ARN ID Update

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Driving back with friends from Ottawa to Toronto recently, I managed to catch this program where a CBC journalist interviewed humanist neurologist Oliver Sacks on the subject of music. Sacks disagrees with Harvard's Steve Pinker, who claims that music is evolutionary cheesecake but then he stops midway through the program and makes a big pitch for materialism that completely goes against everything else he has said. And of course music could just be an earworm after all ....

The only thing music cannot be, apparently, is a hint that there is more to life than nature red in tooth and claw.

Here's the interview. Funny, these people would pick the Year of Completely Ridiculous Darwin Hagiography to just fall apart intellectually. Some big changes are obviously happening.

Also just up at The Mindful Hack is my blog on neuroscience and spirituality issues, which supports The Spiritual Brain:

Are people starting to get the fact that the high tech hucksters are - well - hucksters?

Neuroscience and criminal justice: Voodoo, for example

Recently, a friend sent me this Google alert for "evolutionary psychology"

Religion: There is atheism, ... and then there is materialist atheism ...

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Douglas Todd, for the Vancouver Sun, writes about Walt Ruloff, a 44-year-old Canadian high-tech mogul, who explained why he came up with the idea to finance Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

"We wanted to generate anger," Ruloff said.

"We always knew we'd get extreme anger on the one side and extreme support on the other. We also think we got extreme interest in the middle."

More...

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Comments on the sotry are, as usual, mixed...from the thoughtful, to the shallow.

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

The notion that the universe was purposefully designed for the advent of life, if confirmed, would contradict orthodox Darwinism. After all, a life-directed universe and more particularly one that invariably leads to intelligent beings such as us that are able to look back through cosmic history and make scientific discoveries, by definition contravenes the random, goal-less ends inherent in a natural selective process. Darwin's success came from his convincing rebuttal of a guided, goal-directed evolution of life through a thesis that amassed evidence, albeit circumstantial, in support of his macroevolutionary model. Through his claims of colonization and subsequent adaptation of island archipelagos by mainland fauna (Ref 1, pp.528-546), Darwin saw no reason why small adaptational differences could not, given enough time, result in the large differences observed between all life forms. His triumph came in proposing that natural selection was the mechanism by which the branching of the evolutionary tree, from a few common ancestors, could occur (Ref 1, pp.107-108).

Darwin's observations on homologous resemblances (Ref 1, pp.577-578) and the origins of varieties through animal breeding (Ref 1, pp.24-49) only served to strengthen his conviction that all forms of life could be traced back in history to a few common progenitors. With the Malthusian predictions of famine and plague (Ref 2, p.120) and Ernst Haeckel's claim of unity of form during embryonic development (Ref 3), Darwin found the sociological and biological ammunition he needed to do away altogether with the typological framework that defined the Special Creationist world view (Ref 1, p.247). For Darwin, the entire notion of a designer who had fashioned life with the culmination of man as a creature made in His own image, directly contradicted what he saw as the apparent toil and suffering readily visible throughout nature (Ref 4, pp.12-13). A benevolent designer such as the biblical God, Darwin concluded, would not have wished such depth of suffering upon His creation. And so Darwin's theory of evolution became a theory of 'His volition' the principle tenet of which was that life seemed too haphazard and pitiful to be a willful act of divine love. An unplanned struggle for survival appealed more closely to the status quo (Ref 2, p.90).

Darwinism and later its more contemporary equivalent neo-Darwinism seemed scientifically and philosophically indisputable. In 1953, all that changed. The elucidation of the DNA double helical structure by James Watson and Francis Crick signaled a new era of scientific discovery that would eventually lead to the molecular biology revolution. One fundamental revelation that emerged was that not only are different genes involved in the formation of apparently homologous structures in different species but supposedly related genes also code for structures that are dissimilar and would not be categorized as homologous under the Darwinian definition (Ref 5; 6; 7). Together with the lack of a viable explanation for how complex organs such as the eye supposedly evolved (Ref 8) and the absence of intermediate forms needed to unite the diversity of life, which Darwin conveniently explained away by resorting to the idea of an imperfectly kept fossil record (Ref 1, pp. 213-214), the Darwinian paradigm faced a formidable onslaught from conflicting data.

In his testimony to the United States Commission on Human Rights, philosopher Stephen Meyer argued that there is scope for consideration of another theory, that of Intelligent Design, as an alternative to Darwinian evolution (Ref 9). Intelligent Design theory does not aim to identify the designer in any metaphysical or theological sense but simply looks at aspects of the natural world that, "reliably signal the action of an intelligence, whatever that intelligence might be" (Ref 10, p.314). What Intelligent Design theory does not allow for is the idea that Darwinian descent with modification can account for the transformation of a single-celled ancestor into the full panoply of life that we see today. Within this limitation, philosopher William Dembski argues that natural laws cannot explain the origins of the highly specified genetic instructions found in DNA (Ref 10, p.149).

Central to the scientific argument of Intelligent Design is the notion of irreducible complexity which, as biochemist Michael Behe has famously demonstrated, exists in many biological processes (Ref 11, 12). Behe's observation is that for such processes a critical set of interacting components is required before they can work properly to achieve a specified function. That is, if any component were to be removed, these processes would cease to work (Ref 11, 12). The intricacies of blood clotting, the motion of the bacterial flagellar motor, the beating of cilia and the co-operative elements of the immune response fall central to Behe's argument. More recently the activation pathway of enzymes involved in programmed cell death has been shown to display irreducible complexity (Ref 13). Hypothetical precursors to such processes would have been by definition non-functional, lacking the components that give at least a minimal level of functionality. Irreducible complexity defies the piece-meal assembly inherent in a Darwinian selective process.

Today perhaps more than ever before, we have a responsibility to look at the scientific theories that we hold dear and reassess their validity in light of the latest evidence. Darwinian theory should not be excluded from the rigorous questioning of objective discourse. Those who choose to elevate Darwinism to the level of an unquestionable 'fact' that is universally applicable to all aspects of biology do so at an enormous cost to the enterprise of scientific debate. Intelligent Design proponents do after all present their own cogent arguments in support of their assertions (Refs 11-14). Such arguments go against the random directionless tenet of Darwinism and present us with new avenues for scientific research into the existence of life.

So it is that I end on a personal note. Well known throughout the world are the colorful festivities of the Brazilian carnival where the 'Sambadromo' sets entire cities dancing on the streets during the month of February. 2009 will be no different. Perhaps less well known are the traditional, remembrance celebrations in June for Saint John who, according to folklore, is responsible for the good harvest that Brazil reaps every year. So strong is lure of St John that, even when the harvest is poor, his contribution to the harvest is whole-heartedly acknowledged. One of the many ways that children celebrate the event is by releasing and chasing small hot air balloons through the cities, the aim of this game being to catch them wherever they land. Having grown up in Brazil, I remember chasing these balloons over six-lane highways, across bridges and through neighborhoods in the hope that I would be the first to arrive at their point of landing and, in the process, discover what mysterious mechanism kept them airborne.

Needless to say disappointment always followed when, arriving breathless at the landing spot, I discovered not only that a crowd of kids had arrived long before me but that the balloons had entered someone's backyard. Like navigators on a voyage of discovery, we would peer through tall impenetrable fences at the balloons beyond, filled with the realization that we would have to wait for another day to uncover their secrets. Reflecting on these experiences, I somehow think that Darwin must have faced a similar predicament when confronted with the black box of the inner workings of life. This black box would have been Darwin's own 'balloon of the backyard'. Peering across the fence that was the limited knowledge of molecular biology at the time, Darwin must have hoped that this black box would not upset his grand theory. He was nevertheless able to brush off the lack of knowledge by filling in the gaps of knowledge with the apparent power of natural selection. As he wrote in his autobiography

"The old argument of design in nature...which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered...There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows" (Ref 2, p.87)

Unfortunately for Darwin we now know that such generalities regarding his grand theory were premature (Ref 9). What we see emerging today is a gradual disquiet and dissatisfaction with Darwinian orthodoxy. Like the beat of a distant drum that is getting louder, the rumblings of unrest are making themselves increasingly known throughout the scientific community. Biophysicist Cornelius Hunter points out why such a state of affairs is unremarkable given the "vague explanations" put forward in evolutionary literature which rely on "such dubious mechanisms" as "chance" or "opportunism" (Ref 4, p.75). We can thus understand the cries that call out for a radical upheaval in the way that we view biology not only in its form but also in its complexity. Indeed, the inner makings of life are threatening to topple the 'house of cards' that is modern evolutionary biology.

