op-ed

referee yellow card.jpg
referee yellow card

Pro-Darwin Consensus Doesn’t Rule Out Intelligent Design

CNN — While we officially celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” on November 24, celebrations of Darwin’s legacy have actually been building in intensity for several years. Darwin is not just an important 19th century scientific thinker. Increasingly, he is a cultural icon. Darwin is the subject of adulation that teeters on Read More ›

motor-flagellum-AdobeStock_115615481

Not By Chance

In December 2004, a renowned British philosopher, Antony Flew, made worldwide news when he repudiated a lifelong commitment to atheism, citing among other factors, evidence of intelligent design in the DNA molecule. In December, the ACLU filed suit to prevent a Dover, Penn. school district from informing its students about the theory of intelligent design. And in February, The Wall Street Journal reported that an evolutionary biologist with two doctorates had been punished for publishing a peer-reviewed scientific article making a case for this same theory. More recently, the Pope, the President of the United States and the Dalai Lama have each weighed in on the subject. But what is this theory of intelligent design? And why does it arouse such passion and inspire such apparently determined efforts to suppress it? Read More ›
Students listening to teacher
Back view of group of students attending math class and listening to teacher who sits on top of desk

How Should Schools Handle Evolution? Debate it

Though many have portrayed the hearings that led to the Kansas policy as a re-run of the Scopes trial, the reality is much different. Rather than prohibiting teachers from teaching about evolution (as Tennessee law did for John Scopes in 1925), Kansas is poised to adopt a policy that would enable students to learn more about the topic. Read More ›
business debate

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 ›

graffiti-ou-street-art-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Graffiti ou street art

All Those Darwinian Doubts

The defense of Darwin's theory of evolution has now fallen into the hands of biologists who believe in suppressing criticism when possible and ignoring it when not. It is not a strategy calculated in induce confidence in the scientific method. Read More ›
lake-cairn-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Lake cairn

Signs of Intelligence

According to media reports and the judge in Pennsylvania, the theory is just a "faith-based" alternative to evolution, based solely on religion rather than scientific evidence. But is this accurate? As one of the architects of the theory, I know it's not. Read More ›