The hoked-up Ida fossil

Ida, discovered in the Messel pit in Germany, is one of the most complete primate fossils ever found. Key features of her skeleton suggest she is not an ancient lemur. She has no 'grooming claw' on her second toe, a feature that all lemurs share. She also does not have a set of fused teeth in the middle of her bottom jaw called a 'tooth comb'. Finally, the tarsus bone in her ankle is shaped like our ancestors. So it is likely that she is a very early haplorhine primate.

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Darwinists are so desperate to "prove" evolution once and for all that they engage in grasping at straws and wishful thinking. A good example of this is the overhype about a primate fossil named "Ida." A news article ballyhooed,
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Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey hailed as the missing link in human evolution.

The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years - but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.

The discovery of the 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' - dubbed Ida - is described by experts as the "eighth wonder of the world".

They say its impact on the world of palaeontology will be "somewhat like an asteroid falling down to Earth".

Researchers say proof of this transitional species finally confirms Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and the then radical, outlandish ideas he came up with during his time aboard the Beagle.

Sir David Attenborough said Darwin "would have been thrilled" to have seen the fossil - and says it tells us who we are and where we came from.

"This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of the mammals," he said.

Scientists say Ida - squashed to the thickness of a beer mat by the immense passage of time - is the most complete primate fossil ever found.

With her human-like nails instead of claws, and opposable big toes, she is placed at the very root of human evolution when early primates first developed features that would eventually develop into our own.

Another important discovery is the shape of the talus bone in her foot, which humans still have in their feet millions of lifetimes later.

Opposable thumbs are not unique to primates -- Wikipedia lists several non-primates that have opposable thumbs.

The Darwinists cherry-pick features that link us to Ida while ignoring features that separate us from Ida, like Ida's long tail. And maybe the similar features show convergent evolution rather than ancestry.

The absence of a bacculum (penis bone) confirmed she was female, and her milk teeth put her age at about nine-months-old - in maturity, equivalent to a six-year-old human child.

Humans don't have a bacculum either, so how did we lose it?

When Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859, he said a lot about transitional species," said Prof Hurum

"...and he said that will never be found, a transitional species, and his whole theory will be wrong, so he would be really happy to live today when we publish Ida. . . . .

. . . ."It's part of our evolution that's been hidden so far, it's been hidden because all the other specimens are so incomplete.

"They are so broken there's almost nothing to study and now this wonderful fossil appears and it makes the story so much easier to tell, so it's really a dream come true."

What? I thought that evolution has already been proven. Now this professor is saying that it hasn't been?

Ida was discovered 25 years ago but only recently was its value recognized. It has been studied for the last two years. The incredible price of $1 million was paid for it. One wonders why its value was not recognized sooner if it is so special.

Even Darwinist NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg couldn't resist the opportunity to take an implicit swipe at the fundies [link] --

The bit that grated was the desperate, unseemly scramble to grab some of the action. In a display that was utterly primatal, figures as varied as the mayor of New York and the higher education minister of Norway made sure they were front and centre stage.

The most sublime image was of Michael Bloomberg standing beside Ida's glass box, his arm around the shoulders of a school girl who was wearing a T-shirt with the TV tie-in logo: "The Link. This changes everything". The main thing Bloomberg was presumably hoping this would change was his prospects of winning an unprecedented third term as New York mayor in upcoming elections.

Ida provides no evidence that evolution was driven solely by natural genetic variation and natural selection.

Remember the famous transitional fossils archaeopteryx, Tiktaalik, and Lucy? We don't hear very much about them anymore. Maybe Ida is also a passing fad.

Well, Judge "Jackass" Jones and other Darwinists will now have something else to beat the fundies over the head with.
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Scientists' own inconsistencies raise skepticism of Darwinism

Darwinists argue that there are no weaknesses in the evidence for evolution theory, but a look through the stacks of literature that they present as physical exhibits of evidence shows that this is not the case -- what was once believed to be firm evidence for evolution has been questioned by scientists. One scientific paper says, "Discovery Strengthens Evolutionary Link Between Birds And Dinosaurs," and then another scientific paper says, "Scientists Say No Evidence Exists That Therapod Dinosaurs Evolved Into Birds." Often different scientists draw different conclusions from the same evidence. The following papers are just a sample:

International Research Team Announces Discovery Of Two Species Of Feathered Dinosaurs

ScienceDaily (June 30, 1998) — Discovery Strengthens Evolutionary Link Between Birds And Dinosaurs

A team of scientists announced last week (June 23) in Nature the discovery in northeastern China of two 120-million-year-old dinosaur species, both of which show unequivocal evidence of true feathers. Both remarkable new creatures provide further support for the theory that birds evolved from small, meat-eating, ground-dwelling dinosaurs and give new insights into the origin of birds

Scientists Say No Evidence Exists That Therapod Dinosaurs Evolved Into Birds

ScienceDaily (Oct. 10, 2005) —

CHAPEL HILL -- No good evidence exists that fossilized structures found in China and which some paleontologists claim are the earliest known rudimentary feathers were really feathers at all, a renowned ornithologist says. Instead, the fossilized patterns appear to be bits of decomposed skin and supporting tissues that just happen to resemble feathers to a modest degree.

Embryo Studies Show Dinosaurs Could Not Have Given Rise To Modern Birds

ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 1997)

CHAPEL HILL -- Careful study of bird, alligator and turtle embryos at early stages offer convincing evidence that the "fingers" of bird wings correspond to the index, middle and ring fingers of humans, while the little finger and "thumb" have been lost.

Such developmental evidence of digit identity conflicts with the theory that modern birds arose from dinosaurs as some paleontologists have claimed since the 1970s. Dinosaurs had "fingers" corresponding to the first, second and third fingers on human hands, and as a result, it is almost impossible to envision how a bird wing could have evolved from a dinosaur hand.

