Much the way Marxist determinism was marshaled in the past to explain practically everything, an “evolutionary advantage” is now sought. Endless grant money seems to be available and journalists are eager to report the research speculations as “science.” I am collecting a file of such stories. So here I am trying to figure out how a study might be concocted to explain this moving account of a sports team that showed great conscience and panache. Surely someone can get a government grant to find a Darwinian answer to replace the common sense one.

Richard Dawkins has got himself in a bit of a pickle and, in an effort to wash off the brine, now appears to be in a bit of a lather. In an op-ed this morning in the L.A. Times (see here), he is at pains to distance himself from remarks he made in the newly released movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Toward the end of the film, in an interview with Ben Stein at the British Museum, Dawkins confesses he has no idea how life originated on earth — nor does anyone, he admits — but, as Nobel laureate Francis Crick once theorized, it could well be explained by having been seeded here by an alien intelligence. Of course, he Read More ›