Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, Caroline Crocker. Is there a pattern? Go here. Note especially this story about Gonzalez: go here.

John Patterson is one of the Iowa State faculty currently opposing ID and Guillermo Gonzalez (go here). Patterson, an avowed atheist, has a history of censoring ideas inconsistent with his atheism. As one of my colleagues reports:

According to the 26Aug2005 issue of THE WEEK (p. 20), “Researchers at Cornell University tested the effect of insecurity on men’s attitudes by giving a survey on gender identity to about 50 men. The men were then told that an analysis of the survey showed that they exhibited ‘weak’ male characteristics — indeed, that their […]

Lehigh University biologists have, just shy of a consensus, condemned intelligent design (the lone dissenter — surprise, surprise — is Michael Behe). The various anti-ID blogs (go here and here) are crowing about this, as though this vindicates their criticism of ID and, to boot, must somehow be disconcerting to us.
Quite the contrary.

Now and again I receive irate emails. The funniest of these come from Peter Pajakowski, who makes me appreciate the Polish jokes I heard growing up in Chicago. For the record, I have no shame, enjoy the attacks of critics, and think I’m completely right. So there.
Enjoy the following two letters:

When an erroneous theory is rewarded with the top prize in science, abandoning that theory is difficult. The backtracking required is an embarrassment to all.

Taking Darwin Down
Emma Schwartz
Legal Times (http://www.legaltimes.com)
08-29-2005

My friend and colleague John Mark Reynolds at Biola University has just published a piece in Touchstone titled “Séances & Science: The Lessons of the Spiritualist Challenge to Darwinism” (go here). The piece is meant as a warning to the ID movement not to repeat mistakes of the past.

If intelligence is a real causal power in the natural world that is not reducible to the law-governed interactions of matter and energy, then how can intelligent design avoid undermining science? This worry can be restated as follows:

When it comes to the evolution-ID controversy, Daniel Dennett seems to forget that he is a philosopher, foregoing rigorous argumentation for bold, but unsupported, assertions.

Just Check the ID
By Sally Jenkins
Monday, August 29, 2005
Washington Post
….Jeffrey M. Schwartz, a neuroscientist and research professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, is a believer in ID, or as he prefers to call it, “intrinsic intelligence.”

From a colleague in Greece:

In the United States, the battlefront is in the schools, on the question of evolution and creationism. If a 14-year-old student is introduced to the contingent possibility that life evolved as it did because its creator so willed it, which of the following risks, from the hard-line evolutionists’ point of view, is that student taking? […]

From an ID supporter (let’s hope he is right):

ID is in the news in Italy. The University of Milan has published an article on recent developments in ID in the U.S. (Vita e pensiero, vol. 4, September 2005). A preview of that article was published in a national newspaper called L’Avvenire, 13 August 2005, p. 23 by a journalist named Luigi Dell’Aglio, and […]

http://smh.com.au/articles/2005/08/26/1124563033629.html

“Blind Science” by Ted Byfield: http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45996

Location of incident: “European Forum Alpbach,” (http://www.alpbach.org/English/indexen.htm), work group “06: From scientific journal to breaking news: science and the media (EN)”
Date of incident: Friday August 26, 2005

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050819/OPINION02/308190001/1093
vs.
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/super.html

“We want to make sure the public and the university start to voice their opposition to intelligent design,” Avalos said. What’s next? Petitioning Guillermo to turn in his telescope? MORE

Why intelligent design theory ought to be taught
By Jonah Avriel Cohen
Of the many reasons why intelligent design – an argument I reject – ought to be taught alongside evolution in our public schools, perhaps none is more compelling than the ignorance and demagoguery which is evident in our current national debate over the issue. Below […]

We certainly don’t want to give the impression to the public that intelligent design is what we do.

Lehigh prof draws fire over intelligent design
By Christina Gostomski
The Allentown Morning Call, Pennsylvania
August 22, 2005 Monday
As a newly minted Ph.D., Michael Behe, like many young biochemists, dreamed of one day joining the distinguished and highly coveted ranks of the National Academy of Scientists.

http://www.wolfmanproductions.com/iddebate.html

Richard Sternberg interviewed by Bill O’Reilly on August 24, 2005: for transcript, go here.

[In July, George Will, a columnist I enjoy and find insightful on so many topics, weighed in on ID — go here. I’ve been meaning to respond to his remarks on ID for some time now.]

Duane Smith is another blogger complaining about Kenneth Chang’s NYTimes piece on ID. According to Smith (go here), in admitting that ID raises questions of real scientific merit, Chang’s article redistributes the burden of proof when in fact “the burden of proof is on Intelligent Design creationism and not mainstream science.”

The current issue of More, a women’s magazine aimed at women over 40, contains a profile of Eugenie Scott in which she is quoted as saying, “I’ve become an evolution evangelist.”
Could someone please explain how evolution constitutes “good news”?

“It’s high time to rescue ‘intelligent design’ from the politics of religion. There are too many riddles not yet answered by either biology or the Bible, and by asking them honestly, without foregone conclusions, science could take a huge leap forward.” MORE

CNN LARRY KING LIVE
Intelligent Design in American Classrooms?
Aired August 23, 2005 - 21:00 ET

ID-phobe bloggers are upset with the NYTimes article yesterday by Kenneth Chang (for the article, go here; for a partial list of upset ID-phobe bloggers, go here). Brian Leiter, for instance, commends a letter by Edouard Machery to the New York Times (unpublished as yet), which remarks, “In no other industrialized country is evolution a […]