Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Intelligent Design

  • Science with Pre-Ordained Conclusions

    One problem for creationists has been the lack of publications in peer-reviewed journals. In a typical attempt to bypass reality with labels, Answers in Genesis has duly produced a “peer-reviewed journal,” the Answers Research Journal.

    A major problem, of course, is that “peer-reviewed” tends to imply more than simply that there is a panel that reviews submissions. One can quite easily gather a panel of one’s family and friends and get them to “review” what one has written. Those who have tangled with the process of publication knows the difference between friendly and agreeable reviewers, and those not selected such as to favor your cause.

    In addition, peer-reviewed journals are generally associated with some center of the academic activity in question or some professional society that supports it. Thus publication in peer-reviewed journals also implies a level of acceptance in the community involved in that particular type of research. Other members of that community read the articles in such journals and might even cite them in their work.

    Of course, peer review could also result in censorship and elimination of good ideas that are out of the mainstream, but might become mainstream later. In that one point reside the hopes and dreams of intelligent design (ID) advocates everywhere. “Our day will come,” they say, “And you will all realize how right we were.” That view might have had some validity a few decades ago, but today if you have a truly good paper it will be very hard to suppress. Get it on the internet and someone or other will see it. If it’s of such good quality that it “shifts the paradigm,” then you’ll be able to show up all those stuffy peer reviewers.

    The creation of a “special” journal for a “special” group of researchers who aren’t acceptable to the broader scientific community doesn’t respond to the underlying problem. What it does is provide creationist debaters who are facing the general public with some ammunition, “smart PR bullets” if you please, targeted at those who don’t really understand the issues. “No peer-reviewed papers? I have five citations here, all from Answers Research Journal. See! It’s peer reviewed. It says so right here.”

    Once the PR point is scored, who cares what science is accomplished? I note the interesting line in the requirements for papers, mixed in with a bunch of format requirements:

    Papers should be no more than 10,000 words long. Color diagrams, figures, and photographs are encouraged. Papers can be in any relevant field of science, theology, history, or social science, but they must be from a young-earth and young-universe perspective. Rather than merely pointing out flaws in evolutionary theory, papers should aim to assist the development of the Creation and Flood model of origins. Papers should be submitted in a plain text, single-spaced Word or RTF file. Formatting should be kept to an absolute minimum. Do not embed graphics, tables, figures, or photographs in the text, but supply them in separate files, along with captions. [emphasis mine]

    Translation: Take that you scientists! You don’t want creationist papers? We don’t take any evolutionist papers, nor papers from folks who believe that the earth is old. We have our conclusions pre-ordained!

    One obvious thing that young earth creationists seem to miss is that not assuming that the earth is 6,000 years old is not the same type of bias as assuming it is. The age of the earth is not an assumption, rather it is the result of considerable research which one can review, challenge, and correct if one wants to.

    In the meantime, Answers in Genesis is also producing some “semi-technical” research. ERV reviews some of this over at the Panda’s Thumb and it doesn’t come out so well. She does a much better job and goes into greater detail than I possibly could. It is, after all, in her field.

    But I could help mentioning a couple of little problems with logic. Consider this paragraph:

    Antibiotic resistance is certainly an example of change, but it is hardly a fact of macroevolution (bacteria remain bacteria). Creation microbiologist, Dr. Kevin Anderson, states that such variation in bacteria is beneficial for their survival outcome in a clinical environment, but not a beneficial mutation. Anderson (2005) goes on to demonstrate how some “fitness” cost is often associated with mutations, although reversion mutations may eventually recover most, if not all, of this cost for some bacteria. A biological cost does occur in the loss of pre-existing cellular systems or functions. Such loss of cellular activity cannot legitimately be offered as a genetic means of demonstrating macroevolution. [all emphasis mine]

    Look at the first bolded portion: “Bacteria remain bacteria”? When are these people going to bring some sort of focus to the idea of a “kind”? The only definition I can see is that if one thing changed into another while somebody was watching they must be the same kind, otherwise not.

    Consider the second bolded portion. Here we are told that a mutation might be beneficial in a clinical environment, but it’s not a “beneficial mutation.” What would make it a beneficial mutation? I would suggest that the fact that more of the bacteria survive in a “clinical environment” than would otherwise is beneficial from the point of view of the bacteria involved. You see, they don’t live in this other theoretical environment, the non-clinical environment with which they are apparently supposed to be concerned.

    Is there some sort of ideal environment where bacteria should want to live and where they should desire to be most fit to live. “Unfortunately we have to survive here in this clinical environment,” say the bacterial philosophers, “but the mutation that allows us to do so isn’t really beneficial, because it doesn’t prepare us for our real home in a non-clinical environment.”

    So then we come to the conclusion of the paragraph where we’re told that because this other loss of functionality occurs, this can’t possibly be used as a case of macroevolution. I’d like to know what that has to do with the case at hand. In the clinical environment, you know, the one where the bacteria with antibiotic resistance have to live, it is a beneficial mutation.

    Go read ERV’s entire post at the Panda’s Thumb.

  • When Neutrality isn’t Neutral

    The news of Chris Comer’s suit against the Texas Education Administration claiming she was forced out illegally should come as no surprise to anyone. The reasoning behind the dismissal clearly silly, and the explanations did not ring true as the real reasons she was asked to resign.

    But as a moderate who likes to see not just both sides of an issue, but all the various gradients between, I want to comment on the idea of neutrality as it applies in this case. While I like moderation, there are some very definite cases where the “right” position will be at one end of the spectrum or another.

    The essence of moderation as I use the term is to identify the full width of the spectrum of possibilities, and then intelligently select the appropriate point. I see at least two types of spectra one might find in such a case. One is a spectrum that balances several valid claims, with varying priority given to these various options. The other is a spectrum that may lead from valid to invalid, with the only necessary choice being to identify the valid end.

    I see health care policy as an example of the first kind of spectrum. There are a wide variety of ideas and you can even divide them up into various spectra, considering costs, who are the providers, who are the payers, and so forth. You have valid goals (providing health care to those who need it, making sure that finances are adequate, not forcing one person to pay for the foolishness of another) that need to be balanced, and you might find many positions for which good arguments can be made, but you have to decide on one policy. I think this is a good place to exercise moderate thinking.

    For a possibly non-controversial example of the other kind of spectrum, I would suggest an aircraft wing. Now I realize that more than one shape can produce lift, but if one assumes a particular general design there are going to be very few workable shapes, and there will be one that will provide the best lift in combination with other factors in that set of circumstances. You can create a spectrum from a large rock to a carefully shaped wing, but you wouldn’t want to be “moderate” or “neutral” about your choice.

    And therein lies the problem for the “neutrality” of the Texas Education Administration in this case. The issue is not between multiple equally scientific (tested, validated, published, etc.) ideas that might be taught. The conflict is between teaching mainstream science, the consensus scientific view of those who work in the appropriate fields, as opposed to picking up a variety of offbeat ideas.

    Now some will say this is not the case. It is a conflict between two equally scientific views, and they are only asking for this one view to be given equal time.

    But on what basis should a view that claims to be scientific be given a place in the public school science classroom? Should it be true if one guy with a PhD claims it is true? In that case we’d have a rather wild assortment of things to teach. There’s a guy who teaches geocentrism who has a PhD. Should it be anyone who has written a book on the topic? That wouldn’t exclude anything.

    How about a certain level of acceptance in the scientific community, specifically by those scientists working in the field in question? Without conducting scientific surveys, that is actually how we work, and if we apply to this topic (ID/intelligent desing vs. evolutionary theory) we will reject ID in the high school classroom and teach evolutionary theory.

    The “neutrality” that Chris Comer was expected to maintain was between teaching science and not teaching science, and all things considered, I would have to commend her for making the choice to advocate teaching science. Anything else seems horribly irresponsible.

    Which leaves one to wonder about the rest of the Texas Education Administration. One must assume that those in authority want those who coordinate science education in Texas to teach something else. That should make Texas residents–and Americans in general–very concerned.

  • Evolution as God’s Tool

    A post on the Panda’s Thumb today calls attention to this post from Uncommon Descent, which claims that theistic evolutionists must believe contradictory things:

    I would not have a problem understanding evolution as God’s “creation tool,” if TEs conceived of evolution as a “tool” in the strict sense. A tool in the strict sense is fully in the control of the tool-user, and the results it achieves (when properly used by a competent user) are not due to chance but to intelligence and skill. . . .

    I immediately thought of the six sided “tool” that might be encountered in a casino or in a role playing game or other simulation. Of course, there are many other “tools” used to generate random or pseudo-random results. But those tools, used properly, produce random results, or nearly so. One may, of course, have the goal of cheating, in which case one tries to prevent the tool from functioning correctly.

