Tag: Darwinism
From Scopes to Dover, and Everything in Between
Just in time for Monday’s thought-crime trial in Dover, Pennsylvania, H. Wayne House has an extensive review here of cases in the U.S. dealing with Darwinism and the public schools: “Darwinism and the Law: Can Non-Naturalistic Scientific Theories Survive Constitutional Challenge?” It’s an excellent resource for anyone covering the trial, though I could quibble with a few elements. For instance, if House means to include contemporary design arguments in biology, it would be more precise to say “Non-Materialist Scientific Theories.”
Don’t Stereotype Darwin Doubters and ID Proponents
It fascinates me that people often assume that if you are an advocate of intelligent design — or even if you merely question Darwinism — you must be a religious zealot of one stripe or another.
NYT on Darwinism and Catholicism
Today’s New York Times has a fascinating page-one article about Catholic Cardinal Christoph Schönborn’s recent op-ed declaring that Darwinism is incompatible with Roman Catholic doctrine as well as the findings of human reason. As we’ve come to expect from the major media, this “news” article contains errors of fact as well as editorializing by reporters Cornelia Dean and Laurie Goodstein, but it is nevertheless informative — and for a piece by the major media, relatively balanced. The article quotes both Bruce Chapman and Mark Ryland from Discovery Institute. The main thrust of the story is summarized early on in the following paragraphs:
ID and “Divine Design,” Part Two
Blogger Ed Brayton is fulminating over my comments about those who wrongly conflate intelligent design theory with religion. Brayton responds with proof-texts supposedly showing that key ID supporters think ID makes religious claims after all. Mr. Brayton doth protest too much. First of all, if he had read the article I referenced in my blog post about why ID is not creationism, he would have known that I never deny that ID can have metaphysical implications. As I wrote in that article:
Science Magazine Stands Up for Science Fiction
Science Magazine’s “Netwatch” for today has an item titled “Standing up for Darwin.” I hope the magazine’s review process for scientific articles is better than its apparently non-existent fact-checking of news items. In typically histrionic tones, the piece laments: Evolution is under attack again, as school boards in Kansas and other states consider whether to mandate teaching of “intelligent design”…