In a 2010 interview with Casey Luskin from the Discovery Institute, expelled professor Caroline Crocker provides a snapshot of the war between Intelligent Design and Evolution proponents, citing some fairly blunt comments by Dr. Larry Moran – a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto.

Luskin: “Are there really students out there who have good reasons to be afraid about coming out of the closet that they’re pro-ID, or – as a cynical ID skeptic might say – is this just paranoia being spread, and there’s really no reason for these students to be afraid?”

Crocker: “…This is what [Moran] says about students – ‘Flunk the idiots. Forty percent of the freshman class at UCSD reject Darwinism. The university has become alarmed and has offered remedial instruction for those who believe in ID. UCSD should never have admitted them in the first place. Just flunk the lot of them.’^[1] Well, do students have a reason to keep their views quiet? I would say, yes.”

Especially if they find themselves studying under the likes of Professor Moran or anybody of his ilk, because under such circumstances it’s not enough that students demonstrate an understanding of evolution. They must accept it – with all their heart, mind, soul and strength – as their working paradigm for discovering true scientific facts.

Moran writes in a 2007 blog article:

“… it is still quite remarkable that some significant percentage of fundamentalist Protestants can go to college and still reject the basic scientific fact that humans evolved. … It’s not good enough to just be able to mouth the “acceptable” version of the truth that the Professor wants. You actually have to open your mind to the possibility that science is correct and get an education.”

He laments though, “How do you distinguish between a good Christian who is lying for Jesus and one who has actually come to understand science? It seems really unfair to flunk the honest students who admit that they still reject science and pass the dishonest ones who hide their true beliefs.” Being a good Christian and understanding science are mutually exclusive, apparently?

But if students have to believe rather than understand a scientific theory, then science has become a religion. According to the radical Darwinists, a scientist could have a PhD, earn international honours in science, publish hundreds of papers in peer-reviewed journals, and save millions of lives, and yet, if a Darwin doubter, could be judged scientifically illiterate.^[2]

Dr. Moran agrees – “If they are undergraduates who don’t understand that evolution is a scientific fact, the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and humans share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, then they flunk the course. If they are graduate students in a science department, then they don’t get a Ph.D. If they are untenured faculty members in a science department, then they don’t get tenure.” ^{[3, 4]}

And so the war continues…

References & Notes:

1. As far as I could tell, the primary source for Crocker’s information is a blog entry by Moran in 2006, where the delightful expression “IDiots” can be found. The expression has since been used by some ID supporters to identify people who continue to conflate the Creationist movement with the ID movement in their writings. Moran, for example, often uses the expression “Intelligent Design Creationists.” Hence, some may consider him an “IDiot” for failing to make the appropriate distinction between Intelligent Design and Creationism.
2. This is a quote from a previous article about the inherent religious aspects of science, as held by certain evolutionary zealots.
3. Note here that by “understand”, Moran means “accept”. Students must accept that evolution is a fact, not merely be able to regurgitate their notes, give alleged examples and cite authorities for support.
4. http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2008/04/michael-egnor-gets-it-right.html

The other night I was watching a show on tv called Richard Hammonds Invisible Worlds (BBC). One of the topics he covered was gecko feet which was quite facinating. The following article goes into some detail of this amazing creature and his feet.

Great Gecko Glue

The best explanation seems to be that the geckos’ feet can exploit the weak short-range bonds between molecules. That is, they stick via van der Waals forces. But for such weak forces to work, there must be an enormous intimate contact area between foot and surface, so that enough individual weak forces can add up to a very strong force.

Under an electron microscope, researchers have found that the feet have very fine hairs (setae), about 1/10th of a millimetre long and packed 5,000 per square mm (three million per square inch). In turn, the end of each seta has about 400–1,000 branches ending in a spatula-like structure about 0.2–0.5 µm (microns—less than 1/50,000th inch) long. These spatulae can provide the necessary contact area.

This website has some good images of geckos’ feet.