    There are a number of failures of logic in the referenced article from UcD, but I want to focus on just this one. There seems to be a tendency both on the part of advocates and opponents of Christianity to assume that all elements of the faith must remain static. If one doesn’t adjust to a new scientific discovery, one is stubbornly clinging to outdated ideas, and if one does adjust, one is obviously abandoning the faith.

    But I believe that God created the universe and I believe that as an obvious corollary of that belief whenever we discover new things about God’s creation, we may discover new things about God. There is no direct information. Science is ill-equipped to study God. Yet the process of science is admirably suited to discovering information about the physical world. If I tie to that the belief in creation I must also acknowledge that the created thing can say something about the creator.

    Unfortunately, many Christians have tried to do precisely the opposite. Because they assume that certain things are true about God, they believe that there are certain things that must be true about the created universe. When one [seems to] discover something that contradicts this point, one challenges the data based on the assumption of what must be. In effect, this argument tells us that what must be, is.

    The universe does not seem to bow to this logic. It does not conform to what I expected it to be when I was a child. I thought that God had created the universe specifically for human beings, that the earth was the center of the spiritual universe. (I studied astronomy almost as soon as I could read, and realized that we were not physically the center of the universe.) I thought that each kind of plant and animal had been lovingly designed by God’s hand to have a precise set of features.

    When I became a man–and after much struggle–I put away such childish things and realized that the universe is what it is, irrespective of what makes me feel better. And therein lies my major beef with the term “theistic evolution,” because that phrase suggests that theistic evolution is a different theory regarding the diversification of life than just plain evolution. For some, it implies that one must somehow shape one’s understanding of evolution in view of one’s belief in God. Theism becomes the means of making evolution more palatable.

    But evolution is what it is. The theory of evolution is the best explanation we have at this point for a large and varied array of physical observations–the sort of stuff that science does well. The important issue is whether the theory of evolution is valid or invalid, not whether it is troubling or comforting, demeaning to human beings or affirming, or whether it is too bloody to be the tool of a loving God.

    So could evolution be the tool of the God posited by orthodox Christianity? Well, that depends on just what one calls orthodoxy. Personally, I accept it, and I repeat the apostle’s creed without my fingers crossed, one definition of orthodoxy that I sometimes use facetiously, though I do have a point. Often we are dealing with embellishments to the creeds when we find objections to scientific data, not the creeds themselves.

    There are some problems, however, and some adjustments to be made. If you want to make human beings, as such, the intended result of evolution, then you’re going to have to play with the randomness somewhere. If you even believe that God intended to create sentience, and did not have even the contingency that it might not happen, I believe you are talking about a process that is not entirely random.

    Now there’s a perfectly good theological fall back point here, even though it is one I choose not to use. One can suppose that at the most basic level–some theists use the subatomic level–God intervenes, but in a way that cannot be detected. I think it is fairly likely that one could conceal quite a lot in the masses of random movements of particles. If that gene over there is mutated rather than this one here, and the two were of equal probability, who is to detect that God interfered?

    For me, however, this seems a little odd. Why is it that God wants to make things happen a certain way, but pretends that they are happening a different way? Why make things appear to have a strong random component, while actually accomplishing a predetermined result? I don’t see any contradiction in this, simply because we are talking here about a personal God who chooses, and while I may find the choice weird, it doesn’t contradict anything except my sense of aesthetics.

    But I suggest a different option–a God who actually does take chances, one who does, in fact, play dice with the universe. I suggest that evolution is much more like the random tool I describe at the beginning than like a fabrication device. To truly create free creatures, I think God had to allow all options.

    As I have noted before, I do remain open to interventions, provided those interventions are designed to communicate with free creatures in a non-coercive manner, in other words, they do not change the way the universe functions. I’m actually much more comfortable with a resurrection, which happens once, is clearly contrary to the laws of nature, but doesn’t alter the way the physical universe works in general, than I am with the idea that God provides an appearance of randomness, but guides it to a predetermined goal. The resurrection seems more blatant, but actually has substantially less effect.

    This may not be very comforting. It means that human beings might not have existed. Perhaps there was a moment when if a landslide had gone a different way, some essential line of development would have been cut off and humans would never have appeared. Just for fun, think of giant, intelligent cockroaches digging up the fossilized remains of our potential, but doomed, ancestors.

    I think it would be quite easy to imagine an earth than went through it’s entire life cycle as a planet without producing intelligent life. For the entire universe, it would be vanishingly unlikely that no such life would develop anywhere, but I suspect that is a contingent possibility.

