09Jun 2020 by Post

The “Virus That Infected Philosophy”

art, barbarism, conservatism, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, Evolution, Ideas Have Consequences, Immanuel Kant, Michael Egnor, Mind Matters, modernity, Nominalism, noumena, phenomena, philosophy, Politics, realism, Richard M. Weaver
Keep an eye on a new series at Mind Matters by Michael Egnor. In 1948, Richard M. Weaver wrote a little book, Ideas Have Consequences, that became a foundational text of 20th-century American conservatism. He traced modern barbarism to a wrong intellectual turn by William of Ockham in the 14th century — advancing nominalism over realism — leading from there through Darwinian materialism to most everything else that’s wrong with modern life. Egnor explains, “Nominalism is the view that universals exist only as concepts in the mind, but not in reality.” He concludes his first post in the series: Nominalism leads inexorably to Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena — things as they appear to our senses and things as they are in themselves. That distinction locks us into a…
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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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04Jun 2020 by Post

Lancet Hydroxychloroquine Paper Scandal Illustrates Scientific Bias, Not Only in Medicine

Atheism, censorship, confirmation bias, coronavirus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, Evolution, Evolution News, human evolution, Human Origins, hydroxychloroquine, Indiegogo, James Todaro, Latin America, LinkedIn, Macroevolution, malaria, materialism, Medicine, Michael Behe, Microevolution, Neurodynamics Flow, origin of life, Sapan Desai, scientific culture, Surgisphere, The Guardian, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, World Health Organization
If you’ve ever wondered how much of high-stakes science is politicized, reflecting the ideological views of the scientists involved despite all their insistences to the contrary, look no further than this. A blockbuster paper in the leading British medical journal, The Lancet, reported increased mortality associated with the “controversial” malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, being tested for use against COVID-19. Why would a malaria drug, of a value that has yet to be determined, be controversial? You already know the answer: it’s because of the identity of the medicine’s biggest cheerleader. He Looked Them Up on LinkedIn In briefest terms, scientists drew on shady data from a previously obscure company, Surgisphere, operated by a skeleton crew with a questionable Internet profile. Having won the approval of the journal’s expert peer reviewers, they…
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02Jun 2020 by Post

Darwin’s Desperation?

"survival of the fittest", appendix, beards, BioEssays, Brois Yeltsin, California Science Center, cell's, censorship, chimpanzees, choking, Christians, Communist Party, conferences, Current Biology, Darwin Devolves, Darwinian theory, Dave Speijer, Dover trial, dysteleology, epiglottis, Evolution, Glenn-Peter Sætre, Heretic, Intelligent Design, J.B.S. Haldane, Judge John E. Jones, Kremlin, lip-smacking, Matti Leisola, methodological naturalism, Michael Behe, Norway, peasants, Richard Dawkins, Richard Sternberg, Social media, speech, Stephen Jay Gould, Summers Seminars, Uncommon Descent, University of Oslo
They used to just ignore us. That worked for many years. Rare appearances of the loathsome words “intelligent design” in scientific journals were quickly squashed, as Richard Sternberg can attest. Occasional payouts to avoid lawsuits, like at the California Science Center, could be dismissed as inconvenient hush money, quickly settled and ignored by the press.  Meanwhile, Darwinism marched on, confident and triumphant. Largely unimpeded by any need for debate, evolutionary biologists and psychologists, safe in the accepted custom of methodological naturalism, could spin their just-so stories without fear of contradiction. The media were willing accomplices, keeping the public submissive and quiet, satisfied with the daily illusions pouring forth from the ministry of truth. See how wonderful, elegant, and powerful Darwin’s theory is at explaining everything — from human speech evolving…
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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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30May 2020 by Post

