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There is evidence for intelligent design in the universe." This does not seem like an especially radical statement; many people believe that God has revealed himself through creation. Such beliefs, however, do not conform to politically correct notions in academia, as Professor Guillermo Gonzalez is learning the hard way. An astronomer at Iowa State University, Professor Gonzalez was recently denied tenure—despite his stellar academic record—and it is increasingly clear he was rejected for one reason: He wrote a book entitled The Privileged Planet which showed that there is evidence for design in the universe.& nbsp; Dr. Gonzalez's case has truly...

When sixteen leading Darwinists write essays on a crash schedule to get a book out by the end of the school year, you might suspect a sense of urgency, and indeed, editor John Brockman opens Intelligent Thought with a plea for his colleagues to defend Darwin-based civilization from “the Visigoths at the gates,” the proponents of Intelligent Design, “whose only interest in science appears to be to replace it with beliefs consistent with those of the Middle Ages” and who pose “the gravest of threats to the American economy.” Brockman, a literary agent who went from pop publicist to managing...

Intelligent Design Scientist Denied Tenure Despite Exceeding Standard Requirements By: Staff Discovery Institute May 14, 2007 Ames, IA – Astronomer and professor Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, co-author of The Privileged Planet and an advocate of the scientific theory of intelligent design, has been denied tenure by Iowa State University even though he has met or exceeded every required standard for tenure approval. “The denial of tenure to Dr. Gonzalez is blatant discrimination and violates both academic freedom and free speech,” said Dr. John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. Dr. Gonzalez is a senior fellow...

By: Nafeesa Syeed Associated Press May 15, 2007 DES MOINES (AP) --- Iowa State University has denied tenure to an assistant professor who has been outspoken in his views on intelligent design, prompting one group to claim he's being punished because of his views...

I found the following form letter on a website, copied and pasted it, and sent it to the president of Iowa State University. The emailed me back (probably with a form letter). But the point is, they are responding (and therefore keeping track)!!! Below is the letter I sent and their response. See reply #2 for a link for background info. on Dr. Gonzalez--GGG ---------------------------- To: geoffroy@iastate.edu Subject: Guillermo Gonzalez Tenure Ruling President Gregory L. Geoffroy, I am disappointed at the University's denial of Guillermo Gonzalez tenure application. Despite the fact that Dr. Gonzalez has 68 peer-reviewed publications, he seems...

During the May 3 Republican presidential debate, moderator Chris Matthews asked the candidates “How many of you don’t believe in evolution?” Sen. Sam Brownback, Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Tom Tancredo all raised their hands indicating that they did not believe in it. Rep. Barney Frank raised the same question in 2004 when he accused me, his opponent that year, of questioning the theory of evolution. Liberals are confident that those who question the theory of evolution will be held up for public ridicule and scorn. Many liberals pride themselves on questioning everything in life except when it comes to...

The Brody File is at it again. Another little scoop. According to an interview Mitt Romney did with The Boston Globe in December of 2005, the former Governor of Massachusetts said he was against the teaching of intelligence design in public schools. There are quite a few Evangelicals who believe the exact opposite; that intelligent design should indeed be taught in public schools alongside Evolution. The quote comes from an article by Frank Phillips who was writing about how Romney felt the Boston media was distorting his views. During the article, Romney defends himself, saying he is not moving to...

Students, teachers flexible over new rules to explore life-origin theories. Camden High biology teacher Mitzi Snipes confronted this year’s controversial new rules about teaching evolution head-on. Snipes, a fourth-year teacher, told her students “to be open to new ideas.� “I also let them know that each of them would have a personal opinion based on their own upbringing and moral and ethical values,� she said. Her students did research and built Web pages outlining “Darwin’s theory as well as creationism. We talked about scientific inquiry and the necessity for science to be based on fact rather than personal values and...

