A bit back, I included a post on the dismissal of a discrimination suit that was filed against the University of California. The suit centered around the university's unwillingness to accept course credits in science if the course used textbooks that did not teach modern scienctific principles. Well, the NCSE reports that the appeal of this dismissal is now at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. They write:
In its appeal of the August 2008 decision, filed on January 26, 2009, the plaintiffs asserted that the University of California system "has rejected a large number of biology courses because, despite their standard content, they added a religious viewpoint" (p. 21), which "constitutes viewpoint discrimination, content discrimination, and content-based regulation, which conflict with the First Amendment" (p. 24). In their reply, filed on April 10, 2009, the defendants replied that the courses were rejected because they used the creationist textbooks as their primary texts, and a review of those textbooks "concluded they were inappropriate for use as primary texts in college preparatory science courses due to their characterizations of religious doctrine as scientific evidence, scientific inaccuracies, failure to encourage critical thinking, and overall un-scientific approach" (p. 21) — a judgment with which Donald Kennedy and NCSE Supporter Francisco Ayala, experts for the defendants, concurred.
I am familiar with some of the books in question, which are produced by A Becka Books and Bob Jones University and they are decidedly anti-evolution and YEC in viewpoint. The NCSE has a special section devoted to this case here. Depending on how this turns out, I still stand by what I said then:
Great Googlymoogly! Unless this ruling is narrowly rendered, the ramifications are staggering! If other universities and colleges are paying attention, they can put incredible pressure on local high schools to teach concepts of evolution, modern astronomy, modern geology and palaeontology—all anathema to the creationist movement—effectively rendering the "academic freedom bills" irrelevant. This also places some of the local school boards over a barrel in that, if they support creationism in science class, they know that the local and state colleges and universities will reject those classes. How could they be seen as serving the needs of the students in those instances? Given the emphasis on state testing and college preparation, classes that teach creationism may become "one with the snows of yesteryear" as Isaac Asimov put it.
NCSE reports that the Florida bill that would have injected "critical thinking" into the study of evolution in the public schools has died a horrible and ugly death in committee. The bill, sponsored by Stephen Wise, Republican from Jacksonville, would have introduced ID into the curriculum. He said at the time:
"You just never know. They use the courts all the time. I guess if they have enough money they can get it in the courts," he said. "Someplace along the line you've got to be able to make a value judgment of what it is you think is the appropriate thing."
Mandating “critical analysis” of evolution has been done before in other states with disastrous results. We don’t need to put Florida through the same painful learning process that Ohio had already gone through a few years ago. Once the work began on deciding how to implement “critical analysis” there, it was discovered that the concept was nothing more than an attempt to impose creationist teachings. The proposed lesson plan was riddled with distortions of scientific knowledge/methods pulled directly from old creationist arguments. Ohio eventually dropped the whole idea of “critical analysis” evolution and washed their hands of it.
It is nice to see something like this die away quietly.
Dolan Media is reporting on a court case in which a teacher was found to be in violation of the first amendment for calling creationism "religious, superstitious nonsense." The author writes:
United States District Judge James Selna wrote that he could not “discern a legitimate secular purpose in this statement, even when considered in context. The statement therefore constitutes improper disapproval of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.”
Okaaaayyyy. Here's where it gets really weird:
On the other hand, the judge ruled that Corbett engaged in permissible academic discourse by commenting that "when you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth."
So slamming creationism constitutes religious discrimination but asking people to take off their "Jesus glasses" doesn't? How's that work, exactly?
UPI has a story indicating that how evolution is taught in high school biology has a large impact on how a student views it thereafter. As the story notes:
Professors Randy Moore and Sehoya Cotner surveyed 1,000 university students taking introductory biology classes. They wanted to determine how biology majors view evolution compared with non-majors.
The scientists said their results showed the two groups' views were similar and revealed high school biology teachers influence whether college students accept evolution or question it based on creationism.
The researchers said students whose high school biology class included creationism (with or without evolution) were more likely to accept creationist views as entering college students. Similarly, students exposed to evolutionism, but not creationism, were more likely to accept evolution in college.
All the more reason to yank creationism out of the science classroom.
John Noble Wilford has an article in tech-archive.net (yes, I know he writes for the New York Times) on the feet of Homo floresiensis, found on Palau and Flores, in Indonesia. He writes:
Now the examination of lower limbs and especially an almost complete left foot and parts of the right, the researchers reported, shows that the species walked upright, like other known hominids. There were five toes, as in other primates, but the big toe was stubby, more like a chimp’s.