With special instruments, a team of biologists and engineers from several American universities analysed a seta from the foot of a Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko). The foot pad has an area of about 100 mm2 (0.16 sq. inch) and can produce 10 newtons of adhesive force (enough to support two pounds). But they showed that an individual seta had an attractive force 10 times stronger than expected. In fact, one seta is strong enough to support an ant’s weight, while a million could support a small child—about 10 N/cm2, where 10 newtons is about the weight of 1 kg. So the gecko has plenty of attractive force to spare. This means it can handle the rough, irregular surfaces of its natural habitat.

Actually, the attractive force is far greater when the seta is gently pressed into the surface and then pulled along. The force also changes with the angle at which the hair is attached to the surface, so that the seta can detach at about 30°. These elaborate properties are exploited by the gecko’s ‘unusually complex behaviour’1 of uncurling its toes when attaching, and unpeeling while detaching. This all means that the gecko can not only stick properly with each step, but also avoid getting stuck, all without using much energy.

In his explanation of this marvelous feature of the gecko, Richard Hammond said that the gecko had to develop this toe curling ability in order to unstick its feet in order to be able to move. The use of the word develop makes it obvious that there are heavy evolutionary overtones that are assumed as the mechanism by which the gecko’s feet came to be.

Can anyone else see the disconnect here?

Evolutionary theory is a slow gradual process. Yet here we find three abilities associated with the geckos’ feet that have to present at the same time in order to work. If the hairs are present without the toe curling ability (which Richard is suggesting here), then the poor gecko will no be able to move and will quickly become a meal to the nearest predator. Without the self-cleaning ability, the geckos’ feet will quickly become non-functioning/useless. And why evolve toe curling as a precursor to hairy feet? To claim that this is the path taken, screams a designer at the helm realising that toe curling is needed to have occured before the hair. And when does the self-cleaning occur? These are not just singular variations in the DNA to change, say, regular toes to curling toes. According to evolutionary theory changes in anatomy like this would have to take many many mutations.

Even if it is reasonable to believe evolution started the ball rolling by giving the gecko a toe curling ability and the gecko was able to function/breed with this ability even though it serves no purpose, where are all the toe curling lizards that didn’t evolve further down the gecko path? There is no “Darwins tree” here whether alive or in the fossil record.

Rather than believe a complex unsubstantiated evolutionary story, a designer at the helm seems a much more simple and likely explanation for such an amazing creature.

Without getting into tedious scientific details, God created the observable universe with ten (or eleven) dimensions. The four that we are familiar with and experience are three dimensions of space and one dimension of time; the other six dimensions ceased expanding abruptly after creation and remain tightly curled. And from the equations of Einstein to the theories of Hawking, we have learned that these four dimensions comprise a single manifold—spacetime. We know from careful observation that these four dimensions comprise an inseparable whole.

And the theological implications of this are difficult to ignore. That our spacetime manifold—three dimensions of space and one dimension of time—was created by God produces results in the following: that time as we know it has a point of origin just as space does, at the creation event; that God transcends time as we know it, just as he transcends space, because they are an inseparable whole; that in his nature God is transcendent, or exists independent of what he created, while in his operations God is omnipresent, or is aware of and at work throughout every point of space and time; and that this contributes substantially to why God is said to be omniscient, trustworthy in his prophecies and sovereign power.

Does this mean that God is timeless? Not necessarily. It means only that he transcends (exists independent of) time as we experience it in this spacetime manifold he created. For all we know, God could exist in another dimension of time perpendicular to ours, similar to how the dimension of length is perpendicular to that of width, such that for God time is a temporal plane rather than a line. In other words, it is not that God is ‘timeless’ so much as he is ‘timeful’ or omnipresent.

I have used the following thought experiment before to shed light the consequences of omnipresence with some success, so perhaps it might prove helpful again at present. Imagine that we observe a supernova in a galaxy two million light years away: (1) from the perspective of that galaxy, the event was two million years ago; (2) from the perspective of our galaxy, the event is just now occurring; (3) from the perspective of another galaxy millions of light years further still, that supernova will not be observed for a very long time to come. So the question presents itself: Is the event past, present, or future? Evidently that will depend entirely on your spatio-temporal location.