    Does it make you feel insecure? It did me when I first read about the possibilities and thought about them. But if there is one thing that the study of the universe should teach us, that is that physical life is risky and ephemeral, on the universal scale of things, and even when we look at it very locally. It seems to me that the nature of the universe suggests that God likes freedom much more than he likes security.

    (I’m working on another post dealing with the bloodiness of evolution and the implications of that, which I will hopefully post yet this week.)

  • UMC General Conference Endorses Clergy Letter Project

    I’m a little behind the power curve on this one, but I found out about these via an e-mail from Michael Zimmerman of the Clergy Letter Project.

    The first resolution is #80990 (tracking) which includes the line:

    * endorses The Clergy Letter Project and its reconciliatory programs between religion and science, and urges United Methodist clergy participation;

    That one goes in the Social Principles, and the legislative tracking shows it as adopted.

    Even though the letter tells me the following two were passed, I don’t see them adopted or placed on one of the consent calendars according to the tracking. Perhaps one of my more politically savvy UM readers might comment on the procedure or where I may have looked in the wrong place.

    Resolution #80050 (tracking)added the line:

    We find that science’s descriptions of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology.

    … to ¶160 E in the Book of Discipline, amongst other changes.

    And finally, #800839 (tracking) added the following to the Book of Resolutions:

    WHEREAS, the United Methodist Church has for many years supported the separation of church and State (paragraph 164, Book of Discipline, 2004, p. 119),

    THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the General Conference of the United Methodist Church go on record as opposing the introduction of any faith-based theories such as Creationism or Intelligent Design into the science curriculum of our public schools.

    I should probably pay more attention to my own church’s politics, especially since I regard church politics as necessary. But to be honest, I’m just terrible at keeping up with these things. Nonetheless, I am pleased by this result, even if it is only the first of the three.

  • Ken Miller on Expelled

    Dr. Kenneth Miller has a review of Expelled! in the Boston Globe, and it’s a good one. It’s short and to the point. (Hat tip to Dispatches where I also commented.)

    Dr. Miller goes directly to the issue of associating the theory of evolution with atheism, a piece of propaganda work that the movie accomplishes by failing to interview key theistic evolutionists.

    Puzzled, the editors of Scientific American asked Mark Mathis, the film’s co-producer, why he and Stein didn’t interview such people, like Francis Collins (head of the Human Genome Project), Francisco Ayala, or myself. Mathis cited me by name, saying “Ken Miller would have confused the film unnecessarily.” In other words, showing a scientist who accepts both God and evolution would have confused their story line. [emphasis mine]

    To translate the bolded portion: The truth would have gotten in the way of our lies.

    I want to emphasize again that the reason I work to dissociate the theory of evolution from atheism is not that I believe atheists to be immoral, nor do I believe thoughts that atheists think are somehow inferior. The theory of evolution is science. It should be judged be scientific methods. Whether it works best with the theological systems of theists or with atheists is quite irrelevant. The only relevant thing is how well confirmed it is as a scientific theory.

  • Science vs. ID Redux: Lampreys

    One characteristic of creationist debate over the last few decades has been moving the goal posts. Every time a new fossil is discovered that fits into the evolutionary pattern for some lineage we hear the “it’s still an X” litany, followed by pointing to yet more gaps. Each new fossil, it seems, creates new gaps rather than filling them, according to creationist logic. Those are goalposts on wheels–motorized, no less.

    Well, intelligent design proponents carry on this characteristic as well. (Is it any wonder so many of us just call them creationists?) In the case of “irreducible complexity” the goal posts also continue to move. If one supposedly irreducibly complex thing is explained, ID proponents do three things. First, they claim they weren’t really certain that one thing was irreducibly complex. Second, they try to claim it really still is. Third, they point to other irreducibly complex things that have yet to be explained.

    Enter the Lamprey, cause of tap-dancing in the halls of IDism. Ian Musgrave has posted on this on The Panda’s Thumb (Behe vs Lampreys), and it’s very interesting. It seems that in nature–you know, the place where we observe what actually happens rather than what we wish would happen–there are a number of simpler clotting systems. The complexity is quite reducible.

    Those who have read Darwin’s Black Box will appreciate this line:

    To put it in Behe’s imagery, the clotting system of the Lamprey is a mousetrap without a spring.

    Hmm! Just so!