References
1. Charles Darwin (1859), The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or The Preservation of Favored Races In the Struggle For Survival, Modern Library Paperbacks Edition (1998), New York

2. Charles Darwin, The Autobiography Of Charles Darwin, Copyright held by Nora Barlow in 1958, W.W. Norton and Company Inc, New York

3. Michael K. Richardson, James Hanken, Lynne Selwood, Glenda M. Wright, Robert J. Richards, Claude Pieau, Albert Raynaud (1998), Haeckel, Embryos, and Evolution, Science Vol 280, p.293

4. Cornelius Hunter (2001), Darwin's God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil, Brazos Press, A division of Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan

5. Philip W. Ingham and Andrew P. McMahon (2001), Hedgehog signaling in animal development: paradigms and principles, Genes and Development Volume 15, pp.3059-3087

6. Patrick Callaerts, Patricia N. Lee, Britta Hartmann, Claudia Farfan, Darrett W.Y. Choy, Kazuho Ikeo, Karl-Friederich Fischbach, Walter J. Gehring and H Gert de Couet (2001), HOX genes in the sepiolid squid Euprymna scolopes: Implications for the evolution of complex body plans PNAS Vol 99, pp.2088-2093

7. Sean Carroll (2005), The Origins of Form Natural History Magazine, November 2005. Article can be found at http://www.naturalhistorymag.com

8. Walter J. Gehring and Kazuho Ikeo (1999), Pax 6 mastering eye morphogenesis and eye evolution, Trends in Genetics, Volume 15, pp.371-377

9. Stephen Meyer (1998), Testimony to the United States Commission on Civil Rights Concerning the Teaching of Biological Origins, http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_uscommcivrights.htm

10. William Dembski (2002), No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham, Maryland

11. Michael J Behe (1996), Darwin Under the Microscope, Appeared in the New York Times October 29, 1996, Section A, p.25

12. Michael Behe, Eddie N. Colanter, Logan Gage, and Phillip Johnson (2008), Intelligent Design 101: Leading Experts Explain The Key Issues, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Michigan, pp. 115-129

13. Robert Deyes (2008), The Disarming Cell: Taking The Wind Out Of The Sails Of Darwinism, ARN, http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2008/09/11/the_disarming_cell_how_cellular_biology

14. Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards (2004), The Privileged Planet, How Our Place In The Cosmos is designed for Discovery, Regnery Publishing Inc, Washington D.C, New York

"Gould supposes what he has to suppose, and Dawkins finds it easy to believe what he wants to believe, but supposing and believing are not enough to make a scientific explanation."
-- Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial

We all know how the giraffe got its long neck, right? Yes, the poor short-necked versions ate up all the leaves on the low branches, and only their lucky longer-necked brothers and sisters could eat. And eating leads to survival to reproduce. Not eating rarely aids in living long enough to reproduce, so voila!, "evolution" preserves the lucky and kills the unlucky, who are never to be seen again (including, incidentally, in the fossil record). So we are regaled with many such "just so" stories to "explain" evolution. When examined closely, almost any account of evolutionary development, such as that of the wing or the eye, involves mostly "supposing" to get from point A to point B. Supposing is fine for imagining; but supposing falls short of explaining, much less proving.

The fact that Darwinists are quick to presume elaborate imaginations to be akin to factual accounts for the origin of something as complex as a working eye is both amusing and troubling. On the one hand, like ancient andabatae, Darwinists make great spectacle as they thrash about in their imaginations (imagination being their only guide). Formidable in appearance only, alternating probes and thrusts in impressive form, Darwinists seem oblivious to the futility imposed by their armored helmets of philosophy. On the other hand, unlike the ill-fated andabatae (all of whom no doubt would risk removing the helmet for the ability to see), the groping blindness of today's Darwinists is self-imposed, evoking a certain pity. What purpose can be served by steadfastly insisting on a view of reality that does not admit certain lines of scientific inquiry, regardless of the evidence?

Unfortunately, the answer to the question above is that science has evolved to the precarious predicament of being guardian of a worldview. Changes in scientific understanding often trigger a change in worldviews. In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn includes a chapter entitled, "Revolutions as Changes in World View" which explores how worldviews change with scientific developments. Simple examples such as how Aristotle and Galileo understood the motion of pendulums can illustrate how fundamental shifts in scientific understanding affect how one views all of nature, i.e., one's worldview.

But the change in worldview brought on by understanding the difference between one view or another with respect to pendulum dynamics hardly rises to the level of change that theories of origins require. Discussing theories of origins may make for wearisome academic debates, but the truth of the matter (i.e., the actual, unchangeable, historic happening of the origin of living beings) has profound implications with respect to all areas of life--legal, political, and ethical--to name a few. At bottom, the fact of our existence means the truth of our origins must be either that we are matter-caused, i.e., matter is all that exists and energized matter alone produced everything from rocks to rocket scientists through unplanned, unguided motion, or we are intelligently created, i.e, matter was intelligently manipulated to create the cosmos and everything in it. There are no other choices, and theories built on one of these assumptions must necessarily be false.

Mainstream science has chosen to stake its flag squarely and immutably in the worldview associated with the matter-only assumption of philosophical naturalism, requiring all theories to assume matter is all that exists, or, at least, matter is all that matters. Such a stance is understandable and relatively harmless when the object of study is applied science, like studying pendulums or building rockets. But with respect to origin of life theories, science is championing the cause of naturalism unnecessarily. Contrary to the oft-repeated rhetoric, naturalistic Darwinism is not necessary to study and understand any area of science any more than is intelligent design, or even special creation. For example, photosynthesis, planetary motion, life cycles, even genetics, can each be studied and understood, as well as applied to solve practical problems, without recourse to any theory of origins, including the study of Darwinism. In fact it's done in laboratories everyday.

Why, then, do mainstream scientists guard Darwinism so fiercely? First, it seems that, almost by definition, one can't be a mainstream scientist without paying public homage to Darwin. Second, it must be appreciated that many people are convinced that Darwinism represents the truth with respect to origins. Not ever having been exposed to contrary evidence, such scientists are under the impression that there is no contrary evidence. Even more so, Darwinism has a symbolic value as the defining discipline dividing science and religion, and any attack on Darwinism is an attack on science itself. The attacks are all the more threatening because they always seem to come from "religious" people. Finally, like other religious people and their beliefs, many people who believe in Darwinism have never studied their chosen dogma; they believe it because that's what they've been taught and to think otherwise not only requires work, but is likely to make them look like charter members of the flat-earth society.

Obviously, objective scientific considerations are insufficient to explain the religious ferocity with which the evolutionist elites protect their Darwinian domain. There is more in play here than a simple scientific controversy, such as whether light is a particle or a wave, to give another example of a question that divided the scientific world for a time. No, the question of origins brings into play the question of ultimate worldview--which philosophy is correct for understanding reality? If naturalism is not the correct philosophy, i.e., matter is not all that exists, then weighty questions arise as to just what else may exist. The "what else" implies an intelligent "who else" that leads to a "why else" which causes one to see the world very, very differently from what naturalism would require.

Like surviving andabatae removing their unduly restrictive helmets, scientists willing to consider alternatives to philosophical naturalism can remove blinding restrictions on the mind and can see the world in an entirely different way. Such a paradigm shift has its professional risks, but those who are willing to honestly consider the alternatives to naturalism will no doubt find that the new way of seeing permits new ways of solving problems--solutions with fewer anomalies than those provided by naturalism. New theories of origins that consider intelligence, even God, can, then, join other scientific paradigm shifts, where, as Kuhn says, "Scientists then often speak of the 'scales falling from the eyes' or of the 'lightening flash' that 'inundates' a previously obscure puzzle, enabling its components to be seen in a new way that for the first time permits its solution."

As long as science is held hostage by the philosophy of naturalism, however, the scales on most eyes will remain, the puzzles will remain obscure, imaginations will continue, and "supposing" will have to suffice for explanation. Sophisticated "just so" stories will have to carry the evidentiary load, feebly substituting for scientific reasoning. That such "just so" stories go unchallenged from the mind's eye of Darwinists to the reading eyes of an unwary public is unfortunate. But that science would condone such behavior, risking its reputation for the honor of a philosophy, is tragic.

Let him who has eyes to see, see.

Roddy Bullock is a freelance writer and the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio and is the author of The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science, published by and available from Access Research Network.

This month's essay adapted from End Note 79 of The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science.

Send comments to: roddybullock@idnetohio.com.

If you like this essay, go here for many more.

Copyright (c) 2008 Roddy M. Bullock, all rights reserved. Quotes and links permitted with attribution.

Publisher and agent inquiries welcome.

References:

Opening quote from: Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), p. 42.

"Just so" stories refer to Rudyard Kipling's book, Just So Stories, originally published in 1902. The book is a collection of fanciful tales with titles such as "How the Whale Got His Throat," "How the Camel Got His Hump," and the like.

Andabatae were Roman-era gladiators that were heavily armored, but their helmets had no eye holes; they fought without the benefit of their eyesight.