So then what if you are omnipresent across all spatio-temporal locations at once?

Quite simply, past and future are absorbed into an eternal now. In the words of Aiden W. Tozer, “In God there is no was or will be, but a continuous and unbroken is. In him, history and prophecy are one and the same.” And Charles Spurgeon, “With God there is no past, and can be no future … What we call past, present, and future, he wraps up in one eternal now.”

The failing philosophy that allegedly grounds the ideas presented in the new book by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow has drawn much criticism over the last couple of months – even from those who agree with his conclusions. I certainly don’t intend to offer any new or profound thoughts on the matter. Nor do I intend to pontificate on the details of quantum physics, especially when those who are actually qualified to do so think it makes “absolutely no sense” (to quote Roger Penrose).

I simply want to draw your attention to the failing philosophy of the book – something that Hawking and Mlodinow characterize as “Scientific Determinism” (SD) – and point you in the direction of one who is demonstrably more qualified and seemingly more careful in his thinking on that subject than either Hawking or Mlodinow appear to have been.

Greg Koukl (M.A Philosophy and Ethics) writes in the most recent edition of his bi-monthly newsletter, Solid Ground:

For Hawking and Mlodinow … event causation governs everything—even human choices. Determinism is absolute. There are no exceptions, even human ones. Everything, including human nature, must submit to the sovereignty of physics:

Since people live in the universe and interact with other objects in it, then scientific determinism must hold for people as well….[p.30]

Do people have free will?…Though we feel that we can choose…biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets….[p.31-32]

Our physical brain, following the known laws of science…determines our actions, and not some agency that exists outside those laws. [p.32]

So it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion. [p.32] [emphases added]

It’s hard to believe brilliant men like Hawking and Mlodinow do not see how destructive this move is to their own case, but I think you will see it readily.

Let me put the question this way: Did the laws of physics determine the order of the words on the pages of The Grand Design? Or did Professors Hawking and Mlodinow make that call? Did they ponder the evidence for their theories, consider the implications of the facts, posit conclusions, then choose the right words and select the precise order that would best communicate their views and persuade readers of the rationality of their own ideas?

…in light of SD … ultimately, the laws of physics wrote the book that bears their names no less than the laws of physics determined the arrangement of rocks resting on the surface of the planet Mars. … Remember, the only causation Hawking & Mlodinow allow for is event causation—dominoes fatalistically falling—which is rigidly deterministic.

In other words, if Hawking and Mlodinow are right, they’re wrong. Moreover, it becomes meaningless to talk of the person “Hawking” or “Mlodinow” as agents capable of free thought and action. As this mock interview highlights, the universe deserves all the credit, not beings who merely appear to think and reason for themselves.

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My friend and very esteemed colleague Duane Proud two days ago wrote an article in which he asked evolutionists to provide examples of bad evolutionary arguments they have seen used in debates and discussions on origins. And he provided a list of twelve examples to help get the ball rolling, asking whether evolutionists would concede that any of the arguments listed are bad—and if so, which ones—or provide other examples of evolutionary arguments they have seen used which are bad. “In other words,” he said, “I’d like evolutionists to be self-critical and provide a list of arguments they would endorse as ‘arguments evolutionists should not use’.” Duane wanted to see if there were any among our evolutionist readers “who are capable of reflecting on the merits and shortcomings of an argument,” which could be demonstrated by their providing “any arguments for evolution they think are lacking and why.”

Not a single response.

Let me clarify that: not a single response that actually answered the question Duane was asking. He received several responses but they mocked Young Earth creationists, defended many of the arguments listed as actually good, provided links to web pages that explain what biological evolution is and why it is true, or they gave completely retarded examples of arguments I’m quite sure nobody ever uses—like the gems that Nocterro provided, e.g., “Evolution is true because my cup is green.” (Given that he values philosophical discipline, he should have known better; moreover, he is the one person I expected relevant and intellectually honest answers from.) But when it came to the question Duane had actually asked, there was not a single response.