    Guess who did all the work? The evil, conspiratorial evolutionary scientists who always insist on messing things up by looking at the data. Can’t let that happen, can we? [/sarc]

  • How it Happened vs. Probabilities

    I may be hopelessly naive in the matter of probability, though it is the one area of math that I have actually studied, but I am simply not terribly impressed with probability arguments. That’s probably (!) a major reason why I’m not impressed with intelligent design (ID). I’m particularly not impressed with probabilities calculated for processes that are not yet understood. If you don’t know all the factors, how can you calculate a probability?

    On the other hand, it appears that many creationists are much more impressed with probabilities that are largely guessed, while they are not terribly impressed with extrapolation in historical studies. For them, it often doesn’t matter how much detail you get for the development of various structures in the past, it’s not enough, because it would only be testable if we could see every stage and explain everything.

    Thus when an ID writer claims something is highly improbable, even though he hasn’t a clue how it actually happened, it impresses his fellow creationists, while when a scientist extrapolates development between existing specimens, the same creationists are totally unimpressed. Yet which of these is operating on the greater level of evidence?

    If anyone is wondering why I see strong evidence for evolution, here’s the answer. I’m used to and respect historical methods. If you find a pottery type developing, and then you find several examples of stages, sequentially arranged by date, you can extrapolate a path from one style to the next. You don’t need an example of every pot. If you see writing develop from one style to the next, you don’t need every stage. You can extrapolate.

    For me, the simple fact of large numbers of sequences in the development of complex structures suggests that such things have developed naturally. Extrapolating the intermediate steps is not terribly difficult for those who study these things, and it is a quite proper procedure. Challenging the observed sequence by indicating that it is improbable strikes me as absurd. The only proper challenge would be to say, “Here! This is where the intelligent designer intervened.” But of course, ID advocates do no such thing.

    NCSE has produced a video, which I will embed below, that shows such a sequence on the development of the eye. It’s very clear, but it lacks some steps. I don’t know whether the video produced all the steps we know of, or just a sampling, but if these were the sum total of examples we have in a sequence of eye development, we would have good cause to believe that the eye evolved.

    This video comes from the truly excellent site Expelled Exposed, sponsored by NCSE. Hat tip goes to The Panda’s Thumb.

  • Distinguishing Freedom and Ability

    I have always preferred our classic statements of rights, such as the bill of rights, to such statements as Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms.” What interests me is that while our classic statements of rights indicate things that the government is not permitted to prevent you from doing, the latter two freedoms from Roosevelt’s list, and especially the third, indicate things that you get to have.

    The four freedoms Roosevelt mentioned are:

    1. Freedom of speech
    2. Freedom of worship
    3. Freedom from want
    4. Freedom from fear

    This ambiguity comes up in plenty of discussions of rights. What precisely does “freedom from want’ require, who gets to decide just how much want is permissible, and who gets to decide who has to produce all of that? I, for example, would like a much better computer. It would help me in my creative activities. Perhaps someone should give me one in order to improve my mental health.

    Of course I’m not serious about that. Nobody has any duty to give me a computer. I will have to earn the money and buy one. People often assume that we will all have a reasonable definition of “want” in place, but the fact is that we don’t agree on such things.

    That, however, is not my main point. I would like to focus on the distinction between these two types of rights. The first, freedom of speech, is provided by the government failing to take certain actions–not suppressing speech. There is, of course, the positive action of maintaining a lawful framework, but that is a requirement for the existence of any right. Freedom from want requires some positive action on someone else’s part, namely to produce the particular goods.

    While I believe I have an obligation as a Christian, individually and in community, to care for those who are less advantaged, I have a distinct problem with many of the government programs that do what I believe I must do privately, because they tend to make one person have an inherent, legal right (I think those are oxymoronic, but they are commonly used together) to that which someone else must go out and produce. I advocate certain safety net welfare programs in any case, not as a right of those who receive them, but as part of maintaining a workable society.

    But I want to apply this now to speech and to the controversy about intelligent design. There’s a regular chorus going on right now about suppression. I think that chorus is based on a confusion of their rights with someone else’s production.

    I have a right to free speech. I do not have a right to any particular medium. If I can find no publisher for my writing, then my writing will not get printed. Since I am a publisher, I have the right to refuse to print someone else’s drivel, or even their masterpiece, and I am not suppressing free speech, even if they find no other way to publish.

    Besides forcing someone else to produce what they believe is a right, people who make such claim try to take away the rights of others. Again, illustrating with myself. As a publisher, were I required to print the works of someone even though I chose not to, then my right of free speech is abridged. My right of free speech does not require a carpenter to build a stage, an electrician to wire the sound system, a newspaper to print an ad for my event, nor any person to come an listen to me.

