Darwinism – Page 26

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Are Democrats the Guardians of Science?

September 12, 2005

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 […]

Politics and Ethics

Will Hurricane Katrina End Social Darwinism in America?

September 12, 2005

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 […]

Dumb Ideas

Do You Belong in the Zoo?

August 29, 2005

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, […]

Dumb Ideas

Has Anti-Semitism Been Good for Jewish Evolution?

July 19, 2005

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 […]

Education

Scopes 80th Anniversary Leads to Reanalysis

July 19, 2005

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 […]

Education

Battlefront Dispatches

June 22, 2005

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 […]

Uncategorized

Macroevolution Claims Investigated

June 21, 2005

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 […]

Education

NAS Enters the Evolution Web Wars

June 13, 2005

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) […]

Uncategorized

Is It Justifiable to Speculate About the Evolution of Murder?

June 10, 2005

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 […]

Uncategorized

Historian Predicts Downfall of Darwinian Fundamentalism

June 8, 2005

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, […]

Intelligent Design

Nature Prints Anti-ID Letters

May 19, 2005

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 […]

Intelligent Design

Stanford Student Debate: Is Intelligent Design Science?

May 13, 2005

Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box, spoke recently at Stanford. This led two students to publish reviews, one pro and the other con, about intelligent design in the Stanford Review. Tristan Abbey asked, “Are Darwinists Chickens?” for their reluctance to allow critical scrutiny of their theory. Paul Laddis tried to debunk irreducible complexity in […]

Education

Heat and Light Emitted in Collisions of Darwin vs ID

May 13, 2005

Rhetoric over evolution is increasing in the media largely because of the school board debates in Kansas (see 04/29/2005 entry and previous Education links). The largely pro-Darwin press seems to be giving a little more coverage to the ID side; the anti-Darwin alternative media are getting more bold about asserting their views. MSNBC News says […]

Education

Darwinians May Be Their Own Worst Enemy, Says Darwinist

May 6, 2005

Evolutionists have only themselves to blame for the rise of anti-Darwinian sentiment, says Michael Ruse in a new book, The Evolution-Creation Struggle (Harvard, 2005). Peter Dizikes reviewed this premise in The Boston Globe. By portraying evolution in overtly atheist terms with religious fervor, certain individuals like Richard Dawkins are creating a backlash, says Ruse. “This […]

Darwin and Evolution

The Origin of Specious Ideas: Did Darwin Explain Speciation?

April 29, 2005

Even though Darwin’s best seller was titled On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection, Albert and Schluter in Current Biology1 claim his title was deceptive: “Darwin’s book is about adaptation and the origin of varieties and has surprisingly little to say about selection and ‘the origin of species – that mystery of mysteries’.” Is […]

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