Scientist Says Ostrich Study Confirms Bird "Hands" Unlike Those Of Dinosaurs

ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2002) —

CHAPEL HILL -- To make an omelet, you need to break some eggs. Not nearly so well known is that breaking eggs also can lead to new information about the evolution of birds and dinosaurs, a topic of hot debate among leading biologists. Drs. Alan Feduccia and Julie Nowicki of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have done just that. They opened a series of live ostrich eggs at various stages of development and found what they believe is proof that birds could not have descended from dinosaurs. They also discovered the first concrete evidence of a thumb in birds.

New Sickle-Clawed Fossil From Madagascar Links Birds And Dinosaurs

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 1998) — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 17 MARCH 1998

A new raven-sized fossil bird, showing clear evidence of the close relationship between theropod dinosaurs and birds, has been discovered on the island of Madagascar by scientists working under a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant.

West Australian Fossil Find Rewrites Land Mammal Evolution

ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2006) — A fossil fish discovered in the West Australian Kimberley has been identified as the missing clue in vertebrate evolution, rewriting a century-old theory on how the first land animals evolved.

Monash University PhD students Mr Erich Fitzgerald and Mr Tim Holland were part of the research team, led by Museum Victoria's Head of Science Dr John Long, that made the spectacular discovery by studying a 380 million-year-old fossil fish called Gogonasus, or Gogo fish, named after Gogo Station in Western Australia where it was found.

The fossil skeleton shows the fish's skull had large holes for breathing through the top of the head but importantly also had muscular front fins with a well-formed humerus, ulna and radius - the same bones are found in the human arm.

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Los Angeles Times is one-sided on the controversy

My perceptions as a reader of the Los Angeles Times have been confirmed by the following articles that show that this newspaper is one-sided on the controversy over evolution: this, this, and this. Two of these articles say,

As NewsBusters has already reported this year (link), the Los Angeles Times has never published a single article from a leading spokesperson of intelligent design theory.** (Leading spokespeople would include names such as Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, Guillermo Gonzalez, Jay Wesley Richards, and acclaimed writer Lee Strobel.) Yet the Times has now published its tenth piece in the last 14 months attacking ID! .......

Is there balance at the Los Angeles Times on this issue? Not even close, folks. The Times is unequivocally disserving its readers.

My article "One-sided Los Angeles Times book review". has already noted the L..A. Times' bias against criticism of evolution theory.

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Museum of Unnatural History

A news article reporting on the construction of a $25 million "Creation Museum" says:

PETERSBURG, Ky. (July 31) - Like most natural history museums, this one has exhibits showing dinosaurs roaming the Earth. Except here, the giant reptiles share the forest with Adam and Eve.


That, of course, is contradicted by science, but that's the point of the $25 million Creation Museum rising fast in rural Kentucky . . . . . . . .


"If the Bible is the word of God, and its history really is true, that's our presupposition or axiom, and we are starting there," museum founder Ken Ham said during recent tour of the sleek and modern facility, which is due to open next year.

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One-sided Los Angeles Times book review

Update: Just got a paper copy of the Los Angeles Sunday Times, and this is the cover article of the Book Review, a regular Sunday Times section of several pages. This article will not go unnoticed. Letters to the editor may be sent to letters@latimes.com . Letters should be brief (250 words or less) and are subject to condensation. They must include a full name (initials and pseudonyms will not be used) and a valid mailing address and telephone number.

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Today's Los Angeles Times has a book review titled "Laws of nature", which reviews three books concerning the evolution controversy. The introduction to the book review asks, "does the concept of 'intelligent design' have validity as an alternative to evolution?" However, the book review's author does not even attempt to answer that question fairly because only pro-evolution books were chosen for review. The book review says,

. . . . . in three quite different books — a collection of essays, a biography of Charles Darwin's intellectual life and a debunker's guide to the debate — some of the nation's most distinguished thinkers step forward as expert witnesses to challenge the ruse of intelligent design directly.

Taken together, these works are essential reading for anyone who sincerely wants to "teach the controversy" as intelligent design advocates so often urge — or to understand its dishonesty. As distillations of the best thinking on this ploy, they ought to be required reading for every high school science teacher and school board member in America.

Way to go -- presenting just one side of the story. True Darwinists of course wholeheartedly approve.

Also, I am tired of seeing intelligent design being treated as though it were the only challenge to evolution theory -- there are other challenges to evolution theory that have little or nothing to do with "design," e.g., challenges concerning co-evolution and the propagation of beneficial mutations in sexual reproduction.

An article in Uncommon Descent brought this book review to my attention.

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Condescending Darwinists "whacking down" anti-Darwinist arguments

Darwinists tend to be very condescending when debating anti-Darwinists. This condescension is especially apparent in a response that John Derbyshire, a National Review Online (NRO) columnist, wrote to an NRO article by George Gilder, a co-founder of the Discovery Institute. Derbyshire says,

It’s a wearying business, arguing with Creationists. Basically, it is a game of Whack-a-Mole. They make an argument, you whack it down. They make a second, you whack it down. They make a third, you whack it down. So they make the first argument again.

-- and anti-Darwinists see arguing with Darwinists as a wearying business. Darwinists have this idea that any argument that they present is automatically an airtight refutation. For example, Darwinists think that the idea of "exaptation" (also called "co-option" or "co-optation" ) -- the notion that some parts of an irreducibly complex system had different functions before becoming part of the system -- completely refutes the idea of irreducible complexity, but exaptation is "whacked down" here and here. The absurd concept of exaptation is the Darwinists' only answer to irreducible complexity.

It would be less boring if they’d come up with a new argument once in a while, but they never do.

Questioning co-evolution is not new, but I have questioned co-evolution in ways that I have been unable to find elsewhere on the Internet. Not even the "experts" over at Panda's Thumb were able to help me.

Also, there are things called "oldies but goodies" -- an argument is not necessarily bad just because it is old. And new evidence can revive or reinvigorate old arguments -- for example, recent discoveries about the great complexity of one-celled organisms have added support to the principle of irreducible complexity.

