New book does not use Darwin as light source for universe ...

It's only 78 pages. The only thing that concerns me is that so few career Darwinists have brayed against it. Maybe they got the guy confused with Stephen Hawking. Lots of people have, if you google his name.

At Amazon:

Do we understand how evolution works? In this book Steven Hawkins outlines various possible mechanisms of biological evolution - the Neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis, Symbiogenesis and Developmental Systems Theory. He contrasts and compares these various theories and proposes a view of evolution in which all three mechanisms have a role to play. In this schema 'natural selection' only has a minor role to play in biological evolution. In the final chapter Hawkins considers non-biological evolution and is drawn to conclude that we are unable to understand the fundamental nature of both non-biological evolution and biological evolution.


From the Publisher


"the interpretations surrounding the brute fact of evolution remain contentious, controversial, fractious, and acrimonious." Simon Conway Morris


"if selection could be somehow dispensed with, so that all variants survived and multiplied, the higher forms would nevertheless have arisen." H. J. Muller


"most evolutionary novelty arose and still arises directly from symbiosis." Lynn Margulis


"The universe, non-biological evolution and biological evolution are all fundamentally mysterious to us, and will remain so in the future." Steven Hawkins


In this timely work Steven Hawkins considers our current state of knowledge of the mechanisms which underpin the evolutionary process. If you currently believe that you have a good understanding of how evolution works then there is a good chance that this book will change your beliefs. After reviewing the current dominant views of how evolution works, Hawkins outlines his own favoured view according to which natural selection is not the main mechanism of speciation. However, Hawkins finally concludes that the view of evolution that one has is a sign not of how evolution actually works, but of how one conceives of oneself and of how one conceives of the universe around one.

That last sentence shuldbe enough to sink Darwinism.

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Sensitive to the “offended” = indifferent to violence?

Blazing Cat Fur tells me about the unsettling connections of a Canadian Muslim magazine:

TheMuslim.ca Publishes a HIZB UT-TAHRIR Terrorist Screed calling for Islamist Rule in Tunisia.


[ ... ]


Jawed Anwar, publisher of TheMuslim served as a chair of the Thorncliffe Park Elementary school through 2010.

An ... elementary school?

Like many who have followed the show trials of Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, I am most dismayed by the ease with which violent politics is now accepted in Canada, when initiated by disaffected groups professing Islam - yet, right as rain, the official promoters of anti-racism and diversity persecute prominent figures over trifles.

Of course, the reason is obvious: The “human rights” establishment can quite safely ruin a person’s life and reputation over nothing because everything thinks either “at least it’s not me they’re after”. Or “he must have done something bad to deserve it.” Or maybe, “I’m too smart for that.” Or “I’m too nice.” This is how a country quietly divest itself of democracy - it breeds citizens who don’t deserve freedom and cannot live up to the obligations of maintaining it.

This is not a question of the right to publish Islamist literature, but rather of the fact that there is no social accountability for doing so. That is, no one must retire voluntarily from public life as a result of displays of anti-Semitism or advocacy of legal systems that offer fewer rights for women. That has been the problem all along. Legal accountability alone will not save freedom, even if it were exercised.

Blazing also asks me to link to this Pro-Israel blog contest.