Kuhn quote from: Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 111.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

If you got money for Christmas, 10 Books That Screwed Up the World: and 5 Others That Didn't Help would be a good use of your dime. Therein, Ben Wiker, senior fellow at St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, relates - among many other useful stories - the curious case of the canals on Mars.

Canals on Mars?

A number of prominent scientists, beginning in 1877 with Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, were convinced that they saw through their telescopes an intricate system of canals on Mars. These canals were all very geometrical and hence obviously carried water for the great Martian civilization. The certainty of intelligent life on Mars was trumpeted (with the aid of businessman and amateur astronomer Percival Lowell). Books were published. Major newspapers declared the evident certainty to the astounded (and gullible) public. Helping to whip the public into a frenzy was alien enthusiast H. G. Wells, whose War of the Worlds seared into people's minds the dire fate that awaited Earth once the Martians stopped boating around their canals and launched their inevitable attack.

By 1930, this certainty was exploded by another astronomer, E. M. Antoniadi, who pointed out that the "canals" weren't canals; they weren't nice geometrically drawn lines of precision traced on the surface of mars, but just fuzzy shapes.

The lesson is simple enough. Schiaparelli, Lowell, Wells, and a host of other scientists and popularizers wanted to see life on Mars. The alien enthusiasts just wanted to see what was fuzzy as straight and geometrical because they wanted Mars to be populated with aliens. It is often our desire to have something be true that makes us clearly and distinctly see the false as true, the imagined as real. This is as true in the history of science as it is in our everyday life. In either case, reality is the appropriate test of our everyday beliefs and scientific theories. (pp. 25-26) In describing this story, I would have used terms like "design inference" (in this case, no), inference to the best explanation, and following the evidence wherever it leads. Qualities absent from the Big (materialist) Science of the day.

Antoniadi was lucky, I suppose, to live when he did. He could have been a Guillermo Gonzalez, exiled to a Christian college for speaking the truth about Earth's location and qualities, in relation to the solar system. Remember that Gonzalez's key point is that Earth is an unusual planet, but the materialist agenda needs to show that there are zillions of Carl Sagan's "pale blue dots" out there.

And just now Call Display is asking me to accept a call from a planet orbiting the Alpha Centauri star system, from an alien who knows there is no mind or free will and thinks that everyone should be genetically planned and ... hey, wait a minute, buddy! Aren't you just a fundraiser for Ivy League U's? Get offa my line and get ME offa yer list!!! you people will go bankrupt before you smarten up, but you are just so not my problem!

See also: Alfred Russel Wallace on why Mars is not habitable

Also just up at Colliding Universes, my blog about competing theories of our universe:

Nuclear weapons: Certainties we are safer without

Astronomer vs. pop science TV

Coffee break: From Dolly the embraceable ewe to a fully downloadable you?

Origin of life: Alien origin taken seriously? Ghost of Francis Crick smiles wanly

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Casey Luskin from the Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture interviews ARN Executive Director, Dennis Wagner and Kevin Wirth, ARN Director of Media Relations, about the top Darwin and Design news stories for 2008 in this 30 minute podcast. Summaries of the stories with links to the original news sources can be downloaded here.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Steve Fuller, Warwick University sociologist and author of Dissent over Descent will comment at Uncommon Descent in 2009, the Year the Darwin Cult Tops Itself. He starts today with this:
First, stripped of its current scientific scaffolding, Darwinism is a 19th century social theory that has been turned into a ‘general unified theory of everything’, and as such belongs in the same category as Marxism and Freudianism. The big difference is that Marxism and Freudianism – throughout their existence – have been contested (many would say decisively) by several alternative ways of organizing and interpreting the same body of data. In the case of Darwinism, this largely ended by 1950. However, it doesn’t mean that Darwinism has somehow turned into something other than a 19th century social theory. No, it’s simply a 19th century social theory with unusual clout. Indeed, Darwinism is really no different from Marxism and Freudianism in using its concepts as rhetorical devices for associating intuitively clear phenomena with rather deep and mysterious causes. I hope to draw your attention to examples of this in the coming weeks.

Agnostic Fuller also wrote a very entertaining play based on the idea of Darwin and Abe Lincoln appearing on a talk show. He has debated theistic evolutionist Denis Alexander and has replied to conventional Darwinist Sarkar Sahotra. He appears in Expelled.

Rte the Darwin cult: Go here and here for links to ridiculous hagiography of the old Brit toff - along with appropriate antidotes to splitting a gut.

See also: Intelligent design and popular culture: Population crank is now U.S. science and technology policy director

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

By Dennis Wagner

I must admit I'm not a big fan of Rap or Hip-Hop. I think its a result of being born in the wrong generation and not finding anything particularly uplifting about Hip-Hop lyrics. However, that may be changing with my recent discovery of Atom tha Immortal who has recorded the first ID Hip-Hop song I know of. This is one philosophically, theologically, and scientifically astute dude. Check out his ID song at the IDarts.org website

by Kevin Wirth
ARN Director of Product Development

I guess this year's top 10 Darwin and Design news stories are blindingly dull for some folks. I got a rather silly email from someone today, and thought I would share his thoughts and my response. I won't reveal his actual name here...so I'll call him Smitty.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Hello Kevin, happy holidays. I just read your list of top ten news stories and listened to the podcast on "ID the future." It looks like another year and absolutely nothing has been learned about the intelligences behind intelligent design, nor anything new about the process of design. I've been saving these for the last few years and as I look them over, I see that the trend continues. There are no discoveries about either intelligence or the design process. Instead, the subjects you've selected are either intelligent design PR, intelligent design persecution, the politics of ID versus evolution or genuine science stories that you re-interpret to somehow imply support for ID.

For yet another year, there is absolutely nothing new that's been discovered about the intelligences or about the process of design. Is there anyone even working on those subjects? Even the Biologic Institute doesn't seem to be working on those topics. Their most newsworthy result is publishing software! How can anyone claim that ID is a science if no one is working on proving the central claims? If it were really a science then wouldn't the major share of the research funding be spent finding out who the intelligent designers are? I can't imagine there would be a more interesting question to answer. But after years of following this field, I can find no evidence of anyone past or present who's conducting any research to identify the nature of the intelligences. How do you explain that?

Regards,

Smitty

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Ah Smitty,

Happy Holidays right back at you. Thanks for reading our Top 10 stories and also for listening to our podcast recap.

If you'll permit me to be a bit brash, your questions don't indicate to me that you've been seriously thinking very hard about the implications of what we reported in our Top 10 news stories.

No new discoveries? Sure, we included all the usual suspects you identified. But you need to think about this a bit more. We gave you far more value than you claim. Part of what we do with these stories is underscore and remind folks that we need to be looking at evidence, not just speculation. Your tweaking shows how shallow your powers of analysis are, and it deserves a response.

1) I think the clutch feature of the flagellum (news story #6) was pretty nifty (you didn't include that one in your list...). The discovery of a clutch system isn't impressive to you? Wow, then I guess if we could somehow make the whole state of Alaska disappear that wouldn't be a very big deal for you either. I think we should continue to feature a new characteristic for this poster child every year until the expanded explanation of this little organelle is pretty much an overwhelmingly obvious example of a mind behind the scenes. Don't know how much more complicated it needs to be before you'll get the point, because if it's not convincing now, there's not much more that could be said.

This is a great example of what many Darwinians would call "Apparent design," only, it's pretty obvious to most observers that trying to explain how the flagellum came about via purely naturalistic processes has yet to be DEMONSTRATED by science. Until that time, you can claim IDers are chasing the "God did it" theme all you want, but most reasoning people recognize that without EVIDENCE to show how such an organ came about via evolutionary processes, Darwinians must rely on the "we think/suspect/surmise it happened this way" explanation, which is no more compelling or satisfying, from a scientific perspective. Neither explanation can be presented empirically, and both are based on faith. Not only that, but if one must choose between chance and intellgence being the cause, then logic dictates that the flagellum was engineered by a brain. Chance has no chance of looking very convincing in this matter, no matter how much time you allow.

2) If you were paying attention, you'd see that the focus of many of our Top 10 stories revolves around the common thread of of cellular complexity. The movie "Expelled" (our #3 story) features one of the most amazing animation sequences of the cell one could imagine. And it barely scratched the surface. Go rent the movie and look at that sequence again, and then come back and explain to me how evolutionary processes demonstrate that all of those cellular components could originate with their specific functions and interrelationships via evolutionariy processes.