Nowadays I just refer argumentative e-mailers to the TalkOrigins website, where any argument you are ever going to hear from a Creationist is whacked down several times over. Don’t think it’ll stop ’em, though.

You're right -- it won't stop 'em. Many of the TalkOrigins website's rebuttals of creationist arguments are very sketchy, consisting of just a few sentences. For example, the TalkOrigins' article on "obligate mutualism" does not even begin to address the questions about co-evolution that have been raised on this blog. So arguments against co-evolution were not even "whacked down" once, let alone several times over.

Creationists seem not to be aware of how central evolution is to modern biology. Without it, nothing makes sense.

Contrary to the idea that evolution is central to modern biology, I assert that it is possible to study biology without any reference to evolution theory at all (in fact, lots of students have done it), but if it makes biologists more comfortable, they can continue to use the concepts and tools of Darwinism even while believing that all or part of it is untrue.

To say to biologists: “Look, I want you to drop all this nonsense about evolution and listen to me,” is like walking into a room full of pilots and aeronautical engineers and telling them that classical aerodynamics is all hogwash.

Well, classical aerodynamics looks like hogwash. No method of scientific or engineering analysis has a lower physical relationship to reality than conformal mapping, which is used in aerodynamics. NASA says "Conformal mapping is a mathematical technique used to convert (or map) one mathematical problem and solution into another. It involves the study of complex variables ....... Many years ago, the Russian mathematician Joukowski developed a mapping function that converts a circular cylinder into a family of airfoil shapes." I previously pointed out another kind of analysis that has little or no physical relationship to reality: the use of complex-plane mathematics in the analysis of AC circuits -- the complex impedance vector is particularly devoid of physical meaning.

Biologists are of all scientists least in need of a new metaphysic. Neurophysiology aside, it is in the “hard” sciences that our epistemological underwear is showing. When physicists have to resort to explanations involving teeny strings vibrating in scrunched-up eleven-dimensional spaces a trillion trillion trillion trillionth of an inch across, or cosmologists try to tell us that entire universes are proliferating every nanosecond like bacteria in a petri dish, there is a case to be made for a metaphysical overhaul. Not that work in these fields has come to a baffled dead stop, as George seems to imply ........ Biology, by contrast, really has no outstanding epistemological problems.

Ahem. Biology has no epistemological problems? Biologists don't even have a hypothesis -- let alone a theory -- for explaining the origin of life.

Why is the proportion of scientists willing to accept it [creationism] still stuck below (well below, as best I can estimate) one percent?

Wrong. A recent poll of physicians -- who are well-trained in the biological sciences -- shows that a large percentage of them are skeptical of Darwinism.

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Darwinists' disdain for their opponents extends well beyond biology and into other fields, such as law. For example, in response to my literal interpretation of Rule 12 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, "Dan," a friend of Ed Brayton who teaches constitutional law, responded with nothing but invective and Ed banned me permanently from his blog, "Dispatches from the Culture Wars." The Darwinists think that in any debate, they are the only ones who are informed and who can think logically. Everyone else is stupid and ignorant.

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Is Darwinism science -- or philosophy?

It has amazed me that though the debate over evolution is supposed to be a scientific one, people on both sides of the debate have been presenting arguments in philosophical terms as opposed to scientific terms. For example, Darwinists will often argue that "intelligent" design and irreducible complexity must be wrong because no supernatural designer would ever make "unintelligent" designs, of which there are many. Here are philosophical arguments presented at a public forum at Texas Tech by Darwinist Kenneth Miller, who should need no introduction to those who are familiar with the evolution controversy:

Question: On the idea of the origin of life from the very beginning… That’s one of the problems ..[unintelligible].. It’s difficult to understand at this point how life got established. But my question would be is that if it was organized , you know, self-organized by proteins or whatever, then the idea that it’s even self-organizing and that life from them on seemed to be self-organizing, you know, through random mutation, however you want to look at it, does not that sound very similar to design, or some form of hand involved in the original that allowed it to unfold?

Answer: Now, since he spoke from the back, I think everyone heard him, so I won’t repeat that.

The answer is Yes, it does. And in a way, the very use of the word “design” to label the current anti-evolution movement is a brilliant piece of public relations. And the reason for that is that any person who sees meaning and purpose and order to the universe — and I certainly do — in a sense believes in a kind of “design,” that things sort of make sense. Einstein told us that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it seems to be comprehensible, and that’s an extraordinary statement to make. So that’s a kind of “design.”

But the interesting thing is that in the context of the public debate in the United States today, what you described is actually not what is called “intelligent design,” and here’s the way in which I would put it. I, and I think all other evolutionists, would point to the fact that the capacity for life is inherent in matter. Matter is…. Life is a chemical and physical phenomenon. I think that the universe does have a “design,” and that the design is so grand that it makes the evolution of life not only possible but almost inevitable.

The ironic thing is that the proponents of intelligent design actually don’t think that. Because they don’t think that the universe is well enough designed to make the evolution of life inevitable. They think constant intervention on the part of the creator is required to bring about the first life, the first living cell, the first chordate, the first insect, the first bird. In other words, the designer or the creator had to keep tinkering with it. So, in away, In think most biologists look at the universe and have a grander appreciation for the orderliness of the universe based on what many of us regard as the almost inevitability of the evolution of living things.

Miller's above remarks are philosophical and not scientific. So one question is the following: If Darwinism is based on philosophy, then why should Miller's Darwinist philosophy be taught as scientific fact in the public schools while Michael Behe's philosophy of irreducible complexity is banned from mere mention in public schools on the grounds that it is just a fable inspired by religion?

While I am here, I would like to make a few responses to Ken Miller's above statements:

First, while it is true that the anti-Darwinism movement in often labeled "design," one of the reasons why I think that this label is unfortunate is that there are many criticisms of Darwinism that have little or nothing to do with "design." Such criticisms that I have presented in this blog concern co-evolution, the propagability of beneficial mutations in sexual reproduction, and chromosome counts. Also, the very term "design" has created problems because it implies the existence of a supernatural designer.

