Texas Debate Update: Stephen Meyer Demolishes Eugenie Scott’s One Argument

I’m posting the following report for Casey Luskin, who is currently in Texas at the expert hearing before the Texas State Board of Education. AUSTIN, TX—The NCSE and their friends at the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) are here in Texas and they have one main argument. Or maybe two. The first argument basically says this: Don’t listen to any of these guys because they’re creationists. Creationists. Creationists. Creationists.Creationists. Did I mention that they’re just creationists? The logical fallacies and falsehoods in this short sound-byte argument are legion. They include: motive-mongering, false premise, the genetic fallacy, and perhaps most of all hypocrisy. As Meyer testified, he fully accepts a billions of years old earth. He doesn’t fit Eugenie Scott’s “creationist” mold. Read More ›

Eugenie Scott: “Let Them Come”

When asked whether or not she would entertain whether evolution has any weaknesses, Eugenie Scott invited scientists with scientific evidence to show her. “Let them come and talk to people like professor De Lozanne [Ed: who testified earlier] — let them come and talk at the universities.” Note to Eugenie: You kick people out of universities. It seems to happen a lot in Texas especially, for some reason — remember the SMU Darwin v. Design conferences, or the controversy over Bob Marks at Baylor? In fact, one of the expert reviewers on your side — Ron Wetherington — led the charge against allowing ID scientists to speak at SMU.What people say is one thing — what they do is sometimes Read More ›

All Eyes on Texas

We’re down in Austin, covering the Texas Board of Education hearings today, and this morning’s public testimony is… well.. interesting. To say that there is interest in this issue is an understatement — the room is packed with people standing along the walls and sitting with their laptops on the floor, waiting for their turn to get a word in on this controversy. It’s interesting to hear the testimonies from both sides in the public. We just had a mother speaking in favor of keeping “strengths and weaknesses” in the science standards who shared how her children’s AP biology teacher would not allow any questioning of Darwin’s theory — the Board members called it “intimidation,” and that doesn’t seem far Read More ›

Darwinism & Communism, Part III

In previous posts in this brief series, we’ve been looking at the relationship between Marx and Darwin, who developed parallel theories of historical or natural law. In a religious context, law is perceived as static and eternal: God’s law, higher than any man, worthy of judging kings and tyrants by its light. Marxism and Darwinism, as materialist philosophies, believe they have succeeded in obviating the need for God, or metaphysics generally. For them, there is no such thing as a static, eternal moral law. Thus in the Descent of Man, Darwin describes the process by which morals evolve, just like animal bodies. He finds nothing absolute or God-given even in a seemingly fundamental moral instinct like that against incest: “We Read More ›