Archive for the ‘PopEvo News’ Category

Anti-Science, evolution and climate change are now at the center of the 2012 Presidential campaign. The answers to the head-turning question, “Do you believe in evolution?” gets top media attention even though few politicians have biology training beyond Biology 101. Of course, “does life have meaning and purpose?” is the real core of the question.

The use of the term Anti-Science today has evolved to mean anti-evolution and anti-climate change. How candidates manage the “evolution” question will likely leverage an effect on the final vote next year.” Question like “Do you believe in evolution” are now one of the most dreaded types of questions on the political campaign trail. But, what is Anti-Science? As we will see, the history of the Anti-Science is an amazing saga of irony.

At the core of the Anti-Science debate is the definition of Science. The Oxford English Dictionary says that science is “a method of procedures that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.” Continue Reading

In the same way Isaac Newton discovered the physical laws of motion and gravity, Charles Darwin attempted to discover the natural laws of evolution in The Origin of Species. Natural selection became Darwin’s proposed natural law, as expressed in the title−The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

Today, Darwin’s theory of evolution is promoted as a “fact” that accepted by “all scientists”. Evolution as a “fact”, not theory, is center stage in the realm of politics. The media hammered presidential candidate Rick Perry for stating that evolution is “just a theory”. Ironically, though, the facts of evolution continue to elude even the vast majority of the most educated in Western society.

In an article published in BioEssays (2011) entitled “Why is it so difficult to accept Darwin’s theory of evolution?” Jacques Dubochet, professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, was amazed to discover that less than 20% of attendees to a celebration of Darwin’s 200th birthday could “[w]rite down in a few words, the essential elements of Darwin’s theory of evolution”. Continue Reading

On the 2012 presidential campaign tour in New Hampshire, the current Republican front-runner, Texas Governor Rick Perry, set off a media firestorm  responding to a question from a boy as prompted by his mother about the age of the Earth and evolution.

“I hear your mom was asking about evolution,” Perry said. “That’s a theory that is out there — and it’s got some gaps in it.” Continue Reading

This past week at a New Hampshire campaign event, Rick Perry was asked about his views of evolution by a boy, ushered up to the front by his mother, “do you believe in evolution?”

“It’s a theory hat’s out there,” Perry replied. “It’s got some gaps in it. In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution.” Perry went on to explain: “I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.”

The Washington Post wasted no time to launch a panel debate hosted by Sally Quinn entitled “On  evolution, can religion evolve?” The infamous atheist from the UK, Richard Dawkins, quickly joined the debate noting “There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office… Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters”. At stake is the challenge by non-evolutionist to of critical thinking in public schools. Continue Reading

In a letter to Hugh Falconer in October 1862, Charles Darwin wrote, “I look at it as absolutely certain that very much in the Origin will be proved to be rubbish.”

Since the publication of the first edition of The Origin of Species in November 1859, attempts over the past 150 years to avoid fulfilling Darwin’s own prediction have largely been a failure, according to an article in The New York Times —at least in the classroom.

In the Times article “On Evolution, Biology Teachers Stray From Lesson Plan,” free-lance writer Nicholas Bakalar notes “that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology.”

While only 28 percent of the teachers consistently follow the recommendations, Bakalar was even more dismayed that researchers discovered that “13 percent explicitly advocate creationism, and spend at least an hour of class time presenting it in a positive light.” Continue Reading

Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian right-wing extremist, confessed to be the perpetrator of the dual terrorist attacks in Norway on 22 July 2011. The attach included the bombing of government buildings in Oslo, causing eight deaths, and a mass shooting at a camp of the Workers’ Youth League (AUF) of the Labour Party on the island of Utøya, where he killed 69 people. Others are still missing.

In his 1518-page “European Declaration of Independence,” Breivik reveals himself as a champion of modern biology and the scientific worldview, listing The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin as one of his most “important” books. (p. 1407)

“Social-darwinism was the norm before the 1950”, Breivik laments. “Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel. Now, however, we have to disguise our preferences to avoid the horrible consequences of being labeled as a genetical preferentialist.” (p. 1227) Continue reading

The following is a book review by Lisa Lewis on Darwin Then and Now, The Most Amazing Story in the History of Science  recently published in the May-June 2011 issue of Home School Enrichment Magazine:

“Looking for a textbook that teaches your high school science students about the fallacies of the theory of evolution? Darwin, Then and Now challenges the evolutionary theory with a critical examination of the science and history of evolution. Written by Professor Richard William Nelson, this book is an in-depth study of the most amazing story in the history of science, the rise of the evolutionary theory. Darwin, Then and Now, is a must-read for the home school science student. Continue Reading

National Geographic Society over the years, like nineteenth century German embryologist Ernst Haeckel, have taken the same approach—the fabrication of inventions.

Of Charles Darwin’s alleged facts in The Origin of Species, the embryo drawings by Haeckel were “by far the strongest single class of facts in favor” of the theory. Darwin explains,

Continue Reading

Tennessee House of Representatives, ruffling Charles Darwin’s feathers,  sent tremors across the realm of public education on last week on April 7. The Representatives overwhelmingly approved HB 368, sponsored by Bill Dunn (R-District 16), a measure allowing science teachers to encourage students to “develop critical thinking skills” in the science classroom.

The Senate version, SB 893, sponsored by Bo Watson (R-District 11) although discussed, has yet to be voted on, by the Senate Education Committee. Continue Reading

Stunning the intellectual elite, Anthony Flew turned on the validity of evolution.

In an Associated Press article in 2004 entitled “Famous Atheist Believes in God: One of the World’s Leading Atheists Now Believes in God”, goes on to report, “A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence.”

In his latest and last book, There is a God, How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, Flew chroniclizes his role in the atheist movement during the twentieth century in 2007. Continue Reading