Anti-evolution
jlynch | August 26, 2006Jonathan Wells is at it again. Erstwhile "developmental biologist," he has taken time off "working on a book criticizing the over-emphasis on genes in biology and medicine" to present a Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, one that is approved of by Ann Coulter, who sees Wells as "an expert of Darwinism and intelligent design". To be fair, this is probably true - Wells is an expert in the same way that Coulter is an expert on science and history.
In any case, over at the Thumb, the crew have begun to put together a chapter by chapter response to Wells' dreck. As…
jlynch | August 26, 2006Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has once more taken a stance on evolution and once more illustrated his lack on knowledge:
"What I desire intensely is that, also in school programs, questions be explained, at the scientific level, opened by the theory of evolution, such as the famous question of the missing rings [sic]," Cardinal Schönborn said.
The cardinal said that 150 years after Darwin's theory, "there is no evidence in the geological strata of intermediate species that should exist, according to Darwin's theory."
No "missing rings" eh?
It's hard to know which is sadder, Schönborn's…
jlynch | August 10, 2006Science has just published a short comparative study of international acceptance of evolution. Thirty-four countries were polled, and guess what? We score 33rd - edging out Turkey for last place.
Reference is, Jon D. Miller, Eugenie C. Scott, and Shinji Okamoto (2006) "Public Acceptance of Evolution" Science Aug 11 2006: 765-766.
jlynch | August 2, 2006The ID reaction to Kansas is beginning to trickle in. Paul Nelson gives us a little fable claiming that the science standards don't matter anyway, and John West said the outcome would not stop people from learning about the "growing controversy" over evolution."
Let's face it guys -- up until last night, you saw the standards as being important Hell, you funded a media campaign with lecture tours and websites just to make that point.
And here's the rub, in conservative Kansas, in Republican primaries (surely members of your "natural constituency") you lost. That must hurt.
jlynch | August 1, 2006News from Kansas seems to be that Bacon & Willard won their primaries and Morris & Patzer lost, being replaced by pro-science Republicans. As Nick notes, "[t]he likelihood is therefore that the new Board of Education will switch from being a 6-4 pro-creationism majority to at least a 6-4 pro-science majority (depending on the November general election). This probably means the pro-ID/creationism science standards are history." Things are looking good for Kansas at last.
jlynch | July 31, 2006Jerry Coyne has a piece in TNR Online on Coulter. Unfortunately, it's subscription only, but (see below) here is a highlight:
The real reason Coulter goes after evolution is not because it's wrong, but because she doesn't like it--it doesn't accord with how she thinks the world should be. That's because she feels, along with many Americans, that "Darwin's theory overturned every aspect of Biblical morality." What's so sad--not so much for Coulter as for Americans as a whole--is that this idea is simply wrong. Darwinism, after all, is just a body of thought about the origin and change of…
jlynch | July 31, 2006As Ed reports here, the mask has fallen away from ID. Joel Borofsky - Dembski's "research" assistant - has admitted that the push for "balance" in Kansas is nothing more than an attempt to inject ID into schools:
It really is ID in disguise. The entire purpose behind all of this is to shift it into schools...at least that is the hope/fear among some science teachers in the area. The problem is, if you are not going to be dogmatic in Darwinism that means you inevitably have to point out a fault or at least an alternative to Darwinism. So far, the only plausible theory is ID.
BOOM! Thank you…
jlynch | July 13, 2006Over at National Review Online, John Derbyshire tackles George Gilder's expectorations on evolution. He writes:
It's a wearying business, arguing with Creationists. Basically, it is a game of Whack-a-Mole. They make an argument, you whack it down. They make a second, you whack it down. They make a third, you whack it down. So they make the first argument again. This is why most biologists just can't be bothered with Creationism at all, even for the fun of it. It isn't actually any fun. Creationists just chase you round in circles. It's boring.
So true.
And ...
There are two reasons why…
jlynch | June 6, 2006Ann Coulter on evolution:
Q. Most people consider evolution to be a branch of science, or at least a scientific theory, yet in "Godless," you refer to it as a "cult" and a "fetish." What is your basis for calling it that?
A: There is no evidence that it is true. The fossil record contradicts it, and it is a theory that cannot be disproved. Whatever happens is said to "prove" evolution. This is the very definition of a pseudoscience, like astrology.
