Teach Both Sides of the Controversy Cartoon

Whenever I hear someone say we need to teach both sides of the creation/evolution controversy, I am tempted to show them this cartoon. I don't know where it came from so if you have seen it before, please let me know so I can properly attribute it.



The only problem with the graphic is that the lever is still balanced, when it should not be.
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Stephen Meyer on Thomas Jefferson and ID

Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute has an article in the Boston Globe on how Thomas Jefferson would view ID. He writes:

In 1823, when materialist evolutionary ideas had long been circulating, Jefferson wrote to John Adams and insisted that the scientific evidence of design in nature was clear: “I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition.’’ It was on empirical grounds, not religious ones, that he took this view.

Contemplating everything from the heavenly bodies down to the creaturely bodies of men and animals, he argued: “It is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion.’’

Did I read that right? Evolutionary ideas before Charles Darwin? Weren 't Darwin and "Darwinism" responsible for the decay of society? No matter. Onward. Meyer proceeds to use the example of the information present in DNA to suggest that Jefferson had it right, and that evolution could not possibly be responsible for how the information in DNA exists.

The problem is that, as Abyssal's weblog points out, Jefferson had other things to say on the matter, in a letter to John Adams, in 1823:

The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and cent. metal forces; the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters, and atmosphere; animals and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutes” particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and uses; it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe, that there is in all of this, design, cause, and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regeneration into new and other forms.

While this one passage is not exactly a smoking gun, it is clear that Jefferson had some idea that creation had not been static and that the ideas of biological change through time had some credibility. Meyer confuses the call for belief in a creator and his creation with the mechanism by which He did it. This passage as much supports "Jefferson the Theistic Evolutionist" as it does "Jefferson the ID Supporter."
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Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Bunch

Dakota Voice is writing that thousands of Darwin's Bible are being distributed to members of the National Education Association at their annual conference. They write:

Conservatives have criticized the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, for supporting a liberal perspective on many issues. The Creation Science Educators Caucus has been attending the association’s annual meeting for the past 14 years plastering banners that state “Evolution is Science Fraud” and “Refuting Evolution.”

Taking a slightly different approach this year, the creation proponents have gone into the meeting with the banner “For by Jesus Christ all things were created.”

“Our goal this week is not to create controversy or hold a revival,” noted Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis and a Young Earth creationist. “We simply want to balance the representation of views presented at the conference.”

My guess is that they are going to have a hard sell. The pressure to teach creationism seems to be driven at the legislative or school board level and not at the rank and file level. The more conservative members of the educational establishment are, often, not members of the NEA in the first place. I have friends who teach who will have nothing to do with the union. I believe in school choice and as long as the NEA, which is a union for the teachers, not the students, has a stranglehold on the educational establishment, the public schools will continue to be bad. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

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Early Life and the "Snowball Earth"

Evidence is building that between 850 and 500 million years, the earth was subjected to a series of mega-ice ages that resulted in a condition called "snowball earth." Now it is being suggested that this "snowball earth" may have been enough to give life its needed boost. An article in the NewScientist, by Douglas Fox and Michael La Page recounts the recent discoveries leading to this:

Some of the biggest finds have come from an ancient seabed in China, called the Doushantuo Formation, where unusual conditions preserved some extraordinary fossils. Layers between 550 and 580 million years old, during the last part of the Ediacaran, contain tiny spheres consisting of anything from one to dozens of different cells - just like the early embryos of animals. Some have suggested they are the remains of giant bacteria, but a series of studies over the past decade have left little doubt that they really are animal embryos.

In 2007, for instance, Leiming Yin of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology in China reported finding embryos encased inside hard, spiky shells - unlike anything produced by bacteria. What is more, shells that are identical apart from the lack of preserved embryos on the inside can be found in rocks as old as 632 million years - the dawn of the Ediacaran - suggesting that the animal embryos themselves go back this far.