Miller said, "I, and I think all other evolutionists, would point to the fact that the capacity for life is inherent in matter." Well, duh. There are many elements and compounds that have properties that are virtually essential for the existence of life as we know it. For example, Wikipedia says the following about water's value to living things:

“From a biological standpoint, water has many distinct properties that are critical for the proliferation of life that set it apart from other substances. It carries out this role by allowing organic compounds to react in ways that ultimately allows replication. All known forms of life depend on water. Water is both vital as a solvent in which many of the bodies solutes dissolve, and an essential part of many metabolic processes within the body (e.g. significant quantities of water are used during the digestion of food).”

Water’s abilities as a solvent are so good that it has been called “the universal solvent.” Its good abilities as a solvent are related to the high polarity of the water molecule -- Wikipedia says, “Strongly polar compounds like inorganic salts (e.g. table salt) or sugars (e.g. sucrose) dissolve only in very polar solvents like water……” It was the belief that water exists on Mars (the “canals”) that led to speculation that life existed on Mars. Carbon and its compounds also have special properties that are virtually essential for life as we know it. There has been speculation about the possibility of living things that are not based on carbon compounds and water — see “Alternative Biochemistry” in Wikipedia – but there appear to be no really good substitutes for carbon compounds and water.

Miller's above statements are also discussed on Uncommon Descent and Panda's Thumb.

(I have introduced post "folding" on this blog -- called "expandable post summaries" by this blog service -- where only an introduction is shown on the main page. It was necessary to add software to my template. To add this feature to your Blogger.com blog, go to Blogger Help for instructions. Now if someone would just show me how to list the most recent comments posted anywhere on the blog. I have created a new blog just to experiment with new features so that I don't risk messing up this blog.)

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Hypocritical Kenneth Miller's evolution disclaimer

Kenneth Miller was a plaintiffs' expert witness in two recent evolution disclaimer cases, Kitzmiller v. Dover and the Selman v. Cobb County textbook sticker case. As it turns out, though, biology textbooks that he has co-authored have their own evolution disclaimer -- a denial of the notion that Darwinism conflicts with religion. Here is an excerpt from those textbooks:

Some scholars speculate that fear of being branded a heretic for his materialism contributed to Darwin's 21-year delay in publishing his theory. The same antimaterialistic reasoning also drives much modern-day opposition to evolutionary thought.

Darwin remained to the end a devout, if somewhat unorthodox, Christian. "I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone," he wrote. Like religious scientists of many faiths today, he found no less wonder in a god that directed the laws of nature than in one that circumvented them.
-- from Kenneth Miller's and Joseph Levine's biology textbook, Biology: Discovering Life. From Telic Thoughts

Unlike the Dover and Cobb County evolution disclaimers, Kenneth Miller's above evolution disclaimer is a blatantly religious statement. Although Miller was a co-author rather than the sole author of the textbook, arguably he still has some responsibility for the above statement.

An article in Evolution News & Views also quoted the passage that contained the above quote. This article says that the latest editions of the textbook "do not seem to contain such anti-theological language." So this textbook was cleaned up, just as the ID book Of People and Pandas was cleaned up by replacing the term "creationism" with "intelligent design."

Also, I was astonished that the plaintiffs in establishment clause cases, Kitzmiller and Selman, had the chutzpah to choose an expert witness -- Kenneth Miller -- who claims to be motivated by religion.

Despite the fact that the Kitzmiller v. Dover case has probably been the most thoroughly analyzed court case in history, it seems that new flaws in it are still being discovered almost daily, more than six months after the decision.

A related article on this blog is "Kenneth Miller the hypocrite"

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The case against expert witness testimony in monkey trials

First, I will give a history of expert witness testimony in monkey trials.

The first "monkey trial," the 1925 Scopes trial, had expert witness testimony, but it was testimony on knowledge of the Bible instead of scientific testimony, and the expert witness was the prosecuting attorney, William Jennings Bryan. "Inherit the Wind", the play and movie that was loosely based on the Scopes trial, also had expert witness testimony by the prosecuting attorney.

McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education(1982), which did not get past the district court level, had a lot of expert witness testimony. In fact, there is now a project to recover as much as possible of the expert witness testimony in that case, which seems silly because this testimony is so outdated, being a quarter-century old.

Things changed radically in Edwards v. Aguillard(1987). In that case, the district court judge refused to hear a "Monday morning battle of the experts" and the Supreme Court agreed with that refusal. The majority opinion said (pages 595-596),

The Louisiana Legislature did hear and rely on scientific experts in passing the bill, but none of the persons making the affidavits produced by the appellants participated in or contributed to the enactment of the law or its implementation. The District Court, in its discretion, properly concluded that a Monday morning "battle of the experts" over possible technical meanings of terms in the statute would not illuminate the contemporaneous purpose of the Louisiana Legislature when it made the law.

Note the emphasis on the words "properly concluded" -- some people don't seem to understand that a statement of agreement with a lower court's decision is quite a bit different from merely saying that a lower court did not abuse its discretion.

Unfortunately, the courts in later cases did not follow Edwards' lead of refusing to hear the testimony of expert witnesses who had played no part in directly influencing the government policies where such testimony was arguably not necessary for deciding the case. There was a little expert witness testimony in the Selman v. Cobb County evolution-disclaimer textbook sticker case, but it was not a significant factor in the decision, and one of the reasons for that is that the sticker did not specifically identify any criticism of evolution. However, as everyone knows, expert witness testimony was a major part of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, taking about half of the six-week trial. The expert witnesses added considerably to the expense of the trial -- there was not only the courtroom testimony but also depositions to be heard and expert reports to be read. There was really no reason for the depositions because all of the expert witnesses had big paper trails of publications. Eighty-five scientists submitted an amicus brief urging Judge Jones to not rule on the scientific merits of intelligent design. Judge Jones could have ruled against the defendants just on the basis of their religious motivations but chose instead to make a broad ruling that used the expert testimony to judge the scientific merits of irreducible complexity and intelligent design. Also, some of the most influential "expert" testimony in Kitzmiller was not scientific testimony but was the conspiracy theories of Barbara Forrest.

