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It’’s not Darwin who’’s in the wrong, it’’s his supporters

Darwin’’s theory of evolution has always got under people’’s skin. Darwin himself sensed it, and held off publication for years for fear of the response it might spark. His fears were well-placed: even now, more than 150 years since his treatise appeared, bitter arguments still rage over its implications. They are not all fuelled by fundamentalist Christians insisting that the Read More ›

Response to Jerry Coyne’s Review of Icons of Evolution

On April 12, 2001, Nature published a review of Jonathan Wells’s book, Icons of Evolution, by University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne. (Nature 410, 745-746). About half of Coyne’s review consists of personal attacks on Wells, while most of the other half took exception with Wells’s criticism of the way Darwinists use distorted drawings of vertebrate embryos to Read More ›

NW Spin Off For Amtrak?

As the nation's Amtrak system threatens to go off the rails financially, transportation officials in Washington and Oregon are hoping to fashion a regional passenger rail line from the wreckage. On Feb. 7 the Amtrak Reform Council, established by Congress to determine if Amtrak could support itself, will present to Congress and the White House its proposal to reorganize the system. Bruce Chapman, the council's only West Coast board member and also president of Seattle-based Discovery Institute, said the council will advocate spinning off the more successful regional operations, such as the Northwest rail service running between Eugene, Ore., and Vancouver, B.C. "Our suggestion is that Amtrak be replaced with a series of corridor-based entities," Chapman said in an interview. "Most people on the Amtrak Reform Council anticipate the Northwest would be an entity unto itself." Read More ›

Inherit the Wind

You know the story, the play, the movie–all based on a piece of American history. It starts when a high school biology teacher in a small, rural American community begins teaching his classes about a theory of man’s origins that defies conventional beliefs. The teacher asks his students to examine the fossil record and draw their own conclusions. He traces Read More ›

Was Darwin Right After All?

The headline on the MSNBC Web site proclaimed, “Darwin Vindicated!” In the article that followed, Arthur Caplan, a nationally noted professor of bioethics and molecular and cellular engineering, proclaimed what he thought was the most important finding to emerge from human genome research: “The genome reveals, indisputably and beyond any serious doubt, that Darwin was right — mankind evolved over Read More ›

A Map to Nowhere

The principal actors had appeared in the White House last June — Francis Collins of the National Human Genome Research Institute, and J. Craig Venter of Celera Genomics. Now they were back with a supporting cast and a more detailed analysis, in the Capital Hilton Hotel, with the TV lights glinting off the ballroom chandeliers, 250 journalists packed into the hot Read More ›

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The “”New”” Creationism

Public tirades by dogmatic Darwinists about intelligent design theory are always useful. Such acts expose any remaining pretenses of their objectivity. Science writer Robert Wright’’s response to the New York Times story (April 8, 2001) on design theory is particularly delightful. In sum, Wright argues that ID is just a marketing strategy, its advocates are simpletons who don’t understand the Read More ›

George Gilder of Discovery Institute Tells Washington Leaders: ‘Broadband Is Crucial to the Struggle Ahead’

WASHINGTON, October 23, 2001 – “A strong economy is a must if the government is to afford to wage war on terrorism, strengthen our homeland defenses and mount major public health initiatives,” George Gilder told senior White House staff, Congressional leaders and journalists on Tuesday. “Broadband is crucial, short-term and long-term, to reviving this economy–and imperative if we are to Read More ›

Seattle as Metaphor

Philip Gold, Weekly Standard, subtitle: The battle, the rattle, and now the skedaddle, NULL Read More ›