Catriona J. MacCallum Citation: MacCallum CJ (2007) Does Medicine without Evolution Make Sense? PLoS Biol 5(4): e112 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050112 Published: April 17, 2007 Copyright: © 2007 Catriona J. MacCallum. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Catriona J. MacCallum is Senior Editor at PLoS Biology. E-mail: cmaccallum@plos.org It is curious that Charles Darwin, perhaps medicine's most famous dropout, provided the impetus for a subject that figures so rarely in medical education. Indeed, even the iconic...

‘As a theory, I believe that intelligent design fits the evidence of biology better than Darwinian evolution.’ —-- MU Professor John Marshall A Columbia medical professor made his case for scientific acceptance of "intelligent design" last night and found himself taking fire from his peers for his view. John Marshall, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia, argued in front of about 100 people in a University Hospital auditorium that mainstream scientists were trying to kick intelligent design "off the playing field of science." At the heart of the argument for design, say proponents, is that elements...

Scientists at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies believe discoveries about the genetic complexity of coral could rewrite theories about evolution. After identifying about 10,000 genes, they believe coral could contain more genes than humans who posses about 20,000. Coral is considered to be a simple animal. However, Professor David Miller says its genetic complexity challenges the notion that life started out simple then evolved to become more sophisticated. "There's this intrinsic tendency to think about a slow accumulation of complexity and a slow accumulation of genes which have allowed an increased morphological complexity in higher animals...

Dr. Steven Novella doesn’t think much of people who disagree with him about Darwinism. Dr. Novella, a Yale neurologist, assistant professor and specialist in neuromuscular disorders, is also a ‘skeptic’ and co-founder and president of the New England Skeptical Society. He’s quite unskeptical about Darwinism: …evolutionary theory is complex. Evolution is a beautiful and subtle theory – one of my favorite scientific theories to study. I have spent years reading about it, learning from the best like Dawkins, Leakey, and Gould… He took issue recently with those of us who doubt the adequacy of Darwin’s theory to account for all...

In the summer of 2006, I heard that a new book called Godless presented an insightful and devastating criticism of the theory of evolution. Although I learned that its author, Ann Coulter, is not a scientist but a lawyer turned author and TV pundit, she nevertheless appeared to be an intelligent and well-educated person, so I started reading. At first I was puzzled. There did not seem to be anything new; only tired and outdated antievolution arguments involving moths, finches, and fruit flies. But it wasn't until Coulter dusted off the old Piltdown man story that I suddenly realized: it...

Professors opposed to the Bush library aren't the only angry faculty members at Southern Methodist University this week. Science professors upset about a presentation on "Intelligent Design" fired blistering letters to the administration, asking that the event be shut down. The “Darwin vs. Design” conference, co-sponsored by the SMU law school’s Christian Legal Society, will say that a designer with the power to shape the cosmos is the best explanation for aspects of life and the universe. The event is produced by the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based organization that says it has scientific evidence for its claims. The anthropology department...

Sisters High School biology teacher fired amid controversial curriculum Mar 23,2007 00:00 by Alisha Wilson Board member releases teacher’s powerpoint presentation; says it was a “calculated decision on his part to bend young minds” Kris Helphinstine, a part-time biology teacher at Sisters High School was fired by the school board Monday night for deviating from the curriculum on the theory of evolution after only eight days on the job, four of which were spent teaching his own theories of evolution through a PowerPoint presentation that referenced Nazi Germany and Planned Parenthood. When asked why Helphinstine was dismissed, school board...

During his eight days as a part-time high school biology teacher, Kris Helphinstine included Biblical references in material he provided to students and gave a PowerPoint presentation that made links between evolution, Nazi Germany and Planned Parenthood. That was enough for the Sisters School Board, which fired the teacher Monday night for deviating from the curriculum on the theory of evolution.

The vaunted Smithsonian Institution, highly regarded for promoting knowledge and science, is embroiled in a scandal for censoring scientific inquiry. It would be amusing when the mouthpieces of political correctness abandoned their mantra of freedom and tolerance to squash a threat to their power, if so much were not at stake. Consider the case of the squashing of Dr. Richard Sternberg, a former research associate at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and a distinguished evolutionary biologist with two doctorates in biology. Dr. Sternberg’s sin was to allow a scientific article critical of neo-Darwinism to be published in...