3) Continuing with molecular biology and the theme about the impressive complexity of the cell is our #8 story about the Ribosome. We provided a link, did you actually READ the transcript? No? I thought not. Consider the new paradigm shift proposed by John Brockman in his opening remarks:

"We are moving rapidly into the post-Darwinian era, when species other than our own will no longer exist, and the rules of Open Source sharing will be extended from the exchange of software to the exchange of genes. Then the evolution of life will once again be communal, as it was in the good old days before separate species and intellectual property were invented." (Life: What a Concept!, EDGE Foundation, 2008, p. 6)

The lofty goal of creating molecular machines is heralded here as the next big deal. That would be nice, except to achieve this requires synthesizing (among other things) ribosomes. Contributor/participant Dyson refers to the ribosome as the "central mystery" to the explanation for the origin of life. He talks about the ribosome as being "invented," which is hardly a Darwinian concept, since evolution cannot possibly be called on to "invent" anything. It makes much more sense to theorize that a brain invented something as complicated as a ribosome. You don't need to know HOW something was invented by a brain to deduce that it was. So far there is no evolutionary explanation for the origin of the ribosome, but Darwinists are confident, even without any evidence, that it somehow evolved.

Venter notes (p. 51)

"The lay press likes to talk about creating life from scratch. But while we can create and develop new species, we're not creating life from scratch. We talked about the ribosome; we tried to make synthetic ribosomes, starting with the genetic code and building them - the ribosome is such an incredibly beautiful complex entity, you can make synthetic ribosomes, but they don't function totally yet. Nobody knows how to get ones that can actually do protein synthesis."

This might not be particularly newsworthy to most Darwinians, or even the "lay press," but it is worth pointing out to folks who care to think about the issue. Dyson notes that "Once the ribosome was invented, then the two systems, the RNA world and the metabolic world, are coupled together and you get modern cells."

There is no evidence, and no compelling explanation for HOW this specualtive evolutionary development all took place, only the specious confidence that it somehow did. Sounds about as "God of the gaps"-sensical as any ID explanation, right? This is a great example of where we remind folks that evidence is not the same as speculation. Brilliant conjecture, no matter how well endowed with persuasiveness, is never a good substitute for compelling evidence. Yet this is the stock and trade of Darwinians.

Aside from that, your critique about a focus on those other issues is really rather hollow, considering that evolutionists put a pretty big stake in those same topics you rattled off ("intelligent design PR, intelligent design persecution, the politics of ID versus evolution or genuine science stories that you re-interpret to somehow imply support for ID.").

You really should re-examine each of these items, because I can provide you with a bunch of examples of how Darwinists focus on these very same targets all the time.

So, I don't understand what your objection is. If Darwinians can talk about these issues, why can't IDers? What's good for the goose should be good for the gander, unless of course, you're suggesting that we should be playing by a different set of rules than our critics. In which case I'll be waiting for your explanation with great anticipation. We think it's newsworthy stuff, and you don't. Fine with me. You say we're guilty of hijacking "genuine science stories that you re-interpret to somehow imply support for ID."

AS IF Darwinians never do this.

Ha! They do it EVERY SINGLE TIME they find a new fossil. Every new fossils find is assumed to be evidence for evolution, even if they can't figure out how just yet. Talk about who hasn't been coming forth with the evidence! I've been waiting all my life for Darwinians to explain how fossils provide overwhelming evidence for evolution. All I keep reading about from the expert paleontologists is speculations piled upon conjectures surrounded by extrapolations. They "think this happened", or "we suppose that occurred", and "we can't imagine (yet) what critter preceeded this one," and so forth. So, please spare me your prattle about how ID isn't producing any answers. Darwinians haven't been doing such a great job either. So let's just call it a draw, shall we?

The consensus about Darwinism isn't as tight as Darwinists claim, and the supporters of ID are not all a bunch of Bible thumping religious nuts. Let's see, Antony Flew is a good start. Then we have David Berlinski, and others in story #2 indicating that hmmmm, maybe there IS a rational way to look at ID if these agnostic and atheist folks can see it. This IS news for many Darwinians who somehow missed this story.

You say that "For yet another year, there is absolutely nothing new that's been discovered about the intelligences or about the process of design. Is there anyone even working on those subjects? Even the Biologic Institute doesn't seem to be working on those topics."

Hmmm. Let me ask you something: Have you contacted the Biologic institute and asked them if they're working on this stuff? And if YOU were an IDer, what peer-reviewed journal would you tell them to submit their research findings to?

The process of design isn't important to ID research. You don't need to explain HOW something was designed or engineered to detect that it was. Nor is it really important to know anything "about the intelligences" to detect design. So maybe that's why you haven't heard anything about that from Biologic lately.

You asked a spate of other questions, so I'll respond to them in turn:

You: Their most newsworthy result is publishing software!
Me: OK, did you indicate the same level of surprize when the Darwinians publish their little evolutionary software tools? And we never said that the software story was the "most newsworthy result," you did.

You: How can anyone claim that ID is a science if no one is working on proving the central claims?
Me: Who says no one is working on this? Not ARN. Not me. Not anyone I know within the ID community. Oh, let me add that I'd be delighted to accept any research funding on behalf of the ID movement -- we can produce lots of research on this problem with a little more coin.

You: If it were really a science then wouldn't the major share of the research funding be spent finding out who the intelligent designers are?
Me: So how do you know anything about who and how much research funding is or is not being spent? And anyway, as I mentioned earlier, the research wouldn't focus on who the "intelligent designers are." ID doesn't seek answers to that. What ID does is postulate that we can detect whether something was designed or not, period. It's agnostic about Who might have done the designing. You don't need to know anything about the designer to detect engineering or design.

Let's not overlook the fact that Darwin waited 20 years to publish his Origin of Species. ID hasn't been doing research anywhere near that long. Be a little more patient. If you
just can't wait any longer, I suggest you look a little deeper. If our Top 10 news stories don't get you excited, then heck, who are we to stand in your way? I'm pretty sure if you cared to, you could find even better stories. We don't own the market on 'em. If you can find a better one, I'll consider publishing it.

On the one hand I'm tempted to say you'll get your nickel's worth if you just hang in there a little longer. But on the other hand, if you continue to wait for someone else to show you the light, you'll never find it. I sugges that you stop "following" our Top 10 stories and start digging for a few on your own. Go find the answers yourself instead of waiting for others to "prove" it to you. ID isn't a cosmological vending machine for answers you think ought to convince you. It looks to me like you think others are responsible for providing you with the compelling evidence, and if none of it pleases you, that lets you off the hook, right? Sorry, but I don't think it works that way. If you're not convinced, then start digging. And if you're really serious, you won't be sending us any more of your prattle and tweakage about how disappointed you are (oh really?) that ID hasn't come up with anything convincing for you this year, or in previous years. Heck, I've met some pretty glorious pontificators who could learn volumes from your subtle approach.

You: I can't imagine there would be a more interesting question to answer.
Me: And, I would agree with you on that point. Meanwhile, Behe and Dembski should have given you plenty to chew on for now. Have you written any critiques about their work yet? I'd love to read it. If not, then start there.

You: But after years of following this field, I can find no evidence of anyone past or present who's conducting any research to identify the nature of the intelligences. How do you explain that?
Me: ID isn't concerned about the "nature of the intelligences" as you put it. It is only concerned with demonstrating that intelligence is a reasonable explanation for what many Darwinians refer to as the "apparent design" found throughout nature. IDers would suggest it's not "apparent design" at all, but rather evidence of "actual" design. Obviously engineered structures imply that a mind was at work, and is a logical and rational explanation.

I guess you didn't think any of those poor dissenters in the recent HIV-AIDS controversy over the past 25 years had anything useful or convincing to say either, right? I'm thinking of the dismissal of those darn pesky dissidents who've been insisting that HIV doesn't cause AIDs. How dare they challenge the findings published in a peer-reviewed journal! The refusal of Big Science to even take a whiff of their concerns was based on an article in that mainstay of scientific empiricism, Science magazine. And of course, no research funding was spent going down that rabbit hole of an idea. Big Science is hesitant to fund irrational notions that go against established findings.

But gee, this must be old hat for many Darwinians who already knew IDers like Phil Johnson never saw that one coming.

NOT!

You need to read my blog post at:
http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2008/12/25/big_science_takes_a_huge_hit_for_snubbin

Big Science took a Big Hit on this one, and you KNOW they're never going to say "Gee, that silly old Berkeley Lawyer/Dissidenter/Philosopher Phil Johnson knew it all the time and we dismissed him so cavalierly. Maybe he has some OTHER ideas we ought to listen to."

As if that'll ever happen.

Regards,

Kevin

Seattle area writer and Darwin skeptic Kevin Wirth is a founding member of ARN (formerly Students for Origins Research). He is also the Senior editor, contributor, and publisher of the book "Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth About Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters" by Dr. Jerry Bergman (2008). This is the most comprehensive book published to date documenting the extent and types of discrimination against Darwin Dissidents.