Stranger still was the size of the feet — more than seven and a half inches long, out of proportion to its short lower limbs. The imbalance evoked the physiology of some African apes, but it has never before been seen in hominids.
And then there were those flat feet. Humans sometimes have fallen arches and flat feet, but scientists noted that this was no human foot. The navicular bone, which helps form the arch in the modern foot, was especially primitive, more akin to one in great apes. Without a strong arch — that is, flat-footed — the hominid would have lacked the spring-like action needed for efficient running. It could walk, but not run like humans.
Weighing the new evidence, the research team led by William L. Jungers, a paleoanthropologist at the Stony Brook Medical Center on Long Island, concluded that “the foot of H. floresiensis exhibits a broad array of primitive features that are not seen in modern humans of any body size.”
At this point, the hominid bush got bushier:
Dr. Jungers and his colleagues raised the possibility that the ancestor of the species was not Homo erectus, as had been the original assumption. H. erectus is known as the earliest hominid to leave Africa and make its way across Asia. At a symposium two weeks ago, several scientists edged toward the view that the so-called hobbits emerged from another, more primitive hominid ancestor.
This is possible. We already know that hominids were at the gates of Europe, with the discovery of the Dmanisi hominids that are primitive even for Homo erectus/ergaster. Curiouser and curiouser.
Chris Matthews interviews Tom Tancredo on Hardball and Tancredo gets nearly everything wrong.
Matthews starts out by stating the position that God created the universe but "did it his way." Tancredo then calls this "intelligent design." That is not Intelligent design. That is simply God-inspired creation. He then presents this form of creation as diametrically opposed to "Darwinian evolution." Tell that to Michael Behe, one of ID's leading lights who accepts evolution and common descent. Tancredo then spouts the following DI talking points, in order:
The lack of transitional fossils (he harps on this for some time)—yes there are; thousands of them
evolution occurs within species—no evidence of new species
no religious dogma attached to ID
teach the controversy
Why can't he simply say, "Hey, I'm a politician. I don't have an informed opinion of these things?" Matthews continues to link the controversy back to climate change and the scientific method, which is, of course, where one of the main problems lies.
Emergent from the aftermath of the Dover trial is that ID promoters like William Dembski view science and the scientific method in an antagonistic manner. In March of 2008, Dembski had a post on Uncommon Descent in which he describes a new educational program at SUNY Buffalo that seeks the following:
Explore the methods and outlook of science as they intersect with public culture and public policy. Understand the elements of scientific literacy. Earn the new master’s degree in general education (Ed.M.) with an emphasis in Science and the Public, a cooperative initiative of the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education and the Center for Inquiry.
This unique two-year degree, offered entirely online, is ideal for students preparing for careers in research, science education, public policy, and science journalism, as well as further study in sociology, history and philosophy of science, science communication, education, or public administration.
Some of the courses required to complete this 33 credit hour master of education degree program include Scientific Writing; Informal Science Education; Science Curricula; Critical Thinking; History and Philosophy of Science; Science, Technology and Human Values; Research Ethics. Students interested in receiving a Certificate in Science and the Public, issued by the Center for Inquiry, need only complete the last four courses.
Dembski's description of the program?: "Professional atheists combine with SUNY-Buffalo to offer a masters of education." Funny. I don't see anything in that program description asking students to disavow any belief in God. Nor do I see anything in there to suggest that studying the scientific method will cause people to lose their faith. Instead, this is Dembski's take on modern science. Compare this to Philip Johnson's statement on the nature of science:
The problem with scientific naturalism as a worldview is that it takes a sound methodological premise of natural science and transforms it into a dogmatic statement about the nature of the universe. Science is committed by definition to empiricism, by which I mean that scientists seek to find truth by observation, experiment, and calculation rather than by studying sacred books or achieving mystical states of mind. It may well be, however, that there are certain questions-important questions, ones to which we desperately want to know the answers-that cannot be answered by the methods available to our science. These may include not only broad philosophical issues such as whether the universe has a purpose, but also questions we have become accustomed to think of as empirical, such as how life first began or how complex biological systems were put together.
It is one of the goals of the DI to expand the definition of science to include things non-empirically observable. As far as Dembski and Johnson are concerned, as long as science limits itself to what is observable, it is inherently atheistic. We saw how an expanded definition of science got Michael Behe in trouble in the Dover/Kitzmiller trial:
Q But you are clear, under your definition [of science], the definition that sweeps in intelligent design, astrology is also a scientific theory, correct?
