Labels: David C. Price

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From William Dembski, Guillermo Gonzalez, Paul Nelson, Jay Richards, and Jonathan Witt

Alan I. Leshner (“Redefining Science,” July 8) says intelligent design isn’t science because scientific theories “explain what can be observed” and are “testable by repeatable observations and experimentation.” But particular design arguments meet this standard. Biologist Michael Behe, for instance, argues that design is detectable in the bacterial flagellum because the tiny motor needs all its parts to function—is irreducibly complex—a hallmark of designed systems. The argument rests on what we know about designed systems, and from our growing knowledge of the cellular world and its many mechanisms.

How to test and discredit Behe’s argument? Provide a continuously functional evolutionary pathway from simple ancestor to present motor. Darwinists like Kenneth Miller point to the hope of future discoveries, and to the type III secretory system as a machine possibly co-opted on the evolutionary path to the flagellum. The argument is riddled with problems, but it shows that Miller, at least, understands perfectly well that Behe’s argument is testable.

Read the conclusion of the letter here.

Labels: David C. Price

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"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination ... but if [Chavez] thinks we are trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

Labels: David C. Price

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1. A hostile work environment was created with the ultimate goal of forcing him out of the Smithsonian.


2. Sternberg’s religious and political affiliations were investigated.


3. Sternberg’s scientific education, background and writings were investigated.


4. Attempts were made to deny Sternberg workspace within the Smithsonian.


5. Misinformation was disseminated through the Smithsonian and to outside sources.

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Whether or not Sternberg's Smithsonian managers broke the law, the OSC's preliminary investigation certainly opens a window on the culture of the Smithsonian, a venerated institution where the unfettered search for truth is supposed to be the rule, and where, one also hopes, the people who fund that search would be respected.

And yet, quite apart from Sternberg's treatment, the e-mail traffic at the Smithsonian gives ample evidence not of respect for ordinary Americans but of contempt, especially if those Americans are religious believers. One senior SI staffer commented ruefully about the Meyer article in an e-mail quoted in the OCS document: "We are evolutionary biologists, and I am sorry to see us made into the laughing stock of the world [by publishing Meyer's article criticizing Darwinian theory], even if this kind of rubbish [that is, Intelligent Design] sells well in backwoods USA." One e-mail generously granted, "Scientists have been perfectly willing to let these people alone in their churches." Another from a scientist at the museum told of how, after "spending 4.5 years in the Bible Belt," the writer had learned how to deal with religious Christians. For example, he described the "fun we had" when "my son refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance because of the 'under dog' [meaning presumably the 'under God'] part."

The Smithsonian is indeed a treasure, beloved by millions of Americans who visit it from across the country. How sad that some of the scientists who work there feel this way about the people who pay their salaries. Whether that observation is more or less troubling than the way the same scientists apparently feel about the search for truth is a question every taxpayer will have to decide for himself.

Labels: David C. Price

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Harvard University is joining the long-running debate over the theory of evolution by launching a research project to study how life began.

The team of researchers will receive $1 million in funding annually from Harvard over the next few years. The project begins with an admission that some mysteries about life's origins cannot be explained.

"My expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention," said David R. Liu, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard. [Washington Times]

Well, it's good to see they're going to make an unbiased attempt to discover the origins of the universe. More evidence that scientists do, indeed, begin with a prior philosophic commitment (usually to naturalism).

I wonder what Reverend John Harvard would think of the Christian institution he founded.

Labels: David C. Price

"It looks like today, and this could change, as of today it looks like women will be worse off in Iraq than they were when Saddam Hussein was president of Iraq."

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TRANSCRIPT FROM O'REILLY FACTOR, TUESDAY, AUGUST 9

Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly. Thanks for watching us tonight. The fascinating saga of Cindy Sheehan. That is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo".

Mrs. Sheehan is protesting in Crawford, Texas, trying to convince Americans the Iraq War is wrong and the president should be impeached. She is doing so because her son Casey, an Army specialist, was killed last year in Iraq.

No one has the right to intrude on Mrs. Sheehan's grief. That's number one. She's entitled to her opinion on a situation that has deeply affected her. And she's angry at the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CINDY SHEEHAN, SON DIED IN IRAQ: Because Joe Hagen, the deputy chief of staff said that I can tell you the president really cares. And I said you can't tell me that because I met with him and I know that he doesn't care. And I told them that I feel that my son didn't die for a noble cause.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: Well, here's something very strange. Two months after her son died, Cindy and her husband Patrick did meet with President Bush, as she said. After that meeting, Cindy was quoted by a California newspaper as saying, "I now know [President Bush] is sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss."

So Mrs. Sheehan has apparently changed her mind about the president. How did that happen? Well, for some reason she's teamed up with Michael Moore and a man named Sam Husseini, both anti-war radicals. Husseini said this on "The Factor" just two days after 9/11.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAM HUSSEINI, INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC ACCURACY: What sickened me was the act of what happened and that people would kill so many innocent people. But now I hear a drumbeat of having our soldiers kill women and children.

Colin Powell advocated, apparently, during the build-up of the Gulf War of flooding Baghdad and killing possibly four million people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'REILLY: Now that kind of lunacy is what Mrs. Sheehan is associating with. You would think the media would be cautious here with obvious inconsistencies and radicalism in play, but no.

In an editorial today in The New York Times, it says, "Mr. Bush obviously failed to comfort Ms. Sheehan when he met with her and her family. More important, he has not helped the nation give fallen soldiers like Casey Sheehan the honor they deserve."

Well, let's go back to the California article. Cindy Sheehan quoted as saying, "that was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together." It sounds like comfort to me. What say you, New York Times?

Finally, honest people could disagree about the Iraq War. Most Americans now oppose it. That could turn around with some progress. And "Talking Points" hopes it does.

But remember this. For every Cindy Sheehan, there's a Sergeant Leroy Scott who's recovering from the terrible wounds he received, attempting to go save a soldier's life while serving as a medic in Iraq. Sergeant Scott is proud of his service, proud of his country. I talked with him today. I sense no bitterness at all.

I don't know what is driving Mrs. Sheehan, but I do know she's being used. And maybe she knows it as well. And that's the Memo.

HT: Michelle Malkin

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CLINICS could soon be screening embryos for genes that carry a predisposition to breast cancer and other tumours.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) announced yesterday that it is to consult the public about letting couples choose embryos free from genetic defects.

(Full story here.)

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The belief, which many say is deeply tied to religious belief, holds that some features of the natural world are best explained by an unspecified intelligent cause. Evolution is a fundamental scientific theory that species evolved over millions of years through natural selection.

However, the latest version of the science standards says the board isn't advocating intelligent design — which says some features of the natural world are best explained by an intelligent cause because they're well-ordered and complex — as an alternative to the theory of evolution. But the language favored by the board comes from intelligent design advocates who challenge the theory of evolution.

Tuesday's debate exemplified the divisiveness of the issue, with moderates saying religion has no place in the science classroom.

"The trouble with you evolutionists is that you just don't play fair," Gish told him. You accuse us of teaching a religious view, he said, but "you evolutionists are just as religious in your way. Christianity tells us where we came from, where we're going, and what we should do on the way. I defy you to show any difference with evolution. It tells you where you came from, where you are going, and what you should do on the way." In short, evolution itself functions as a religion."

Critics typically accuse Intelligent Design supporters of trying to inject religion into the classroom. For example, during the Ohio controversy an editorial in a Columbus newspaper said, 'The problem is that intelligent-design proponents want to bring religion into science classes, where it doesn't belong.'

The correct response is that religion is already in the classroom--because naturalistic evolution is itself a religion or worldview....The battle over evolution is merely one incident 'in the dispute between the believers in consciousness and the believers in mechanical action; the believers in purpose and the believers in pure chance.' To promote one faith in the public school system at public expense, while banning the other, is an example of viewpoint discrimination, which the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional in a wide variety of cases.

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This statistic translated means that most people are willing to do whatever they can get away with. ... With so many rejecting the idea of moral absolutes, it is only a matter of time until our society collapses. A moral society is a happier society and a more successful one. An immoral society is one that destroys itself and its citizens.

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"If I have erred" by exaggerating the power of natural seleciton, he wrote, "I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations." After listing some of the other theories offered in his day, he added: "Whether the naturalist believes in the views given by [these other writers] or by myself, signifies extremely little in comparison with the admission that species have descended from other species, and have not been created immutable." It's clear that, for Darwin, evolution was no so much a specific theory as a philosophical stance--a stance that could be described as, any mechanism is acceptable, as long as it is naturalistic. Darwinian evolution is not so much an empirical finding as a deduction from a naturalistic worldview.

Public schools are urged to revolutionize their students' worldviews by applying Darwin's "universal acid" to the beliefs they bring from home. And what if meddlesome parents persist in teaching their children that Darwinism is not the whole story of human origins? In that case, Dennett growls, "we will describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity." As a final insult, he suggests putting traditional churches and rituals in "cultural zoos," along with other artifacts from defunct cultures."

Obviously, what Dennett is promoting here is not objective science but his own personal philosophy of evolutionary materialism or naturalism. Making an appearance in the eight-part PBS series "Evolution," Dennett informed the audience that Darwin's great accomplishment was to reduce the design of the universe to a product of "purposeless, meaningless matter in motion." But think about it: Is there any possible way such a statement could be tested scientifically? Any laboratory test that could confirm that the universe arose from "meaningless matter in motion"? Clearly not. It is not a scientific theory at all, but merely Dennett's personal philosophy.

Labels: David C. Price

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