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

If we look close at cell's own schemes,
precision work, inte-gral teams.
Protein domains that play their role,
so specified, a common goal.
It's hard to think how bits mixed up
like random tea leaves in a cup
could make up schemes of grand design,
so tailor-made, so clocked, so fine.

And so the cells they specialize,
with jobs to do, new tissues rise,
cells work together unified,
communicate both far and wide.
Neuron- impulse forth it sends,
muscle then contracts, leg bends,
lymphocyte- the fort defends,
liver cells the body cleanse.

Cells and tissues form a whole.
Each cell it knows its place, its role.
The body works incessantly.
A stomach, heart, a mind that's free.
From whence did come that thoughtful brain
that takes decisions, loss or gain?
Through inner soul it comes to life,
through stress and strain, through joy and strife.

And creatures learn to live, adapt,
territorial boundaries mapped,
ecosystems grow, divide,
scatter seeds both far and wide.
So who did make such symphony,
so caref'lly planned it seems to be?
Our minds do tell of higher mind,
an earth so purposef'lly designed.

By Robert Deyes

See also:
Biology's Big Bang http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Arts/Arts-idx?type=article&did=ARTS.SBREEDSBURG.I0014&isize=M

Jim, Old Jim http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Arts/Arts-idx?type=article&did=ARTS.SBREEDSBURG.I0015&isize=M

By Kevin Wirth
ARN Director of Product Development

In a stunning announcement earlier this month it was revealed that the seminal papers outlining the probable cause of AIDS as published in the journal SCIENCE in 1984 were almost certainly falsified. SCIENCE, which is often cited as one of the most important peer-reviewed scientific journals in the world, will most likely be forced to retract the falsified papers it published (so much for the claim that peer-reviewed papers in leading science journals are the invincible bulwark of scientific investigation).

A letter submitted on December 9, 2008 to SCIENCE by the group Rethinking AIDS, stated in part:

"What prompts our communication today is the recent revelation of an astonishing number of previously unreported deletions and unjustified alterations made by Gallo to the lead paper. There are several documents originating from Gallo's laboratory that, while available for some time, have only recently been fully analyzed. These include a draft of the lead paper typewritten by Popovic which contains handwritten changes made to it by Gallo. This draft was the key evidence used in the above described inquiries to establish that Gallo had concealed his laboratory's use of a cell culture sample (known as LAV) which it received from the Institut Pasteur." [1]

The letter was signed by more than 40 Senior scientists.

But what is even more important is what happened during all those intervening years to the dissidents (now vindicated) who did everything they could to call attention to the problems related to flawed AIDS research. This behind-the-scenes story reveals much about what I consider to be the Achille's heel of science: Intolerance of Dissidents.

Dissent is concept many folks in the scientific community really don't want or care to hear about on issues where there seems to be an established consensus. In fact, dissent is just the thing that creates confusion in the minds of students, the public, and especially those who control the purse strings for NSF and other major research funding grants. Unfortunately, if you challenge Big Science, you can quite often expect to get shut down.

Take the case of University of California at Berkeley retrovirus expert Peter Duesberg and Nobel Prize winner Walter Gilbert, who have been warning us for years that there is no proof that HIV causes AIDS. Their amazing claims challenged the most basic assumptions of the medical community in evaluating the cause of AIDS and is in direct contradiction to conventional wisdom about the disease.

Dr. Duesberg earned his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1963 from the University of Frankfurt in Germany. His work on retroviruses resulted in the isolation of the first cancer gene in 1970, and soon after proceeded to map their genetic structure.

"On the basis of his experience with retroviruses, Duesberg has challenged the virus-AIDS hypothesis in the pages of such journals as Cancer Research, Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science, Nature, Journal of AIDS, AIDS Forschung, Biomedicine and Pharmacotherapeutics, New England Journal of Medicine and Research in Immunology. He has instead proposed the hypothesis that the various American/European AIDS diseases are brought on by the long-term consumption of recreational drugs and/or AZT itself, which is prescribed to prevent or treat AIDS. See The AIDS Dilemma: Drug diseases blamed on a passenger virus." [2]

The 1984 papers published in SCIENCE, were used as evidence that Duesberg and those who agreed with him must be wrong.

As long ago as 1993, Robert Root-Bernstein wrote an article titled "Rethinking Aids" in the Wall Street Journal (not in one of those really important peer-reviewed science journals) that echoed many of the same findings as Duesberg. [3]

In 1994, another paper (co-authored by Philip Johnson)titled "What Causes Aids," challenged many of the then standard assumptions concerning AIDS research in exquisite detail, and was published in the June issue of Reason that year. [4]

Fast forward more than ten years to a 2007 interview with Dr. Duesberg and we see that he was still challenging scientists to reconsider the causes of AIDS. Moreover, the interview reveals what Duesberg has been made to endure as a result of challenging the scientific establishment over the nature, cause, and future direction of AIDS. One of his critics referred to him as "nuts" and he has lost much of the funding he had enjoyed earlier in his career before he began publishing his heretical views.

Regardless of whether Duesberg's claims are accurate, his challenges seem credible enough and are certainly worthy of investigation. Fortunately, he's not alone: many other scientists agree with him.

"...other scientists think differently and strongly respect Dr. Duesberg's ideas - including Nobel laureates in chemistry Kary Mullis and Walter Gilbert. Duesberg, Mullis, and Gilbert all point out that there is no direct experimental evidence that HIV causes AIDS, and that there are numerous problems with the HIV-AIDS theory. For example, not everyone infected with HIV gets AIDS, and not everyone with AIDS symptoms is infected with HIV. In fact, the symptoms of AIDS vary from continent to continent, and a medical diagnosis of AIDS is often made simply by testing positive for HIV antibodies in the presence of a disease such as tuberculosis or cancer. However, instead of engaging in scientific debate, according to Dr. Duesberg, the only response from the scientific establishment has been to cut off funding to further test his hypothesis."

ANALYSIS

Unfortunately, Duesberg's ideas were met with tremendous resistance over the years from within the medical community, which has resulted in a series of responses that mirror the way Darwin skeptics are also treated. That pattern speaks volumes about the nature of bigotry and discrimination directed towards dissenters.

Duesberg makes a comment in his interview that provides some hard-learned insight on the treatment dished out to dissenters:

"Scientists are selected for instincts that help them to get funding, recognition, invitations to meetings, access to publications and awards. None of these are available to scientific minorities. On the contrary, minorities are excommunicated at many levels from the consenting majorities, even from personal contacts with mainstream colleagues. Those are strong incentives for scientists not to "examine" unpopular ideas."

So much for scientific integrity.

The question I'm asking my readers to consider is this: could the same treatment towards dissidents exist in other areas of science? More importantly, could science be WRONG about other sacred cows in their orthodoxy corral?

Like, for instance, Darwinism?

The takeaway lesson from the treatment meted out to Duesberg and other dissidents is that the AIDS-HIV issue is just symptomatic of what goes on in the scientific and medical community whenever someone challenges orthodox views. The sad part is, many scientists don't seem to be learning the key lesson here about the value of dissent. Instead of closing ranks around orthodoxy, you'd think scientists would figure out after incidents like the AIDS fiasco that that if they could be wrong about something as big as the AIDS-HIV connection, perhaps they could be wrong about a few other cherished notions as well.

And let's not forget that the AIDS-HIV error was promoted in a peer-reviewed journal. This is one of the issues Darwin critics are faulted for - it is widely claimed that their views should not be tolerated because they don't publish in the same circles as everyone else who dutifully follows the orthodox scientific bandwagon. The AIDS blowup demonstrates the argument that reliance on peer review is a defining factor of reliability. Sure, it may serve science well in most instances, but it's certainly not infallible. What this incident does is show us just how clearly peer review is used as a mechanism to maintain control of an idea regardless of other data that contradicts the orthodox view.

When dissenters are slapped down by self-styled Saviors of Science, regardless of the venue, it's amazing how the same patterns of behavior emerge, indicating that it might just be the peer review process and resulting discrimination that should be investigated rather than the alleged stupidity or warped conclusions of the dissenters.

Consensus and unity about the cause of AIDS, or the reality of evolution are far more important to many scientists than listening to the persistent nagging of those pesky dissenters who keep raising their hands and insisting that there are problems with how we view the scientific data. Amazingly, it matters little how qualified a dissenter may be. The treatment of dissenters within the scientific and academic community is quite often so politically motivated that one wonders how anyone manages to conduct good science in the first place. And the treatment of dissenters ranges from censorship, turning them into "outsiders," denying them funding, to slaughtering their careers.

The best thing we can do, according to the scientific dogmatists, is marginalize dissenters as pseudoscientific idiots with improper motives, and dismiss them as crackpots for being so stupid as to dare challenge what every other qualified expert already knows and takes for granted.

