Quantum physics is not usually accessible to the lay reader. In this case, Discovery Institute Fellow and physicist Wolfgang Smith provides a treatise that can be read not only by scientists but also by readers unacquainted with the technical literature on quantum reality. One would not accept such an accessible book from an author who graduated from Cornell University at Read More ›
London THE MOST IMPORTANT BIOETHICS LITIGATION in the world today involves a 45-year-old Englishman, Leslie Burke. He isn’t asking for very much. Burke has a progressive neurological disease that may one day deprive him of the ability to swallow. If that happens, Burke wants to receive food and water through a tube. Knowing that Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) rations Read More ›
What level of government (local, state, federal, multinational institution or none) should regulate the following: What trees you may cut on your home property; whether you may burn logs in your home fireplace; what identification you need to open a bank account in your local bank? Traditionally, it was not considered anyone else’s business, including the government’s, as to what Read More ›
This article, published by Tech Central Station, Discovery Institute Board Member William Dembski:
Read More ›Mr. McHenry also criticizes the reasoning we use to infer design in nature. He finds it intangible and asks, “Has the ID party discovered a scale by which this question [of complexity] can be answered?” The answer is “yes,” of course! This is exactly what philosopher and mathematician William A. Dembski addresses in his theoretical work The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities. It is a challenging but must read for all critics and would-be critics of ID.
We Americans celebrate several important anniversaries and commemorate a number of others, most recently the 60th anniversary of V-E Day. But a significant date went by last month with very little notice, in the press or otherwise. April 9 marked 140 years since Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Army of Northern Virginia, surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, commander Read More ›
Original Article Jeff Conner knew he had to talk to school administrators when he learned his daughter was shown a video in science class that said evolutionary researchers were not scientists, and when she was assigned an essay about her beliefs on evolution and creation. At his daughter’s middle school in Gull Lake, near Kalamazoo, two seventh-grade science instructors were Read More ›
This article, published by National Review, contains an interview with Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith:
Read More ›As the House of Representatives Tuesday votes on possibly expanding federal funding of embryonic-stem-cell research — legislation the president has promised to veto — there are some real concerns about how far we’ve already stepped into a “Brave New World.” With those concerns in mind, and a big-picture look at all the issues involved in this new world, Wesley J. Smith, a lawyer and consumer activist (friend and collaborator of Ralph Nader even!) recently produced A Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World. He addressed some of these issues Monday in an interview with NRO editor Kathryn Lopez. Bottom line: All is certainly not lost. However ….
National Review Online: With the news out of South Korea last week, are we all one step closer to designer babies?
Wesley J. Smith: Absolutely. Apparently the South Korean researcher Wu Suk Hwang has learned how to reliably create human cloned embryos. Human cloning is the essential step toward biotechnologists learning how to genetically engineer progeny, a new eugenics project that enjoys great support among futurists, bioethicists, and some within the science establishment. For example, James Watson, the co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, is a big booster of creating designer babies who have been enhanced for intelligence, health, looks, etc. There is even a nascent social movement that has formed around creating a post human species known as transhumanism. Princeton biologist Lee Silver put it this way in his book Remaking Eden: Without cloning, genetic engineering is simply science fiction. But with cloning, genetic engineering moves into the realm of reality.
This article, published by National Review, quotes Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith: “Here in California,” says Wesley J. Smith, senior fellow with the Discovery Institute, “we are sacrificing present medical needs as our emergency rooms and trauma centers are shutting down for lack of funds as we borrow hundreds of millions of dollars each year to pay corporate welfare to Read More ›
Truth Sheets about Discovery Institute File: 5 Reasons to Teach the Controversy.pdf – 116kDescription: Should we Teach Scientific Criticisms of Neo-Darwinism? Many Authorities say Yes! File: 6 myths.pdf – 60kDescription: Six Myths About Evolution Debate File: ACLU Ignore Textbooks Promoting Philosophical Materialism.pdf – 128kDescription: ACLU’s Selective and One-Sided Advocacy: Ignoring Bio Textbooks that Promote Philosophical Materialism File: ACLU Ignore Textbooks that Disparage ID.pdf – 96kDescription: ACLU’s Selective and Read More ›
University of Houston evolutionary biologist Dan Graur wrote in a May 19 letter to Nature [1]that he was “disturbed” by the magazine’s April 28 News Feature, “Who has designs on your students’ minds?” Graur objected to the fact that “the proponents of ID are mostly portrayed as a persecuted minority. They are said to be afraid to reveal their identity and Read More ›