How did the ice ages play a role?

"This glaciation reset the chemistry of the oceans," he says. Ice caps covering the continents halted delivery of sulphur to the oceans and cut off production of hydrogen sulphide. "You have changes in ocean chemistry like an increased availability of molybdenum and zinc," says Ariel Anbar, a biogeochemist at Arizona State University in Tempe, "all of which play into making the world more hospitable for eukaryotes and ultimately, metazoans."

Sponges or something like them would have been the first animals on the scene. They lack a nervous system and have no need for circulatory systems. Animals like jellyfish might also have evolved early.

More pieces of the puzzle.

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New Dinosaur Burrows in Australia

The Hindu News has an article on dinosaur burrows that have been discovered in Australia. Quoth the article:

On the heels of his discovery in Montana of the first trace fossil of a dinosaur burrow, Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin has found evidence of more dinosaur burrows – this time on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia, says a press release from EurekAlert.

The find, to be published this month in Cretaceous Research, suggests that burrowing behaviors were shared by dinosaurs of different species, in different hemispheres, and spanned millions of years during the Cretaceous Period, when some dinosaurs lived in polar environments.

"This research helps us to better understand long-term geologic change, and how organisms may have adapted as the Earth has undergone periods of global cooling and warming," says Martin, a senior lecturer in environmental studies at Emory. Martin is also an honorary research associate at Monash University in Melbourne.

Cool.
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Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Genius?

The Times Online has an article by Philip Ball that is a review of the book The Selfish Genius, by Fern Elsdon-Baker, who has, it seems, a quibble with how Dr. Dawkins perceives the importance of the gene in natural selection:

She accuses Dawkins of appropriating and, in the process, distorting Darwin’s message. The selfish-gene hypothesis, which makes the gene the autonomous agent of ­evolution that seeks implacably to replicate itself, has little to do with Darwin, she says, and not just because Darwin knew nothing of genes. The common view is that, once the work of the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel pointed to inheritable character-defining factors that became known as genes, the Achilles heel of Darwinism — lack of a fundamental mechanism — was healed. Genes that confer good survival prospects in the organism get passed on preferentially.

It is true that Darwin had a dickens of a time getting people to accept that Natural Selection was the driving force behind evolution because of the common acceptance of "blending" as the mechanism. It was not until the discovery of genes that evolutionary theory could take off. Having said that, Dawkins has had an enormously important impact on the teaching of evolution, unfortunately, at the expense of those with a religious persuasion (such as myself). It is because of this that the reviewer of the book cannot quite bring himself to agree with the author:

Science communicators today owe a huge debt to Dawkins for bringing the discipline back into popular discourse. Many will also agree that in both style and content he is starting to look out of date now. But Elsdon-Baker’s complaints are perhaps occasioned more by a lazy media that refuses to see how times have changed and continues to position Dawkins as the ­public voice of science. His accounts of evolution provide a beautifully drawn base that it must now be the job of others to modify and update.

I wonder how he will best be remembered: for this work on evolution or as the author of The God Delusion? He certainly galvanised the anti-evolution movement of the last ten years with his constant attacks on traditional religion.

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The Discovery Institute and Free Speech

Apparently, the Discovery Institute has a peculiar idea of what constitutes free speech and when. If you remember, Don Exodus, who put up the original YouTube video up that criticized Casey Luskin's appearance on FoxNews was sued by the Discovery Institute. The DI filed a copyright claim notice asking YouTube that Exodus take the video down. As Josh Rosenau noted, they didn't seem to care when Yoko Ono claimed copyright on the song "Imagine." Here is the video that Exodus made in reponse to that.




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Texas Curveball

Governor Rick Perry has decided to forgo the appointment of Cynthia Dunbar and, instead, appoint a newspaper publisher Gail Lowe to lead the board. The story by Shirley Jinkins in the Star-Telegram, states that Low has been described as a conservative Republican, but not in the outspoken way that McLeroy and Dunbar have been. The article notes:

"The announcement took me by surprise," Lowe said Friday from the offices of the Lampasas Dispatch-Record, a twice-weekly newspaper that she and her husband own and operate.