Intelligent Design Scientists Will Showcase Evidence Challenging Evolution at Knoxville Conference KNOXVILLE – What is intelligent design and what scientific evidence supports it? Why is it so controversial? How does it differ from Darwin’s theory of evolution? Is there a purpose to the universe? What new scientific facts are turning evolutionary theories upside down? This one-day conference will answer these and other intriguing questions. The emerging scientific theory of intelligent design is a hot topic at universities and research institutions around the world, and is now the focus of a day-long conference called Darwin vs. Design, coming to the Knoxville...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Secular scientists who fear allowing the conclusions of creationism into secular universities have good reason to be afraid because they are accountable to the creator, Kurt Wise, professor of theology and science at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said on the Albert Mohler Radio Program in February. “If it’s true that there was a creation, then you realize that means there’s someone in control,” Wise said on the broadcast hosted daily by Southern Seminary’s president. “And if there was a flood -- in other words, a creator who actually judged this creation -- that means we’re in big trouble....

recently found myself in a conversation with two college undergraduates, both of them seniors in the natural sciences (physics and biochemistry, respectively). At one point we were discussing alchemy, which they knew as a pre-modern attempt to transmute lead into gold. I asked them whether they could name any famous alchemists. They could not, though one of them dimly recalled hearing of “someone whose name began with A.” I then predicted that Darwinian evolution would eventually fade into the same obscurity that now shrouds alchemy. Although I knew from previous conversations that my young friends were skeptical of Darwinian theory,...

In a thought-provoking paper from the March issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology , Elliott Sober (University of Wisconsin) clearly discusses the problems with two standard criticisms of intelligent design: that it is unfalsifiable and that the many imperfect adaptations found in nature refute the hypothesis of intelligent design. Biologists from Charles Darwin to Stephen Jay Gould have advanced this second type of argument. Stephen Jay Gould's well-known example of a trait of this type is the panda's thumb. If a truly intelligent designer were responsible for the panda, Gould argues, it would have provided a more useful tool...

Senator John McCain will be in Seattle this Friday, where he’ll give an address, presented by the World Affairs Council and the CityClub of Seattle. [Updated for clarification:] The council’s release said Mr. McCain would talk about his “vision for the United States in the world.” It said he would answer questions such as: What is the role of the U.S. in the global community? How should the U.S. position itself over the next decade? What are the challenges, and how should they be addressed? What are the future global impacts on Washington State? [Update: 8 p.m. Danny Diaz, a...

The Kansas state Board of Education on Tuesday repealed science guidelines questioning evolution that had made the state an object of ridicule. The new guidelines reflect mainstream scientific views of evolution and represent a political defeat for advocates of "intelligent design," who had helped write the standards that are being jettisoned. The intelligent design concept holds that life is so complex that it must have been created by a higher authority. The board removed language suggesting that key evolutionary concepts are controversial and being challenged by new research, and approved a new definition of science that limits it to the...

Tens of thousands of French schools and universities have received copies of a Turkish book refuting Darwin's theory of evolution and describing it as "the true source of terrorism." The education ministry said Friday that it had warned school and university directors that the textbook is not in line with the recognized curriculum and that they should disregard it. Entitled "The Atlas of Creation," the 770-page book by Turkish author Harun Yahya quotes several passages from the Koran and asserts that "human beings did not evolve (from another species) but were indeed created." "We believe that there are lots of...

Whenever there arises a discussion on the origins issue (as in intelligent design versus evolution), Darwinian materialists invariably go to great lengths to frame the discussion as science versus religion, despite the scientific validity of opposing arguments and scientific credentials of those who propone them. Any doubts raised about Darwinian evolution are automatically attributed to religious motivations that cannot possibly be rooted in fact. What is worse is that these doubts are dismissed without consideration and the scientist/teacher who raised them is blacklisted. You won’t see this on the nightly news, and the ACLU surely will turn a blind eye,...