So I want to demonstrate something about intellectual honesty. I want to put forward the same question but this time directed toward creationists. That is, I would like the creationists out there to be self-critical and provide examples of arguments they would concede as ‘arguments creationists should not use’. Unlike evolutionists, I know that creationists are capable of reflecting on the merits and shortcomings of an argument and can provide creationist arguments they think are lacking and why. The complete silence from evolutionists regarding Duane’s question will be deafening in comparison to the intellectual honesty and self-criticism of creationists. The contrast of responses will say something important about dogmatism.

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In the interest of honest, intellectually sound arguments that are based in Scripture, logic, and scientific research, several Christian ministries maintain a list of arguments they think creationists should avoid (e.g. moon-dust thickness, and Darwin’s recantation of his evolutionary beliefs on his deathbed).

Similarly, I recently discovered that Answers in Genesis have a list of 12 Arguments they think evolutionists should avoid:

Argument 1: Evolution is a fact

Argument 2: Only the uneducated reject evolution

Argument 3: Overwhelming evidence in all fields of science supports evolution

Argument 4: Doubting evolution is like doubting gravity

Argument 5: Doubting evolution is like believing the earth is flat

Argument 6: It’s here, so it must have evolved

Argument 7: Natural selection is evolution

Argument 8: Common design means common ancestry

Argument 9: Sedimentary layers show millions of years of geological activity

Argument 10: Mutations drive evolution

Argument 11: The Scopes trial

Argument 12: Science vs. religion

Something that struck me about this list though, is that it comprises many arguments that evolutionists do make on a regular basis. So I wondered how many on the list evolutionists themselves would concede are bad arguments that evolutionists should not use and whether there were other arguments that are not on the list that they’d advise proponents of evolution to steer clear of.

In other words, I’d like evolutionists to be self-critical and provide a list of arguments they would endorse as "arguments evolutionists should not use." It’s a serious request and I ask only to be better informed of the kinds of arguments that evolutionists themselves think are unjustified in attempting to make their evolutionary case. I invite anyone who considers themselves an informed evolutionist to contribute to this humble project.

On the other hand, if you’d like to explain why any of the arguments above should not be on that list [you know you want to], I’m happy to receive those objections. But in the interest of give and take, I’d also appreciate it if you could provide at least one argument that you think evolutionists should not use and why.

Extract from Rachael J. Denhollander’s article “If the foundations be destroyed” inVol. 24(1) 2010 of the “Journal of Creation” publication.

The “beginning of the end” for teaching creation science or Intelligent Design (ID) in the public school classroom came in 1947, in Everson vs Board of Education, a case which, interestingly enough, addressed no issue of science at all, and was actually decided in favor of the more “conservative” client. What Everson did do, however, is completely reshape the understanding of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, ultimately providing the framework for banning creation science and ID in the classroom.

The Establishment Clause in the U.S. Constitution simply states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Thus, in every Establishment Clause challenge, the Plaintiff must prove two essential elements: 1) That the government is involved in religion, and 2) that such involvement has the effect of establishing a religion. Currently, there are a myriad of tests the court may apply in determining whether an establishment of religion has taken place, the most popular of which is known as the Lemon Test. The Lemon Test arose from the case Lemon vs Kurtzman, and requires a three-prong analysis which holds that the Establishment Clause has been violated if any of the following are true:

a) There is no valid secular purpose for the government’s action.

b) The primary effect of the action is not secular.

c) The government action fosters excessive entanglement with religion.

While other tests have occasionally been used or suggested, these have generally all been merely “revisions” of Lemon, rather than entirely new tests themselves. It is generally the Lemon test which has been used to rule out ID and creation science as unconstitutional, and it is Lemon which also finds its roots in the Court’s reshaping of history in Everson vs Board of Education.

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Could someone please explain to me how it is that taxpayers in the U.S. are funding NASA not for scientific space exploration but rather for international Muslim outreach? The last time I checked, NASA and the U.S. Department of State were different federal agencies. When did that change?

On Wednesday of last week, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was interviewed on an episode of Talk to al-Jazeera. During that interview he described three of the top priorities President Obama had tasked him with for his new job (in response to the question about NASA finding itself at a crossroads):

When I became the NASA Administrator—well, before I became the NASA Administrator—he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations, to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.

