single mutations identified as controlling selectivity without decreasing the total productivity. The striking result of this design is that the simple additivity assumption was validated–the authors obtained several triple to quintuple mutants with nearly perfect selectivities for the Read More ›