Discovery Institute Responses to PBS/NOVA’s “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” Movie

As their birthday gift to Charles Darwin, yesterday many PBS stations apparently re-aired the “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” movie that they first released in November, 2007. The “documentary” purports to re-tell the story of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, but it portrays an extremely inaccurate, biased, and one-sided view of the case. In this regard, below are some links to responses to the “Judgment Day” that Discovery Institute produced when it first came out in 2007:   Darwin’s Failed Predictions A Response to Selected Online Materials of PBS-NOVA’s “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” Documentary PBS Airs False Facts in its “Inherit the Wind” Version of the Kitzmiller Trial PBS, Darwin and Dover: an Interview with Phillip Johnson Read More ›

A Partisan Affair (Part 6): False Claims about Science Education Policy in Edward Humes’ Pseudo-History of Kitzmiller, “Monkey Girl

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] In his book Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America’s Soul, author Edwards Humes makes many inaccurate claims about science education policy. Humes’ partisanship comes through clearly in these discussions, as he contends that those who would not teach evolution in a one-sided pro-Darwin-only fashion are engaged in a “concerted attack … on the teaching of evolution and other bedrock principles of modern science.” (pg. 25.) Humes’ repetition of common Darwinist rhetoric Read More ›

A Partisan Affair (Part 5): Misconstruals of Religion and Science in Edward Humes’ Pseudo-History of Kitzmiller, “Monkey Girl

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] To give a feel for the partisan nature of Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America’s Soul, Edward Humes’ website for his book has boasted glowing endorsements from reviewers like Eugenie Scott, P.Z. Myers, Michael Shermer, and conspicuously, no ID -proponents. One of the major themes of Humes’ book is to promote the view that evolution is compatible with religion. As discussed below, Humes even goes so far as to claim (wrongly) Read More ›

How Kenneth Miller Used Smoke-and-Mirrors to Misrepresent Michael Behe on the Irreducible Complexity of the Blood-Clotting Cascade (Part 3)

In Part 1, I showed how Ken Miller purported to refute Michael Behe’s arguments about the irreducible complexity of the blood-clotting cascade, but actually badly misrepresented Behe’s arguments to Judge Jones. In short, the purported knockout experiments (in the form comparative biochemistry) that Ken Miller cited to Judge Jones, where the blood-clotting cascade still worked in the absence of certain factors, dealt entirely with factors that Behe specifically did not claim were part of the irreducibly complex core of the blood-clotting cascade. Behe explained this problem in Miller’s argument to Judge Jones, but apparently Behe’s testimony fell on deaf ears. In Part 2, I discussed how Miller might not have even refuted the more expansive arguments for irreducible complexity of Read More ›

A Partisan Affair (Part 4): False Attacks on Traipsing Into Evolution in Edward Humes’ Pseudo-History of Kitzmiller, “Monkey Girl

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] In his book Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America’s Soul, Edwards Humes says that, “if the evolution wars are to continue, let the combatants be armed with facts, not fiction.” (pg. viii.) Yet as discussed in my previous post, it seems that Humes is more interested in mud-slinging against intelligent design (ID) proponents than providing a balanced discussion of the facts. In particular, Humes engages in name-calling in response to Traipsing Read More ›