Mississippi's House Bill 625, introduced by Representative Mike Lott (R-District 104) on January 9, 2007, and referred to the House Committee on Education, would provide, if enacted, "The school board of a school district may allow the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in the schools within the district. However, if the theory of evolution is required to be taught as part of the school district's science curriculum, in order to provide students with a comprehensive education in science, the school board also must include the teaching of creationism or intelligent design in the science curriculum." A similar provision was...

House Joint Resolution 21, introduced by Representative Robin Hamilton (D-District 92) on January 26, 2007, in the Montana House of Representatives and referred to the Committee on Education, would, if enacted, express the Montana legislature's recognition of the importance of separation of church and state and support of the right of local school board trustees to adopt a science curriculum based on sound scientific principles. The resolution refers to "a number of national fundamentalist organizations seeking to force local schools to adopt a science curriculum that conforms to their particular religious beliefs and that includes theories commonly referred to as...

Just minutes after a new moderate majority took control of the State Board of Education today, the issue of evolution came back up. The board voted to hear about proposed science standards that support evolution later in the day with a possible decision on them next month. The issue produced a long line of speakers both for and against evolution during a public comment period. Doug Kaufman, a physician’s assistant and pastor from Leavenworth, told the board that evolution “doesn’t stand up to real science.” But supporters of evolution urged the board to change the current standards that include criticism...

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com A historic judicial ruling against intelligent design theory hailed as a "broad, stinging rebuke" and a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" actually was "cut and pasted" from a brief by ACLU lawyers and includes many of their provable errors, contends the Seattle-based Discovery Institute. One year ago, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones' 139-page ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover declared unconstitutional a school board policy that required students of a ninth-grade biology class in the Dover Area School District to hear a one-minute statement that said evolution is a theory and intelligent design "is an...

Ministers to ban creationist teaching aids in science lessons · Schools will be told not to use special pack · Intelligent design group asks for meeting The government is to write to schools telling them that controversial teaching materials promoting creationism should not be used in science lessons. The packs include DVDs and written materials promoting intelligent design, a creationist alternative to Darwinism, that were sent to every school in the country by the privately-funded group Truth in Science. Advocates of the theory argue that some features of the universe and nature are so complex that they must have been...

BEDFORD — Doug Garrett knows that when the latest display in the Land of Limestone Museum at Oakland City University Bedford is unveiled next week, he will be branded a “Christian kook” by some. He also knows that the number of visitors coming to the small Christian university will likely grow exponentially from the 1,000 or so it currently sees in a year. Neither notoriety nor attention sent the 35-year educator on a mission that required thousands of hours of research and three years of his life to pit creationism vs. Darwinism. Those who subscribe to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution...

Logan Gage, whom I met last month in Washington, and who works for the Discovery Institute, makes what I think is a solid point here at the DC Examiner.com, about "Evangelical Atheists." On that note, see this link at Discovery about an anti-ID talk given last week at the University of California at San Diego by Robert Pennock, paid for by the Council of Provosts of the university. What's interesting about this is that all first-quarter freshman are required to attend. Who says mandatory chapel can't be held at public universities? I've noticed, too (I'd have to be asleep not...

In the last couple of years, a number of conservative writers have urged conservatives to embrace Darwin's theory of evolution. Some of these "Darwinian conservatives" have even argued that Darwinism will help rescue conservatism. I happen to think that that the Darwinian conservatives are wrong, and in a new book to be released this month, I explain why. The book is titled Darwin's Conservatives: The Misguided Quest, and it is being published this month by Discovery Institute Press. Below is an excerpt from the book's introduction. * * * * * * *DARWIN'S CONSERVATIVES: THE MISGUIDED QUEST INTRODUCTION The debate...