He was asked if this is “a sort of diplomatic role to win hearts and minds of Muslims.” Bolden quickly denied that, and claimed President Obama simply wants to draw in “the contributions that are possible from the Muslim nations.” Yet in a speech two weeks earlier at the American University in Cairo, Bolden said that NASA used to work “mostly with countries that are capable of space exploration,” but that has changed in light of Obama’s Cairo initiative:

[Obama] asked NASA to change [...] by reaching out to ‘non-traditional’ partners and strengthening our cooperation in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and in particular in Muslim-majority nations.

“NASA has embraced this charge,” Bolden said, adding that NASA “is not only a space exploration agency but also an earth improvement agency.”

Is the American public aware that their tax dollars are funding the U.S. space agency to patronize Muslims to “feel good” about themselves with soft-diplomacy outreach? As noted by former NASA administrator Michael Griffin, NASA’s purpose is not to inspire Muslims or any other cultural entity. No doubt. Its purpose is to expand our knowledge of space and its attendant technologies. “If by doing great things people are inspired, well, then that’s wonderful,” Griffin said, and then observed, “There is no technology they have that we need” for NASA to accomplish its missions.

But earlier this year Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed in her speech at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Qatar that the Obama administration is embarking on a new era of engagement with Muslim nations “to expand educational opportunities, support entrepreneurs, and promote advances in science and technology.”

“NASA, our space program,” she said, “has partnered with the Arab Youth Venture Foundation in Dubai to give Arab and American engineering students the chance to work together on NASA missions.”

Highly advanced rocket technology. Prime Directive, anyone?

Update: 27 July 2010

NASA: National Arabic Sensitivity Administration

(HT: Mike Church)

May 15, 2010 — Two teams have succeeded in building little robots that work on DNA tracks.  These resemble in many respects the machines that cells use to perform its functions on DNA.  No one denies that humans engineered their nanobots on purpose, but Darwinist scientists claim natural cellular machines evolved without purpose or design. What’s the difference?

…

So if we do it, it’s intelligent design, but if nature does it, it’s blind evolution? You realize, of course, that the natural machines in cells are far ahead of us: they are not only autonomous, but attain very complex behaviors that are programmed into their molecular systems. Not only that, they belong to complexes of molecular machines, which belong to networks of signal processing systems, that boggle the mind – and they belong to entire systems that have a coded library, and can reproduce all their parts! Why should not scientists find it “inspiring to see such creativity” of “autonomous molecular systems that can execute complex actions” and ascribe it to design? Molecular biology should be filled with God-fearing, worshiping, praise-singing scientists shouting Hallelujah! What we get instead are man-fearing, fault-finding, hate-mongering ingrates shouting Pal-Ayala.

In a recent article from Science Daily [1] we find a compelling bit of science. Evidently the thinking is that humans became the ‘hairless ape’ we are because we evolved in a really hot region in East Africa. You see, the need to “stay cool in that cradle of human evolution may relate, at least in part, to why pre-humans learned to walk upright, lost the fur that covered the bodies of their predecessors and became able to sweat more,” Johns Hopkins University earth scientist Benjamin Passey said. [2] These constituted an “evolutionary advantage” these pre-humans gained. What I find curious, however, is in what intelligible sense this granted an evolutionary advantage when other fauna in that region or similar climates supposedly evolved just fine, walking around on all fours and covered in hair, etc. (picture animals like buffalo, wolf, baboon and such).

Surely the Panthera genus had even more selection forces acting upon them, being not only covered in fur but walking around so close to the ground (which radiates absorbed heat, so they get cooked on both sides). What do you suppose they think of this robust evolutionary science?

1. Johns Hopkins University. “Some Like It Hot: Site of Human Evolution Was Scorching.” Science Daily, 8 June 2010 (Accessed 10 June 2010.)
2. Benjamin H. Passey, Naomi E. Levin, Thure E. Cerling, Francis H. Brown, and John M. Eiler. “High-temperature environments of human evolution in East Africa based on bond ordering in paleosol carbonates.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1001824107