Daily Wrap-Up

Intelligent Design Film Shut Down By Museum: “A decision at a popular museum in Los Angeles to shut down debate over Darwin's theory of evolution has prompted a lawsuit alleging officials violated the First Amendment rights of supporters of a documentary exploring Intelligent Design…It claims museum CEO Jeffrey Rudolph ‘was pressured to cancel the event by colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Southern California, the Huntington Library and elsewhere.’ But as a state agency, it is not allowed to 'suppress legitimate discussion.'"


Year of Darwin Lecture to Feature 'What Darwin Got Wrong': “In his forthcoming book with co-author Massimo Piattelli-Palmarinin, What Darwin Got Wrong (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, February 2010), [Jerry] Fodor argues that the Darwinian account of evolution is committed to a fallacious inference from “creatures with such and such a trait are selected,’ to “creatures are selected for having such and such a trait.’ He argues that this fallacy is fatal and suggests new ways of thinking about evolution.” H/T: Darwiniana


Darwinism Used as Cudgel Against Human Exceptionalism: "When Darwinism is brought to bear to undermine human exceptionalism and reduce us to merely another animal in the forest–as opposed to explaining biological processes–it gives aid to powerful and profoundly destructive social forces. So, no more complacency. No more pretending that the elites still generally believe that all men are created equal or that Jefferson’s insight is still considered a self-evident truth. No more blithely assuming that if one can just prove that a threatened life is human, that it will necessarily win the debate over whether the most vulnerable among us can be killed or objectified. It really is time to defend human exceptionalism against all its foes. I mean if being human is not what, ipso facto, gives rise to ultimate moral value, the very principle of universal human rights becomes intellectually untenable." H/T: Darwiniana


Dr. Michael Egnor on Climategate: "I'm not sure that the scientific community can or will respond to this debacle in a courageous or ethical way. The ID-Darwinism debate clearly demonstrates that venality and shameless self-interest, as well as a toxic leftist-atheist ideology, runs very deep in the scientific community. Science surely provides much benefit to mankind, but we may need to pursue scientific truth with a different set of scientists than the ones we have now. Surely many many scientists knew of the frauds so clearly documented in the ClimateGate scandal; where were the august scientific organizations--the Royal Academy, the UN's IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science--while this fraud was growing and gaining power. The obvious truth is that these citadels of organized science were part of the fraud, or at least acquiescent in it...It may well be that the public will be forced to protect itself from organized science, as we now protect ourselves from organized crime."


Barbara Hollingsworth on Scientific Corruption: When former Cambridge biochemist Douglas Axe computed the chances that the four amino acids that form DNA could self-arrange themselves into just one functional protein, he found it was 1:10164 -- or less than the odds of finding one marked subatomic particle in the entire observable universe. In other words, the evolutionary story now universally taught to students fails to account for the origin of the basic information that forms the very blueprint of life.… 'If we've defined science such that it cannot get to the true answer, we've got a pretty lame definition of science,' Axe said." H/T: Darwiniana


The Dangerous Mystery of Consciousness: "If I had the time, I would establish an international Mysterian society for those who recognize that the universe is still a profoundly mysterious place and yet don't want to be alone thinking dark thoughts about it. That's really all I want to do. It bothers me. I want it to bother others, too… I don't think religion has the answers, but I don't think science does either. Yet. Whether it ever will is the fourth great mystery." H/T: Darwiniana