Does Accepting Evolution Matter? A recent admission by a well-known evolutionary biologist takes the steam out of a common charge made against intelligent design by some scientists. Evolutionary biologists frequently express concern that if intelligent design (or creationism) were taught in public schools alongside the theory of evolution, it would lead to a decay of science literacy and place the US at an economic disadvantage compared to the rest of the world. But as Jerry Coyne acknowledges in a recently published book review, "If truth be told, evolution hasn?t yielded many practical or commercial benefits? Evolution cannot help us predict...

It has been almost a year since Hunter Rawlings gave his important speech on intelligent design and evolution. But the issue is still being widely discussed at Cornell. As a Christian, I believe that God is the Creator of heaven and earth, including human beings. At the same time I consider evolution to be the best scientific theory we currently have for explaining the origin of species, and I do not think intelligent design (“ID”) qualifies as legitimate science.How these two assertions fit together I shall not address here. Suffice it to say that the relationship between science and religion...

In an unusual foray into electoral politics, 75 science professors at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have signed a letter endorsing a candidate for the Ohio Board of Education. The professors’ favored candidate is Tom Sawyer, a former congressman and onetime mayor of Akron. They hope Mr. Sawyer, a Democrat, will oust Deborah Owens Fink, a leading advocate of curriculum standards that encourage students to challenge the theory of evolution. Elsewhere in Ohio, scientists have also been campaigning for candidates who support the teaching of evolution and have recruited at least one biologist from out of state to help....

That transition from water to land has long fascinated scientists, but the fossil record of how it occurred is still incomplete. The new finding suggests that certain aspects of tetrapod ears and limbs can be traced much further back in "fishy looking" fish than had been previously known, says John Long, head of sciences at Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. "They were just cunningly disguised in the fossil record by their more fishlike overall features," he said in an email interview. "They tell us that evolution progresses steadily but often hides the evidence until a really well preserved fossil like...

----cut---- The notion that Intelligent Design theory is fundamentally "unscientific" is based on the philosophy originated by Karl Popper (1902-1994), who postulated a set of rules for science known as "Falsificationism." The main idea is that a hypothesis or theory does not qualify as "scientific" unless it is "falsifiable" (which is independent of whether it is actually "true" or "false"). Popper is revered by evolutionists, but certainly even they would agree that we should not blindly accept his word as revealed truth. So let us consider some of the implications of his "falsifiability" criterion. ----cut---- The ultimate irony here is...

A Mathematician's View of Evolution Granville Sewell Mathematics Dept. University of Texas El Paso The Mathematical Intelligencer 22, no. 4 (2000), pp5-7 Copyright held by Springer Verlag, NY, LLC In 1996, Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe published a book entitled "Darwin's Black Box" [Free Press], whose central theme is that every living cell is loaded with features and biochemical processes which are "irreducibly complex"--that is, they require the existence of numerous complex components, each essential for function. Thus, these features and processes cannot be explained by gradual Darwinian improvements, because until all the components are in place, these assemblages are...

“In the final analysis (God) used evolution to set us free.” Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller used this quote from his book “Finding Darwin’s God” as a central point in his speech about simultaneously believing in evolution and religion. Miller spoke to more than 500 people Thursday evening in the Kansas Union Ballroom. He testified for the pro-evolution side in the recent lawsuit against the Dover, Pa., school district, where a federal judge ruled against the district’s teaching of intelligent design in biology classrooms. He said it was creationism in disguise. Conservatives on the Kansas State Board of Education approved...

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Americans who question evolution are testing a new tactic in Ohio, arguing that schools should be required to discuss all controversial issues from creation to stem cell research and global warming. In what critics on Wednesday called a new attempt to bring religion into the classroom, the Ohio State Board of Education will consider a proposal next week that would oblige schools to teach critical thinking in all subjects. The proposal, to be discussed on Monday by a school board subcommittee in Columbus, is the latest gambit by those who believe Darwin's theory of evolution should be...