Why “Humanize”? A New Effort to Defend the Unique Dignity of Human Beings

animal rights, animal welfare, animals, Artificial Intelligence, Center on Human Exceptionalism, China, COVID-19, Culture & Ethics, Darwin Day in America, David Klinghoffer, Discovery Institute, Evolution, Evolution News, facial recognition, Falun Gong, human exceptionalism, Human Zoos, Humanize, humans, John West, La Bella Principessa, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Egnor, quality of life, social credit, Steven J. Buri, The Biology of the Second Reich, Tom Shakely, transhumanism, triage, Uyghurs, Walter Bradley Center, Wesley Smith
Hello. My name is Wesley J. Smith and I am honored to be chairman of Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. I am writing to you here to introduce the CHE’s new blog, which we call Humanize. Humanize will complement and supplement the important work of the Center for Science & Culture and its invaluable Evolution News site.  Why did we choose “Humanize” as the name for the site? The once self-evident truth of human exceptionalism is under intensifying attack, as readers of Evolution News know well. Indeed, one of the tragic trends in thinking about evolution has been to blur the distinction between humans and animals. History warns us not to regard this lightly. Recent documentaries by Discovery Institute Vice President John West, Human Zoos and The Biology of…
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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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25May 2020 by Post

Does The Cambrian Explosion Disprove Darwinism?

2. Does God Exist?, Apologetics, Christianity, Darwin, Evidence, Evolution, God, JesusIsNotAFakeNews, naturalism, Origin, Philosophy of Science, Ryan Leasure, The Cambrian Explosion, The Origin of Species
By Ryan Leasure In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin argued that “all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form.”1 Darwin suggested that this primordial life form gradually developed into new life forms, which subsequently developed more life forms, eventually producing all the complex life forms we see today. In short, Darwin asserted that all life descended from a common ancestor. And starting from that original ancestor, he believed nature selected the fittest species which would survive, reproduce, and last for generations. At the same time, nature would sift out the weaker species. Darwin famously pictured the history of life as a tree. The first life form was the trunk, and all subsequent life forms are the branches. He was certain that the…
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25May 2020 by Post

Behe Vindicated Again: Sherpas Climb Everest Easier, Because Darwin Devolves

altitude, brown bears, climbing, Daisheng Song, Darwin Devolves, Darwinism, Evolution, genes, genetic information, genome, Han Chinese, hemoglobin, Himalayas, Intelligent Design, interfertility, loss of function, lowlanders, Michael Behe, Mount Everest, mount improbable, natural selection, Nepalese, oxygen, Phd2, PNAS, polar bears, positive selection, seal meat, Sherpa, super-athletes, Tibetans, Wikipedia
How can Tibetans survive high altitudes that leave lowlanders gasping? The answer is found in broken genes. A new paper on the Tibetan genome vindicates what Michael Behe said in Darwin Devolves: evolution breaks things, but sometimes, like in the case of polar bears, the result can allow organisms to thrive in specific environments. Yes, this follows on the heels of last week’s Behe vindication; see here. A team of 16 scientists, writing in PNAS, sought to understand the genetic basis for Tibetan high-altitude adaptation in more detail. Tibetans and Nepalese, many of whom serve as guides for lowlanders wanting to conquer Mount Everest, routinely carry heavy burdens at altitudes above 14,000 feet, the average elevation on the Tibetan plateau. In its entry on Sherpa people, Wikipedia notes, Many Sherpa…
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23May 2020 by Post

Listen: Lee Spetner Takes Aim at Natural Selection and Population Genetics

earth, Evolution, ID The Future, Ira Berkowitz, Jerusalem, Lee Spetner, Not by Chance, Podcast, population genetics, species, The Evolution Revolution
On a classic episode of ID the Future, Ira Berkowitz interviews MIT PhD Lee Spetner in Jerusalem. Together they explore key arguments from Spetner’s books Not by Chance and The Evolution Revolution. Spetner takes on natural selection, discussing what it can and cannot do. He also reviews aspects of population genetics and the constraints the Earth’s history imposes on evolving new species. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Photo: Coaster from Darwin’s Café Bar, Salzburg, Austria, by Nathan Jacobson. The post Listen: Lee Spetner Takes Aim at Natural Selection and Population Genetics appeared first on Evolution News.
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