Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

But will you be remembering that I am against ID being taught as science

fm has also ducked the challenge to explain why the teaching of evolution is not dangerous

Darwin, Creationism, and Creation
(Steven Newton, The Huffington Post, June 27, 2010)

No other scientific idea has endured as much unfounded hostility as evolution, and no scientist as much undeserved scorn as Charles Darwin. One hundred and twenty-eight years after his death, Darwin's good name is assaulted daily by all manner of creationists, who hold Darwin responsible for everything from the Columbine school shootings to the Holocaust.

It is refreshing, then, that the movie Creation comes out this week on DVD, which means you can finally see it. This movie--released last year in very few theaters--tells the story of how Darwin agonized over whether or not to publish On the Origin of Species. It was indeed a momentous decision, for as Darwin presciently understood, the controversy generated by his magnum opus would follow him the rest of his life--and indeed, long after his life.

Creation, based on a book by Randal Keynes, Darwin's great-great grandson, is well worth seeing. Paul Bettany plays Darwin, and in effect reprises his role as naturalist Stephen Maturin, from the 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. His tender and moving performance brings Darwin to life as a man driven by curiosity about the natural world, passionate about his family, and deeply worried about how publication of his revolutionary scientific ideas might affect them.

This view of Darwin as a full human being is a far cry from how Darwin is portrayed by many creationists.

"Darwin was nothing but a blatant racist, a bigot of a man." Thus intoned creationist Ray Comfort, who recently distributed thousands of free copies of Darwin's On the Origin of Species on college campuses. Comfort added his own introduction to Origin, blaming Darwin for a host of atrocities.

The Discovery Institute, the main hub of intelligent design creationism, regularly launches personal as well as "scientific" attacks on Darwin. One Discovery Institute fellow, Richard Weikart, has written not one, but two books arguing that the roots of the Holocaust can be found in Darwin. Another Discovery Institute associate, David Klinghoffer, has tried to link Darwin to Dr. Mengele, H.P. Lovecraft, Chairman Mao, and Charles Manson--although Klinghoffer hastens to point out: "I am not in any way blaming gentle Charles Darwin for murderous Charles Manson. But [the anniversary of Darwin's birthday] does remind us of another stitch, a bizarre one, in the fabric of Darwinism's moral legacy."

It is rather strange to distinguish Darwin from Manson, then claim that Manson is part of Darwin's moral legacy. Klinghoffer is more explicit when talking about the evil of Dr. Mengele: "What would inspire a human being to such devilry? What influence, perhaps early in life, might have nudged him off the course of what could have otherwise been a conventional medical career?"

Klinghoffer's answer, of course, is that Charles Darwin "nudged" Mengele toward evil.

Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Benjamin Wiker went to great lengths to attack Darwin in his book The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin. As one reviewer of the book put it, Wiker went so far as to blame Darwin for: "...eugenics, Nazism, abortion, euthanasia, sex education and contraceptives for the poor, cyber-pornography, and cannibalism." [Which is silly, of course. Everyone knows cannibalism is Jonathan Swift's fault.]

Why do creationists blame Darwin for such creative lists of malfeasance? To many creationists, Darwin is one of a triad of thinkers whose influence creationists blame for the horrors of 20th century. In Marx, they see a "science of human history" manifested in systematic mass murder and unimaginable suffering. In Freud, they see a "science of the human mind" responsible for sexual licentiousness and the breakdown of traditional values. And in Darwin, they see a "science of the human species" responsible for eugenics and the denigration of man to the status of an animal.

The movie Creation is important because it shows Darwin as a man, a deeply thoughtful man, filled with compassion and fears over the implications, as well as the reception, of his revolutionary ideas. One striking scene from Creation follows the death and decomposition of a young bird. In another part of the movie, Darwin tries to comfort his children after they witness a fox killing a rabbit. Creation is not oblivious to what can seem like the brutality and pointlessness of an evolutionary view of the world. But rather than portraying Darwin as a blood-thirsty Hobbesian relishing a world red in tooth and claw, the film presents his empathy and sad acceptance of a world imbued with so much suffering.

