Cornelia Sticks With Her Creed

In a recent NY Times article, (also here and here) Cornelia Dean discussed several books dealing with science and religion, including the new one by Francis Collins. She repeated her "creed," which I discussed previously here and here:

Of course there is no credible scientific challenge to Darwinian evolution as an explanation for the diversity and complexity of life on earth.

I find it remarkable that a Times writer can get away with reciting the same old editorial mantra in article after article. Hey Cornelia, who gets to decide what is a "credible scientific challenge"? Excuse me, your plausibility structures are showing. Of course, Cornelia's Creed is probably correct if you add the qualifier "as long as you approach the evidence with the presuppositions of a rigid materialist."

I discuss various approaches to the evidence, including "rigid materialism," here.

The article also includes this interesting quote by Lewis Wolpert on the need to "evangelize" religious people:

So, he concludes, “We have to both respect, if we can, the beliefs of others, and accept the responsibility to try and change them if the evidence for them is weak or scientifically improbable.”

More power to you, Lewis. One of the purposes of this blog is to show that the faith people have in macroevolutionary theory is not supported by the evidence, and that the evidence for important aspects of the theory is "weak or scientifically improbable." May the best evidence win.

Misinformation Apparently Wins in Kansas

A discussion of the recent school board elections in the National Review Online can be found here:

Will Darwinism be taught as unquestionable dogma? That’s the question that voters decided. In Kansas, it seems it will.

. . .

The current “controversial” Kansas Science Standards very clearly do not mandate that students learn about intelligent design. On the contrary, as the board explained, “We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design.”

Can’t get much clearer than, can you? Yet an outfit called Kansas Citizens for Science argued exactly the reverse — that the Kansas Science Standards do indeed mandate instruction about ID. It ended up convincing the voters. Or rather, deceiving them.

Commentary by the Discovery Institute can be found here:

What happened in the Kansas school board primaries earlier this week, where supporters of the current science standards apparently lost control of the board, is something that lots of people are asking. It's not a difficult question to answer. Darwinists mounted a massive, and effective, misinformation campaign.

Various Washington Post articles can be found here and here.