25Jun 2020 by Post

Darwinism and “No Lives Matter”

alt-right, Center for Science & Culture, Charles Darwin, churches, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, Evolution, evolutionists, Francis Scott Key, ID The Future, Mike Keas, No Lives Matter, Peter Singer, Podcast, pseudoscience, Racism, Richard Weikart, scientific racism, Shrewsbury, statues, Ulysses Grant, V.I. Lenin, vandals, white nationalists
I’ve wondered if the marauding vandals will come eventually for the Darwin statues. I hope NOT, but let’s face it — between Francis Scott Key or Ulysses Grant, on one hand, and Charles Darwin on the other, whose work has done more to undergird racism? There’s no contest.  A classic episode of ID the Future, republished now, is eerie in its relevance to the culture at the moment. Host and science historian Michael Keas interviewed historian and Center for Science & Culture Senior Fellow Richard Weikart about the racial pseudoscience that’s integral to the Darwinian scientific heritage. As Professor Weikart explains, Darwin’s racism is not incidental to his case for evolution. It’s not as if he was merely a product of his time, with the reprehensible attitudes held by other…
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06Jun 2020 by Post

Whose Lives Matter? Darwinism as Soil for Scientific Racism

alt-right, Charles Darwin, Darwinism, David Klinghoffer, eugenics, Evolution, evolutionary theory, Human Zoos, John Derbyshire, Margaret Sanger, National Review, Neo-Darwinism, Racism, Rich Lowry, Robert Weissberg, scientific racism
On a classic but timely episode of ID the Future, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer discusses the move by National Review editor Rich Lowry in 2012 to sever ties with two regular contributors, John Derbyshire and Robert Weissberg, after discovering their connections to racialist groups promoting race superiority, eugenics, and other morally repugnant ideas. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Klinghoffer explains how Darwinian evolution has informed proponents of these ideas, and how important it is to identify and root out such thinking before it has a chance to pollute respectable institutions and publications. Darwinian ideas are hardly the only possible source of racist thinking, and of course racism long predates Charles Darwin. But Darwinism has proved fertile soil for scientific racism in the modern period. That’s one more reason…
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01Jun 2020 by Post

Human Zoos — How “Science” Fueled the Racial Fire

African-American, Africans, alt-right, Bellevue, Black Lives Matter, Bronx Zoo, Caucasian, Charles Darwin, clergy, Culture & Ethics, Discovery Institute, Evolution, George Floyd, Human Zoos, John West, lockdown, looting, Minneapolis, New York City, New York Times, original sin, Ota Benga, pandemic, police brutality, protests, pygmies, Racism, scientific racism, Seattle, South Bronx, St. Louis, textbooks, The Descent of Man, The Hub, Tukwila, United States, Wesley Smith
Scorching images from across the country fill our screens, a reminder that the racial past remains an unhealed burn in America’s present. The mood in our own area is shocked and anxious, as we watched violence and looting spread from Seattle to outlying cities like Bellevue and Tukwila. It is getting very close to home. Some have called racism America’s historical “original sin.” Where did many white people of the past get the wicked idea that their lives matter more than black lives? The question is complex but, without doubt, Darwinian theory helped to fuel our present racial fire. Comprehending the national burden of hatred is a task not only for scholars but for all Americans. So too with understanding the origins of the opportunistic criminality that has piggybacked on…
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27May 2020 by Post

Evolving a Self-Replicating Molecule Is a “Purple Unicorn”

3D printer, Big Bang, biology, Cambrian Explosion, cell's, Charles Darwin, Eric H. Anderson, Evolution, Evolution & Intelligent Design in a Nutshell, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, origin of life, Podcast, purple unicorn, Richard Dawkins, self-reproducing molecule
On a new episode of ID the Future, Eric H. Anderson reads from his newly co-authored book Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell, written to provide a clear and simple introduction to the evolution/ID controversy, and a broad overview of the evidence for design in nature. That evidence includes cosmic fine tuning and the Big Bang, the origin of life, irreducibly complex machines, and the Cambrian explosion. Download the podcast or listen to it here. In this excerpt, Anderson tells of Richard Dawkins’s glib assurances that the mystery of the origin of life is one not far from being solved. Not so, Anderson says. Origin-of-life researchers haven’t found a pathway to a self-replicating biological entity, the beginning point for any sort of Darwinian evolution. And it’s not for lack of time, effort,…
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19May 2020 by Post

Book Excerpt: A Factory That Builds Factories That Build Factories That…

abiogenesis, bacteria, Charles Darwin, Darwinian evolution, early Earth, factories, Gerald F. Joyce, Harvard University, Holy Grail, Intelligent Design, Jack Szostak, Joseph Hooker, Max Schultze, metabolic pathways, molecules, National Public Radio, natural selection, origin of life, Oxford University, protoplasm, random mutations, Richard Dawkins, self-replication, The Origin of Species, The Selfish Gene
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from the the new book from Discovery Institute Press, Evolution & Intelligent Design in a Nutshell. Eric H. Anderson is a lawyer, software engineering executive, and writer on intelligent design. Nobel Prize recipient and Harvard origin-of-life researcher Jack Szostak once remarked, “In my lab, we’re interested in the transition from chemistry to early biology on the early earth…. You want something that can grow and divide and, most importantly, exhibit Darwinian evolution.”1 Another noted origin-of-life researcher, Gerald F. Joyce, says much the same thing. When asked about the idea that chemicals might have come together on the early Earth to form something that could copy itself, Joyce responded, “That’s what we and others are interested in because that’s sort of, you know, the…
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13Apr 2020 by Post

Zoom Webinar with Wells, Sternberg on Whale Evolution; Join Us on April 23!