And there's the rub.

This seems to be a familiar refrain no matter what the context of dissent might be where Big Science is concerned. Since it's unlikely that the leadership in the scientific and academic communities are going to acknowledge that their distaste for dissent is not appropriate, it's up to the "misinformed" and largely "ignorant" public to put the pressure on. We need to take aim at intolerance of dissidents by nipping it in the bud.

How do we do that?

If you have a child who attends a university where dissent is either not allowed, or where any form of discrimination against those who dissent is tolerated, perhaps you might consider sharing your thoughts with the appropriate administrators. Let your views be known. Don't let it pass. Academic freedom is a precious right, and it can be underscored by the insistence of Parental Patrons who subsidize universities through tuition payments. I'm firmly convinced that money is a language most university officials understand (especially these days...), and if you organize enough parents to challenge behaviors that should not be tolerated, it will have an impact.

Meanwhile, it's time to consider the staggering results of the refusal of the scientific community to listen to the voices of dissent. How many lives have been lost, damaged, or otherwise put at risk over the AIDS fiasco, and how many millions of research dollars flowed in the wrong direction? One can only begin to wonder how many other research programs are similarly flawed, despite the overwhelming evidence of "peer-reviewed" findings.

For more info, please be sure to read Dr. Duesberg's FAQ list and papers.

REFERENCES

[1] Press Release dated 12/9/08 from the group "Rethinking Aids"
http://rethinkingaids.com/Content/QA/tabid/146/Default.aspx

[2] http://www.duesberg.com/

[3] Robert Root-Bernstein, "Rethinking AIDS"
http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/rrbrethinking.htm

[4] Johnson, et.al, "What Causes AIDS"
http://www.duesberg.com/articles/kmreason.html

For readers who would like to find out more about what happens to Darwin Dissenters, and many others who have suffered discrimination for being Darwin skeptics, I recommend grabbing a copy of "Slaughter of
the Dissidents," which can be ordered here.

Seattle area writer and Darwin skeptic Kevin Wirth is a founding member of ARN (formerly Students for Origins Research). He is also the Senior editor, contributor, and publisher of the book "Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth About Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters" by Dr. Jerry Bergman (2008). This is the most comprehensive book published to date documenting the extent and types of discrimination against Darwin Dissidents.

by Dennis Wagner

What do Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln have in common? They were both born on the exact same day (February 12, 1809), and their Bicentennial Birthdays will be celebrated in 2009. Darwin enthusiasts are tying Darwin to Lincoln and putting Darwin on a pedestal as the greater liberator. Robert Stephens, an American who in 1995 founded the annual Darwin Day Celebrations, was interviewed on BBC. The reporter asked how best to celebrate Darwin alongside Lincoln. Stephens answered, "Feb. 12, 1809 was a very good day for our planet because Lincoln became the great emancipator of the slaves in America, and Darwin became the great emancipator of the human mind!"

And the celebration will not end in February. In fact it will build to a second climax on November 24th. That date marks the 150th anniversary of Darwin's Origin of Species. Just check out the cascade of festivities planned in dozens of countries at DarwinDay and Darwin200.

I don't know about you, but to me, celebrating Darwin as the great emancipator of the human mind seems to be a bit of a reach. Especially after reading the news stories from this past year: Darwin's tree-of-life declared unscientific, Darwinism declared dead as a theory of evolution by the Altenberg 16, and widespread discrimination against Darwin doubters. From my vantage point it appears Darwin is the great enslaver of the human mind, not the great liberator. As a culture we are stuck on a 150 year old theory that no longer fits the data, even though the theory has been modified many times to try and force it to fit. Science has moved on and left Darwin's molecule-to-man theory behind.

Standing on Darwin's Shoulders

But rather than demonize Darwin as some want to do, or put him on a pedestal as the great emancipator of the human mind as others want to do, I recommend a third alternative. I recommend we stand on Darwin's shoulders during this coming Bicentennial year and look to the future. What do I mean by "Standing on Darwin's Shoulders"? Darwin gave us several gifts, and I think we should graciously accept those gifts for what they are and move on. First, he gave us the gift of observation. Darwin was a naturalist of the highest order and his ability to observe and document the natural world is something we should all aspire to.

Second, Darwin was a rhetorical genius. His ability to use the success of the British artificial breeding industry to build broad support for his concept of natural selection was brilliant. In a nutshell Darwin gave us a very successful formula in his Origin of Species for overthrowing the current scientific paradigm. We would be well served to study his formula carefully as we attempt to replace his theory of random mutations and natural selection with a theory of design.

The third gift Darwin gave us was the courage to put forth a bold idea. While some of his ideas have advanced our understanding of the world we live in, we have learned over the past 150 years that it is not the whole picture. There must be something else that explains how life originated from non-life. There must be something else that explains where the gigabyte of information in our DNA comes from. There must be something else that explains why the laws of physics and our universe appear to be finely tuned for our existence. So let us stand on Darwin's shoulders and have the courage to proclaim our own bold ideas of design in nature to which the evidence continues to point.

Darwin Bicentennial Celebration Party Favors

Darwin Balanced Teaching Bookmarks (Free): We've put together some party favors to help you celebrate the Darwin Bicentennial in 2009. The first is our Darwin Featured Author page at ARN. Here you can find links to free online editions of Darwin's major books, as well as audio versions you can listen to. I must admit that it requires some mental fortitude to read Origin of Species from cover to cover, but those who do will be rewarded with some little gems like this quote from the introduction:

I am well aware that there is scarcely a single point discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result could be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts on both sides of each question, and this cannot possibly be done here.

We are in such complete agreement with Darwin's sentiments about teaching the pros and cons of his own theory that we have put this quote on a bookmark that you can download for free at the bottom of the ARN Darwin author page and distribute far and wide. You can also order this quote on a t-shirt or coffee mug.

Darwin Bicentennial Celebration: A Retrospective Look at the Origin of Species ($25). For 2009 we are re-releasing our interview with John Angus Campbell, one of the world's leading authorities on the rhetoric of Charles Darwin. In this one hour DVD Dr. Campbell reveals why Darwin’s rhetoric was so persuasive in overturning the origins theory of the day, even though his data was lacking in so many ways. After watching this interview, you will know more about Origin of Species than 99% of the world's population, you will appreciate Darwin's talents and gifts to us, and you will be able to articulate his bold idea and why it is not the whole story.

Expelled Super Bundle ($50). To further help you celebrate the Darwin Bicentennial we've put together the Expelled Super Bundle to highlight the lack of academic freedom that exists today to explore both sides of Darwin's theory, as he advocated. In addition to the Expelled DVD, the Super Bundle includes a copy of Dr. Jerry Bergman's new book Slaughter of the Dissidents, which dives even deeper into the issues raised in Expelled. To make this bundle even sweeter we are throwing in free copies of three of the best DVD documentaries on intelligent design: The Privileged Planet, The Case for a Creator, & Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Purchased separately these products would cost $125, but since we want to help get you in the party mood for 2009, the entire bundle can be yours for only $50.

ID DVD Give Away. Finally, as our way of saying "thank you" for your year-end donation to the ongoing work at ARN, we would like to send you a free set of the three ID documentary DVDs for each $25 you donate before February 12, 2009 (or B-Day as we call it around here). I can't think of a better party favor to be handing out during the 2009 Darwin Bicentennial Celebration than The Privileged Planet, The Case for a Creator, & Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Just indicate in the comment field of your online donation as you check out how many sets you would like with your donation.

I can't wait for 2009. Let the party begin!

(excerpted from the ARN 2008 Annual Report)

Darwin or Design with Dr. Tom Woodward is a Podcast on Intelligent Design and Apologetics presented by the C.S. Lewis Society.

Dr. Tom Woodward interviews Caroline Crocker about the obstacles she has faced teaching at George Mason University and moving on to help coordinate IDEA clubs across the country.

More...

Colorado Springs, CO - December 22, 2008
Access Research Network has just released its annual "Top 10 Darwin and Design News Stories" and its "Top 10 Darwin and Design Resources" list for 2008.

Gaining top honors on the news list was a detailed expose on the Evolution Industry by freelance reporter Suzan Mazur. Mazur broke the story with an article in March and followed with a six-part e-book on the "Altenberg 16," the 16 biologists and philosophers of rock star stature who met at the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Altenberg, Austria in July. What is the significance of this event? Each of the participants recognizes that the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution which most practicing biologists accept and which is taught in classrooms today, is inadequate in explaining our existence and they met to try and formulate some new mechanism for evolution.

"What is ironic about this story" stated ARN Executive Director, Dennis Wagner, "is that on the eve of the Darwin Bicentennial Celebration kicking off in 2009, we have the leading scientists of our day declaring that Darwin's molecule-to-man theory of evolution, which purports to explain our existence purely by random mutations and natural selection, is essentially dead. What exactly are we celebrating about Darwin in 2009?"