    My belief that I have important things to say does not require a college or university to gather students to hear it. There are things that are of value under those circumstances, and other things that are not. If I were the chair of a religion department, for example, I would consider it quite appropriate to refuse a place on the faculty to a KJV-Only advocate, even if he could produce the appropriate accredited degrees.

    In High School curricula, we have the need to cover a great deal of material, and some things are in while others are out. We have groups whose job it is to decide which is which. Subject matter needs to meet a threshold of validity and usefulness in order to merit a place in such a curriculum, otherwise you are forcing students to spend time learning that which will not work to their benefit.

    Now there is a little glitch in the educational plan. What about state sponsored institutions of higher learning? Shouldn’t they have to provide a platform for anyone in the name of free speech? They are the government, after all. I would say rather than if we allow a government to operate an academic institution, that is precisely what we should expect them to run, and that will mean making choices, discriminating against bad ideas (it isn’t prejudice if you studied it ahead of time!), and allowing some in and not allowing others.

    I say to the intelligent design advocates: You don’t have a right to access to scientific journals and faculties. Your presence in such places must be earned. Your ideas should not appear in curricula by right, but rather because they have proven themselves in the appropriate arena.

    ID is trying to create a welfare state for ideas. It’s a bad idea economically, and it’s no better of an idea in the realm of ideas.

  • My Advice for Florida Creationists

    Which, for those in doubt, includes advocates of intelligent design (ID). I know they won’t take it, but here it is:

    Just tell the truth.

    John West, over at Evolution News and Views, has written a quite disingenuous post in which he wonders about the motives of advocates in the Florida House who insisted on passing a measure that differed from the one in the Florida Senate and one which would most likely be rejected. Personally I don’t think there was any certainty that the Senate would decide to reject the House bill in the end, but that’s how it worked out.

    West thinks this “smacks of classic back-room politics by politicians who are trying to play both sides of an issue.” I’m sure back-room politics is alive and well in Florida, despite sunshine laws, but the real “sunshine” problem here is with ID advocates themselves. You see, if you stick with the truth, you only have to remember one story, but if you decide on lies, then you have to agree on your lies, and you have to keep the various stories coordinated.

    What the Florida creationists want is religion taught in public schools, but they can’t write a law to do that directly, so instead they have to write some other scenario, and that’s when things get difficult. The real effect of each of these bills would be to refer the issue to the courts, and the main issue then is just what do you want to take to court with you, considering the truth absolutely won’t do.

    That was the problem in Dover. The people who pushed intelligent design really wanted religion in the classroom, and ID was just the means to an end. Once you get one set of materials in you start working on the next one. As long as you are trying to get something that you can’t admit you want, you’re going to have confusion of strategy.

    I have been astounded at the number of ID advocates who have told me here on this blog, in e-mail, or in person that I am horribly misunderstanding their position because I think ID has to do with religion. But there is simply no possibility that ID, without any religious overtones, has any audience at all. If the whole argument is about the possibility that some form of alien life is interfering with earth life, perhaps a roomful of weirdos would be interested. The fact is that “intelligent designer” is heard (correctly) as a codeword for God, and that is what gives this traction.

    Whether ID advocates are creationists or not–and I think they are–it is certainly creationists in the older sense (YEC or OEC) who are carrying the torch for this movement. What happened in the Florida legislature is that conservative Christians who believe that their particular faith position should be taught in public schools tried to get some portion of it allowed in the curriculum of Florida public schools. There was no back-room deals needed to kill the legislation; differences in the particular form of the lie that should be told in order to reap the greatest benefit spelled doom for the bills.

    I cannot prove there were no back-room deals. If there were, I wish I knew who was involved so I could vote for the people responsible. In the legislature I’d prefer crooks who are in favor of good education to crooks who want to lie for God.

    One more thing from West:

    . . . More importantly, we still live in America, and although Darwinists are doing their best to shut down and intimidate anyone who raises questions about Neo-Darwinism, we still have free speech, and they can’t prevent people from hearing about the debate in the public arena, no matter how hard they try.

    I’m wondering if West is even aware of what this bill was for. This was about High School curriculum. It wasn’t about “the public arena.” The ID movement is the noisiest bunch of “suppressed” people in history. If their voices are cut off, there sure is no evidence of the fact.

  • Another Good Review of Expelled!

    . . . from someone who has seen it, no less! It’s on The Creation of an Evolutionist, which blog also goes on my blogroll. (From a comment on an earlier post.)