A Yes, that's correct. And let me explain under my definition of the word "theory," it is -- a sense of the word "theory" does not include the theory being true, it means a proposition based on physical evidence to explain some facts by logical inferences. There have been many theories throughout the history of science which looked good at the time which further progress has shown to be incorrect. Nonetheless, we can't go back and say that because they were incorrect they were not theories. So many many things that we now realized to be incorrect, incorrect theories, are nonetheless theories.
Q Has there ever been a time when astrology has been accepted as a correct or valid scientific theory, Professor Behe?
A Well, I am not a historian of science. And certainly nobody -- well, not nobody, but certainly the educated community has not accepted astrology as a science for a long long time. But if you go back, you know, Middle Ages and before that, when people were struggling to describe the natural world, some people might indeed think that it is not a priori -- a priori ruled out that what we -- that motions in the earth could affect things on the earth, or motions in the sky could affect things on the earth.
I find it more than a bit troubling that a definition of a scientific theory that includes astrology is being espoused by a practicing scientist. As long as the working definition of science includes only that which is testable and observable, ID is dead in the water. It has no mechanisms by which to promote itself so it must rely on people like Tancredo to popularize it by falsely casting it in opposition to "Darwinism," which is clearly defined as atheistic in nature. Nothing like getting your message out at a national level. It is unfortunate that few people will realize that had no idea what he was talking about.
Little Green Footballs points us toward a Chris Matthews interview with Mike Pence, Republican representative from Indiana in which Matthews simply asks "do you believe in evolution?"
Pence never answers the question.
Putting aside the fact that Matthews behaves in his usual derogatory fashion and his unwarranted insults at several people in the GOP are appalling, this is going to be harped on by the MSM and, as a result, the Republican party is going to continue to be seen as an anti-science, provincial party.
And not in the usual sense. Her article in the Spectator takes great pains to separate the two viewpoints, creationism and ID. She writes:
Whatever the ramifications of the specific school textbooks under scrutiny in the Kitzmiller/Dover case, the fact is that Intelligent Design not only does not come out of Creationism but stands against it. This is because Creationism comes out of religion while Intelligent Design comes out of science. Creationism, whose proponents are Bible literalists, is a specific doctrine which holds that the earth was literally created in six days. Intelligent Design, whose proponents are mainly scientists, holds that the complexity of science suggests that there must have been a governing intelligence behind the origin of matter, which could not have developed spontaneously from nothing.
Come again? How exactly does Intelligent Design stand against creationism? How does it come out of science? Intelligent Design is the antithesis of science. It is, by its very definition, anti-science. ID argues that, when one has exhausted the known avenues of explaining something, it must be designed by God. As any scientist will tell you: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Kenneth Miller in both of this books about the subject takes great pains to give examples of history in which a particular phenomenon was not understood and, therefore, given over to the workings of God. The problem with this viewpoint, and it is one that pervades ID literature is that your god gets smaller and smaller as you push him off to the corner somewhere.
The other problem here is that, while the Intelligent Design supporters take great pains to try to get ID taught and taken seriously without the hint of religion, its key promoters and originators are very clear about what their inspiration is. William Dembski has been quoted as saying:"
Intelligent design is the Logos of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." (William Dembski, Jul/Aug 1999, Touchstone, p. 84)
The Discovery Institute's supported witnesses in the Dover trial had no idea what ID really was, they just wanted creationism taught in the schools. As Judge John Jones III said after the trial:
In the realm of the lay witnesses, if you will, some of the school board witnesses were dreadful witnesses and hence the description “breathtaking inanity” and “mendacity.” In my view, they clearly lied under oath. They made a very poor account of themselves. They could not explain why they did what they did. They really didn't even know what intelligent design was. It was quite clear to me that they viewed intelligent design as a method to get creationism into the public school classroom. They were unfortunate and troublesome witnesses. Simply remarkable, in that sense.
ID is best seen as "big tent" creationism. Science it is not.
I forgot that Stephen Meyer published a paper in The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington called The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories, (volume 117, no. 2, pp. 213-239). That, as nearly as anyone knows, is the first and only paper published in a scientific journal that espoused the conclusion of intelligent design. The proceedings is published by the Smithsonian Institution and the publication of this paper set off a firestorm in the academic community, leading to one of the editors of the journal, Richard Sternberg, not being rehired. Sternberg's case was featured in Expelled! as a case of academic persecution.