"Part of our mission at ARN is to help educate the public about issues relating to Darwin and Design. One of the things we do is monitor science news and other reports related to this topic, and provide access to resources designed to help others better understand the full scope of this issue" says Kevin Wirth, ARN Director of Media Relations. "For example a growing a number of breakthroughs are being made by scientists who are 'reverse-engineering' living systems and applying the design principals they discover to man-made technologies. One interesting story from 2008 was the report of engineers who are building better turbine blades and wings. They studied the shape of whale flippers with one bumpy edge, which inspired the creation of a completely novel design for wind turbine blades. This design has been shown to be more efficient and also quieter, but defies traditional engineering theories."

An online version of the Top 10 Darwin and Design stories for 2008 with hyperlinks to original news sources can be found at www.arn.org/top10.

It is well known that the keystone in a stone arch is crucial for the stability of the arch. Indeed, without a good keystone, the arch will collapse. For many years. Theodosius Dobzhansky has been quoted to affirm that evolutionary theory provides the infrastructure that integrates the whole of biology. This is what he said: "Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution." Sometimes, the reference to "evolution" relates specifically to Darwinism/neo-Darwinism, and sometimes the reference is to the concept of evolution rather than any particular mechanism. The imminent Bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his magnum opus is bringing Dobzhansky's words to the fore and applied to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. This is the inference to be drawn from a recent editorial in Scientific American and its accompanying illustration.

Darwinism is said to be a theory that everyone ought to learn (Image source here, Credit Matt Collins)

A major application of this message relates to education. Students need to know about Darwin's theory - indeed, everyone needs to know! The editors conclude:
"One way to celebrate Darwin's birthday is to contemplate how evolutionary studies can achieve broader adoption in secondary and higher education. Natural selection and the complementary idea of how genes, individuals and species change over time should be as much a part of developing critical thinking skills as deductive reasoning and the study of ethics."

It may surprise the Editors of Scientific American, but no one is arguing that natural selection and "how genes, individuals and species change over time" should not be taught. The differences are about how these topics are presented to students and what students are expected to learn. It would have been a welcome contribution to this particular discussion if Glenn Branch and Eugenie Scott had addressed it in their article in Scientific American.

However, instead of engaging with the issues, they devote over three thousand words to a polemic against the supposedly subversive activities of creationists. They bemoan the fact that the Louisiana Science Education Act has become law.
"On its face, the law looks innocuous: it directs the state board of education to "allow and assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied," which includes providing "support and guidance for teachers regarding effective ways to help students understand, analyze, critique, and objectively review scientific theories being studied." What's not to like? Aren't critical thinking, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion exactly what science education aims to promote?
As always in the contentious history of evolution education in the U.S., the devil is in the details. The law explicitly targets evolution, which is unsurprising - for lurking in the background of the law is creationism, the rejection of a scientific explanation of the history of life in favor of a supernatural account involving a personal creator."

They are saying, in effect, that the letter of the law sounds fine, but the letter is a front for creationism, lies and deceit. They do not believe that all teachers will abide by the letter. They expect some to promote unwarranted doubts about evolution:
"Allowing teachers to instil scientifically unwarranted doubts about evolution is clearly beyond the pale. Yet that is what the Louisiana Science Education Act was evidently created, or designed, to do."

This message is one we have heard many times before, and there is no evidence that it has any validity. There are legitimate concerns about the way Darwinism should be explored in the classroom. Many of us think that natural selection is being asked to do far too much - way beyond the empirical evidence that demonstrates what it can do. Many of us think that observed natural variations should not be used to argue the transformation of life from a single cell to the diversity of living things we see today. The objections to Darwinism are scientific, and they need to be fairly addressed in the education of students. These ideas have been explored numerous times in this blog. Here are examples over the past few months: Evolution, Museums and Society, Cichlid fish - another textbook example of evolution in action?, Hairless Dogs as an example of deleterious mutations, A call for an end to Pseudo-Darwinian hype, Adaptations affecting dim-light vision in vertebrates, The formidable problem of assembling the bacterial flagellum.

Of particular concern is the polemical way the arguments are presented. There is no interaction with the scientific issues, but only a desperate attempt to prove the infiltration of creationism into the fabric of science and education. No doubt many are familiar with Of Pandas and People - but do published "analyses" of the book by evolutionists ever get serious with the science? The same can be said of many other resources produced by ID scientists - instead of a scientific discourse, we are fed with unappetising polemic.

Will 2009 be any different? Will ID scientists be allowed to raise scientific questions about the validity of Darwinism? Will anyone suggesting that there are serious issues to consider be hounded as betrayers of science? What about our young people? Will they be allowed to question whether the evidences presented in the classroom are adequate to support the evolutionary theory in the textbook? We all want to promote a healthy scientific mindset, but a refusal to address the issues critically does not bode well for the future.

The Latest Face of Creationism in the Classroom
Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. Scott
Scientific American, December 16, 2008

First para: Professors routinely give advice to students but usually while their charges are still in school. Arthur Landy, a distinguished professor of molecular and cell biology and biochemistry at Brown University, recently decided, however, that he had to remind a former premed student of his that "without evolution, modern biology, including medicine and biotechnology, wouldn't make sense."

Why Everyone Should Learn the Theory of Evolution
The Editors
Scientific American, December, 2008

First para: Charles Darwin did not think of himself as a genius. "I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men ..." he remarked in one passage of his autobiography. Fortunately for the rest of us, he was profoundly wrong in his assessment. So on February 12 the world will mark the bicentennial birthday of a scientist who holds a rightful place alongside Galileo, Copernicus, Newton and Einstein.

David Perlman, for the San Francisco Chronicle, reports that President-elect Barack Obama's decision to name two of the nation's most prominent scientists to crucial roles in his administration was being heralded in the scientific community as a signal that the new president is serious about taking on the challenges of climate change and creating a new energy policy for the nation.

"Holdren is a physical scientist who is very comfortable dealing with biology, and this scientific multilingualism is ideal for a post like science adviser," said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education that monitors school district clashes between Darwin supporters and advocates of "intelligent design," or creationism.

More...

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Hold on to your hats...it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Biola University concluded its centennial year Friday with a fall commencement that featured renowned apologist Lee Strobel and the "godfather" of the Intelligent Design movement, retired UC Berkeley professor Philip E. Johnson.

According to the La Miranda, Calif.-based biblical institution, Strobel served as the keynote speaker while Johnson was awarded with an Honorary Doctor of Laws for distinction in public service.

More...

Scientists and historians have acquired skills of data analysis which are essential for their professional lives. It is therefore strange to find examples of scholars being satisfied with rather superficial conclusions. A recent case concerns the crimes committed by German scientists during the Nazi era. Most of us ask questions like: 'What perverted the thinking of these scientists?' and 'Why were their peers and their leaders not outraged by the experiments?' However, in a review of a history of the crimes committed in the years 1933-1945 by scientists of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, the take-home message is banal:
"What is the bottom line? Do not try to write the history of bad scientists when any of them are still alive. Like [the author of the book], do it only when all of those who were involved are dead."

The long shadow of Darwinism reaches far beyond the domain of science (Image source here, Credit: Noma Bar)

The Nazi leadership in 1933 left the Director of the Institute and six group leaders in place, but required the redundancy of 12 staff because they were Jewish. Thereafter, as staff retired, new appointees were "according to the wishes of the Nazis". Sad to say, nothing more is said in the review about the ideology that was enforced at that time and how it affected the thinking and actions of research scientists.

Claus Schilling was a group leader in 1933. He had been a medical doctor in Africa and was "fascinated by malaria". After retirement, he continued research into finding a vaccine.
"[B]etween 1942 and 1945, he used prisoners from the concentration camp at Dachau in southern Germany for his malaria experiments. Of the 1,200 people he infected with malaria, between 300 and 400 died. Schilling was caught by the Allies and executed in 1946."

Eugen Hagen was a virologist who conducted his infamous experiments in a concentration camp in Alsace. In a letter to his group leader, dated 1943, Hagen wrote:
"I contacted the central office of the SS [the Nazi protective squadron] to receive sufficient human material from worthless lives for our purpose."

Here, at least, is a pointer to the ideology that fostered destructive experimentation with human lives. Some people were regarded as "worthless" and dispensable. Medics, whose life's work involved alleviating suffering and curing diseases, degenerated to murder to further their research ambitions. Even when facing the death sentence, Schilling sought permission "to publish the results of his unethical malaria studies".

However, Muller-Hill does not give us any insights into this thinking in his review. There is no highlighting of ideological issues, no analysis of how these scientists came to view fellow humans as "worthless" and no application to the present day where the ethics of scientific research is firmly on the agenda for discussion. If the book is like the review, opportunities to learn lessons have been lost.