A participant at the Pope's closed door symposium on creation and evolution, Jesuit Fr Joseph Fessio, has denied speculation about a change in the Church's teaching on evolution, saying nothing presented at the meeting broke new ground and that American debates on Intelligent Design did not feature in discussions. Catholic News Service reports that the annual gathering of former doctoral students of Pope Benedict, which was hosted in part by the Pontiff at his summer villa in Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome, discussed the relationship among faith, reason and science. This year's topic was "Creation and Evolution," and one of the...

Advocates of American-style "intelligent design" (ID) have had a tough year. Their anti-evolution arguments have been soundly rejected by the scientific community, they lost spectacularly in a highly-publicised federal trial on the issue of ID in schools, and most recently the voters in Kansas rejected ID school board candidates in a statewide election. So they may surely be forgiven for hoping that Pope Benedict's discussions on evolution this month with his former students could bring some rare good news.

Challenges to evolution education occur in informal learning environments as well as the public schools, as "Muddling science at parks and museums," published in the August 2006 issue of Geotimes, reiterates: As reported in the December 2005 Geotimes, some parks and museums have stepped up to the task to make evolution understandable, so as not to be confused with religious beliefs such as 'intelligent design,' which holds that the complexity of life is evidence that something intelligent must have designed it, and 'young-Earth creationism,' which holds that God created Earth and life about 6,000 years ago. Despite these efforts, however,...

A leading group of scientists says "antievolutionism" remains active in part because academics are seen as "lost in a pampered world of irrelevancies, unwilling or unable to come out of the ivory tower." Randy Olson has left the tower behind. A Harvard-trained evolutionary biologist, Olson left academia for Hollywood. He's made a documentary, "Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus," not to take on intelligent design — which he clearly thinks is a ridiculous theory — but to prod scientists to find a way to talk about evolution that doesn't make them sound like "arrogant jerks." His tack is to...

The discovery of a bizarre species of fossil whale from Australia with huge eyes and flesh-ripping jaws provides valuable new insights into the evolution of whales, researchers say. The previously unknown species lived about 25 million years ago and was an early ancestor of modern baleen whales, which feed by filtering plankton from seawater. This group includes the blue whale, the largest animal ever to inhabit the planet. But the newfound predatory whale likely hunted sharks and other fish despite its relatively small size and suggests that baleen whales weren't always the toothless gentle giants we see in our oceans...

A comparison of peoples' views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower. Among the factors contributing to America's low score are poor understanding of biology, especially genetics, the politicization of science and the literal interpretation of the Bible by a small but vocal group of American Christians, the researchers say. “American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalist, which is why Turkey and we are so close,” said study co-author Jon Miller of Michigan State University. The researchers combined...

It's a statistic that would have Charles Darwin turning in his grave - more than one third of Americans don't believe in evolution, according to a new study. After tabulating surveys that covered 34 countries, researchers at the University of Michigan have found that U.S. citizens are much less likely to accept Darwinism than Europeans and the Japanese. The study, published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, found that in countries like Iceland, Sweden, Denmark and France, at least 80 per cent of adult believe that humans evolved from other species. In Japan, 78 per cent of adults believe...

10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design (Part III) [Note: This is the third part in the list of ways in which neo-Darwinist critics are helping to promote the theory of intelligent design.] SEE HERE FOR PART 1: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1677236/posts HERE FOR PART 2 : http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1679245/posts #8 By separating origins of life science from evolutionary explanations. – Nature is too complex to be encompassed in any one field. That is why it’s necessary for scientific disciplines (physics, biology, chemistry) to be broken down into sub-disciplines (cosmology, zoology, biochemistry, etc.). But while most scientists may not have no problems thinking in unconnected categories,...

Just out of curiosity, I did a little research about Google trends to see which countries other than the USA are interested in the issue of Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. SEE THE RESULT HERE : http://www.google.com/trends?q=Intelligent+Design&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all Now, Click on the “regions” tab. What is interesting is... it shows that our good ally in the War on Terror, Australia has about half the searches for Intelligent Design that we do. But please note that Australia’s population is about 20 million. The USA on the other hand has about 280 million people. This shows that Australia's INTEREST for ID is about 6...