She learned of her appointment when a reporter from another newspaper called for comment.

"It’s not something I pursued," said Lowe, who said she had been asked to apply for the position last week by the governor’s appointment office.

The board is scheduled to meet next week, and an announcement from the governor was expected before Tuesday, the first day of the four-day meeting.

Interestingly, at no point in the article is the word "evolution" or the concept mentioned. A hopeful sign?
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Steve Martin Has a Follow-up Post on the ESE

Steve Martin has a follow-up post on the Evangelical Statement of Evolution. He has some very good points that those of us that profess to be Christians need to take to heart. I posted a comment that says, in part:

Your statements in this post made me go back over my own blog to see where I acted in an un-Christian manner and found more examples than I care to acknowledge.

It is easy to get lost in our own animus and wondering why the other guy is too mule-headed to see what's right in front of his nose. This doesn't help. If we are Christians first, and then scientists, we have a better chance of reaching out to the Christian community as a whole. Having said this, I know good and well that if we reach out our hand, it will get slapped by some out there. Groups like the ICR and AIG will not treat and continue to say we have compromised our faith. That cannot be helped. It is John and Jane Q Christian that I think that the ESE is meant for. I think it is also meant for the average scientist who wonders how people can be Christians and be scientists at the same time. "Sit on down. Let me tell you."

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Rumblings in Kentucky

The Kentucky Board of Education is still debating about who to appoint as their head. According to a story in the Lexington Herald Leader, when one, Dennis Cheek was accused on a blog of having creationists leanings, he responded forcefully:

Cheek told reporters outside the meeting that he had sent a reply to the blog. He said he believes evolution, not creationism, should be taught in science classes. He said he also supports the 2005 federal court ruling that struck down the teaching of "intelligent design" in science classes in Pennsylvania's Dover Area School District.

"What should be taught in school is exactly what the judge in the Dover case said. He was quite clear ... and I concur 100 percent with the decision that was made," Cheek said.

Cheek said that while people of various religious beliefs can differ on evolution, "when it comes to what is taught in the science curriculum, evolution can be demonstrated and seen in many different dimensions of science."

This seems to mirror the views of the other three finalists as well. A far cry from Texas.

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"Darwinism" and its Meanings

Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch have written a short article in Evolution: Education and Outreach, on the term "Darwinism." I have long said that anytime some writes about "Darwinism," it is usually a giveaway that they do not understand evolution because they treat it as if Darwin is the only person who had any evolutionary ideas. As they correctly point out, very few practicing biologists use the term:

Modern evolutionary biologists tend not to use “Darwinism” very often, except—again—in a historical sense to refer to Darwin’s ideas. British biologists, perhaps motivated by patriotic pride, are more likely to refer to evolutionary biology as “Darwinism” than their American colleagues, but even in Darwin’s homeland, the term now tends to be used as a pejorative (Liberman 2007). When they are speaking of the theoretical core of modern evolutionary biology, scientists tend to use the phrase “the synthetic theory of evolution” to refer to the augmentation of Darwin’s natural selection theory with Mendelian genetics in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by the development in the 1940s and 1950s of mathematical systems allowing the modeling of evolution in populations.

I, in fact, never encountered the term "Darwinism" until I began to read creationist writings. During graduate school, while I was reading Simpson, Verne Grant, Wright, Ernst Mayr, Dobzhansky, Haldane (responsible for one of the funniest quote about God and creation¹), Gould, Van Valen and others, it was always referred to as the "synthetic theory."

