Category: Science
Making the Case for Intelligent Design
CSC Senior Fellow Dr. Michael Behe has an opinon piece in today’s New York Times briefly laying out key aspects of the theory intelligent design. To date the MSM has been sadlly deficient in reporting what intelligent design theory is, and what it is not. This piece marks one of the first times that a major news outlet has let design advocates explain the theory in their own words. Hopefully other media will follow suit and instead of just regurgitating definitions from elsewhere they will accurately describe the theory itself. Let’s roll the highlight reel: “the theory of intelligent design is not a religiously based idea, even though devout people opposed to the teaching of evolution cite it in their Read More ›
What exactly is Dover design? Far from intelligent
The York Daily Record is reporting on the first ever reading of a statement about intelligent design to Dover School District ninth graders in biology classes. The story raises the issue of whether or not students are even learning about intelligent design theory, and seems to conclude that they are not. According to YDR the statement read to students says i part: “Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s views. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families.” One has to wonder why the ACLU and others are so upset that someone read a statement saying that there are other viewpoints. Intelligent design is never Read More ›
Another op-ed properly defending design theory
We’re starting to see occasional occurrences of coherent defenses of design theory popping up on editorial pages of all sorts of newspapers. For instance, Bruce Mclarty has an op-ed piece in The Daily Citizen (Arkansas) that nicely explains the differences between intelligent design and creationism, and correctly points out that creationism is a subset of intelligent design, not the other way around. “While all creationists would believe in intelligent design, the opposite is not true. One could adhere to the idea that nature reflects an intelligent designer without believing in the Bible, the God of the Bible, or the Genesis account of creation.” Mclarty also notes that: “When something appears to defy purely naturalistic explanation, it is attributed to being Read More ›
From the don’t know whether to laugh or cry department . . . .
Last Sunday’s episode of Boston Legal (“From Whence We Came”) was ripped straight from the headlines in typical David Kelley style. Hotshot young attorney Lori (Monica Potter), with help from Denny Crane (played by William Shatner, and for which he won a Golden Globe the same Sunday night) and Shirley Schmidt (the newest addition to the show, played by Candace Bergen), defends a school superintendent being sued by two science teachers who were fired for refusing to teach creationism. Kelley’s writing is always sharp and his dialogue is witty, but his take on the evolution issue merely regurgitates the old Inherit The Wind trope of religion vs. science. He never even bothers to really define evolution or intelligent design, which Read More ›
CA school district sued for violating civil rights in evolution controversy
A California school district has been sued in federal court for allegedly violating a parent’s civil rights during a controversy over how to teach evolution. For more than a year, Larry Caldwell tried to get the Roseville Joint Union High School District outside of Sacramento to consider changing how it taught the theory of evolution in its biology classes. Caldwell, who has three children, says he wanted the district to correct factual errors in its biology textbooks as well as to introduce students to some scientific criticisms of modern evolutionary theory. Caldwell did not propose that the district teach creationism or alternatives to evolution. The Roseville district ultimately rejected Caldwell’s recommendations. But in the process of trying to scuttle his Read More ›