Creation shows Darwin as human being, and his famous theory not as some scary conspiracy, but as a reasoned and reasonable scientific idea. This is a welcome contrast from the misinformed hyperbole and ad hominem attacks that so often flow from creationists.

Creationists will be hostile to Creation for its humanizing of Darwin. Indeed, the group Answers in Genesis found even the title of the film "offensive" and labeled it a "Hollywood hagiography." The Institution for Creation Research called the movie part of "a strategy of evolutionists to win the hearts and minds" of viewers. There is perhaps no better recommendation for the film than their scorn.

Ive always wondered why Gregor Mendel never got similar scorn because he proposed a means by which such evolutionary change is "recorded"

By the way, spendi, I appreciate your perspectives. Not to suggest full agreement at any given time, but they are seldom boring.

the subject is not the teaching of ID in science classes. That's plain silly. The subject is teaching evolution.

Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

You are just full of **** as usual.

Edgar recently had an entire thread about the "Dangerous idea of evolution".

Within this thread, were contributions by lots of people who spoke about their beliefs on this

This was also the very thread that Anus informed us all about how we can get DNA from T-rex fossils

You, as usual, are just flailing and fishing about trying to get anyone (especially me) to comment on your meager contributions.

AVoiding most of your silly questions would seem to me to be just prudent

Youre just kind of predictable and boring spendi.

Why not just hang out doing name games and whatever else floats your boat.

Youre ill equipped to discuss this topic intelligently.

Answer me this, why do you feel that your contributions are even worth a serious comment?

California Science Center to Pay Attorneys' Fees and Settle Open Records Lawsuit by Intelligent Design Group
By: Staff
Discovery Institute
June 14, 2010



Los Angeles—The California Science Center (CSC) has agreed to settle a lawsuit with the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute and release records that it previously sought to conceal regarding its cancellation of the screening of a pro-intelligent design film last year.



“After months of stonewalling by the Science Center, this is a huge victory for the public’s right to know what their government is doing, especially when the government engages in illegal censorship and viewpoint discrimination,” said Dr. John West, Associate Director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.



The Science Center continues to “deny any and all liability relating to the claims,” according to the settlement agreement. However, it agreed to pay Discovery Institute’s legal fees and to surrender more than a thousand pages of documents it had been withholding since they were requested under the California Public Records Act last year.



Documents to be released relate to the Science Center’s cancellation of a screening of the science documentary Darwin’s Dilemma in its IMAX theater by the non-partisan American Freedom Alliance (AFA) last October. The AFA has filed its own free speech and breach of contract suit against the Science Center, which is still pending. Darwin’s Dilemma investigates the intelligent design of organisms during the “Cambrian Explosion” more than 500 million years ago.



The Science Center claimed that it had turned over all the documents requested by Discovery Institute, but when Institute staff learned that this was not true the Institute filed suit to compel full disclosure. In response, the CSC made the incredible claim that its key decision-makers, clearly identified as CSC staff on the museum’s website, were really employed not by the museum but by a private foundation and so were immune from the public records request.



“It was an obvious shell game,” explained Discovery Institute staff attorney Casey Luskin. “The California Science Center is a state agency funded by California taxpayers. The public has a right to expect transparency, not secrecy, in government institutions. The Science Center’s attempt to evade public accountability for its actions has been disgraceful.”



Discovery Institute was represented in its lawsuit by Peter Lepiscopo of Lepiscopo & Morrow (San Diego and Sacramento).



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The work of Discovery Institute is made possible by the generosity of its members.


Discovery Institute — Center for the Renewal Science and Culture
208 Columbia St. — Seattle, WA 98104

More likely because Mendel's work was not widely available and was let sit for about 50 years until Sir Ronald Fisher combined the biometrics and "mendelian" biology into a modern evolutionary synthesis. However, still, after Fisher (about 1915 or so) DArwin was still being demonized but genetcis was a burgeoning field that was never doubted , even though it was the verymechanism that DArwin needed to carry his "Inheritance of favoured traitw"

Edgar recently had an entire thread about the "Dangerous idea of evolution".

Good for Mister Ed.

Within this thread, were contributions by lots of people who spoke about their beliefs on this

Superfluous bullshit.