Scott and Branch suggest that there is another reason that the term "Darwinist" is used. They write:

By insisting on talking about “Darwinism,” creationists are rhetorically transforming evolution into an ism—a position held as a matter of ideology, rather than on the strength of the evidence. By the same token, “Darwinists” is used to transform those who accept evolution into ists—devotees of isms. So, for example, CSC Senior Fellow Jonathan Witt, lamenting the decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover that the teaching of intelligent design creationism in the public schools was unconstitutional, referred to Judge John E. Jones III as a “Darwinist judge” (2005)—even though Jones acknowledged that, before the trial, he had little knowledge of or interest in evolution.

If the folks at the Discovery Institute can get people to associate evolution with a religious perspective, they can appeal to people's emotions. This is also done by equating evolution with political perspectives:

At a conference, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow George Gilder reportedly referred to “Darwinist storm troopers” (Cohen 2007), while intelligent design blogger Denyse O’Leary rails against “Darwinian brownshirts” (O’Leary 2007)—the brownshirts, of course, were the stormtroopers of the Nazi Sturmabteilung.

Lost is all of this posturing is the fact that the Discovery Institute was, at one time, supposed to be turning out scientific papers that would show that "Darwinism" could not explain biodiversity. That goal is so far back now, it can't even be seen in the rear-view mirror. Now, the tactics of the DI are those of a PAC: push your agenda in the courts, have a media blitz and appeal to the emotions of the people. Whatever this is, it is not science. Remember this the next time you hear someone talking about "Darwinism." They have no interest in the actual science behind the term.

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Icon to Distribute the Film Creation

Icon Pictures will distribute the new film on the life of Charles Darwin, called Creation. According to Market Wire:

Darwin's great, still controversial book 'On the Origin of Species' depicts nature as a battleground. In CREATION the battleground is a man's heart. Torn between his love for his deeply religious wife and his own growing belief in a world where God has no place, Darwin finds himself caught in a struggle between faith and reason, love and truth.

This is not the grey-bearded old man that most people imagine when they think of Darwin. The Darwin we meet in CREATION is a young, vibrant father, husband and friend whose mental and physical health gradually buckles under the weight of guilt and grief for a lost child.

The film stars Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly and Jeremy Northam. Icon, if you remember, is also the same group that distributed The Passion of the Christ.

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Francis Collins Chosen to Run NIH

Barack Obama has chosen Francis Collins to run the National Institutes of Health. Collins, if you remember, was the head of the Human Genome Project and has a reputation for being a devout Christian and an ardent supporter of modern science. The story in the Wall Street Journal, by Steve Waldman, has this to say:

Mr. Collins was mocked by Bill Maher in his movie Religulous, so perhaps Mr. Collins' appointment will generate suspicion among secularists. And because he's advocated "theistic evolution" -- the idea that God set in motion the laws of the universe, including natural selection -- there are some more fundamentalist Christians who may sniff at Mr. Collins.

But to me, Mr. Collins is not just a scientific leader, he's a Christian role model. He shows that being a believer doesn't mean checking your brain at the church door, that people of faith have just as much intellectual heft as seculars and, most important, how faith and science can happily co-exist.

Amen, brother. The appointment of Dr. Collins reminds me of the Doonesbury cartoon that ran few years back here. He may yet get some slings and arrows. Amanda Gefter of the New Scientist thinks that those might come from our reliable antagonists, the Discovery Institute. She writes:

I think it's interesting that the Discovery Institute – which has long argued that intelligent design qualifies as science – seems to have given up the game and acknowledged that their concerns are religious after all. It's equally interesting that the catalyst doesn't seem to be someone like Richard Dawkins pushing atheism, but Francis Collins pushing Christianity. Perhaps the Discovery folks realise that Dawkins's followers are never going to be swayed by intelligent design; Collins, however, might very well cut into their target audience of scientifically-curious evangelicals.

