The Center for Science and Culture
As Kansas wound down its week long observance of the 75th anniversary of the Scopes Trial, a striking irony largely escaped notice: Whereas in 1925 the teaching of evolution was banned from the classroom, in 2000 the teaching of anything but evolution is effectively banned from the classroom. Academic freedom is just as restricted as ever–only this time it’s the Read More ›
If an established academic truth is challenged by new scientific insights, should authorities allow classroom discussion of such challenges? That was the question many people believe was placed on the national stage by the famous Scopes Trial on evolution in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. Three-quarters of a century later, the questions are the same, only now the issue is whether Read More ›
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Scientists, attorneys and teachers who support intelligent design instead of naturalistic evolution presented their side of the debate at a day-long symposium Saturday. More than 350 people attended a national symposium called “Darwin, Design and Democracy: Teaching the Evidence in Science Education” at Rockhurst High School. It featured presentations by biochemist Dr. Michael Behe, biologist Dr. Read More ›
What does an enlightened citizen believe about God at the end of the 20th century? The topic is of growing interest as the millennium approaches and the Baby Boom generation ages. Print and broadcast media have discovered a growing appetite for news about religion in all its manifestations, and they have been feeding and encouraging that appetite. Some deep anxiety Read More ›
Published on May 1, 1991, Centesimus Annus returns to the themes of a lapidary encyclical of 100 years before, Rerum Novarum, which refuted Marxism long before it had refracted into a global plague of tyranny and murder. The critique of socialism, however, did not signify an affirmation of capitalism. The `new things’ to which the Pope devoted his attention more Read More ›
As it struggles to comprehend nature, science sometimes has to completely re-think how the world works. For example, Newton’s laws apply to everyday objects but can’t handle nature’s tiny building blocks. Propelled by this discovery, quantum mechanics overthrew Newton’s theory. Revolutions in biology have included the cell theory of life in the 19th century, as well as the slow realization Read More ›
The following is Michael Behe’s response to the essays published by Boston Review following Allen Orr’s review of Darwin’s Black Box. Allen Orr Professor Orr has a mistaken notion of irreducible complexity. I thought I made that clear in my reply, but from his response I suppose I did not, so let me try again. I define irreducible complexity in Read More ›
1. Introduction “No biologist today,” observes Douglas Futuyma, “would think of submitting a paper entitled ‘New evidence for evolution; it simply has not been an issue for a century.” [1] Whether they see it as an issue or not, however, biologists today still explain (in textbooks, for instance) why they think evolution is true. In other words, they regularly make Read More ›
The Temptations of Evolutionary EthicsPaul Lawrence FarberBerkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994, 210 pp. The Secret Chain: Evolution and EthicsMichael BradieNew York, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994, 198 pp. The ethical implications of evolution are receiving a remarkable amount of attention today, despite the death sentence that was pronounced on it by “nurture” enthusiasts in the Read More ›
T.H. Huxley’s Ambivalence Sherrie L. Lyons, “Thomas Huxley: Fossils, Persistence, and the Argument from Design,” Journal of the History of Biology 26 (1993): pp. 545-569. Sherrie L. Lyons, “The Origins of T.H. Huxley’s Saltationism: History in Darwin’s Shadow,” Journal of the History of Biology 28 (1995): pp. 463-494. Since completing her doctorate on T.H. Huxley with historian Robert Richards at Read More ›
This little book is intended to correct the popular impression that “progress and increasing complexity” are characteristics of life’s course on Earth. Progress has, in the twentieth century, already been punched silly; but paleontologists seem genuinely more complex than paramecia, a point that Gould concedes, if only for reasons of professional pride. His doubts arise whenever the twig of a trend Read More ›
The theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought. It is large, almost entirely useless, and the object of superstitious awe. Richard Dawkins is widely known as the theory’s uncompromising champion. Having made his case in The Blind Watchmaker and River out of Eden, Dawkins proposes to make it yet again in Climbing Mount Improbable. He is Read More ›
A Series of Eyes How do we see? In the 19th century the anatomy of the eye was known in great detail, and its sophisticated features astounded everyone who was familiar with them. Scientists of the time correctly observed that if a person were so unfortunate as to be missing one of the eye’s many integrated features, such as the Read More ›
The following is edited from an address delivered on July 15, 1996 as part of the annual C. S. Lewis Institute at Seattle Pacific University. The author would like to thank Prof. Michael Macdonald for his encouragement and for inviting the author to present the lecture. During the summer of 1932, Oxford don C. S. Lewis traveled to Ireland to Read More ›
Most futuristic novels seem out-of-date after a decade or two, but That Hideous Strength is more timely today than when the book was published in 1945. On the day I began to reread the book for this essay, the press reported that a British government agency called the Human Fertilization and Embryological Authority (HFEA) is sounding out public opinion about Read More ›
