God, Design, and Contingency in Nature

I recently received an email asking if the correspondent correctly understood my views about intelligent design and God. Since I sometimes get similar questions, I’m posting this correspondence for anyone who is interested. Q: I understand your current position to be that design is detectable in nature, and that design detection is not merely a theological gloss upon the scientific facts, but is actually an activity appropriate for science. I further understand you to be saying that design detection in itself is neutral regarding the way that the design found its way into nature. Thus, if the bacterial flagellum is designed, it *could* be that God took a regular bacterium and miraculously “tweaked” it, or it *could* be that God Read More ›

Crowley v. Smithsonian Institution: The Government May Promote Scientific Theories That Touch Upon Religious Questions

Crowley v. Smithsonian Institution is another case where a federal court found that the government does not violate the Establishment clause when it advocates evolution. Yet the reasoning the court used to find it permissible to teach evolution could, if applied fairly, also validate the teaching of intelligent design as constitutional. 1. Summary Plaintiffs sued the Smithsonian Institution, arguing that displays featuring evolution at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History established secular humanism and violated the constitutional mandate requiring the government to remain neutral in matters of religion.70 Plaintiffs requested an order compelling the Smithsonian to “expend an amount equal to the amount extended in the promulgation of the evolutionary theory . . . on the Biblical account of Read More ›

Wright v. Houston: It’s Not Illegal To Teach the Evidence Supporting Evolution

The case Wright v. Houston was decided by the lowest level of the federal courts in 1973, and it effectively ruled that it is not illegal to teach just the evidence supporting evolution. This is one case in a line of cases that found that teaching evolution does not violate the Establishment Clause. 1. Summary Students in the Houston Independent School District sued their district and the Texas State Board of Education for teaching evolution but not including any other views about origins, such as the Biblical story of creation.43 The student-plaintiffs contended that the study of evolution constituted the establishment of a sectarian, atheistic religion and inhibited the free exercise of their own religion in violation of the First Read More ›

Misrepresenting the Definition of Intelligent Design

Download the Complete “Truth or Dare” with Dr. Ken Miller Lecture Guide Permission Granted to Copy and Distribute for Educational Use. Links to our 7-Part Series Responding to Ken Miller: • Part 1: Science and Religion: Is Evolution “Random and Undirected”? • Part 2 (This Article): Misrepresenting the Definition of Intelligent Design • Part 3: Confusing Evidence for Common Ancestry With Evidence for Darwinian Evolution • Part 4: The Name-Dropping Approach to Transitional Fossils • Part 5: Spinning Tales About the Bacterial Flagellum • Part 6: Misrepresenting Michael Behe’s Arguments for Irreducible Complexity of the Blood Clotting Cascade • Part 7: Ken Miller and the Evolution of the Immune System: “Not Good Enough”? At the Dover trial, Ken Miller asserted Read More ›

“Intelligent Design and the Constitution” Symposium at University of St. Thomas School of Law

Tomorrow, Tuesday November 10th, University of St. Thomas School of Law is hosting a legal symposium titled “Intelligent Design and the Constitution.” Participants include Peter M. J. Hess (NCSE), David DeWolf (Professor of Law, Gonzaga University; senior fellow, Discovery Institute), Josh Rosenau (NCSE), Thomas D. Sullivan (Aquinas Chair in Philosophy and Theology, University of St. Thomas), Patrick Gillen (Lead Defense Counsel, Kitzmiller v. Dover), Russell Pannier (Emeritus Professor of Law, William Mitchel College of the Law), and myself. The title of my talk will be “The Constitutionality and Pedagogical Benefits of Teaching Evolution Scientifically.” According to the website: The symposium, free and open to the public, will bring together scholars to debate and analyze various constitutional and philosophical issues surrounding Read More ›