Free Republic

The University of California has been requiring prospective faculty members to affirm that they support diversity. This was Orwellian in its own right—reminiscent of the university system's 1950s loyalty oaths, which required faculty to attest that they were not members of the Communist Party. It now appears that at one campus, UC-Berkeley, the diversity initiative goes much further than previously understood. Whether a candidate has proposed a specific, concrete plan to advance diversity is now being used as a litmus test for some positions. No candidate who fails the test can even be considered for employment. Abigail Thompson, a UC-Davis...

It is a crowning achievement of Western civilization and a rejoinder to the modern myths of the Left. As an evolutionary geneticist and a conservative, I take some interest in critiques of Darwinism. I have come to expect that every few years a new book by Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, will trigger commentary relaying his skepticism of evolutionary theory to the interested public. And this will result in vociferous rejoinders from evolutionary biologists. But evolutionary biology is nothing for conservatives to fear, because it is one of the crowning achievements of modern Western civilization. It...

The “Fearing Evolution” Trope David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer May 14, 2019 Writing at National Review, Razib Khan explains why “evolutionary biology is nothing for conservatives to fear,” since “it is one of the crowning achievements of modern Western civilization.” He takes aim at our colleague Michael Behe and urges against “rehashing the same old debates.” But as I’ve watched it over the past couple of decades, the evolution debate has itself rapidly evolved in interesting directions.Khan links to criticisms of Behe’s new book, Darwin Devolves, from snarling atheist Jerry Coyne. However, he doesn’t mention Professor Behe’s own extensive replies to his critics, collected on the...

Last month, The Conversation published biologist Jerry Coyne’s article, lovingly served up for audiences at Christmastime, “Yes, There is a War Between Science and Religion.” Coyne fancies himself a participant in a perceived war between faith and reason, science and religion. His mission: To show people they can’t believe the account of Christ’s birth—as depicted, for example, in the Book of Luke, Chapter 2—while simultaneously believing there’s crackers in the pantry. You use your eyeballs for the latter, but not the former, and it’s simply irrational to go through life with a bifurcated mind!It is of course odd to enlist...

Atheist Jerry Coyne explains why morality is impossible for atheists Let’s review what you need in your worldview in order to have a rationally grounded system of morality.You need 5 things:1) Objective moral valuesThere needs to be a way to distinguish what is good from what is bad. For example, the moral standard might specify that being kind to children is good, but torturing them for fun is bad. If the standard is purely subjective, then people could believe anything and each person would be justified in doing right in their own eyes. Even a “social contract” is just based...

What Could Be More Appropriate on Easter? Jerry Coyne Challenges Francis Collins on Metaphysics Michael Egnor April 5, 2015 3:15 AM | Permalink National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins, who is a devout Christian, did an interview recently with National Geographic about his faith and his science. Predictably, Jerry Coyne, an atheist biologist from the University of Chicago, took exception to some of Collins's answers about the compatibility of faith in God and science. Collins: [Question asked of Collins] Are science and religion compatible?I am privileged to be somebody who tries to understand nature using the tools of science....

The co-author of a book on partisan science recently examined by Pacific Standard argues that our reviewer was a little too partisan himself. Any book that touches upon politics almost automatically angers half of the American public, regardless of what is written inside of it. It takes a special person—an objective, open-minded and self-critical one—to read and learn from a science book that criticizes people with whom the reader likes and agrees with politically.Recently, Pacific Standard published a review (“Red Science, Blue Science,” January/February 2013) by Wray Herbert, a pop psychology writer,of political writer Chris Mooney’s book The Republican Brain...

<p>USAToday, today, in the tradition of Jacques-René Hébert gave a half-page of its not-so-valuable-anymore space to biology professor Jerry Coyne to describe the ways in which science is superior to faith.</p> <p>Coyne, besides teaching evolution and ecology at the University of Chicago, is an outspoken atheist who believes the religious inhibit the progress of man, a view shared by many men of history like Hébert and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot.</p>

In a recent book review, Jerry Coyne, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, admitted that the secular worldview of macroevolution (the development of complex life from “simpler” forms) is at odds with Christian faith...

Major reviews of The Edge of Evolution have begun to appear. Because the conclusion of the book is so controversial, it’s no surprise that responses by some Darwinists so far have been pretty emotional and defensive...