Ordinarily, a paper is reviewed by a panel of experts who judge the paper either publishable or not. In this case, Sternberg reviewed the paper all by himself and decided to publish it. As NPR put it at the time:
At first he heard rumblings of discontent but thought it would blow over. Sternberg says his colleagues and supervisors at the Smithsonian were furious. He says -- and an independent report backs him up -- that colleagues accused him of fraud, saying they did not believe the Meyer article was really peer reviewed. It was.
Then things got really ugly:
But Sternberg says before closing the case, the special counsel, James McVay, called him with an update. "As he related to me, 'the Smithsonian Institution's reaction to your publishing the Meyer article was far worse than you imagined,'" Sternberg says.
McVay declined an interview. But in a letter to Sternberg, he wrote that officials at the Smithsonian worked with the National Center for Science Education -- a group that opposes intelligent design -- and outlined "a strategy to have you investigated and discredited." Retaliation came in many forms, the letter said. They took away his master key and access to research materials. They spread rumors that Sternberg was not really a scientist. He has two Ph.D.'s in biology -- from Binghamton University and Florida International University. In short, McVay found a hostile work environment based on religious and political discrimination.
While it is true that Sternberg was not a salaried employee, and it is true that his term of employment was up, the vitriol that was directed at him was clearly over the top. What was the fuss about? Why did it generate such reaction? Here is the conclusion from the article:
An experience-based analysis of the causal powers of various explanatory hypotheses suggests purposive or intelligent design as a causally adequate--and perhaps the most causally adequate--explanation for the origin of the complex specified information required to build the Cambrian animals and the novel forms they represent. For this reason, recent scientific interest in the design hypothesis is unlikely to abate as biologists continue to wrestle with the problem of the origination of biological form and the higher taxa.
Well, that's pretty clear. The proverbial "design inference." The paper was reviewed by Alan Gishlick, Nick Matzke, and Wesley R. Elsberry, who's review was titled "Meyer's Hopeless Monster." It is not kind. The review is lengthy but worth a read of how some papers "slip by" the process. They conclude this way:
There is nothing wrong with challenging conventional wisdom – continuing challenge is a core feature of science. But challengers should at least be aware of, read, cite, and specifically rebut the actual data that supports conventional wisdom, not merely construct a rhetorical edifice out of omission of relevant facts, selective quoting, bad analogies, knocking down strawmen, and tendentious interpretations. Unless and until the “intelligent design” movement does this, they are not seriously in the game. They’re not even playing the same sport.
I realize that a good deal of the above is recap for the events that transpired in 2005 but, since I failed to mention it in the previous post, I present it as a case of ID and its conflict with mainstream science.
An article by Steve Connor of the Independent documents the attempts to put flesh on a 35 ky BP hominid from Carpathia. According to the article:
The artist's reconstruction – a face that could be male or female – is based on the partial skull and jawbone found in a cave where bears were known to hibernate. The facial features indicate the close affinity of these early Europeans to their immediate African ancestors, although it was still not possible to determine the person's sex.
Richard Neave, the forensic artist who reconstructed the facial features in this clay model, based his assessment on a careful measurement of the bone fragments and his long experience of how the soft tissues of the face are built around the bones of the skull.
The interesting thing is that the Aurignacian tools, which are the first modern-associated tools in Europe date to around 43 ky BP from Bacho Kiro. Neat!
Little Green Footballs points out that the Tulsa County Republican Convention has enacted, as part of their platform the teaching of creationism in public schools. Item seven under the Education section reads:
7. We believe that the scientific evidence supporting Biblical creation should be included in Oklahoma public schools curricula, and if any evolution theory is taught, that both should receive equal funding, class time, and material. Teachers should have the freedom to cover creation science without fear of intimidation, reprimand, or lack of professional respect.
If that wording looks familiar, it should. The last section about the "freedom to cover creation science" is almost verbatim out of the Discovery Institute's suggested "Academic Freedom Act." And Mr. Taylor is correct. This is the GOP's big problem right now. As long as they continue to hew to the scientifically indefensible creationism as part of the party's platform, they will invite ridicule.
By the way, has anyone noticed that Phase I of the Wedge Document of the Discovery Institute is, effectively, a dead issue? There has been no discernible research or published papers to emanate from the CSC in the last decade.
