Templeton and Metanexus Darwinists Decide to Attack the Messenger

Some Darwinists have a tendency to assume that anything coming from the ID camp must be a mistaken attack on them. This can lead to a Darwinist choosing not to read the pro-ID article, then responding to the (still unread) article by misconstruing basic facts, like the name of the website hosting the article, pro-ID books discussed in the article, or even the central argument of the article. Joseph Campana of ResearchID.org exposes these errors in the responses from Pamela Thompson of the John Templeton Foundation and William Grassie of Metanexus to his article, which demonstrated that the New York Times invented claims that Templeton asked for research proposals which “never came in.”

Darwinist Thought Police in Idaho Busy Stamping Out Any Mention of Intelligent Design

The Darwinist thought cops in Idaho are at it again. A while back it was the president of University of Idaho issuing a dictum banning the discussion of intelligent design from science courses. (See here, here and here) Now the Idaho Science Teachers Association has put its big hairy foot down and forbidden its teachers from discussing intelligent design in science classes.

Japanese Scientists Growing More Interested in Intelligent Design

Late last year senior fellow Jonathan Wells visited Japan to deliver two speeches on intelligent design and evolution. Dr. Wells’ first lecture (in English, with simultaneous translation into Japanese) was to an international philosophy conference. More than 150 people attended, including scientists and scholars from Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Greece and Mongolia. A few Americans were present, along with participants from Bangladesh, France, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic (who brought along a copy of the new Czech edition of Icons of Evolution). According to Wells, the audience was polite, the questions were penetrating and the Q&A was lively.

Darwinist to Pro-ID Student: “Stay in school and quit repeating the same tired claptrap that comes out of the Discovery Institute”

A student at Boise State University recently published an opinion article in the campus newspaper, the Arbiter Online, defending intelligent design. In the article Aaron Vandenbos observed that there is a difference between how ID-proponents and evolutionists behave when in debate: “In my experience, IDists, knowing that they are the underdog, are careful to be objective and factual. On the other hand, I have noticed that evolutionists tend to spend most of their time questioning their opponents’ credibility, belittling their opponents’ intelligence, demolishing straw men and then doing victory laps.” He then explained that evolutionists have defined the terms of this debate so as to settle it before it has even begun. Mr. Vandenbos wrote: Now, I certainly do not Read More ›

Will Darwinists put John Dupré on Display or will they Hide him Away?

A couple weeks ago I watched some video footage of the American Museum for Natural History’s 2006 Darwin Exhibit, which showcased a number of Darwinian scientists who were religious. These included Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Richard Fortey, all of whom were portrayed discussing their acceptance evolution and some form of religion (their specific religious persuasions were not specified in the exhibit footage I saw). No Darwinists were shown stating views which opposed religion. I also recently purchased John Dupré’s book Darwin’s Legacy: What Evolution Means Today (Oxford University Press, 2003). It’s a fairly short book, and given that Dupré is both professor of philosophy of science and Director of the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society at the University Read More ›