Religion & Law

Academic Discourse

Posted on April 20, 2008
Sahotra Sarkar is a Professor of Philosophy and Integrative Biology at the University of Texas, Austin. His book, Doubting Darwin?: Creationist Designs on Evolution, is a very good deconstruction of ID from a philosophical viewpoint. John Wilkins has found Sakar's reaction to Expelled in an article entitled ""Intelligent Design" Creationism Is An Immoral Fraud":If you can't argue for your position on intellectual grounds, try politics...

Intelligent Legislation

Posted on April 20, 2008
Just to drop in on the Florida legislature, vying for the title of stupidest in the nation, Michael Mayo of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has a scorecard:Starting July 1, it will be legal to bring your gun to work, but you'll have to keep it locked in your car...

Giggles

Posted on April 20, 2008
So, Expelled is tanking (so far) at the box office and, as Tyler DiPietro pointed out in a comment, Wild Bill Dembski is already looking for excuses. Apparently, a comment here and there by "Darwinists" about going to multiplex theaters and paying for another movie and then slipping into Expunged is grounds enough for the "Isaac Newton of information theory" to conclude that the take on the film would be up there with Raiders of the Lost Ark if it wasn't for those sneaky evilutionists...

Passages

Posted on April 20, 2008
There is a small story from WHO-TV about Guillermo Gonzalez attending an opening of Expelled in Ames, Iowa, home of Iowa State University, which denied him tenure, allegedly because of his advocacy for Intelligent Design. According to the story, despite Gonzalez' status as "Exhibit A" in support of one of the central themes of the movie -- that "academic freedom is being denied dissenters from "Darwinism" -- his appearance in the film amounts to only two minutes...

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Just Life

Posted on April 19, 2008
Steven Gey is one of the leading U.S. Scholars on religious liberties and free speech. He was often quoted on the constitutional issues involved in the Terri Schiavo case. Now Gey, 52, is dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ("Lou Gehrig's disease") and has had to stop teaching...

Tithing at the Multiplex

Posted on April 19, 2008
Well, the opening box office results are in for Expelled and, it appears that, between the call to prayer from the minarets and the buzz rising up from the labs and campuses, it has opened strong:The biggest shocker turns out to be a film I never heard of until just now, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary featuring Ben Stein "as he seeks to determine whether religious based Intelligent Design / Creationism is a pseudo-science trying to undermine evolutionary biology or whether it is legitimate science being suppressed by a scientific establishment that is hostile to any deviation from the status quo...

The Eyes Have It

Posted on April 18, 2008
The Christian Post has a refreshingly honest article in support of the drearily dishonest Expelled:Why is this whole debate about Intelligent Design even important? Because Scripture tells us the natural world is a billboard for God?s existence, if only you have the eyes to see it...

Gray Lady Smackdown

Posted on April 18, 2008
The New York Times, which hosts a business column by Ben Stein as comic relief, has quite a review of Expelled. While Jeannette Catsoulis' review will, no doubt, be labeled as "elitist" by the ID crowd (she actually uses Latin by way of accusing the writers of relying on the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy ...

Science Envy

Posted on April 18, 2008
The Panda's Thumb has this email circulated to teachers and others in public education in the Kansas City area from the Intelligent Design Network, the organization of John H. Calvert, who was a major force behind the State Board of Education making Kansas into a national laughingstock:This Friday, April 18th, is FREEDOM FRIDAY!You will no longer have to live in fear of the Darwinian Thought Police and their power to ruin your career! They are about to be ?publicly exposed? by the new documentary movie, ?EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed?!?EXPELLED,? starring Ben Stein, is opening in 1,000 theaters nationwide...

At Home in the Kennel

Posted on April 18, 2008
I pointed out earlier the inference drawn by Sean P. Means, the movie critic for The Salt Lake Tribune, about Expelled, namely:Every semi-knowledgeable moviegoer and reader of movie criticism knows what the words "not screened for critics" means: The movie is a dog...

Horse Racing

Posted on April 17, 2008
The Louisiana State legislature may have taken itself out of the running for the stupidest deliberative body in the country, leaving the field narrowed to Florida and Missouri.The original bill by Sen. Ben Nevers (D-Bogalusa) had read, in relevant part:A(4) That the teaching of some scientific subjects, such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning, can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on such subjects...

Fitting Review

Posted on April 17, 2008
Best one-sentence review of Expelled:Droning funnyman Ben Stein monkeys around with evolution in this documentary, a cynical attempt to sucker Christian conservatives into thinking they're losing the "intelligent design" debate because of academic "prejudice...

Scofflaw

Posted on April 16, 2008
Here's a good example of the "academic freedom" that Expelled and the legislators in Florida, Louisiana and Missouri are crying wolf about:Mount Vernon schools ordered a middle-school science teacher to remove religious items from the view of students last week, but John Freshwater said yesterday that he would not leave his Bible behind...

Legislative Ethics

Posted on April 16, 2008
It being only fair to give you a break from all Expelled all the time, let's take a look at another old favorite, the Florida legislature's attempt to dumb down the state science standards, along with the state's children.As you will have probably already seen, the bills in both the Florida houses have advanced through various committees and are apparently set for floor votes...