Lets hope he does. The DI had a nondescript posting on the matter by Bruce Chapman. He writes:

But when the confirmation hearings take place I would not be surprised to hear some sharp questions about Dr. Collins' less known views on subjects that have not come out on his pulpit tours. He is, for example, a strong supporter of President Obama's program on embryonic stem cell research. The head of NIH doesn't have a lot to say about evolution, but he does have a lot to say about research matters in science on key social issues. Stem cells is only one of them.

Doesn't have a lot to say about evolution? This is what he says about evolution:

"Suppose God chose to use the mechanism of evolution to create animals like us, knowing this process would lead to big-brained creatures with the capacity to think, ask questions about our own origins, discover the truth about the universe and discover pointers toward the One who provides meaning to life. Who are we to say that's not how we would have done it? If you believe that God is the creator, how could the truths about nature we discover through science be a threat to God? For many scientists who believe in God -- including me -- it's just the opposite. Everything we learn about the natural world only increases our awe of the God the creator....

He says that a bunch of places. As Sandwalk points out, in The Language of God, Dr. Collins is crytal clear about it:

1. The universe came into being out of nothingness, approximately 14 billion years ago.
2. Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life.
3. While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over very long periods of time.
4. Once evolution got under way, no special supernatural intervention was required.
5. Humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes.
6. But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout our history.
(page 200).

How could you come to the conclusion that he doesn't say much about evolution? Mr. Chapman either Hasn't read Collins or is simply trying to downplay his views on evolution to point out his views on other controversial issues like Stem cell research. Either way, to state that he doesn't say much about evolution is simply false.

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Arizona's Educated Legislators

LGF has found a video of Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen actually saying that the earth doesn't need environmental regulation because it has survived quite nicely for six thousand years. Here is the video.



This gives one an idea of just how widespread this view of creation actually is.

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Perry Leaning Toward Appointing Cynthia Dunbar

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Texas, Garry Scharrer, of the Houston Chronicle, reports that Texas governor Rick Perry is leaning toward selecting Cynthia Dunbar to replace the ousted Don McLeroy. This is not a step in the right direction. The story notes:

Dunbar, whose district runs from outside Houston to Austin, said she expresses her views so constituents know exactly where she stands.

“I believe constituents deserve to know our thoughts, which is why I have always been boldly transparent,” she said.

But if she is chosen to chair the board, Dunbar said, she would “play a different role” by focusing on leadership. She is confident she could bring the various board factions together.

“I would strive to be just, merciful and humble in my service,” Dunbar said of a potential promotion to board chair.

Merciful? Just who would you need to be merciful to? The story largely focuses on Dunbar's religious attitudes, which are not portrayed in the most positive light. The problem that I and many other people who are TEs have is that there is much in her religious stance that I agree with. But, as with so many people who are in these positions, she doesn't know a bit about the biological sciences and doesn't seem to want to learn.

It is somewhat puzzling, though, that Governor Perry would appoint as head of the SBOE someone who believes that the public schools are "tyrannical" and who homeschooled her children. I don't care much for public schools largely because the quality is usually poor (it is where we live) and we were convinced that we could give them a better education. On the other hand, I don't have the slightest inclination to run for the local school board, let alone the state one.

My concern stems from her public stance against evolutionary theory. I have posted on the views of Ms. Dunbar, here, where she accepted the writings of creationist Jerry Bergman, who misrepresented the work of Nobel Prize winner Werner Arber so badly that Arber issued a public denunciation.


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More on the Differences Between Scientists and Non-Scientists

Dan Vergano of USA Today has a story on how the public perceives science and how scientists perceive themselves. For example:

•Evolution. 32% of the public and 87% of scientists agree that people have evolved.

•Animal research. 52% of the public and 93% of scientists support drug testing or other experiments on animals.

•Nuclear power. 51% of the public and 70% of scientists support nuclear power development.