Judges themselves have recognized that courts are ill-suited for deciding questions of science. In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), which concerned the rules for admissibility of expert scientific testimony, the opinion of the court said,

It is true that open debate is an essential part of both legal and scientific analyses. Yet there are important differences between the quest for truth in the courtroom and the quest for truth in the laboratory. Scientific conclusions are subject to perpetual revision. Law, on the other hand, must resolve disputes finally and quickly.

And in the same case, Chief Justice Rehnquist said in an "other" (neither dissenting nor concurring) opinion --

Twenty two amicus briefs have been filed in the case, and indeed the Court's opinion contains no less than 37 citations to amicus briefs and other secondary sources.

The various briefs filed in this case are markedly different from typical briefs, in that large parts of them do not deal with decided cases or statutory language -- the sort of material we customarily interpret. Instead, they deal with definitions of scientific knowledge, scientific method, scientific validity, and peer review -- in short, matters far afield from the expertise of judges. This is not to say that such materials are not useful or even necessary in deciding how [Federal Rules of Evidence] Rule 703 should be applied; but it is to say that the unusual subject matter should cause us to proceed with great caution in deciding more than we have to, because our reach can so easily exceed our grasp.

There are some court cases -- e.g., product liability cases -- where it is absolutely essential to judge the scientific merits of ideas in order to reach a decision, but I assert that monkey trials do not fall into that category. Here are some reasons why the courts should, where possible, avoid hearing expert scientific testimony and deciding scientific questions --

(1) -- the courts have no constitutional or legal authority to decide scientific questions.

(2) -- scientific questions are outside the judges' areas of expertise.

(3) -- scientific ideas may be hurt by experts who make poor presentations (like Michael Behe's testimony that intelligent design is like astrology)

(4) -- there is often insufficient evidence for ruling on a scientific question -- the evolution v. ID controversy is a prime example!

(5) -- judgments on scientific issues are often highly subjective and arbitrary

(6) -- scientific knowledge is subject to change, which could cause court decisions to become obsolete or outdated

(7) -- in establishment clause cases, expert testimony often does not illuminate the purposes of the government or the perceptions of the local community, i.e., this testimony is a "Monday morning battle of the experts"

(8) -- rejections by the courts stigmatize struggling scientific ideas and make it even harder for those ideas to gain acceptance. Thus, rulings on scientific merits can even impede scientific progress.

(9) -- it is possible for something to have no scientific merit and yet not be considered to be a religious concept -- atrology and alchemy are good examples. There is no constitutional separation of bogus science and state

(10) -- many scientific questions are highly contentious issues, and the answers to many scientific questions should just be matters of personal opinion

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Dover Ain't Over -- Darwinists now attacking criticism of Darwinism in private schools

It was bad enough that the Darwinists have in recent years been misusing the courts to prevent public schools from merely mentioning criticisms of Darwinism ( Kitzmiller v. Dover, Selman v. Cobb County, and Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish), but now the Darwinists are even asking the courts to help discourage private schools from presenting criticisms of Darwinism. The University of California recently denied accreditation to some Christian-school courses because of the religious orientation of the textbooks, including biology textbooks. Some students from Calvary Chapel Christian School of Murrieta, Calif. sued UC, and the suit was joined by the Association of Christian Schools International.

In an op-ed piece in the Decatur Daily, Charles Haynes, a senior fellow at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., wrote,

Solely on academic grounds, the most problematic textbook may be the one used in biology. If UC can show that the text presents inaccurate or misleading science, then the university may have a legitimate basis for not accepting the course. If, however, the textbook presents the core information students need to know about biology, then the additional religious content should not disqualify the course. In other words, if the science itself is sound, then the fact that the authors promise to "put the Word of God first and science second" should be irrelevant in the university's decision.

It is hard to find an unbiased opinion about the Christian-school biology textbooks. Is the textbooks' treatment of evolution the sole basis for UC's rejection? Ed Darrell says that he has read the textbooks and calls one of them "shoddy and inadequate," but he specifically criticizes only that book's treatment of evolution:

I’ve read the Bob Jones biology books. The A-Beka books are shoddy and inadequate in biology. They give short shrift to evolution, describing the theory inaccurately and incompletely, and ignoring the practical effects of evolution in genetics and population dynamics, and other places, throughout the book.

Of course, many Darwinists think that a biology textbook should be disqualified merely for raising questions about Darwinism.

I assert that knowledge of the main Darwinian concepts -- changes through time, common descent, and an evolutionary process driven solely by natural genetic variation and natural selection -- is not necessary for a general understanding of biology. And even if such knowledge of Darwinism is necessary, belief in Darwinism is not necessary -- people can use the concepts of Darwinism even while believing that all or part of it is untrue, in the same way that people can use complex-number math in AC circuit analysis while believing that the math has no physical relationship to the circuits.

An article titled "Should Some Students Be Denied College Entrance Because They Used These Textbooks?", by the Association of Christian Schools International, said the following about a meeting between UC personnel, Christian school personnel, and attorneys on both sides of the issue (page 3):

When asked whether poor college performance by students from religious schools prompted the rejection of the textbooks, UC representatives responded negatively. They also acknowledged that UC did not have any objective evidence that students from religious schools are deficient in science when they arrive for their freshman year of college .....

As the discussion continued about the biology books, it became evident that they were rejected because they appeared to state the perspective that the Bible is revelation and along with faith is more authoritative than the observations of science, especially if there were a conflict over a "factual scientific issue."

I am against associating ID and creation science with religion, but the plaintiffs in this case are unfortunately deliberately making that association in order to use the Constitution's free exercise clause as grounds for the suit. The general rule is that constitutional rights may be abridged only for truly compelling reasons, and I feel that UC has not shown any truly compelling reason for discriminating against these Christian-school students.

