Brain evolution gene?: Move over already yet, gay gene, fat gene, and God gene!

Cleaning out the intray here: In "Why Darwinism is doomed" (September 27, 2006), Jonathan Wells brought up another good reason for skepticism about pop science media (unless you are willing to believe pretty much any scambo that purports to "support evolution") - the brain evolution gene:

On Aug. 17, the pro-Darwin magazine Nature reported that scientists had just found the "brain evolution gene." There is circumstantial evidence that this gene may be involved in brain development in embryos, and it is surprisingly different in humans and chimpanzees. According to Nature, the gene may thus harbor "the secret of what makes humans different from our nearest primate relatives."

Three things are remarkable about this report. First, it implicitly acknowledges that the evidence for Darwinism was never as overwhelming as its defenders claim. It has been almost 30 years since Gould wrote that biology accounts for human nature, yet Darwinists are just now turning up a gene that may have been involved in brain evolution.

Second, embryologists know that a single gene cannot account for the origin of the human brain. Genes involved in embryo development typically have multiple effects, and complex organs such as the brain are influenced by many genes. The simple-mindedness of the "brain evolution gene" story is breathtaking.

Third, the only thing scientists demonstrated in this case was a correlation between a genetic difference and brain size. Every scientist knows, however, that correlation is not the same as causation. Among elementary school children, reading ability is correlated with shoe size, but this is because young schoolchildren with small feet have not yet learned to read – not because larger feet cause a student to read better or because reading makes the feet grow. Similarly, a genetic difference between humans and chimps cannot tell us anything about what caused differences in their brains unless we know what the gene actually does. In this case, as Nature reports, "what the gene does is a mystery."

What the "brain evolution gene" does for thinking is what chocolate bars do for nutrition: Leave people with a big, satisfied feeling. It's so good, it doesn't need to be useful.

Wells is author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design" (Regnery, 2006) and Icons of Evolution (Regnery, 2000).

Another ex-dhimmi for Darwin ...

Heck, the ex-dhimmis for Darwin movement has DOUBLED in size already!

I just received this message from Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design:

There was a time when I would half-heartedly join in the chorus that praises Darwin as a great scientist, even though some of his ideas were mistaken. Now, when I look for Darwin's positive contributions to biology, I see only that he made a persuasive case that something analogous to artificial selection operates in natural populations (a case also made by others, including A.R. Wallace). That and a few minor studies on barnacles, orchids, and such. But natural selection has never been shown to accomplish anything more than its artificial counterpart -- which is to say minor changes within existing species.

All of Darwin's Big Ideas -- universal common ancestry, the origin of species by natural selection, inheritance by pangenesis -- are dead or dying. The last (pangenesis) has been disproved as decisively as any scientific hypothesis can be disproved; the second (speciation by natural selection) has never been observed, and all attempts to demonstrate it have failed; and the first (universal common ancestry, or UCA) has serious and growing problems with the evidence.

Darwin's principal "evidence" for UCA was anatomical homology. Yet the scientists who first observed homology attributed it to common design, and Darwin's followers merely turned it into a circular argument (similarity due to common ancestry is due to common ancestry). But if homology were solid evidence FOR common ancestry then homoplasy (=similarity NOT due to common ancestry) would be solid evidence AGAINST it. And despite their incessant boast that UCA is a "fact" beyond dispute, modern Darwinists have had to invoke increasingly esoteric molecular evidence to "prove" it – while they ignore the growing molecular evidence against it.

No, Darwin was not a great biologist, any more than Marx was a great economist. Darwin was wrong in everything that really mattered, and blind devotion to his mistaken ideas by his philosophically driven followers may turn out to be the most destructive science stopper in history.

I come to bury Darwin, not to praise him; the evil that he did lives after him...

Jonathan Wells

Note: The point isn't that one used to be a Darwin fanatic and now is not. I was never a Darwin fanatic. But I was willing to play the social ambulance - pretending that Darwin wasn't a racist or that the eugenics movement and later the Holocaust had nothing whatever to do with the ideas advanced as science by his supporters. I'm not doing that any more just to be nice.

You know how the CIA liked to say about certain vicious dictators: "He's a bastard, but he's OUR bastard?" Well, after reading John West's Darwin Day in America, I realized: That old man was a bastard, but he isn't MY old man, so I don't owe him or his anything. I can just call the story like I see it from now on.

Intelligent design and popular culture: Czech translation of "politically incorrect" guide to Darwinism and intelligent design

Go here if you read Czech, otherwise, go here.

Textbook watch: Why pretend that textbooks have not gone well beyond the evidence in promoting Darwin's theory?

Recently, the following comment appeared in the combox for "Marsupial frogs: Another reason to check out of Darwinism", which I reproduce here for your convenience, and then provide a response from Jonathan Wells:

Lance Duval has left a new comment on your post "Marsupial frogs: Another reason to check out of Darwinism":
As for 1) Can you be clear exactly which homologous feature is (or is not) developing, I did not quite understand what your are trying to get at.

As for 2), that is not Darwinism, but Haeckelism. Haeckel believed that embryo development would "play" through the stages, i.e. that in a human embryo we would see a fish stage, followed by a frog, and then onto a mammalian stage. This nonsense was never considered mainstream biological science and has not appeared in any textbooks since the 1920s.

For more information about the way that the Discovery Institute has seized apon Haeckelism as a straw-man for modern evolutionary theories.

Enjoy this examination of Wells' poor scholarship on Haeckel's drawings.

Now, Jonathan Wells is possibly the most hated of the ID guys because his books, Icons of Evolution and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, catalogue many unsubstantiable claims in recent textbooks. So I asked Wells for a response, and here it is, unvarnished:

Lance Duval really should do his homework. Here are some quotes you might find useful (all of them in Icons of Evolution, 2000):
(a) Lance Duval: “that is not Darwinism, but Haeckelism.”

Charles Darwin: “It seems to me,” Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species, “the leading facts in embryology, which are second to none in importance, are explained on the principle of variations in the many descendants from some one ancient progenitor.” And those leading facts, according to him, were that “the embryos of the most distinct species belonging to the same class are closely similar, but become, when fully developed, widely dissimilar.” Reasoning that “community in embryonic structure reveals community of descent,” Darwin concluded: “it is probable, from what we know of the embryos of mammals, birds, fishes and reptiles, that these animals are the modified descendants of some ancient progenitor,” and that early embryos “show us, more or less completely, the condition of the progenitor of the whole group in its adult state.” In The Descent of Man, Darwin extended the inference to humans: “The [human] embryo itself at a very early period can hardly be distinguished from that of other members of the vertebrate kingdom.” Since humans and other vertebrates “pass through the same early stages of development,... we ought frankly to admit their community of descent.” (Origin of Species, Chapter XIV; Descent of Man, Chapter I)

(b) Lance Duval: "This nonsense was never considered mainstream biological science and has not appeared in any textbooks since the 1920s."

B. I. Balinsky, An Introduction to Embryology (1975), pp. 7-8: “Features of ancient origin develop early in ontogeny; features of newer origin develop late. Hence, the ontogenetic development presents the various features of the animal’s organization in the same sequence as they evolved during the phylogenetic development. Ontogeny is a recapitulation of phylogeny.” [emphasis in original]

Bruce Alberts, et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell (1994), pp. 32-33: “Embryos of different species so often resemble each other in their early stages and, as they develop, seem sometimes to replay the steps of evolution.”

Peter Raven & George Johnson, Biology (1999), p. 416: “Some of the strongest anatomical evidence supporting evolution comes from comparisons of how organisms develop. In many cases, the evolutionary history of an organism can be seen to unfold during its development, with the embryo exhibiting characteristics of the embryos of its ancestors.”

Will the real "poor scholar" please stand up...

This exchange reminds me of a similar claim by Flock of Dodos filmmaker Randy Olson that Haeckel's fraudulent series of vertebrate embryos d not appear in modern textbooks. As Discovery Institute's John West and Casey Luskin note,

Were Ernst Haeckel’s bogus embryo diagrams ever used in modern textbooks to prove evolution? Not according to filmmaker Randy Olson, who in his film Flock of Dodos portrays biologist Jonathan Wells as a fraud for claiming in the book Icons of Evolution (2000) that modern biology textbooks continued to reprint Haeckel-based drawings.

But it turns out that Olson is the one who is promoting a fraud. The diagrams in question were unquestionably used in modern textbooks, and Olson himself knows that fact.

[ ... ]

Olson’s botched coverage of Haeckel’s embryo drawings may have been due initially to ignorance and sloppiness. Although in his film Olson claims to have read Wells’ book Icons of Evolution, he shows little indication of having actually done so. Since Wells’ book provides extensive documentation of the textbooks that have recycled Haeckel’s diagrams, it would have been easy for Olson to have checked the relevant textbooks if he doubted Wells’ account. But the excuse of ignorance no longer applies. At a pre-release screening of Olson’s film at the Scripps Institution for Oceanography in San Diego in April, 2006, Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin confronted Olson with copies of recent textbooks that reused Haeckel’s drawings. Later Jonathan Wells sent Olson an e-mail providing a list of recent textbooks that have included the diagrams. Olson has been informed of the facts, but he has chosen to keep hoaxing his audiences.