Let's remember that Dembski was "in constant correspondence with Ann regarding her chapters on Darwinism".
According to her interview with Matt…
jlynch | April 26, 2006Ann Coulter's new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism will apparently deal (in part) with evolution:
Then, of course, there's the liberal creation myth: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
For liberals, evolution is the touchstone that separates the enlightened from the benighted. But Coulter neatly refutes the lie that liberals are rationalists guided by the ideals of free inquiry and the scientific method. She exposes the essential truth about Darwinian evolution that liberals refuse to confront: It is bogus science.
Writing with a keen appreciation for genuine science, Coulter reveals…
jlynch | April 1, 2006I seem to have annoyed someone by the moniker of 'dlamming', apparently a graduate student who is interested in yeast. While searching through my junk trackbacks, I discovered his response to my post on the mathematician William Hart (see here), whom he feels is more than adequately qualified to talk about evolution.
'dlamming' makes a number of claims. The first is simply that math is important to many aspects of biology. This is not terribly interesting or, for that matter, controversial and no one - certainly not me - has been claiming that math and mathematicians are not part of…
jlynch | March 23, 2006The South Carolina schools system is in a worse state than I ever expected. Carol Crooks, of Greer SC, opines:
The theory of evolution does not and cannot explain so much about the universe that we know. For instance, when and how did water evolve? How does it happen that gravity can hold us to the Earth, and at the same time allow us to step up without any trouble? How did it happen that the Earth is spinning at the exact rate that keeps us from feeling that movement?
Yikes. I guess we need to "teach the controversy" in physics class as well.
Hat tip to Steve over at the Thumb.
jlynch | March 10, 2006Berlinski's latest expectoration in his interview with himself:
You talk very often of, and I quote, "the serious sciences." I take it you mean to exclude biology altogether. Is that your view? ...
DB: To a certain extent. My real view is that there is only one science, and that is mathematics, and that the physical sciences are really forms of experimental mathematics.
Wow.
jlynch | March 2, 2006Since I am busy, I thought I'd post this oldie from April of last year. The book in question, now titled "Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement" will, according to Dembski, ship soon. I will offer a real review when I can.
Over at his website, Bill Dembski had published the front matter [pdf] for A Man For This Season: The Phillip Johnson Celebration Volume to be published by InterVarsity Press in 2006, and edited by Dembski and Jed Macosko. The volume is a festscrift for PEJ that stems from the celebration that was held at the opening of the Intelligent…
jlynch | February 26, 2006News from Answers in Genesis, Henry Morris, the godfather of American young earth creationism and founder of the Institute for Creation Research died last night at the age of 87. Like him or loath him, Morris' influence on American anti-evolutionism was huge. See here for more details.
jlynch | February 20, 2006Grrlscientist has a review up of Ruse's book, The Evolution-Creation Struggle (2005), so I thought I'd copy a review I wrote that appeared in Nature Cell Biology (Dec 2005 issue).
As an undergraduate in Ireland in the mid-80's I ran across a copy of Ashley Montagu's book Science and Creationism. Frankly, I felt that I was reading some kind of parody â could there actually be people in a technologically literate country like the United States who denied both the fact of evolution and the hypothesis that natural selection was a mechanism for such change? Such opposition was not an issue in…
jlynch | February 20, 2006The American Association for the Advancement of Science is this nations premier scientific body and was founded in the 19th century to promote science (along the model of its British counterpart). Ironically, one of its early supporters was the great creationist Louis Agassiz - whom many have described as the last great American creationist scientist - and in the early 20th century, William Jennings Bryan was a member.
The AAAS met in St Louis last week and the Board of Directors issued the following statement [pdf] on evolution:
Evolution is one of the most robust and widely accepted…
jlynch | February 15, 2006Dan Ely is a physiologist who supported the Ohio lesson plan that was defeated yesterday. In this skreed, the DI tries to make out that Ely - who testified in Kansas - has been unfairly represented as a creationist. Let's look at the Kansas transcript, shall we?
Q: Welcome to Kansas. I have a few questions for the record for you. First I have a group of yes or no questions that I would like for you to answer, please. What is your opinion as to the age of the earth?A: In light of time I would say most of the evidence that I see, I read and I understand points to an old age of the earth.
Q…