Just last week, I was having coffee downtown with my old friend, Arnold, and we began to talk about finances. Arnold told me that after we finished our coffee he was heading over to the bank to take out a loan to buy a car. Now, Arnold already owns two cars, so I asked him why he needed another one. Read More ›
Betrayal is not too strong a term. The president’s May 19 speech turned Israel upside down. It was a shocking sellout of our only reliable Mideast ally, and can only energize Palestinian maximalist sentiments. There are two money paragraphs of Obama’s May 19 speech. First, on final borders: The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian Read More ›
When I was in high school laying a roof on my family’s 100-year-old hardware store, I watched trains as they screeched under the Hewitt Trestle in Everett and thought they were a nuisance. Now I think they are a godsend. Snohomish County pioneers certainly thought so. Arriving by horse-drawn wagon or ship and hauling gear over muddy roads was a Read More ›
The Center for Bioethics and Culture asked me to expand upon comments I have made here noting that the politics of ESCR seem to have the power to supersede the rule of law. Not being the shy and retiring type, I immediately agreed. The result is now out. From “Embryonic Stem Cell Research Versus the Rule of Law:” First, let’s consider Read More ›
Jonathan Wells discusses the implications of DNA and genes on God and evolution, along the way addressing Francis Collins’ claims about junk DNA. He concludes, there are still parts of non-protein-coding DNA for which no specific function is known. Yet new functions are constantly being discovered, so any argument for Darwinian evolution that rest on “junk DNA” must constantly retreat Read More ›
With all the sympathetic commentary about the chances of setting up republican institutions in revolt-torn Arab countries, one point is so obvious that it is rarely mentioned: Founding leaders of newly democratized states must be willing to give up power. The Middle Eastern dictators who have been or are in danger of being overthrown largely came to power through revolutions, Read More ›
According to one cynical view, academic disputes are so vicious only because the stakes are so low. Yet as the editors of Synthese, a leading philosophy journal, can tell you, what they publish matters: in debates over Christianity, the teaching of evolution, and American politics.
This story began in March 2009, when a special issue of Synthese was published online, titled “Evolution and Its Rivals.”
It was guest-edited by Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, and James H. Fetzer, a former editor of the journal. They included an essay by Barbara Forrest, of Southeastern Louisiana University, condemning the work of the philosopher Francis J. Beckwith, who believes it is constitutionally permissible, although not advisable, to teach intelligent design in public schools.
But Dr. Beckwith says he is no ally of the intelligent design movement, whose mainly Christian proponents argue that certain features of the universe are best explained by a “designer,” perhaps a god or deity, rather than by natural selection or other scientific theories.
In her essay, Dr. Forrest, known for her opposition to intelligent design, argued that Dr. Beckwith made many of intelligent design’s conceptual mistakes, and “presents I.D. exactly as I.D. leaders do.”
In language some would later criticize as unfit for a scholarly journal, Dr. Forrest also questioned Dr. Beckwith’s qualifications, writing that he takes positions on church/state issues but has “no formal credentials as a constitutional scholar.” She suggested connections between Dr. Beckwith and intelligent design theorists and the marginal, far-right Christian Reconstructionists, who believe that a theocracy under Old Testament law is the best form of government.
Read More ›One of the most renowned biologists of the nineteenth century, Alfred Russel Wallace shares credit with Charles Darwin for developing the theory of evolution by natural selection. Yet one part of Wallace’s remarkable life and career has been completely ignored: His eventual embrace of intelligent design. Read More ›
This article, published by the Huffington Post, provides a review of Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jay W. Richards’ book Money, Greed, and God. But there’s another book making the rounds among Tea Partiers, especially of the religious bent, this year that also deserves attention. Jay W. Richards’ Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem presents an evangelical Read More ›
This article, published by The Register-Guard, quotes Discovery Institute Fellow Bruce Agnew: The future is not quite so dire, said Bruce Agnew, director of the Cascadia Center, a Seattle-based transportation policy group. Amtrak carries passengers through 46 states who board and alight at stations in 500 cities across the country. Lawmakers representing all those areas have proved historical allies for Read More ›