bears, Binghamton University, biologists, Center for Science & Culture, Charles Darwin, Darwinism, Discovery Institute, Evolution, Florida International University, Intelligent Design, Is Homology Evidence for Evolution?, Jonathan Wells, Richard Sternberg, scientists, The Origin of Species, U.C. Berkeley, webinar, Whale of an Evolution Tale, whales, Yale University, Zoom
Darwinists often point to the whale fossil record as one of the best examples of an evolutionary transition. But is it? Charles Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species: “I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale.” Bears turning into whales? Scientists today disagree, instead claiming that other land animals were the real precursors to today’s whales. “Just think of all the parameters that would have to be modified,” says biologist and Center for Science & Culture Senior Fellow Richard Sternberg, “and then multiply that by, I don’t know — a thousandfold, or more than that. That’s the scale of…
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12Apr 2020 by Post

Irreconcilable Differences: Can Darwinism Be Pasteurized?

Charles Darwin, Darwin Day in America, eugenics, Evolution, George Draper, International Medical Congress, John West, Jonathan Wells, Joshua Lederberg, Karl Pearson, Louis Pasteur, Medicine, Michael Behe, Michael Egnor, microbes, Nazism, Pasteurization, Pierre-Olivier Méthot, public health, René Dubos, Samuel Alizon, The Edge of Evolution, The Myth of Darwinian Medicine (series), Zombie Science
Editor’s note: As biologist Jonathan Wells observes, “[T]he measures being taken against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic owe nothing to evolutionary theory.” Yet a persistent claim from evolutionists is that medical research would be crippled without a Darwinian framework. Evolution News presents a series of our previously published work addressing the myth of “Darwinian medicine.” Michael Egnor has criticized so-called “Darwinian medicine” as a useless concept, since medical science has had spectacular success without it. Darwinism is about the death of the unfit, focused on populations instead of individuals. Medicine is about healing individuals and anyone who needs help, including the unfit, the weak, and the vulnerable. How can the father of evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, and the father of biogenesis, pasteurization and vaccines, Louis Pasteur, be reconciled? A Noble Aim In…
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10Apr 2020 by Post

No, Despite Often-Heard Claims, Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria Is Not Evolution

Adam Gopnik, animal husbandry, antibiotic resistance, antibiotics, Artificial Selection, bacteria, Charles Darwin, doctors, Evolution, evolutionary biology, health, infectious diseases, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Wells, Los Angeles, medical care, medical research, Medicine, natural selection, On the Origin of Species, P.Z. Myers, plant breeding, superbug, The Myth of Darwinian Medicine (series), The New Yorker
Editor’s note: As biologist Jonathan Wells observes, “[T]he measures being taken against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic owe nothing to evolutionary theory.” Yet a persistent claim from evolutionists is that medical research would be crippled without a Darwinian framework. Evolution News presents a series of our previously published work addressing the myth of “Darwinian medicine.” Darwinian biologist and blogger P.Z. Myers wrote a post in which he lamented the fact that medical researchers rarely invoke evolution in their published research, whereas evolutionary biologists routinely invoke evolution. This is of course true. I pointed out that this is because evolutionary inferences are of no significant help to medical research. Inference to evolution is a narrative gloss on the real science in medicine. It is a point that I, along with others, have been making…
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01Apr 2020 by Post

Another Cosmos Episode, Another Sermon from Pastor Tyson

Al Ghazali, bees, Charles Darwin, China, consciousness, cosmos, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, Darwinism, empirical science, extraterrestrial intelligence, FAST telescope, Fox Broadcasting Company, Francis of Assisi, Maimonides, National Geographic Channel, natural selection, naturalistic philosophy, Physics, Earth & Space, religion, Smithsonian Magazine, The Hidden Life of Trees, The Secret Life of Plants, vitalism
Several themes weave their way through the current season of Cosmos, “Possible Worlds.”  The careful viewer will detect at least one in each episode. They include the ideas that a modern intellectual awakening took place when science (defined as applied naturalistic philosophy) triumphed over religion and superstition; that human exceptionalism is an ancient prejudice we must abandon; and that you can find meaning in a universe without a god. Episode 7, which aired last night on Fox and National Geographic, presents the viewer with a heavy dose of the second idea. The episode begins with Neil deGrasse Tyson walking on the perimeter of the recently completed 500-meter single dish radio telescope, FAST, in China. The episode is about the first contact with another intelligence, which many hope will be made with…
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29Mar 2020 by Post

An Artist Examines Evolution

Albert Einstein, artists, Asa Gray, Atheism, Charles Darwin, Chris Augusta, Christianity, Creativity, Darwinism, David Berlinski, David Gelernter, Eric Metaxas, Evolution, evolutionary theory, Hannah Arendt, Hoover Institution, Intelligent Design, Jonah Goldberg, Jordan Peterson, materialists, Merion West, Michael Flannery, multiverse, Percy Shelley, Peter Robinson, Stephen Meyer, string theory, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, The Return of the God Hypothesis, William Graham
Merion West is an online news source that dubs itself “a journal where all perspectives are welcome.” They tout the fact that they have been rated by Media Bias/Fact Check as a “Least Biased” source.  Generally, their articles seem to have deeper analysis than you will find in much of the mainstream media. For example, recent headlines include, “The Fraught Relationship Between Religion and Epidemiology,” “The Critics of ‘Social Justice,’ from Jonah Goldberg to Jordan Peterson,” and “Hannah Arendt’s Concept of ‘Impotent Bigness.’” They regularly interview newsmakers, and authors often include professors in relevant fields and others well qualified to comment.  Left, Center, or Right Articles are explicitly labeled by viewpoint: left, center, or right. This makes for interesting reading. To date, I haven’t seen much about evolution and intelligent…
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