I Disagree with Mac Johnson

Mac Johnson is a columnist at Human Events who writes columns with which I often agree. Last month he posted a column with which I, and many commentators on his blog, disagree. His column, Intelligent Design and Other Dumb Ideas, attacks a theory not held by any advocate of Intelligent Design. Perhaps I can help clear up his misunderstanding. Intelligent Design in biology is a straightforward idea — one that Mr. Johnson, who is a medical researcher and is well acquainted with the methods of science, should have no trouble getting right. Understanding what advocates of intelligent design are saying is a necessary prelude to a thoughtful critique, which Mr. Johnson has not yet offered.

Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig Rebuts Latest Tall Tale of Giraffe Evolution

German geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig Tackles The Latest Claims on Giraffe Evolution Darwinists sometimes think that they can account for the evolutionary origin of a complex biological feature simply by citing some kind of experimental or theoretical evidence showing that the complex feature would have provided a selective advantage to its owner. However, such Darwinists forget that, as many have recounted, natural selection only accounts for the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest. Evidence that a given feature–when fully formed–provides some selective advantage does not demonstrate that the feature can be evolved in a step-wise, mutation-by-mutation fashion. If Michael Behe is correct, then irreducibly complex features require many parts to be present all-at-once in order to get Read More ›

Wired Magazine Acknowledges Discrimination against Guillermo Gonzalez and Understands What the Ames Tribune Ignored

In a post entitled “Denied Tenure, Astronomer Alleges Intelligent Design Witchhunt,” Wired Magazine‘s blog has acknowledged that Iowa State University (ISU) discriminated against Guillermo Gonzalez because he supports intelligent design: So far, science bloggers and defenders of evolution have dismissed Gonzalez’s complaints. However, I’m not sure they’re being fair. Though out-of-context email excerpts can be misleading, statements like “this is not a friendly place for him to develop further his IDeas” make it sound like Gonzalez was not, as the university insisted, judged solely on the content of his astronomical scholarship. Wired is exactly right. Regardless of Dr. Gonzalez’s level of grants or his publication record, the crucial question here is, Was Gonzalez discriminated against because he supports intelligent design? Read More ›

John Hauptman’s Vote against Gonzalez Was Because of ID … Before It Wasn’t

Iowa State University (ISU) physicist John Hauptman is talking out of both sides of his mouth. The ISU Daily has a great article up today on the Guillermo Gonzalez case, in which ISU professor John Hauptman was quoted as saying: the tenure decision was “absolutely not” based on Gonzalez’s research into intelligent design Really? Huh. I hate to be rude, but aren’t you contradicting something you wrote rather publicly in the Des Moines Register early this summer? Back in June, you honestly admitted that you voted to deny Gonzalez tenure because of The Privileged Planet. This is better than John Kerry’s infamous “flipper” line. In this case, John Hauptman’s vote was because of ID… before it wasn’t.

Meet the Materialists, part 7: Katherine Blackford, M.D., and the “Scientific” Selection of Employees

Note: This is one of a series of posts adapted from my new book, Darwin Day in America. You can find other posts in the series here. During the early decades of the twentieth century, Katherine Blackford , M.D., urged America’s businesses to reinvent their employment policies by drawing on the discoveries of modern science, especially Darwinian biology. Employment selection procedures, in short, needed to be based on the facts of natural selection.