Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
We do have friends
I was using Google to look for an outraged creationist damning me for exposing frauds and I came across this very friendly comment from "Understanding Creationism after Kitzmiller" , a 2007 BioScience article by Glenn Branch (then deputy director of the National Center for Science Education).
The contributors to the collection Why Intelligent Design Fails (Young and Edis 2006 Rutgers University Press) have taken the trouble to become thoroughly conversant with the scientific claims of intelligent design over a broad range of the sciences (and two have published their own worthwhile books on the topic; "Unintelligent Design" (Perakh 2004), "God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory" (Shanks, 2004 New York Oxford University Press). The results are devastating. Indeed, Gary S. Hurd's contribution debunking intelligent design's attempt to compare itself with forensics and archaeology was submitted as evidence in Kitzmiller. The quality of the essays is high; particularly useful are my former colleague Alan D. Gishlick's on the evolution of avian flight and Ian Musgrave's on the bacterial flagellum. (For a recent review of work on the evolution of the flagellum, see Pallen and Matzke 2006). The paperback reissue of Why Intelligent Design Fails contains a brief review of events since its original publication; the editors observe,“ID creationists have not suggested a new argument that cannot be refuted effectively by the material in the first edition of this book” (p. vii). They might also have observed that, for all the intelligent design movement's professions to be honestly receptive to scientific critique, the powerful criticisms of Why Intelligent Design Fails are as yet unanswered.
The contributors to the collection Why Intelligent Design Fails (Young and Edis 2006 Rutgers University Press) have taken the trouble to become thoroughly conversant with the scientific claims of intelligent design over a broad range of the sciences (and two have published their own worthwhile books on the topic; "Unintelligent Design" (Perakh 2004), "God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory" (Shanks, 2004 New York Oxford University Press). The results are devastating. Indeed, Gary S. Hurd's contribution debunking intelligent design's attempt to compare itself with forensics and archaeology was submitted as evidence in Kitzmiller. The quality of the essays is high; particularly useful are my former colleague Alan D. Gishlick's on the evolution of avian flight and Ian Musgrave's on the bacterial flagellum. (For a recent review of work on the evolution of the flagellum, see Pallen and Matzke 2006). The paperback reissue of Why Intelligent Design Fails contains a brief review of events since its original publication; the editors observe,“ID creationists have not suggested a new argument that cannot be refuted effectively by the material in the first edition of this book” (p. vii). They might also have observed that, for all the intelligent design movement's professions to be honestly receptive to scientific critique, the powerful criticisms of Why Intelligent Design Fails are as yet unanswered.
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