What difference would a real live ET make to your faith (whatever it is?) Ted Peters, a researcher in the field of science and religion and author of SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS (Ashgate 2003), is conducting a survey. The central question is this: Would contact with extraterrestrial intelligent life affect religion on earth? Would you be wiling to participate? The questionnaire is very brief and would take only 5 minutes to fill out. Although we will tabulate the data anonymously and will take every step to maintain confidentiality, please note we cannot guarantee full confidentiality when receiving email responses. Thank you. Ted Peters, Principle Investigator, is professor of systematic theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, the Graduate Union, and the Read More ›

Recently, Mark Bergin of World Magazine tried a novel approach to the Baylor tenure controversy:

Employing Google’s scholar-specific search engine, which limits results to academic journals, WORLD performed controlled searches for the names of each of this year’s 30 tenure candidates. In general, those faculty members receiving tenure have published with greater frequency since arriving at Baylor in 2002. And specific comparisons between individuals in particular fields reveal similar disparities.

However, Bergin is reluctant to simply leave the matter there – advisedly in my view.

A focus on publications alone tells against long term research that might turn up more substantial findings. Colleagues and department heads might be more aware of valuable longer projects.

And, as Frank Tipler has pointed out, many papers are cited by nobody at all, which implies that the authors published so as not to perish. Publications that nobody cites should not be equivalent to publications cited by several other research studies.

Considerations like these could be part of the reason why the faculty senate is unhappy that President Lilley overruled so many of their decisions.

Now, whether Lilley’s program for improving the university is a bad idea or whether he just hasn’t convinced enough people that it is a good idea, I don’t know. But an army without soldiers isn’t going anywhere. And that is what he has, now that the faculty senate has voted against him.

Reporter Bergin is not convinced that there is an anti-Christian purge afoot, as Bill has thought. Read More ›

Was one woman who lived 150,000 to 200,000 years ago the ancestress of all of us? Science may not be sure, but pop culture is. Part One: Our Mitochondria: A piece in the puzzle of our origins? Part Two: What Does Our Mitochondrial DNA Say About Human Ancestry? Part Three: African Eve – when pop culture falls in love with science

Richard Pearcey traces how a Darwinian worldview leads to “delegated fascism”. These are critical issues in debating the societal CONSEQUENCES of Evolution vs Intelligent Design, (as distinct from the scientific origin theories themselves.) ———————————

Abortofascism and Free-Market Homicide

By Rick Pearcey, Pro-Existance, May 12, 2008
In a column titled “Atheism and Child Murder,” Dinesh D’Souza comments on his recent debate with Princeton ethicist and atheist Peter Singer:

Some of Singer’s critics call him a Nazi and compare his proposals to Hitler’s schemes for eliminating the unwanted, the unfit and the disabled. But as I note in the debate, Singer is no Hitler. He doesn’t want state-sponsored killings. Rather, he wants the decision to kill to be made by you and me. Instead of government-conducted genocide, Singer favors free-market homicide. Read More ›

From Darwin and design: historical essay: “The only distinct meaning of the word ‘natural’ is stated , fixed or settled ; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e. to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once.”  second edition of Origin of species (1860) Read More…   

Journalist Susan Mazur continues her series of remarkable articles about dissenters from neo-Darwinism with a compelling interview of Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, professor of cognitive science at the University of Arizona, and co-author (with Jerry Fodor) of the forthcoming book What Darwin Got Wrong. In the interview, Piattelli-Palmarini points out that many academic biologists muffle their unhappiness with the received neo-Darwinian theory, either out of fear of being ostracized, or from worries about being exploited by intelligent design advocates. Jerry Fodor’s quips about having to join the federal Witness Protection Program, because of his public dissent from neo-Darwinian theory, lend some humor to this reality. If Expelled could be expanded to a multi-part television series, interviews with non-Darwinian evolutionary theorists such as Read More ›

The essay by Jeffrey Schloss – excerpted in considerable part here – worriting about the “walls” the Expelled documentary is creating is a classic.

Real Christians, presumably, wouldn’t demand an accounting about the rapidly growing evidence against Darwinism and other materialist isms. And real Christians wouldn’t make a film about the people who get Expelled for doing so.

(Of course, all ID sympathizers are Christians, right? Hear that, Ben? David? Gerald?)

Schloss’s essay illustrates the fact that theistic evolutionism (vending Darwin to the masses on behalf of Christ) is dead. Dead because it is a solution to a problem that does not exist any more. Read More ›

In an essay that is ten times the length of the following extracts, Jeff Schloss, a Christian College professor, weighs in on Expelled. He says Expelled misses the central issues. Unfortunately his essay also missed the central issue. His own personal religious views have led him to write the way he does.

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Last week the Wall Street Journal published a brief list of the scientific problems with evolution, supplied by John West of the Discovery Institute. Scientists are well aware of these problems but it is probably worthwhile to spell them out occasionally in a major newspaper. Even more worthwhile were the responses supplied by evolutionist Dr. Eric Meikle. [1]

Meikle is the Outreach Coordinator at the National Center for Science Education and has several decades of experience in evolution research, teaching and advocacy. Not surprisingly Meikle’s responses to West’s four problems are typical. They can be found throughout the evolutionary literature, from popular treatments to textbooks, and they speak volumes.

The evolutionist’s response to fundamental problems with his theory is reminiscent of a salesman. “Don’t worry, just trust us” is the message which otherwise is void of any scientific depth. Evolution is a fact, even if we don’t have a clue how it happened.

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From NOAA here These are annual average temperature (top) and precipitation (bottom) in the United States from 1895 through 2007. The magnitude of change in the trend lines, +1 degree in temperature, +2 inches annual rainfall, is interesting but not nearly as interesting as the slopes being almost identical and straight as an arrow. That’s an amazing correlation for there to be no direct causal factor in common. Warmer, wetter, and more CO2 are good things for agriculture. God help us all if those trend lines go towards colder and drier. If it does we’ll be inventing ways to make global warming happen.

Alex Harris and Brett Harris are challenging the status quo with: Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations, garnering a Foreward by Chuck Norris, 2008, Multnomah Books ISBN-10: 1601421125. What might the prospects be for a hard cover manifesto challenging teenagers to work hard by two 18 year olds? Astonishingly it reached #5 on Amazon on March 25th.The Harris’ launched TheRebelution.com. It has already received 16 million hits. They just finished a Rebelution conference for youth attended by 2,200 at one stop of a seven stop tour. Read More ›

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Prof sues disbelieving students. Apparently, they disputed her theories about science … No, in the famous words of Rush Limbaugh, I am not making this up. If I had that kind of imagination, I would be right up there with J.K. Rowlings (rowling in dough, right?) Also just up at the Overwhelming Evidence blog The math prof makes a design inference British physicist asks, is there no freedom to criticize evolutionary theory? (Well, no, not if you know a good reason why materialist views are wrong.) Expelled, its critics, and the theatre managers – knock me over with a feather, the legacy media critics didn’t like the film but audiences apparently did What percentage of scientists support current evolution theory? Read More ›

Barry poses the debate topic: A soldier amuses himself by ripping a baby from his mother’s arms and tossing it in the air and catching it on a bayonet. Resolved, it is self-evident that the soldier’s action is wrong in all places and at all times. However, Barry restricts the range of answers by not allowing anyone to assert whether it would be right or wrong if God commanded the killing. As many of us know, God, according to the Old Testament, did indeed command the killing of babies. My position is that in the ordering of baby killing God was wrong and therefore cannot be a trusted source of moral absolutes. If the Old Testament is a true accounting Read More ›

At the Beyond Expelled worldview conference, Nancy Pearcey explored the impact of evolution vs ID. She describes skeptic Michael Shermer’s conversion to evolution & Scarlett Johansson’s acting on belief in evolution.
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The intelligent design of life

Nancy Pearcey tells crowd that Darwinism has evolved into more than just a theory (with VIDEO)
Rachel Kyler, Thursday May 8th, 2008

NICEVILLE — Not religion pitted against science, but philosophy against philosophy.

In a truly liberal education system, that’s how academic Nancy Pearcey says educators would approach intelligent design and the theory of evolution.
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