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Intelligent Design Book Cracks Bestseller List at Amazon.com
Signature in the Cell makes 2009 list of top ten bestselling science books Today Amazon.com announced their bestselling books of 2009 and Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperOne) by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer made the top ten in the science category. According to Amazon.com, books on its 2009 list of best sellers are “[r]anked according to customer orders through October. Only books published for the first time in 2009 are eligible.” The book’s publisher, HarperOne, reports that the book is entering its fifth printing in as many months, and continues to sell strongly both online and in stores. “Here we are, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, a book Read More ›
Do Ideas Have Consequences Only When They’re Associated with Radical Islam?
Why do so many writers who insist on emphasizing the consequences of radical Muslim belief tend to ignore the social consequences of other belief systems — for example, Darwinism? My question is prompted by reflections that are being published about the Fort Hood massacre. Darwinist blogger PZ Myers is among many voices to be raised in protest that shooter Nidal Hasan’s Islamic beliefs are getting too little attention: “Unfortunately, there’s [a] factor that seems to be getting minimized in the press accounts: [Hasan] was also a member of an Abrahamic death cult” (i.e., Islam). PZ quotes Ibn Warraq’s comment on Hasan’s crime, “To leave Islam out of the equation means to forever misinterpret events,” before broadening the scope of the Read More ›
Following the Evidence vs. Framing Science: Stephen Meyer and Chris Mooney, Monday on Medved
Monday, Nov. 16th, Stephen Meyer and Chris Mooney will be on The Michael Medved Show (second hour, 1pm PT/4pm ET). Mooney is a diehard Darwin defender that various Fellows here at the CSC have debated in the past, and he’s someone we’ve reported about over the years. His view of science is elitist and arrogant, and he has recommended such things as suppressing dissenting views from the media, to spinning science in such a way as to manipulate public opinion. He considers anyone who disagrees with him to be ignorant about science. It will be interesting to see how he does with Meyer, a Cambridge PhD who clearly disagrees with Mooney on … well, practically everything.
Origins of Life Debate Commemorates 150th Anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species
With the anniversary of Darwin’s opus nearly upon us, a question that keeps coming up is whether the scientific community is any closer to figuring out the origins of life now than when Darwin published his theory 150 years ago? To mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, advocates for intelligent design and Darwinian evolution will be squaring off at the end of the month to debate the origins of life, the challenges to Darwin’s theory of evolution and the alternative theory of intelligent design. The American Freedom Alliance is sponsoring this debate as a part of their series of events celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origins this month. The debate will Read More ›
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 ›