The question that has always puzzled me is why, exactly? Why this cognitive dissonance about something that is so easy for others to discover the truth about? Clearly, these people need to believe that the textbooks do not mislead even when they clearly and obviously do.

Most doctors who have been in practice for more than 25 years probably studied from textbooks that are considered dated today. Think of "hormone replacement therapy" for example. Do doctors insist that the previous generation's protocols never at any time advocated it? Of course not. Medical science learns from its mistakes and moves on.

But Darwinists and their friends, as I have frequently had occasion to observe, are not defending a science, as the doctors are; they are defending a religion - the Book of Genesis of materialism. It is for precisely that reason that the textbooks that promote Darwinism must be holy writ, free of vulgar error (or the vulgar error must have been committed so long ago old that no one alive is likely to be misled by it). And if that's not factually true, the position must be maintained anyway as an act of faith.

No wonder there is an intelligent design controversy.

I put up a bunch of news items and such yesterday here.

(Note: Duval's comment may have been made some weeks ago. 50 or 60 comments were waiting for me when Google stealthily moved my blogs to New Blogger, and I found out about it Monday or so. Some of the messages were pretty old. I think I have got rid of most of the offers for weight loss, hair gain, and business partnerships with the widows of foreign thugs. I have embedded Duval's links to avoid margin width issues. New Blogger is actually quite nice. It automatically offers a tag, for example.)

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My review of sci-fi great Rob Sawyer’s novel, The Calculating God , which addresses the concept of intelligent design. Also, my reviews of possibly ID-related films, etc.

My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God , my backgrounder about peer review issues, or the evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin and of academic ID publications.

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment will be accepted if I think they contribute to a discussion. For best results, give your name or some idea who you are and why we should care. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God , my backgrounder about peer review issues, or the evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin and of academic ID publications.

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment will be accepted if I think they contribute to a discussion. For best results, give your name or some idea who you are and why we should care. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Thinkquote of the day: The Florida ID conference

ID guy Jonathan Wells tells me,

On Friday evening, September 29, 2006, several of us (Mike Behe, Bill Dembski, Ralph Seelke and myself) spoke to a crowd of almost 4,000 people at the University of South Florida's Sun Dome in Tampa, usually devoted to sports events such as basketball games. The event was sponsored by Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity (PSSI) . It was organized by some hard-working volunteers.

THe doctor- run Florida ID conference was a hit. The audience consisted almost entirely of people seriously interested in learning about ID -- including students, faculty, and parents. There were a few Darwinists present, who contented themselves largely with handing out leaflets ("ID Is Not Science") and shouting "Darwin" as they skulked out of the Sun Dome. True to form, the USF biology department officially boycotted the event, which was carried live on a local radio station.

Ah yes. If I went to interview the bio profs at USF, they would likely castigate the public for science ignorance. But science is not what the public disclaims, but rather universal Darwinsm, and that is not really about science.

Incidentally, it makes a great deal of difference that doctors doubt Darwin. Doctors are the science pros whose opinion the public most values. When was the last time an evolutionary biologist saved your life or made any material contribution to your well-being?

Wells is the author of Icons of Evolution and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being granted tenure at Baylor after a long struggle - even after helping in a small way to destroy the Baylor Bears' ancient glory - in the opinion of a hyper sportswriter.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Thinkquote of the day: New species seldom or never observed

A key problem with the argument over Darwinian evolution (evolution by natural selection acting on random mutations) is that so few actual examples of speciation (new species forming) have ever been observed that we really have no way of knowing for sure whether Darwin had the right idea. That is precisely why acceptance of Darwinism is so often treated as some kind of loyalty test for science; in reality, the Darwinist is taking a great deal on faith.

As Jonathan Wells noted in his controversial Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design,

So except for polyploidy in plants, which is not what Darwin's theory needs, there are no observed instances of the origin of species. As evolutionary biologists Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan wrote in 2002: "Speciation, whether in the remote Galapagos, in the laboratory cages of the drosophilosophers, or in the crowded sediments of the paleontologists, still has never been directly traced." Evolution's smoking gun is still missing.

- Jonathan Wells, Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design , p. 55, quoting Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origin of Species (New York: Basic Books, p. 32)

(Note: Polyploidy is gene-swapping by the doubling of chromosomes, from which new species of plants can arise. (But it's no particular help to Darwin's theory because sexual reproduction is not involved.) Drosophilosophers is a humorous coinage for researchers who study fruit flies (drosophilus spp.).)