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Many physicians skeptical of Darwinism

Uncommon Descent brought to my attention a fairly recent poll of physicians' opinions about evolution. I am really surprised that I did not know about this 2005 poll before. I guess the problem was that I just searched for polls of scientists and did not search for polls of physicians.

The actual poll results are here. The first question, Q1, was, "what religion are you?" Questions Q2-Q5 are not specified. The poll results for questions Q6-Q10 may be seen by clicking on the boxes on the left sidebar. A lot depends on how the questions were asked. For example, when asked, "What are your views on evolution -- accept, reject, or undecided," 78% responded, "accept"; when asked "do you agree more with evolution or more with intelligent design -- evolution, intelligent design, or no opinion," 63% responded "evolution," and when asked, "What are your views on the origin and development of human beings?", only 38% said, "humans evolved naturally with no supernatural involvement" (the other choices were guided evolution, were created in present form, and "I don't like to think about such matters"). What I can say is that these results show much lower support for evolution theory than I have seen in other polls of professionals in scientific or technological fields. I think that all of the recent publicity about the evolution controversy may be having an effect on the opinions of such professionals by causing them to think more about the issue. A large number of them probably previously took evolution for granted but when they carefully examined it they did not find it convincing -- that is what happened to me. Also, when the results of polls are widely publicized, there may be a "bandwagon" or "critical mass" effect: when people see that a fairly large number of their peers are questioning evolution, they are more likely to question evolution themselves. Anyway, how can the Darwinists say that there is no controversy when such large percentages of physicians -- who are well trained in biology -- reject or doubt Darwinism?

Despite the great importance that is attached to scientific and technological professionals' opinions about evolution (particularly such professionals who work in the field of biology, and physicians fall into that category), these professionals are rarely polled on the subject. Prior to this 2005 poll, the next most recent reliable poll of such professionals that I am aware of is a 2002 poll of scientists in Ohio. In that poll, 90 percent of respondents said that intelligent design is not supported at all by scientific evidence, but for reasons stated above, this figure is subject to sudden drastic change. In contrast to the infrequent polling of these professionals, the general public has been polled about evolution several times a year. Darwinists of course scoff at the large percentages of the public that question evolution or favor teaching criticism of evolution in the public schools. One would think that the Darwinists would want to counter that public questioning of evolution by sponsoring polls of scientific and technological professionals, but maybe the Darwinists are afraid of what such polls might reveal -- and this poll of physicians shows that such fear is justified. This poll of physicians shows that the opinions of scientific and technological professionals may be starting to shift towards anti-Darwinism, and anti-Darwinists should try to take advantage of this apparent trend by sponsoring other polls of such professionals and by publicizing the results of such polls.

There have been letter-signing campaigns as well as formal opinion polls in this area -- there is the Discovery Institute's campaign called "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", which now has over 600 signatures from professionals in science and technology; the "Project Steve" of the National Center for Science Education; and "Physicians and Surgeons Who Dissent from Darwinism", from Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity. These letter-signing campaigns are of course no substitute for formal opinion polling. One of the advantages of the opinion polls is that peer pressure is absent because these polls are anonymous.

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Evolution controversy is reminiscent of Bob Dylan song

In the evolution controversy, both sides try to stereotype, pigeonhole, and misrepresent the other side. For example, the anti-Darwinists use "quote mining" in an alleged effort to misrepresent Darwinists and the Darwinists insist that intelligent design is just "repackaged Creationism" (never mind that the Bible does not mention irreducible complexity, bacterial flagella, blood-clotting cascades, etc.). All of this stereotyping, pigeonholing and misrepresentation is reminiscent of a Bob Dylan song titled "All I Really Want to Do," which has the following lyrics:

I ain't lookin' to compete with you,
Beat or cheat or mistreat you,
Simplify you, classify you,
Deny, defy or crucify you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

No, and I ain't lookin' to fight with you,
Frighten you or uptighten you,
Drag you down or drain you down,
Chain you down or bring you down.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I ain't lookin' to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up,
Analyze you, categorize you,
Finalize you or advertise you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to straight-face you,
Race or chase you, track or trace you,
Or disgrace you or displace you,
Or define you or confine you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to meet your kin,
Make you spin or do you in,
Or select you or dissect you,
Or inspect you or reject you.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to fake you out,
Take or shake or forsake you out,
I ain't lookin' for you to feel like me,
See like me or be like me.
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I can just hear Bob Dylan's drawling, off-key voice now --
"All I really want to do-o-O-O-O-O ....."

LOL

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Herr Fuhrer Esley Welsberry's Big Lie

The Darwinists want people to believe that the current taboo against even mentioning criticism of evolution in public schools is just payback for past prohibitions of the teaching of evolution in public schools. Herr Fuhrer Wesley Elsberry, head honcho over at Panda's Thumb, wrote,

Following the Scopes trial in 1925, popular belief held that the antievolutionists had suffered a defeat and were in retrenchment. This was not so. In the next few years, over twenty other states passed legislation similar to Tennessee’s Butler Act, with the effect of banning the teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools in those states.(emphasis added)

Saying that over twenty other states actually "passed" legislation similar to Tennessee's Butler Act appears to be a gross exaggeration. Here is what the Wikipedia article on the Scopes Trial says:

The trial did not stop the anti-evolution movement. Before Dayton only the South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Kentucky legislatures had dealt with anti-evolution laws or riders to educational appropriations bills. In 1927 there were thirteen states, both North and South, that considered some form of anti-evolution law. At least forty one bills, riders, or resolutions were introduced into the state legislatures, with some states facing the issue repeatedly. While most of these efforts were rejected, both Mississippi and Arkansas put anti-evolution laws on the books after the Scopes trial.

Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 101-102 (1968), notes that bills to ban the teaching of evolution were introduced in twenty states in the period 1921-1929, but lists only four states as actually having had such laws on the books -- Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. In addition, Epperson notes that during that period the Florida and Texas legislatures adopted resolutions against teaching the "doctrine of evolution" (that is what the Epperson opinion called it -- we haven't yet figured out if evolution is a theory or a fact, and here the Supreme Court called it a "doctrine"). The Oklahoma law was repealed in 1926, the Tennessee law in 1967, and the Arkansas and Mississippi laws were struck down by Epperson in 1968. This list might not be complete, as it is partially based on an ACLU report of 1937. Here is what Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 101-102 (1968), actually says --

Only Arkansas and Mississippi have such "anti-evolution" or "monkey" laws on their books [see footnote 8]. There is no record of any prosecutions in Arkansas under its statute. It is possible that the statute is presently more of a curiosity than a vital fact of life in these States.

Footnote 8. Miss.Code Ann. 6798, 6799 (1942). Ark.Stat.Ann. 80-1627, 80-1628 (1960 Repl. Vol.). The Tennessee law was repealed in 1967. Oklahoma enacted an anti-evolution law, but it was repealed in 1926. The Florida and Texas Legislatures, in the period between 1921 and 1929, adopted resolutions against teaching the doctrine of evolution. In all, during that period, bills to this effect were introduced in 20 States. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), The Gag on Teaching 8 (2d ed., 1937). (emphasis added)

In addition to the above laws that banned the teaching of evolution outright, Arkansas and Louisiana had laws requiring balanced teaching of evolution and creation science. These laws were struck down by the courts in Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987) and McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education , 529 F. Supp. 1255 (1982)

All of the states mentioned by name above are part of what is generally known as the Bible Belt, and all the states mentioned above that actually had anti-evolution laws or legislative resolutions are -- with the exception of Florida -- in a contiguous group of states in the Southwestern and South-and-mid-central parts of that belt.

Ironically, the term "Bible Belt" was coined by H.L. Mencken in a newspaper report about the 1925 Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee. He described the region as "this bright, shining, buckle of the Bible belt." H.L. Mencken was represented by the fictional newspaper reporter E.K. Hornbeck in the play and movies titled "Inherit the Wind".

The name "Herr Fuhrer Esley Welsberry" (pronounced "Velsberry") was coined by Elsberry critic John A. Davison. According to my own experience with Elsberry, it is an accurate description.

A related article on this blog is "Anti-Darwinism strengthens outside Bible Belt".

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Anti-Darwinism strengthens outside Bible Belt

In the past, anti-Darwinism was strongest in the Bible Belt states because of its association with religion, particularly fundamentalism. However, intelligent design has loosened that association, which I think is the reason why we now see anti-Darwinism growing strong in other parts of the country.

Until the Pennsylvania case of Kitzmiller v. Dover, all of the most important court cases involving governmental public-education rules banning Darwinism, disclaiming Darwinism, or promoting criticisms of Darwinism originated in the Bible Belt of the South. The first was the famous Scopes "monkey" trial in Tennessee in 1925. Since then there have been the following important evolution-education cases from Bible Belt states of the South (the year of the final or latest decision is given, followed by the highest federal court to decide the case -- SC for Supreme Court, App.Ct. for appeals court, and Dist.Ct. for district court):

Arkansas -- Epperson v. Arkansas (1968-SC), McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education (1982-Dist.Ct.)
Louisiana -- Edwards v. Aguillard (1987-SC), Freiler v Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education (2000-App.Ct.)
Georgia -- Selman v. Cobb County (2006--Appt.Ct. remanded to Dist.Ct. -- still pending)

A few significant court cases involving evolution education in the public schools originated outside the Bible Belt, but all of these other cases were anti-Darwinist lawsuits.

Also, the Discovery Institute noted growing state-level support for teaching criticism of evolution in the public schools, and a lot of this support is outside the Southern Bible Belt states --

Columbia, SC – The South Carolina Education Oversight Committee (EOC) will vote Monday, June 12, on whether to give final approval to science standards for biology that require students to summarize how scientists “investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.” The standards were approved unanimously by the South Carolina Board of Education on May 31. Four other states (Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and New Mexico) already have science education standards encouraging critical analysis of evolution.

Note: An article in Panda's Thumb disputes the above statement about South Carolina, but concedes, "Edited to add: It was brought to my attention that the science curriculum does actually contain one sentence about 'critical analysis' that was added a year ago, so the DI press release isn’t technically untrue."

Of the four states listed in the above DI press release, Kansas is arguably a Bible Belt state, but it is outside the South. One of the states listed above, Pennsylvania, is Judge Jones' own state, bearding the lion in his den. Other states outside the Bible Belt -- e.g., Ohio and Michigan -- have also had efforts to create state education standards encouraging critical analysis of evolution.

Despite the Darwinists' claim that the Kitzmiller decision was the coup de grace to the anti-Darwinist movement, that movement is still very much alive, as was Mark Twain when he said, "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." It is good to see that there are lots of public officials with enough backbone to stand up to the threats of lawsuits against education standards that encourage critical analysis of evolution. A member of the Ohio Board of Education said, "let them sue us." Now that's the spirit!

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NYC Mayor Bloomberg's commencement speech took swipe at ID

At a commencement speech at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a swipe at intelligent design, just as Judge John E. Jones III did at a commencement speech at Dickinson College. Mayor Bloomberg said in his speech:

Today, we are seeing hundreds of years of scientific discovery being challenged by people who simply disregard facts that don't happen to agree with their agendas. Some call it "pseudo-science," others call it "faith-based science," but when you notice where this negligence tends to take place, you might as well call it "political science.".........You can see "political science" at work when it comes to global warming........You can see "political science" at work with respect to stem cell research....... Was there anything more inappropriate than watching political science try to override medical science in the Terry Schiavo case?

And it boggles the mind that nearly two centuries after Darwin, and 80 years after John Scopes was put on trial, this country is still debating the validity of evolution. In Kansas, Mississippi, and elsewhere, school districts are now proposing to teach "intelligent design" - which is really just creationism by another name -- in science classes alongside evolution. Think about it! This not only devalues science, it cheapens theology. As well as condemning these students to an inferior education, it ultimately hurts their professional opportunities.