Tyger, Tyger

Posted on April 15, 2008
A thought:One of the things about natural selection is that it does not involve conscious, deliberate, or active competition. Darwin himself said this, but the message got lost under the influence of another philosopher, Herbert Spencer, who insisted that a better term for Natural Selection was survival of the fittest...

I Hear and Obey

Posted on April 14, 2008
The Central Committee of the Evolutionary Apparatus has issued a Directive and I do not wish to be Expelled.The Central Committee of the Evolutionary Apparatus has issued a Directive and I do not wish to be Expelled.The Central Committee of the Evolutionary Apparatus has issued a Directive and I do not wish to be Expelled...

Applying Evolution

Posted on April 02, 2008
There is a new scientific journal called Evolutionary Applications the content of which will be freely available for the first year. It's purpose is explained by Louis Bernatchez Editor in Chief and Michelle Tseng Founding and Managing Editor:Both funding agencies and researchers recognize that evolutionary biology is crucial to predicting how organisms will respond to global crises such as climate change, habitat loss, resistance to antibiotics and the spread of invasive species...

Ready ... Aim ...

Posted on April 01, 2008
Okay, I can't wait to give you this from the Calvary Chapel decision.It seems that the Discovery Institute's Own Foot Firing Squad was out in force for the case. In particular, Michael Behe managed to discharge a round into the plaintiff's oxfords. The issue was the University of California's decision to reject biology courses that used Biology: God's Living Creation (published by A Beka) or Biology for Christian Schools (published by Bob Jones University) as the primary text in the course...

On the Way to Calvary

Posted on April 01, 2008
There has been an important decision in the case brought by the Association of Christian Schools International and Calvary Chapel Christian School against the University of California, which claims that UC's rejection of various courses prepared and taught by the plaintiffs for status as "approved courses" for admission requirements is unconstitutional...

Well Matched

Posted on April 01, 2008
. I don't know why this is popping up in a Google News search on "Intelligent Design" today but you have to give WingNutDaily credit for their timing!"The Triumph of Design and the Demise of Darwin" clearly and dramatically shows the gaping holes in Darwinian theory and the mounting evidence for the intelligent design of the universe...

Amazing Discovery!

Posted on April 01, 2008
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A Candidate for Evolution

Posted on March 30, 2008
Senator Obama in the York Daily Record:Q: York County was recently in the news for a lawsuit involving the teaching of intelligent design. What's your attitude regarding the teaching of evolution in public schools?A: "I'm a Christian, and I believe in parents being able to provide children with religious instruction without interference from the state...

Unamericanism

Posted on March 30, 2008
Okay, one thing more about Stein and his interview with that bastion of "intellectual freedom," the American Family Association (who the movie producers felt the urgent need to assure "objectionable language had been removed from the film"). Stein shows the real intent of the Intelligent Design creationists when he was asked if ID involves "issues that are best left to the philosophy class or the religion class," and he responded:I'm saying that maybe all these classes should not be so clearly separated from one another...

The Barker

Posted on March 30, 2008
There is a message from that pseudo end of the intelligentsia represented by Ben Stein at Donald Wildmon's OneNewsNow, the house organ of the American Family Association:Darwinism holds that life began by something like lightning striking a puddle and inorganic matter was converted into living matter...

Delusions

Posted on March 29, 2008
Funniest quote of the week comes from Ben Stein:We're sick of being pushed around by the intelligentsia, even though I am one of the intelligentsia ... I suppose some people might think that hosting game shows, writing books like Yes, You Can Supercharge Your Portfolio!: Six Steps for Investing Success in the 21st Century and speechwriting for politicians of dubious character makes someone part of the intelligentsia...

High Anxiety

Posted on March 29, 2008
The Texas Baptist Standard, billed as "The Newsmagazine of Texas Baptists" has a surprisingly (to me, at least) perceptive and reasonable article about fundamentalism entitled "Fundamentalists of all stripes want to turn back the clock" by Marv Knox. Some highlights:[F]undamentalists of every faith share at least one common characteristic -- resistance to modernity...

The Smell of Fear

Posted on March 28, 2008
Hey! Dr. Michael Egnor is back speaking before he thinks ... assuming there's an option about that: In Expelled ... Dr. Myers explains his goal for science education: ?what we have to do is get it to a place where religion is treated at the level it should be treated? that is, it should be something fun, that people get together and do on the weekends, and really doesn't affect their life as much as it has been so far?What will the world look like, if Dr...

Keep Those Card's Posters Coming!

Posted on March 28, 2008
Does this qualify as a quote mein?.

Fantasyland

Posted on March 28, 2008
There is not much else to say, except that this is the type of person who may decide what kind of education Florida's children will get:To ensure I don't wallow in the same undefined morass as the Darwinists, "microevolution" would be the proven part of evolutionary theory that includes things like a bacterium becoming resistant to antibiotics and cows being bred to have more meat...

And the Stupid Keeps Coming

Posted on March 27, 2008
Just incredible! Here is Florida State Senator Ronda Storms, sponsor of the newly renamed ""Evolution Academic Freedom Act":Storms said the law specifically prohibits discussion of creationism and intelligent design.She said a teacher might say: "Here's the theory of evolution and here are the flaws and here are the breaks...

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