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being granted tenure at Baylor after a long struggle - even after helping in a small way to destroy the Baylor Bears' ancient glory - in the opinion of a hyper sportswriter.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Thinkquote of the day 2: Jonathan Wells on arguments for universal common ancestry

Whatever merits these hypotheses might have, one thing is clear: molecular phylogeny has failed, utterly and completely, to establish that universal common ancestry is true. The molecular evidence, like the fossil and embryo evidence, is plagued with inconsistencies, and Darwinism must be assumed in order to explain it; or, as is often the case, explain it away.

- from Jonathan Wells' The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design , p. 46.

My own reaction to the universal common ancestry claim at this point is similar to what I once heard a Canadian police officer say politely but firmly to a possible suspect. Not "I KNOW da Troof and it be in da BIBLE!! Canadians don't typically talk that way. He merely said, "I'm afraid you are going to have to come up with something better."

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being denied tenure at Baylor.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism: - Well, any honest guide to Darwinism today would be politically incorrect

Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution has just published The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism, updating the intelligent design controversy.

He offers a thoughtful and often ironic look at this curious moment in Western history when a culture that was not founded on materialism has recently become completely obsessed with protecting it from inevitable disconfirmation. Darwinism, the creation story of materialism, has become the flashpoint of the battle to save materialism in a universe that, in the words of physicist Sir James Jeans, is more like a great thought thought than a machine. Not surprisingly - most people actually sense that, and the committed Darwinists intellectual establishment simply cannot make North Americans accept their most fundamental ideas, such as evolution as an "unsupervised" and "impersonal" process, humans as mere animals, and concern for others simply a way to spread "selfish genes."

Wells, of course, had a front row seat for such recent controversies as the Smithsonian uproars (both the persecution of scientist Rick Sternberg and The Privileged Planet showing), and his style is easy and uncluttered. But what really makes the book both fascinating and funny is the frantic quotes from obsessed Darwinists who make quite clear that they will stop at nothing in their attempts to impose materialism on an unbelieving public. And yet they attempt to portray their victims as "horribly frightening" (a quote).

The ID guys are "horribly frightening"? Yes, but not because they wish or do any harm. But rather because more and more people are beginning to figure out what is going on. There will be an accounting. For the Darwinists, given the number of careers of honest, thoughtful scientists that they have wrecked, that will be something like what happens when the judge hears the victim impact statement.

Two things about Wells' book unsettle me, however:

Read more here.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being denied tenure at Baylor.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

New book: Politically incorrect guide to Darwinism

I gave up being politically correct a while back, when I discovered I was practically choking on my own flesh, let alone my own words - my brain was turning to mush, thinking of ways to say what I really meant without offending people I did nto even respect - so I decided it was better and safer and more sane to just be politically incorrect and call the shots as they came down. My life improved dramatically. The people I lost were never really friends.

Jonathan Wells, one of the hated ID biologists, has just written The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.

Given how much that guy is viewed as a problem for puncturing Darwinist icons - in an environment where it is not yet legal to behead unbelievers - you should buy and read this book if you think the establishment is sometimes wrong. But not if you think the establishment is always right or should always be given the benefit of the doubt, despite growing dissent. In that case, why upset yourself? There's lots of pap on legacy mainstream TV.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove's critique of Darwinism

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being denied tenure at Baylor.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

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New ID-related Research: Wells on the Centriole

Textbook critic Jonathan Wells recently published an article in science journal Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum, on the role of the centriole in cell division, “Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?”

Wells is best known and most widely denounced for his entirely appropriate criticisms of the distortions and overstatements in science textbook in defense of Darwinian evolution.

It is good to see Wells defended by Dembski .

Dembski, offering an abstract and link, writes, “Of all my colleagues in the ID movement, the one evolutionists slime the most is Jonathan Wells. It is therefore gratifying to see his article on centrioles and their design characteristics (“Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?”) appear in the latest issue of a peer-reviewed biology journal.”

Many Darwinists, stung by Wells’s revelations—which should have been no surprise, given the overall level of nonsense in textbooks ably exposed by Pamela Winnick— have spent a great deal of energy attacking him on the Internet. I suggest they go and try attacking him at Dembski’s blog in particular .... Be sure to tell Dembski you represent the forces of enlightened Darwinism. ... he likes that ... yep, he sure do ...

(Note: Incidentally, I claim the right to simply remove obsessive attacks on any person from my blog, and will not hold a court case about it. If that is your idea of blogging, start your own blog somewhere in Meltdown City, and don’t post here.)