Intelligent Design

The Center for Science and Culture

shane-rounce-229914-unsplash
Electric power tower showing structural complexity
Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

Is There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God?

Introduction What is implied by the concept of “an intelligently designed universe”? What does it mean on a grand scale to assert that the universe is the product of an intelligent designer? In a scientific age that exalts rationalism and chance, what empirical evidence could possibly support such a claim? As humans contemplating the immense complexity of the cosmos, might Read More ›

Why Clinton Crime Bill Doesn’t Pay

President Clinton has vowed to veto Republican attempts to rewrite last year’s crime bill. The President says Republican “block grant” proposals could kill his plan to put 100,000 new police offers on the street. Republicans should welcome this challenge. Block grants will not only give states and communities more discretion about how to spend their money, as many Republicans have Read More ›

Reason in the Balance

In his earlier book, Darwin on Trial, UC Berkeley law professor and former U.S. Supreme Court clerk Phillip Johnson took on the scientific establishment. In Reason in the Balance, Johnson spars with those of his own kind, and exposes how the legal establishment has adopted naturalistic assumptions in its thinking to exclude any mention of a creative intelligence.  Johnson, who is also Read More ›

declaration-of-independence-cropped

Human Rights: Blessed by God or Begrudged by Government

Even as the double-helix discovery, the quantum theory and the development of a polio vaccine have manifested some of man's most ennobling capabilities, the gulags and gas chambers have demonstrated with equal force that scientific prowess alone does not confirm the existence of civilization — if civilization is to be measured by a commitment to protecting human rights. Read More ›

Trouble in Political Paradise

When House Speaker Tom Foley and his GOP challenger George Nethercutt debate next week at the Gonzaga University Law School more than just Spokane will be watching-and with good reason. CPAN’s decision to carry the debate nationwide reflects a growing sense that something almost cataclysmic is happening across the American political landscape from Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts to Tom Foley’s Eastern Read More ›

hand-holding-a-wooden-frame-on-sunrise-sky-background-care-saf-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Hand holding a wooden frame on sunrise sky background. Care, saf
Licensed from Adobe Stock

The Fallacy of Contextualism

In the last several decades both philosophy and theology have increasingly taken a “contextual turn.” The contextual turn begins with the observation that all of human inquiry occurs within contexts. By itself this observation is perfectly innocuous. It is patently obvious that each of us thinks and moves within certain social, linguistic, and epistemic contexts. We are not disembodied spirits Read More ›

Frogs in a glass containers preserved and conserved in formalin.
Photo licensed via Adobe Stock

Just the Facts, Please

Here's what did happen. The Board did adopt new statewide science testing standards. Curriculum was left where it had been, in the hands of local districts. Read More ›
Photo by Daniil Kuželev

A New Design Argument

Just when scientists thought they understood how natural processes explained the order of the universe, they discovered a very special kind of complexity, called information, in nature. Experience had taught them that, wherever they found information, they could be sure of finding an intelligence behind it. As a result of 20th century discoveries, scientists are learning that the very methods they had used to discover natural causes (reasoning from experience) now point to an intelligent cause. Read More ›
The-Soul-of-Science-Pearcey-Thaxton

The Soul of Science

A metanarrative has become ingrained in our culture which states that science is the means by which we threw off our religious superstitions and entered a brave new world of reason and progress. Does this metanarrative itself need to be overthrown? In this work Discovery Institute Fellows Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton explain how Christian theism has played a vital Read More ›