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Tiktaalik roseae: Where’s the Wrist? (Updated)
[UPDATE: I have responded to Carl Zimmer’s critiques with updates and corrections, here.] I recently picked up Your Inner Fish, a highly simplified science book written for a popular audience by paleontologist Neil Shubin that promotes the alleged intermediate fossil between fish and tetrapods, Tiktaalik roseae. On page 83, Shubin’s book contains a nice diagram comparing the skull-components of a human head to the skull of a primitive craniate fish. It’s a vague comparison that does little to convince that fish-heads formed the template for mammal heads. But that’s not the focus of Shubin’s book. The primary feature that excites Shubin and other evolutionary paleontologists about Tiktaalik isn’t found in its head: it’s that this fossil is allegedly “a fish Read More ›
New Scientist Needs a Reality Check
New Scientist is up in arms over the successful passage of the Louisiana Science Education Act (“New legal threat to teaching evolution in the US“). NS Reporter Amanda Gefter devotes the article to the narrative of Barbara Forrest, portrayed as a weary warrior against the powers of darkness (that would be us, in case you’re wondering). While this makes for an interesting, Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass foray into utter nonsense, the falsehoods and misinformation presented as historical fact need correcting. The most obvious untruth is Gefter’s regurgitation of the old myth that intelligent design came after Edwards v. Aguillard, the 1987 case where the Supreme Court ruled creation science unconstitutional. As a matter of historical record, intelligent design can be traced back to Read More ›
Another Great Debate on ID at Freedomfest in Las Vegas This Weekend
Saturday night in Las Vegas will be hot. Outside it will be 100+ degrees. Inside Bally’s will be hot too, when CSC Director Stephen Meyer and Discovery senior fellow George Gilder face off with Darwinists Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine, and Ronald Bailey, science writer for Reason. The debate question: “Is there scientific evidence of intelligent design in nature?” The debate is the closer of a three day conference, Freedomfest that will feature other speakers like Steve Forbes and Ron Paul, as well as other debates, such as Friday night’s between Dinesh D’souza and Christopher Hitchens.C-SPAN is scheduled to cover the debate and we’ll let you know when they plan to air as soon as that is announced.
National Geographic Finds Opportunity to Conflate Intelligent Design with Creationism while Misreporting Fish Fossil
In the past, I have observed that the newsmedia and scientific establishment commonly promote the Darwinist bias against intelligent design (ID), where the media “carefully selects the sources of information it will broadcast to the public on this issue.” (To see how various groups in the establishment serve as checkpoints to prevent scientific information that challenges neo-Darwinism from reaching the public, observe the diagram at left.) National Geographic (NG) is doing its job as a media checkpoint, promoting biased information to the public on ID. In an article yesterday about a new fish fossil-find, the NG news headline states, “Odd Fish Find Contradicts Intelligent-Design Argument.” According to the story, “Intelligent design advocates have seized on the idea of instant flatfish Read More ›
Anti-Evolution Atheists?
The Washington Post‘s Michael Gerson recently wrote: The latest findings of the Pew Forum’s massive and indispensable U.S. Religious Landscape Survey reveal some intriguing confusion among Americans on cosmic issues. About 13 percent of evangelicals, it turns out, don’t believe in a personal God, leading to a shameful waste of golf time on Sunday mornings. And 9 percent of atheists report that they are skeptical of evolution. Are there atheist creationists? Well, there probably aren’t any atheist creationists, although, if Richard Dawkins can be an “Atheist for Jesus,” anything is possible. Yes, these folks may be severely confused (“deluded,” if you prefer). However, perhaps many of these atheists, while not being creationists, are simply skeptical of the Darwinian mechanism. (Gerson Read More ›