An article in LiveScience states that if you want evidence of evolution, you need not look any further than the swine flu. As Robert Roy Britt writes:
The sudden ability of the new swine flu virus to hop from pigs to humans and then to skip from person to person, at least in Mexico, is an excellent example of evolution at work.
"Yes, this is definitely evolution," said Michael Deem, a bioengineer at Rice University in Texas.
Deem studies how evolution is affected not just by mutations but by the exchange of entire genes and sets of genes. Viruses, which are basically packets of DNA with a protein coat, are really good at this. Viruses are also really good at exploiting the fact that we humans cough and sneeze without covering ourselves and generally don't wash our hands frequently in a day.
"Viruses have evolved to exploit human contact as a way of spreading," points out Peter Daszak of the Wildlife Trust, whose team 14 months ago predicted just this sort of evolution in an animal flu, coming from Latin America to the United States after evolving to infect people.
And why isn't there a cure for the flu? How come all we have to fight it are things like Tamiflu?:
Let's say you have a run-of-the-mill flu that's normally transmitted between humans but causes only mild symptoms. Then you also contract a really deadly influenza virus that heretofore was only transmitted between pigs. The two viruses can get together inside you, swap genes, and now you're the host of a newly evolved swine flu virus that can infect your whole family, your colleagues at work, some people at the airport you later fly out of who touch the same armrest you held, and then some folks in the country you fly to. Voila, pandemic!
And it doesn't stop there. Each time another person is infected, the new strain of the virus can grab more genes and mutate further. So if you came from Mexico and infected people in the United States who might have been packing around a different flu, the U.S. swine flu could be different than the Mexican swine flu.
According to Kate Alexander of the Austin American-Statesman, the confirmation of Donald McLeroy as the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education has been blocked in the state senate. She writes:
The confirmation of State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy is dead in the water, Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, said Thursday.
Jackson, chairman of the Senate Nominations Committee, said McLeroy will be left pending in committee because there is enough opposition on the floor of the Senate to block his confirmation, which requires approval of two-thirds of the senators.
There are too many other important issues to take up on the floor to waste time on a doomed confirmation, Jackson said.
After a contentious confirmation hearing last week, Jackson said he would take the temperature of his colleagues before determining whether to give McLeroy a committee vote.
This is promising news for science in Texas. It is unfortunate that it came to this, but Dr. McLeroy, who is a practicing dentist, has demonstrated on numerous occasions that he is not qualified for the position he fills. See here, here and here for evidence of this. My letter may not be necessary, after all.
As reported on the NCSE's page, John Holdren, Barack Obama's chief science advisor, when asked about the Texas Board of Education's ruling on the science standards, had this to say:
"Well, I have not reviewed that decision carefully. But my impression from reading about it is that it was not a step forward but rather a step backward. Of course, all science needs to be skeptical. It's hard to be against skepticism. But when you get into the domain of promoting particular views about the basis for skepticism of evolution, and those views are not really valid, then I think we have a problem. I think we need to be giving our kids a modern education in biology, and the underpinning of modern biology is evolution. And countervailing views that are not really science, if they are taught at all, should be taught in some other part of the curriculum."
A story in Foxnews from the AP reports of a study in which it was found that Africans have the most genetic variability of any continental group studied. They write:
Africans have more genetic variation than anyone else on Earth, according to a new study that helps narrow the location where humans first evolved, probably near the South Africa-Namibia border.
The largest study of African genetics ever undertaken also found that nearly three-fourths of African-Americans can trace their ancestry to West Africa.
The new analysis published Thursday in the online edition of the journal Science.
"Given the fact that modern humans arose in Africa, they have had time to accumulate dramatic changes" in their genes, explained lead researcher Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.
People have been adapting to very diverse environmental niches in Africa, she explained in a briefing.
This seems like another nail in the multiregional model of modern human origins. I need to see the study.
Here is the letter I just sent to the Texas State Board of Education:
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to know if there is a mechanism by which a sitting chairman of the Texas State Board of Education can be removed. The current chairman, Donald McLeroy, has shown himself to be manifestly unqualified for the position he holds and needs to be removed. It is one thing to hold a controversial position when information about a topic is sparse. It is quite another to hold that same position in the face of massive amounts of evidence to the contrary. When experts on a given topic all say the same thing, responding "I don't believe the experts" is not reasonable. It is an untenable position for someone in his post. If there is a mechanism for removal, please use it before more harm is done. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
James Kidder, Ph.D. Biological Anthropology Knoxville, Tennessee
Susan McCarthy of the Guardian has an article examining the fallout from the Texas science standards controversy. She suggests that the rumbles of state lawmakers are just the beginning:
When the eyes of Texas finally fell upon the BOE's antics, when scientists thronged to testify against the standards, when BOE chairman Don McLeroy declared his anti-expert stance, when a White House official called it "a step backward" – opposition began to stir among state lawmakers.