As the story notes, this is not surprising. I think this largely reflects science's understanding of the hows and whys and the limits of these topics, as opposed to the general public's understanding. I have been told that, here at the lab, support for nuclear power is much higher than it is out in either the cities of Oak Ridge or Knoxville. What I also find interesting is the huge drop-off with regard to evolution. This is probably due to the efforts of YEC and ID groups to promote the anti-elvislutionary, er anti-evolutionary message.

Nut-Eating Dinosaur Found

According to a story in the Chicago Sun-Times by Maudlyne Ihejirika, a fossil dinosaur has been discovered that ate nuts. The story notes:

The discovery of the Psittacosaurus, announced last week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, was made in 2001, in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia.

But famed University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno and two colleagues from the People's Republic of China who made the find, then spent years preparing and studying the specimen.

The finding is significant in that Psittacosaurus presents the first solid evidence of nut-eating in any dinosaur, according to Sereno. And Psittacosaurus, like other of his fossil findings in recent years, provides further evidence of the ancestry of dinosaurs to modern birds.

"The parallels in the skull to that in parrots, the descendants of dinosaurs most famous for their nut-cracking habits, is remarkable," said the internationally renowned Sereno, currently a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence.

Another piece of the puzzle linking dinosaurs to birds and another nail in the coffin of those denying that there is such a link.

Creation, Evolution and Closed Minds

According to a story in the Australian, a new article called Science communication reconsidered, in the journal Nature Biotechnology suggests that people reject science and scientific findings for a variety of reasons. Of people who encounter a scientific topic, the article notes:

"If they lack a motivation to pay close attention to science debates, they will rely heavily on mental shortcuts, values and emotions to make sense of an issue, often in the absence of knowledge." The paper, wisdom of a Washington, DC, workshop bringing together a score of experts, including Melbourne psychologist Christine Critchley, suggests there is more to science communication than knowledge.

Scientists, it seems, are kidding themselves if they imagine mere ignorance explains public resistance to their projects. "Knowledge is only one factor among many influences that are likely to guide how individuals reach judgments, with ideology, social identity and trust often having strong impacts," the paper says.

This is frustrating to me, since I tend to be left-brained about the way that I view the world. "How can you ignore the evidence," I say. "Just look into the blinkin' telescope!"

DesMoines Addresses Evolution (Sort of)

The DesMoines answer to the problem of evolution is to make a class that critiques it an elective. The Spencer School District, according to a story by Stacy Hupp in the DesMoines Register:

Public school students in Spencer will get to study the Bible and pray at graduation if school district leaders approve a proposed "religious liberties" policy, the first of its kind in Iowa.

The plan calls for elective classes such as "Critic of Darwinism," which includes arguments against the theory of evolution, and "The Bible in History and Literature."

School officials say they want to set clear rules for religious expression without discouraging students, for example, from writing "Merry Christmas" on holiday cards in class.

Spencer Superintendent Greg Ebeling said most public educators who fear lawsuits go too far to exclude religion from schools.

"We're going to have critics, but we're not out to cram religion down anybody's throats," said Ebeling, whose northwest Iowa district enrolls about 2,000 students. "It's just about what's the right way to handle it. The way we handle it right now is to avoid it at all costs."

What about the teaching of evolution? The story doesn't say, although one would hope that if they have a class critiquing it, the students would know what they are critiquing. And how do you make the class "Critics of Darwinism" academically sound?

Should I or Shouldn't I?

One of our church friends gave my wife a video by the ICR and said "Jim should watch this." My wife, being the sensible person she is, promptly hid the video under several stacks of books in the kitchen. Not good enough!! "Hey, what's this? Ooooooohhhh, blog fodder," I exclaim. "Oh, please don't," she says. I understand her frustration. On the one side, she knows that most of her Christian friends have embraced this "flat earth" Christianity and doesn't want to rock the boat. On the other hand, she knows enough of the evidence, both from her father and then her husband, that the YEC perspective doesn't hold water. So she would just rather the whole thing went away. I, likely, should honor her request.


But that doesn't mean I can't watch it...


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