forgive me for editing your headline, but i couldn't restrain myself....
In a stunning upset victory for common sense, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a lawsuit against a high school history teacher brought by one of his students who complained the teacher said in class that Creationism is “religious, superstitious nonsense.” [more]
Watching a curvaceous woman can feel like a reward in the brain of men, much as drinking alcohol or taking drugs might, research now reveals.[more]
In a new survey, a quarter of Britons say they believe Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is "definitely true," with another quarter saying it is "probably true." That left half of the 2,060 people surveyed stating they were either strongly opposed to the theory or confused about it. That's how the survey was presented in The Guardian, with a headline claiming "half of Britons do not believe in evolution."
To those who know evolution to be a solid scientific theory, this poll might seem a glum assessment of public opinion. But let's break that latter half down, as the Guardian subsequently did:...
[more]
PARIS (Reuters) - Europe's main human rights body will vote next week on a resolution opposing the teaching of creationist and intelligent design views in school science classes.
The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly will debate a resolution saying attacks on the theory of evolution were rooted "in forms of religious extremism" and amounted to a dangerous assault on science and human rights.
we start with that and we say what's the best explanation for this elegant and sophisticated machinery that we find in life? and in our experience, whenever we see such sophistication and such functional integrity, we have always found it to be the result of purposeful design.then he spoke about falsification, which is an essential element of a scientific theory:
intelligent design...can be falsified: ...if it could be shown that some sophisticated molecular machine such as we find in the cell could be produced by random mutation and natural selection, then that would show that intelligence was not necessary to produce it. so all one has to do is for a scientist to go into his lab and show that darwin's mechanism—random mutation and natural selection—can do what has been claimed for it. ...on the other hand...it's real difficult to falsify the darwin claim that random mutation and natural selection can account for the complexity that we've found in life....let me take that last quote first because i can handle it so quickly. all i have to do is move the word "not": change "could be produced by random mutation and natural selection" to "could not be produced by..." and "intelligence was not necessary" to "intelligence was necessary."
Instead of spending more than $1 million a year on publishing books and articles for non-scientists and on other public relations efforts, the Discovery Institute should finance its own peer-reviewed electronic journal. This way, the organization could live up to its self-professed image: the doughty defenders of brave iconoclasts bucking the establishment.
For now, though, the theory they are promoting is exactly what George Gilder, a long-time affiliate of the Discovery Institute, has said it is: "Intelligent design itself does not have any content."
Since there is no content, there is no "controversy" to teach about in biology class. But here is a good topic for a high school course on current events and politics: Is intelligent design a hoax? And if so, how was it perpetrated?
—Daniel C. Dennett, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, author of "Freedom Evolves" and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea."
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