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.

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"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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The saddest thing I've heard surrounding the death of
Peter Jennings is a statement that came straight from
his own mouth in a recent interview:
"There is no absolute truth for everyone. When I look at a coin,
I immediately want to see what is on the other side."
He spent so much time on his Search for Jesus,
but based on that statement, I fear he may have never really found Him.

Labels: David C. Price

The new crisis has been highly embarrassing for Russia, which will hold an unprecedented joint military exercise with China later this month, including the use of submarines to settle an imaginary conflict in a foreign land. In the exercise, Russia is to field a naval squadron and 17 long-haul aircraft.

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[T]he NCAA announced yesterday it would shut those words and images out of postseason tournaments, a move that left some school officials angry and threatening legal action.

Starting in February, any school with a nickname or logo considered racially or ethnically "hostile" or "abusive" by the NCAA would be prohibited from using them in postseason events. Mascots will not be allowed to perform at tournament games, and band members and cheerleaders also will be barred from using American Indians on their uniforms beginning in 2008. [Full story here.]

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"It's been written that the trademark of my career was toughness. The toughest person I ever met in my life was my son, my hero, Hunter. I love you, buddy."

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A year ago, Day decided that instead of going to Saratoga to ride full-time, he wanted to compete mainly weekends while doing a tour of racetracks to raise money for and awareness of the RTCA. As he was explaining to reporters that, in retrospect, he believes that was intended to be his farewell tour from race riding, a two-way radio squawked to an on-site television engineer, "There's no audio!"

"That's exactly what I was saying to God for a week when in fact he as talking to me all the time," Day said without missing a beat.

Day said he left Louisville last Thursday afternoon to spend whatever time was necessary to determine what God would have him do. He said he stayed in isolation at a cabin on the Kentucky River near Wilmore, reflecting on his life, reading scripture and Christian books and singing worship choruses with the only other sounds coming from nature.

After the press conference, Day said he spent his first night, "crying out to God to fan the flame, to restore unto me the joy of participating and the thrill of victory.'

"'C'mon, God,'" he recalled saying. "I'm healthy. You've repaired my hip. I can do this. You showed me this with Two Trail Sioux. I've still got it! Just give me back the competitive fire.'

"And there was basically no response. No audio."

While Day has experienced thunderbolt-type revelations, including when he turned his life over to Christ on Jan. 27, 1984, he said this was "like a slow dawning, like the sun coming up. ... I really think it was that way because this has been a part of my life 32 years, and it's not something that's easy to give up."

Early this week, driving along the river, "It just slowly became evident," he said. "Once I said it out loud, I kind of posed the question to God and said, ` You know what? It's time.' With that, it was like a watershed. Then I was excited about it. It was like, Yeah!'"
Read entire article here.

Labels: David C. Price

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"Creationism and intelligent design are often confused," said Jay W. Richards, vice president for research at Discovery Institute, a Seattle research and advocacy group for intelligent design. "Both have in common the idea that the universe exists for a purpose." Where intelligent design parts company with creationism, he said, is that it is neutral on Darwin's claim of common ancestry among species while challenging his theory that species change over time because of natural selection.

But critics say intelligent design is a form of creationism, stripped of references to the Bible to make the contention more palatable to skeptics.

"They are striving to maintain a big tent," said Branch, the evolution advocate. He said intelligent design supporters duck questions — such as the age of the Earth — that could alienate traditional creationists.

I was in Oxford last week, speaking at the C. S. Lewis Summer Institute, and had a chance to visit with Flew. He told a crowd that, as a professional philosopher, he had used all the tools of his trade to arrive at what he believed were intellectually defensible suppositions supporting atheism. But the intelligent design movement shook those presuppositions. He said, however, on philosophical grounds that he could not prove the existence of the God of the Bible.

In the question period, I walked to the microphone and told him as nicely as I could that he had put himself in an impossible box. He could prove theism was the only philosophically sustainable position, but he could not prove who God was. I said, “If you could prove who God was, you could not love God — which is the principle object of life.” Continue reading this article here.

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A Muslim leader in Oregon is demanding an apology from a state lobbyist who used the term "jihad" in a statement about a political dispute, the Associated Press reports.

Shahriar Ahmed, president of a mosque in Beaverton, said use of the term perpetuates negative stereotypes about Muslims.

"The term 'jihad' here was used intentionally to aggravate the situation," he said in a news conference.

In a July 15 e-mail to about 500 farmers and foresters, the lobbyist wrote that "the Senate Democrats have declared 'JIHAD' against the Republicans" over a pesticide use bill.

Democratic State Sen. Frank Shields called use of the word in that context "racist and religionist." (Fox)

First of all, I think Frank Shields should look up the definition of "religionist." Secondly, all of this P.C. talk is just ridiculous and downright immature. There. I said it...I feel better. Seriously, it's like a bunch of third graders getting in a tiff over being called a name on the playground. I'm not claiming there are no legitimate complaints at times, nor am I advocating wholesale name-calling, but I think it's about time we all grow up a little bit and stop taking ourselves so seriously.

Our world has become so hyper-sensitive that one cannot even open his mouth without offending someone, can we? Wait a minute. See? I did it just then. I suppose it wasn't very very P.C. of me to use the pronoun "his" in that last statement, was it? Sorry N.O.W. (not really). Of course, had I said "her," it would have been a slam on those same women since I would have been claiming that it is only women that are hyper-sensitive. Well, then, of course, had I simply said their mouths, that would have opened an entire floodgate since anyone could insert their own little sub-group into that statement since I, a white, anglo-saxon protestant (intolerant Baptist, no less), would have certainly been silently picking on them. Dang, now I've offended my more liberal Baptist brethren because I have lumped them into the category of intolerant. Then again, my conservative brothers will be offended that I referred to the liberal baptists as "brethren." It was only a figure of speech anyway.

...Just can't win.

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