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Science Writer Advocates Debate with Creationists

The Darwinist monopoly on science has backfired, suggested Michael Balter in the Los Angeles Times in a Sunday commentary.  A human evolution writer for Science magazine (e.g., 09/09/2005, 03/04/2005, 11/12/2004, 02/27/2004, 02/15/2002), Balter advocated engagement with the opposition.  “A national debate over how best to explain the complexity of living organisms would better serve our […]

Scientific Institutions Root for Darwin

With the Dover trial in the midst of its first week (09/26/2005), the Goliath fans are sounding off, led by their cheerleaders, Nature, Science and other institutions: Nature had two pieces this week, claiming the Dover trial represents Do or Die for Design.  This editorial ended, “Scientific organizations are well aware of this case’s significance, […]

Museums Train Docents to Deal with Evolution Skeptics

Being a museum docent wasn’t supposed to be this hard.  Many have always led peaceful groups of compliant tourists through the halls of science, telling their near-memorized lines without incident: Sixty million years ago, the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor, but their descendants are still with us today.  Anyone know who those might […]

Both Sides Fear Court Ruling on Intelligent Design

“The stakes are high,” said Constance Holden in Science,1 and both sides in the Dover, Pennsylvania case would probably agree – with equal trepidation.  The ACLU is representing 11 parents who sued the Dover school board for ruling that intelligent design should be taught as an alternative to Darwinian evolution in their public high schools […]

Are Democrats the Guardians of Science?

Dan Danbom reviewed Chris Mooney’s The Republican War On Science in the Rocky Mountain News.  According to Danbom, Mooney argues “that the Bush administration ignores, subverts, twists and misrepresents science to conform to its political goals.” The review includes these quotes from the book: ….in politicized fights involving science, it is rare to find liberals […]

Will Hurricane Katrina End Social Darwinism in America?

Harold Evans, writing an op-ed piece for the BBC News, thinks the TV images of destruction from Hurricane Katrina will arouse a new wave “compassion in government” (which he interprets as “the responsibility of government to relieve individual suffering”), and spell the end of Social Darwinism (which he interprets as laissez-faire individualism): My judgment is […]

Do You Belong in the Zoo?

People are gawking at people in the London Zoo, each probably wondering what side of the cage they belong on.  In one of the primate exhibits, eight scantily clad white people are on display, reports AP (see MSNBC and Yahoo).  Wearing fig leaves pinned onto their swimsuits, they play, they scratch, they groom each other, […]

Has Anti-Semitism Been Good for Jewish Evolution?

National Geographic News gave favorable coverage to a controversial theory by anthropologists at University of Utah that anti-semitism was a form of natural selection.  The racism against Jews in Europe, while selecting for higher intelligence, also selected for certain types of diseases.  Reporter James Owen did point out that not all anthropologists agree with the […]

Scopes 80th Anniversary Leads to Reanalysis

Alex Johnson, reporter for MSNBC News, has written a piece trying to set the record straight about the Scopes Trial of 1925.  Often portrayed as a battle of science vs religion and a group of hillbilly hicks against enlightened intellectuals (the “Inherit the Wind” stereotype), the historical trial was much different, he demonstrates.  William Jennings […]

Battlefront Dispatches

Activities in the Darwin-vs-Design controversy continue generating national news: War of the museums:  The Sternberg Museum in Kansas is trying to reinforce arguments for evolution, according to Voice of America news.  Proud of his T. rex display, curator Greg Liggett claims that “if the school curriculum changes to include theories such as Intelligent Design, critical […]

Macroevolution Claims Investigated

Two scientific papers recently used the word “macroevolution” in their titles.  Did they actually point to cases of natural increase in information or function? Diatoms:  A paper in PNAS by Finkel et al.1 was called, “Climatically driven macroevolutionary patterns in the size of marine diatoms over the Cenozoic.”  All it discussed was the sizes of […]

NAS Enters the Evolution Web Wars

MSNBC News reports that “Scientists take evolution fight online: National Academies sets up Web site to defend theory.”  (See also Wired News.)  The Evolution Resources website of the National Academy of Sciences, nationalacademies.org/evolution, contains online books and articles, but the most recent entry is an address by outgoing NAS president Bruce Alberts (see 03/24/2005 entry) […]

Is It Justifiable to Speculate About the Evolution of Murder?

Sharon Begley, writing in the Wall Street Journal May 20, was pretty angry that an evolutionary psychologist tried to give an evolutionary explanation for why men murder women.  She called the theory by Dr. David Buss (U. of Texas, Austin) a just-so story and bad science.  In his book, “The Murderer Next Door: Why the […]

Historian Predicts Downfall of Darwinian Fundamentalism

In the upcoming June 20 issue of Forbes magazine, British historian Paul Johnson attacks the fundamentalism of Darwinists, and predicts its demise: Of all the fundamentalist groups at large in the world today, the Darwinians seem to me the most objectionable.  They are just as strident and closed to argument as Christian or Muslim fundamentalists, […]

Nature Prints Anti-ID Letters

The May 19 issue of Nature1 printed seven letters responding to its editorial about the intelligent design movement (see 04/27/2005 entry).  They were all critical of ID.  Not one even tolerated Nature’s suggestion that scientists try to help students integrate their faith with science.  Apparently, last month’s editorial was not sufficiently vicious against ID, says […]
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