However, I am reluctant to assume that the book passes over the ideological issues so completely. There may be other factors at play here. An article appeared recently in The Daily Telegraph with this by-line: "The Nazis' gruesome experiments became an accepted part of German medical research, according to the author of a new history". The writer is Richard Evans, Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, and his new book is The Third Reich at War. After discussing examples of the abuse of science, he writes:
"What underpinned this behaviour was a widespread belief that some people were less than human, relegated to a lower plane of existence by their inherited degeneracy - or their race."

After this tantalising comment, it is frustrating not to have further analysis of the factors leading to these attitudes. The ideological roots are hidden in this piece; all we see are some aberrant outgrowths of the plant. Yet, the author has done more work on the ideological issues and he does know what factors were at work. Here is a paragraph from an earlier book (The Third Reich in Power, p. 259):
"The real core of Nazi beliefs lay in the faith Hitler proclaimed in his speech of September 1938 in science - a Nazi view of science - as the basis for action. Science demanded the furtherance of the interests not of God but of the human race, and above all the German race and its future in a world ruled by ineluctable laws of Darwinian competition between races and between individuals. This was the sole criterion of morality, overriding the principles of love and compassion that have always formed such an important element in the beliefs of the world's great religions."

The diagnosis is clear. The Nazi's had latched on to the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection as a scientific justification of their ascendancy claims. They regarded themselves as representatives of the 'fit' humanity and they considered it a 'law of nature' that the fittest had the right, not just to survive, but also to promote the demise of the less fit. To the Nazi's, it made perfect sense to pursue a policy of extermination for that part of humanity that had nothing to offer their brave new world.

There are lessons here for today. It is important that each scientist thinks about his/her personal ideology and the framework of ethics within which they operate. Unfortunately, there is too much of an ethical vacuum today. People adopt principles for personal or pragmatic reasons. All too often, research ethics gets no deeper than gaining ethical approval from the appropriate ethics committee. Too many scientists are post-modernists when it comes to ethical procedures - all is relative. No one is prepared to move from ethics to morality - to say that anything is right or wrong. For previous blogs on this, go here and here.

This situation leaves the scientific enterprise vulnerable to being corrupted by business interests, funding agencies and ideologically-driven researchers. Many would argue that we are seeing warning signs on a regular basis. Social Darwinism is not dead. It continuously comes back to public debate saying that it has learned from mistakes and that Darwinism must be the only valid interpretive framework for understanding society. A recent presentation of this stance is found in The Economist. This is why the agenda of the ID movement includes opening up debate about the ideological influences in modern thought. This is why it is justified to come back again and again to the corruption of Nazi scientists: they have something important to teach us about the role of ideologies in science and the need for robust foundations for ethical practice.

Crimes in the name of research
Benno Muller-Hill
Nature 456, 575 (4 December 2008) | doi:10.1038/456575a

BOOK REVIEWED - Das Robert Koch-Institut im Nationalsozialismus, by Annette Hinz-Wessels. Kulturverlag Kadmos: 2008. 192 pp. (in German)

First para: The Robert Koch Institute in Berlin was founded in 1891 and conducts research into infectious bacteria and viruses. When it celebrated its centenary, the crimes committed by members of the institute between 1933 and 1945 were apparently not of interest, and were not mentioned. Ten years later, after the Max Planck Society and the DFG, Germany's main research-funding agency, had investigated their own histories, this changed. Scientist Annette Hinz-Wessels has written the first history of the institute, concentrating on the years under National Socialism.

See also:

Evans, R. How Hitler perverted the course of science, Telegraph Online, 02 Dec 2008

Weikart, R. From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, Palgrave MacMillan, 2004

By Robert Deyes
ARN Correspondent

Together with Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist Niles Eldredge is known for having exposed the predominance of an evolutionary phenomenon called 'stasis' or 'non-change'. For Eldredge, his moment of realization came while studying the fossilized fauna of a period in the earth's history that paleontologists today call the 'Devonian' (Ref 1, Chapter 2). Today we know of the Devonian mainly because of a smattering of rock formations throughout the eastern United States. One particular Devonian animal, a trilobite by the name of Phacops rana, captured Eldredge's interest because of the apparent lack of morphological variability between species (Ref 1, Chapter 3). Eldredge noticed for example that, regardless of where he got his specimens from, they always had a similar arrangement of eyes. Not only were the individual lenses of their compound eyes arranged into columns but, regardless of the geographical locale from which he had obtained his trilobite specimens, the number of lens columns never appeared to deviate from 16-18. Eldredge's observations were telling. As he wrote,

"We climb up those rocks and check those samples, over what must be, in some total, a 3-or-4-million-year period, we see some oscillation, some variation, back and forth-but no real change at all, and no change especially in the anatomical feature, those columns of lenses in the eyes....This is the first element: simple lack of change. Stability, or stasis, as Gould and I began to call it" (Ref 1, p.70)

Many more cases of stasis have since been documented in the fossil record although in many of these, the reality of stasis has not been accepted with enthusiasm. In Eldredge's own assessment, evidence for stasis in the fossil record has become, "something of a professional embarrassment to be politely ignored, so alien did it seem to what evolution ought to look like in the fossil record" (Ref 1, p.120), Unwilling to simply sweep the evidence under the carpet, Eldredge and Gould decided to accept the fossil record for what it showed- long periods of morphological stasis interrupted only every few million years by sudden moments of morphological change (Ref 1, p.120). Science writer David Quammen has since also drawn attention to this rather striking phenomenon:

"Anyone who considers the biogeographical data...must be struck by the mysterious clustering pattern among what [Darwin] called "closely allied species"...Paleontology reveals a similar clustering pattern in the dimension of time...closely allied species tend to be found adjacent to one another in successive strata. One species endures for millions of years and then makes its last appearance in, say, the middle Eocene epoch; just above, a similar but not identical species replaces it" (Ref 2, p.12)

Writing in his opus The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Gould presented a detailed treatise of his theory on punctuated equilibrium that, as he outlined in one of the key chapters of this work, describes the fossil record not as a continuum of graduated forms connecting related species but rather as a series of intermittent punctuated changes that occur between long periods of morphological 'stasis' (Ref 3, pp. 875-885). One of Darwin's contemporaries, the paleontologist Hugh Falconer, wrote a monograph to Darwin about the great mammoth and drew attention to, "the persistence in time of the distinctive characters of the European fossil elephants" (Ref 3, p.747). Falconer's realization was critical for not only did it reveal how specific observable characters were morphologically constant within given species of mammoths but also how such constancy existed in spite of great climatic variations. The mammoth's existence through the ice age was Falconer's primary example:

"If we cast a glance back on the long vista of physical changes which our planet has undergone since the Neozoic Epoch, we can nowhere detect signs of a revolution more sudden and pronounced...than the intercalation and subsequent disappearance of the Glacial period. Yet the dicyclotherian Mammoth lived before it, and passed through the ordeal of all her extremities with it involved, bearing his organs of locomotion and digestion all but unchanged" (Ref 3, p. 747).

Even in the face of major environmental change- the very fodder that was supposed to drive natural selection- morphological constancy appears to have prevailed. The predominance of stasis of form in the fossil record without any intermediate links that connect disparate forms to common ancestors is a reality that paleontologists are today having to come to grips with. Contravening a dogma founded on expectations rather than on what the fossil record revealed, it was both Gould and Eldredge who took on the scientific establishment by bringing to public attention not a continuum of graduated forms connecting related species but instead the presence of intermittent punctuated changes between long periods of morphological 'stasis' during which species remained unchanged for millions of years. At the very least, the predominance of stasis should be prompting us to execute a radical 'face lift' to the way we consider evolution.

References

1.Niles Eldredge (1985), Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian, Evolution and the Theory of Puctuated Equilibria, Published by Simon and Schuster, New York

2.David Quammen (2004), Was Darwin Wrong?, National Geographic Magazine, November 2004, pp.4-31

3.Stephen Jay Gould (2002), Punctuated Equilibrium and the Validation of Macroevolutionary Theory, pp.745-1022 in, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

From Dolly the embraceable ewe to a downloadable you? A story available in a variety of formats from Jason Rennie's Science Fiction and Philosophy journal offers you a chance to discuss a man's plan to cheat death by getting his brain transplanted into a cloned body. Did it work? Could he prove it?

Also, I had no idea t hat, at the end of his life, Robert Frost had written a poem, "Accidentally on Purpose" that might make him the first ID poet.

Oh, and "Science fiction must be anti-ID, mustn't it?

Plus, Steve Fuller's comedy on the intelligent design controversy (Abe Lincoln and Charles Darwin, born the same day, on a modern talk show.)

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).