Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy: Tell me something else I don't know ...

Academic Freedom Update: California Science Center Engaged in Illegal Cover-Up

This episode of ID the Future features an academic freedom update on the California Science Center's cancellation last October of a screening of a pro-ID film, Darwin's Dilemma, by a private group. How does a government agency try to evade its obligations to the First Amendment? By suppressing information. Listen in to learn about the evidence that the Discovery Institute has uncovered in its lawsuit against the Science Center.

Go here to listen.

Well, of course they cancelled it. I cannot imagine why anyone would doubt that outcome.

Look, when I first started blogging - the only real news media today - I had to deal with the controversy over the Smithsonian withdrawing support for the screening of Privileged Planet. Go here for more.

But the Smithsonian was the famed institution where Walcott basically did nothing for decades about the critical evidence from the Cambrian evolution that showed that Darwinism is wrong.

If that's the science we want, fine. Our taxes pay for it.

Another podcast:

Rodney LeVake: Expelled Science Teacher, Part 1

On this episode of ID The Future, CSC’s Casey Luskin interviews Rodney LeVake, the plaintiff in the Academic Freedom court case LeVake vs. Independent School District #656. LeVake, a former high school biology teacher, informally expressed doubts about evolution to a colleague who then reported him to the principal. LeVake ended up losing his biology position, not because he taught creationism or intelligent design, but merely because he expressed reservations about evolution to a colleague. Listen as he tells his story of clear academic persecution.

Go here to listen.

But what else is new? If LeVake had expressed doubts about the decline of bears* in Canada, he would have run into the same problem. Once a supposed "science" theory has become a big time theory-a-rama, you don't need evidence. You just need to keep inciting the base of people who are either paid or pay to support you. And administration is easily cowed.

So why don't they all seek work in the dairy industry?

Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy

1. On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin examines a new peer-reviewed paper that demolishes a very common and very fallacious objection to intelligent design. That objection? “Aren’t there vast eons of time for evolution?”

Go here to listen.

For more information on this and other peer-reviewed papers relating to intelligent design, visit Evolution News & Views at www.evolutionnews.org.

[My comment: I would have thought that lottery scandals had long ago demolished the idea that just anything can happen in a given space of time - apart from design. Oh, wait! If you believe otherwise, shouldn't you continue to buy government-sponsored lottery tickets, no matter what? I would not recommend that any skeptic cdo it, but othesPlease do. I would not recommend that anyone else do it, of course, but others are entitled to their opinions ... .]

2.

Biomimetics and the Positive Implications for Intelligent Design
Click here to listen.

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin looks at Biomimetics, a new movement in science that adapts designs from nature to solve problems in engineering, materials science, medicine, and other fields. While engineers and other researchers turn to nature for guidance and inspiration in producing human technology, the positive implications for intelligent design grow. Should scientists consider the possibility that biological systems, which outperform human technology, were intelligently designed? Listen in and find out.

For more information on Biomimetics, check out Biologic Institute's blog here.

For the National Geographic article Luskin cites, click here.

[My comment: Darwinism is dead, so far as I can see, but there are two practical problems: 1) How to deal with all the Darwinist tax burdens and the legal cases that they front, and 2) how to proceed. The former is purely a political and legal problem, the latter not so much. ]

Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy

Scientocracy Rules

Welcome to the Scientocracy, where unless you fully accede to the consensus view, then your opinion not only doesn’t matter, it might even be dangerous. On this episode of ID the Future Casey Luskin shows how a recent move to redefine scientific literacy from an understanding of science into wholesale capitulation to the “consensus” damages true scientific literacy - including the right to debate and dissent.

Go here to listen.

Luskin's article appeared in Salvo Magazine's Winter 2009 issue. For more information on Salvo, go here.

Well, all I can say is, first, I write the Deprogram column for that mag (not usually on line), and second, that the mag is one of the few that is not dedicated to simply fronting an establishment consensus about Darwinism.

2. Okay, also,

Why Consensus Doesn't Count

Darwinists often point out that Darwin’s theory is supported by a majority of scientists and so only the evidence that supports the theory should be presented to students. On this episode of ID The Future, CSC’s John West explains that when it comes to setting public policy, dissenting views on science can be critically important and should be encouraged.

Go here to listen.

Basically, consensus is for herding sheep. When you want to hear evidence for the value of consensus, always ask a sheep.

3. Plus

200 Years After Darwin -- What Didn't Darwin Know?

This special video episode of ID the Future celebrates Darwin Day with a look back at the man and his theory by three scientists and scholars who join in the scientific dissent from evolution.

Biologist Jonathan Wells, author and M.D. Geoffrey Simmons, and molecular biologist Douglas Axe shed light on the problems with Darwin's theory as they share what led each of them to their skepticism.

Jonathan Wells first became skeptical of Darwin's mechanism of natural selection, but it was in his studies in embryology that he became skeptical of common ancestry. Dr. Wells takes a historical look at the impact of Darwin's theory and discusses how unnecessary it is for modern science.

Geoffrey Simmons, M.D., explains how he became a Darwin skeptic after looking at the evidence and finding the evidence for evolution lacking.

And molecular biologist Douglas Axe from Biologic Institute explains the problems genetic mutations pose for Darwin's theory.

Listen in to their stories and appreciate again the scientific evidence against Darwin's theory.

Well, of course. Go here to listen.

It’s far easier to think of evidence against the Darwin nonsense than to explain its hold on the public. Oh, wait ... Darwinism is both tax-supported and a get-out–of-jail-free card. (Like, it’s not you who did it, it is your selfish genes and/or your ancestral ape heritage.)

Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy

1. What makes Darwinism politically correct?

This episode of ID the Future features Robert Crowther interviewing CSC senior fellow Dr. Jonathan Wells on his book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. Dr. Wells explains the peer-pressure involved with Darwin's theory and shares from his studies in 19th century Darwinian controversies and evolutionary development at Yale and UC Berkeley, respectively.

Listen here.

The book's Web site is here.

In my view, Darwinism is politically correct because it is a tax-funded racket parasitizing real science. It attracts the sort of people who like free form speculation about the tyrannosaur's parenting skills, Neanderthal man's sex life and why homo sapiens (modern man) believes in God (not because some had an encounter with God, of course; such an idea could never be entertained).

2. The Design of Life: What the Evidence of Biological Systems Reveals

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin discusses The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems with author Dr. William Dembski. Is design in nature just an "illusion," as Richard Dawkins proclaims? Dembski and co-author Dr. Jonathan Wells show the answer is "no." Biologists have and continue to use the assumption of design successfully, precisely because design in biology is not an illusion but real.

Listen here. Design is not an illusion, but then neither is the cushy position that current society grants to people who claim it is. Almost any other position, no matter how ridiculous, can be fronted (space aliens, multiple universes ... and I suspect that is only a start.)

3. How to teach responsibly without getting sued?

This episode of ID the Future features Casey Luskin interviewed by Kevin Wirth on the key legal cases involving teachers teaching evolution. What does the case law say about teachers' rights and free speech?

Luskin, a lawyer with a science background, published a survey of case law in Hamline University Law Review to help the public understand what the courts have ruled on the topic of teaching origins.

This survey of twenty-one cases investigates the question many teacher, parents, and students ask: what is legal when it comes to teaching evolution? Can public schools teach scientific critiques of evolution? What does Discovery Institute recommend for teaching in schools? Find out by downloading the survey of case law here.

Listen here.

What the Discovery Institute endorses? You'd never know it from what you read. Two reasons I realized years ago that the legacy mainstream media are gone cats are

a) the inability of the average reporter to get certain basic facts straight, for example:

Doubts about Darwin do not turn on the age of the Earth, but on implausible claims about the origin of high levels of information - you know, the jumbo jet slowly materializes from the scrap heap, with no intelligent input at all ... And so does the trilobite and the tyrannosaur, and man. And that Alfa Romeo you always wanted (but you had to buy a minivan when your wife had twins)? Yeah, really.

b) passive, gullible acceptance of completely stupid claims about human psychology, whose only purpose is to prop up Darwinism.

As I wrote to some friends recently:

I have said this many times, but indulge me while I say it again: The “big bazooms” theory of human evolution – taken seriously by Psychology Today as the biggest truth – is a classic in the field.

Allegedly, men prefer well-endowed women so that their selfish genes can determine whether the woman is fertile.

Oh? So it has nothing to do with the reasons many men prefer big steaks, big mugs of beer, SUVs vs. Golf Minis, bagging a moose vs. bagging a prairie chicken?

Who knew? Who could ever have guessed?

As I have pointed out elsewhere, animals show similar preferences to people.

Wolf packs prefer bringing down a caribou or a beefalo to bringing down a deer. The deer is as much trouble to chase, but doesn’t give anywhere near the number of servings.

So if we want to talk about the evolution of the preference for abundance vs. non-abundance, we must go way, way back into mammal or vertebrate evolution. No need to spend a lot of time with Old Stone Age Man.

The only reason for the Darwinist's Old Stone Age Man schtick is to find a question that “evolutionary” psychology can supposedly answer in a materialist way.

I have yet to see it perform better than psychology in real time.

Yet sponsored Darwinist nonsense is everywhere now, and it corrupts both thinking and behaviour.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy, with brief comments

1. The Positive Case for Intelligent Design

Listen here.

What exactly is the positive argument for intelligent design? This episode of ID the Future is taken from a recent lecture on intelligent design given by Casey Luskin. Because of the way the media misrepresents the issue, even those who may be predisposed to support ID don't understand what the theory actually is. Listen in to discover what the scientific theory of intelligent design really entails.

Actually, all that it really entails is what most humans have always noticed - that there is design in life, as well as iron law and brute chance. Just how science ended up supporting some unbelievable alternative position will doubtless be the subject of many dissertations and pop books in decades to come.

2. Doubting Darwin on His Anniversary

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As On the Origin of Species hits its 150th anniversary tomorrow and we witness the height of focused media attention on Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, why do so many remain unconvinced? On this episode of ID the Future, CSC Associate Director John West explains the good reasons people have for rejecting Darwinian evolution, based on both the scientific evidence and the way it purports to overthrow long-cherished ideas about human dignity, morality, and God.

Why hasn't Darwin convinced everyone after all these years? Listen in and find out.

In my experience, sensible people don't believe what is not believable, and the miracles of Darwinian evolution are right up there with 9-11 truthers and the Face on Mars.

Besides which, the Darwinist is not long into his rant before he proclaims that we are 98% chimp and we only flatter ourselves that we are smarter than chimps, and - often - that there are too many of us anyway.

The first two propositions are clearly untrue on the evidence. The third is a matter of simple opinion. Now that the UN is proclaiming a war on obesity in the Third World, we are not haunted by the spectre of starvation as much as formerly, are we? So "too many" is not an objective calculation - merely opinion about what's important. Anyone can get a free card and join that game.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy: