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Creation of Christian Soldiers a Chilling Sidelight of Darwin Bashing
Tweet Share on Facebook February 18, 2009 Comment (79)Guest blogger Robert T. Pennock is professor of philosophy, computer science, and EEBB at Michigan State University and author of the books Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism and Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological and Scientific Perspectives.
After the Dover, Pa., trial that burst the balloon of the intelligent design (ID) creationist movement, we had a few years of relative peace. But here we are amid the scientific celebrations of Darwin's 200th birthday (www.happybirthdaydarwin.org) having to deal with a renewed attack on science and yet another repetition of the old creationist arguments as yet another Discovery Institute urban cow-dude tries to resuscitate the dead ID horse under the guise of "academic freedom." Casey Luskin's claims (one can hardly call them arguments) have been rebutted many times before, so there is no point in doing so again here. However, for the record, there are a few other important misstatements in his personal attack on me that necessitate a reply.
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Intelligent Design Is Religion, and That's Fine--But Not in Science or Public Schools
Tweet Share on Facebook February 13, 2009 Comment (119)Guest blogger Richard B. Katskee is assistant legal director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C.
Casey Luskin's responses to the commentaries that Robert Pennock and I wrote for this blog are, sadly, characteristic of what passes for scholarship in the intelligent-design movement: Luskin does no original work, but instead crudely strings together out-of-context quotations and debunked creationist canards in order to fabricate the appearance of support for his movement's pretensions to science. In the process, he rejects genuine science as "dogma," and he dismisses careful legal analysis as "judicial activism"—the term that we lawyers use when we really mean, "I don't like that decision." Others have exposed these tactics before, so I won't belabor the point here.
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Religion and Science: No Fight Club Here
Tweet Share on Facebook February 12, 2009 Comment (31)Guest blogger Richard B. Katskee is assistant legal director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C.
Since serving as one of the lawyers for the parents in the intelligent-design trial in Dover, Pa., I regularly receive invitations to give public talks on creationism and science education. Whether I'm speaking to science organizations, law-school faculties, church congregations, high school classes, or community groups, someone invariably asks, "What is it about evolution that gets people so riled up?"
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Darwin Believers Hide Fears of Intelligent Design Behind a Wall of Denial and Ridicule
Tweet Share on Facebook February 12, 2009 Comment (172)Guest blogger Casey Luskin is cofounder of the Intelligent Design & Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center and program officer in public policy and legal affairs at the Discovery Institute in Seattle .
Most Darwinists involved in the public debate today have one, and only one goal: To stifle free debate on this subject and thereby discourage you, the public, from scrutinizing the scientific evidence for yourself.
Over the years, Darwinists have evolved a variety of strategies to accomplish these goals. We see each of these strategies in play in the op-eds and comments by Darwinists in this present forum on U.S. News and World Report. I'll discuss how my opponents on this forum use the strategies of (1) Ridicule, Demonization, and Character Assassination; (2) Equating Darwin-Skeptics with Religion; (3) Persecute Darwin-Skeptics; and (4) Pretend There Is No Scientific Controversy Over Evolution in order to try to dissuade you, the reader, from thinking for yourself on this subject.