NPR Hosts Live Debate on Intelligent Design vs. Darwinism
PHILADELPHIA – National Public Radio program Justice Talking will host a debate on intelligent design and how to teach evolution in front of a live audience Tuesday, April 19, 2005 7:30 PM at The National Constitution Center, featuring Discovery Institute senior fellow Dr. Paul Nelson, a proponent of the theory of intelligent design, and philosopher Dr. Niall Shanks, a defender Read More ›
Darwin Himself Argued for Critical Evaluation
In February a Shelby County school board member suggested placing a sticker on high school biology textbooks urging students to consider “all theories” of origins “with an open mind.” This proposal is a symptom of a growing national controversy about how best to teach Darwinian evolution in public school science classrooms. For example, a suburban Atlanta school district in Cobb Read More ›
The Science of Design
This article, published by TheRealityCheck.org, mentions Discovery Institute’s William Dembski:
Read More ›Dubbed “intelligent design” to distinguish it from old-school thinking, this new view is detailed in The Design Inference (Cambridge University Press, 1998), a peer-reviewed work by mathematician and philosopher William Dembski.
In contrast to what is called creation science, which parallels Biblical theology, ID rests on two basic assumptions: namely, that intelligent agents exist and that their effects are empirically detectable.
New Science Blog Focuses on Controversial Theory of Intelligent Design
SEATTLE, APRIL 5 — The controversial theory of intelligent design is the subject of a new science blog called Intelligent Design The Future, online at www.idthefuture.com. Its purpose is to explore the growing scientific evidence for purpose and design in the universe and living systems. There is a great lack of understanding about intelligent design, says Jay Richards, vice president Read More ›
Intelligent Design, Unintelligent Me
I was one of those blissfully nerdy kids who fell in love with dinosaurs in the fourth grade and never outgrew it. In adulthood, people like me go to natural history museums, see Steven Spielberg movies and read the essays of the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. That is usually enough to keep us happy. But a couple of weeks Read More ›
Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design (Annotated)
Academic Extinction
Intelligent Design A Debate Evolves
This article, published by The Seattle Times, quotes Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Stephen Meyer.
Three years ago, the Ohio Board of Education invited a small but influential Seattle think tank to debate the way evolution is taught in Ohio schools.
It was an opportunity for the Discovery Institute to promote its notion of intelligent design, the controversial idea that parts of life are so complex, they must have been designed by some intelligent agent.
Instead, leaders of the institute’s Center for Science and Culture decided on what they consider a compromise. Forget intelligent design, they argued, with its theological implications. Just require teachers to discuss evidence that refutes Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, as well as what supports it.
They called it “teach the controversy,” and that’s become the institute’s rallying cry as a leader in the latest efforts to raise doubts about Darwin in school. Evolution controversies are brewing in eight school districts, half a dozen state legislatures, and three state boards of education, including the one in Kansas, which wrestled with the issue in 1999 as well.
“Why fight when you can have a fun discussion?” asks Stephen Meyer, the center’s director. The teach-the-controversy approach, he says, avoids “unnecessary constitutional fights” over the separation of church and state, yet also avoids teaching Darwin’s theories as dogma.
But what the center calls a compromise, most scientists call a creationist agenda that’s couched in the language of science.
There is no significant controversy to teach, they say.
“You’re lying to students if you tell them that scientists are debating whether evolution took place,” said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit group that defends teaching of evolution in school.
The Discovery Institute, she said, is leading a public-relations campaign, not a scientific endeavor.
The Discovery Institute is one of the leading organizations working nationally to change how evolution is taught. It works as an adviser, resource and sometimes a critic with those who have similar views.
“There are a hundred ways to get this wrong,” says Meyer. “And only a few to get them right.”
Read More ›Stephen Meyer Responds to Michael Shermer’s Falsehoods in the Los Angeles Times
In an op-ed in the March 29 Los Angeles Times Michael Shermer claims that after a recent debate with him at Westminster College I admitted that “suboptimal designs and deadly disease are not examples of an unintelligent or malevolent designer, but instead were caused by “the Fall” in the “Garden of Eden.” Michael Shermer is misrepresenting my position and putting Read More ›