Unhappiness was more than statewide. Texas is hugely influential in textbook publishing, not just because it buys books for 4.5 million kids. It's one of 20-odd "adoption states", which compile lists of approved books. Publishers want their books on these lists, so they heed state standards. Texas spends $500m a year on approved textbooks.
Along the way, Don McLeroy's agenda becomes crystal clear:
McLeroy gloats over the idea of textbooks using the Texas standards to discuss the fossil record or the complexity of the cell. "I'm curious to see how they'll cover these subjects. I think the science behind those things is pretty weak." He runs through some creationist favourites – the Cambrian explosion, the flagellum. "They haven't come up with an explanation of the eye. They haven't. They haven't!"
"So you want to see them fail to come up with scientific explanations for these things?" I ask. "Absolutely! That's what I think will happen. The kids can sit there and judge for themselves." Children are intuitively skeptical about evolution, he says.
Andrew Brown of the Guardian has a profile of Kenneth Miller called God Outside the Gaps. He writes:
It turns out that Miller has exactly the opposite view of God to that of the Intelligent Designers; and, in fact, of many scientific atheists. For them, God is an explanation for what science cannot explain, and so the more that scientific knowledge grows, the less room or need there is for belief in God. For Miller, the evidence of design and of creation is not to be found in the things that science can't explain, but in the fact that there are regularities and patterns in the world, whose discovery means that science can explain things, and can hope to explain much more. In this view, each fresh scientific discovery becomes further evidence of design, and of the essential meaningfulness or comprehensibility of the universe.
Miller walks a fine line between throwing intelligent design out the front door and then opening the back door a crack to let some version of it in. Maybe that is what all of us theistic evolutionists do when it comes right down to it. How do you conclude the the universe was "created," and yet that it doesn't necessarily show overt signs of it?
David Nason of The Australian reports on the settlement of a court battle royale, in which young earth creationists Carl Wieland and Ken Ham squared off. It is the stuff of tabloids:
In dispute were issues of breached copyright, duelling magazines, stolen mailing lists and how best to spread the creationist gospel. But details of the settlement are confidential, making it difficult to say exactly what this battle of biblical proportions finally achieved.
At least one thing seems clear: doing God's work can be messy business, even when your faith is the simple fairytale kind found in the Book of Genesis.
Closer to home, Dan Horn of The Kentucky Enquirer also has a story about the battle. He writes:
Much of the dispute centered on the soured personal and professional relationship between Carl Wieland, the founder of Creation Ministries, and Ken Ham, the leader of Answers in Genesis and the driving force behind the $27 million Creation Museum off Interstate 275 in Petersburg.
The two tried to settle their differences through a Christian mediator, but those efforts failed and the court fight was under way by 2005.
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ordered the rivals to arbitration in February in a decision that described the fight as a power struggle for control of the creationist message.
"control of the creationist message." Let's think about that for a minute...I have personally never heard of one scientist taking another scientist to court over how to present the message of biological evolution. Now it is true that one scientist from time to time will swipe data from someone else, but that person usually gets marginalized quickly and it has nothing to do with how the science is presented. From a cursory perspective, the message that AIG presents and the one that CMI presents look almost identical.
A trip to CMI revealed, for example, a paper by Raymond Hall titled Darwin’s impact—the bloodstained legacy of evolution, which trots out the same fictions about how Darwin influenced the leading lights of despotism of the twentieth century. About Josef Stalin, he writes:
A friend later said Stalin became an atheist after reading Darwin. He was expelled from the college at 19 because of his revolutionary connections. After understanding that evolution provided no basis for conscience or morals, he felt free to torture and murder to whatever extent he chose to achieve his communist goals.
Talk about your low-hanging fruit. A read of ANY textbook on the history of the twentieth century will reveal that Stalin rejected Darwinian evolution in favor of Lamarckian evolution—promoted by Trofim Lysenko and that this set Soviet agriculture back fifty years. One wonders if these people do any research before they write these columns?