At least Mayor Bloomberg's speech is not as offensive as Judge Jones' speech. Bloomberg is just a politician and as such is not expected to be neutral or objective. However, judges are expected to be neutral and objective on issues that come before them, but Judge Jones' commencement speech at Dickinson College showed that he has a hostility toward organized religion that would prevent him from being neutral and objective in establishment clause cases -- he said: "The Founders believed that true religion was not something handed down by a church or contained in a Bible, but was to be found through free, rational inquiry." (emphasis added) Jones should be disqualified from deciding establishment clause cases and his Kitzmiller decision ought to be rescinded and the case retried.

Despite Bloomberg's claim that school districts are now proposing to teach intelligent design, intelligent design was not actually being taught in Dover, Cobb County, and Tangipahoa Parish -- all places where gag orders by the courts prohibited evolution disclaimers in the public schools. The only "religion" that was and is being taught in those places is Darwinism. As for ID hurting the students' professional opportunities, that is generally not true. Most students are still being taught Darwinism, and scientists can continue to use the concepts and tools of Darwinism even while believing that all or part of it is untrue, in the same way that electrical engineers use complex-number math in the analysis of AC circuits even while being aware that the math bears little or no physical relationship to the circuits -- in particular, the reactance, which is the magnitude of the imaginary component of the impedance vector in the complex plane, is especially remote from any physical relationship to the AC circuits because the reactance is a calculated quantity based on a circuit's inductance, capacitance, and AC frequency. Also, I believe that the concept that macroevolution was driven solely by natural genetic variation and natural selection has no practical application in science or technology. I will concede that other concepts of evolution theory are useful in biology, but I feel that they are not absolutely necessary -- for example, the chronological order of fossils can be an aid in taxonomic classification, but it is not necessary to assume that species evolved into other species.

A media report on Bloomberg's commencement address is here.

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Double standard for Darwinist and anti-Darwinist public officials

As I already noted on this blog, Judge John E. Jones III, the author of the infamous Kitzmiller v. Dover decision, has been spreading his Darwinist gospel as a hot speaker on the lecture circuit. He has given about a dozen speeches since the decision was released in December -- I gave examples in "Judge Jones is hot speaker on the lecture circuit", which is about his commencement address at his alma mater, Dickinson College, and "Judge Jones the hypocrite", which is about a recent speech he gave at the Gettysburg Lutheran Theological College. He also gave a speech to the Anti-Defamation League. Not all of his speech material has been in defense of the Dover decision in particular -- some of the material stressed the importance of keeping politics out of the courts -- but at least one of his speeches, at Dickinson College, expressed his personal philosophy about religion, and that speech was definitely a defense of his Dover decision in particular.

Is there anything wrong with judges expressing their personal opinions when outside the court (unfortunately, Judge Jones also expresses his personal opinions inside the court, as when his Kitzmiller opinion demagogically pandered to Darwinists by accusing the Dover defendants of "breathtaking inanity")? Don't judges have the same freedom of expression as the rest of us? OK, I agree that judges have a right to complete freedom of expression when they are not speaking in their official capacities as judges. But shouldn't other public officials also have the right of freedom of expression when they speak outside of their official capacities? Some people think that the answer is no when the public official is an anti-Darwinist top official of public education. A Lawrence Journal-World article titled "Evolution, religion comments put heat on department spokesman" says that David Awbrey, the director of communications for the Kansas State Department of Education, got into deep trouble for making anti-Darwinist statements as a panelist at a public forum (the article is followed by readers' comments). The article says, "At a Kansas City Press Club forum earlier this month, Awbrey argued that evolution proponents are practicing a religion. Supporting evolution, he said, is metaphysical speculation." Kansas Citizens for Science presents a recording and transcripts of the forum. Even though he believed that he was speaking as a private citizen, there were accusations that he represented the state Department of Education because he identified himself as the department's director of communications. Jack Krebs of Kansas Citizens for Science said of Awbrey, “They just didn’t invite him because he was an interesting journalist [Awbrey's former occupation]. He introduced himself as David Awbrey, director of communications.” So why couldn't Awbrey state his occupation just for identification purposes? When Judge Jones gave his public speeches, did the audiences have any illusions that he was not a federal judge? And would Jones have been invited to speak if it had not been for his prominence stemming from the Kitzmiller v. Dover case? Also, I doubt that Awbrey's statements would have been condemned had they supported Darwinism. Anyway, if the topic of the forum was so controversial that Awbrey was not free to speak his mind there, then maybe he should not have participated at all. However, even though Awbrey attended the forum on his own time and money, his boss, state education commissioner Bob Corkins, told him to attend.

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Unnatural selection in racehorses

We keep hearing of all the wonderful applications of evolution theory. Well, one area where evolution theory is not applied is in the breeding of racehorses. A 2002 New York Times article, titled "Winning Races, but Not Records", reports that the speed of racehorses has been stagnant for several decades ( indeed, it has even been theorized that racehorses are actually getting slower because the speeds have been stagnant while race courses have been getting faster). Why is that? Horsebreeders seem clueless. Well, they should be told, "it's like this, stupid": a perverse result of exorbitant stud fees -- as high as $½ million for the best stud horses -- is that the fastest horses transmit their superior running abilities to few offspring. The high fees in combination with the great financial risk to the buyers of the stud services greatly limit the numbers of offspring. Usually the only thing that is guaranteed in exchange for these huge stud fees is a live foal -- there is no guarantee that the foal will ever earn a single dime. Furthermore, apparently no discount is offered if a filly rather than a colt is born. Fillies rarely win the biggest races -- for example, only 38 fillies have started in the Kentucky Derby and only three have won. The fastest horses do have some excellent traits to transmit to offspring -- for example, the legendary Secretariat had a heart approximately three times normal size.

Of course, racehorse breeders should not be blamed for trying to get as much for stud services as the market will bear. However, they are just going about it the wrong way. The smart thing to do would be to offer the stud services of the fastest horses for just a nominal charge or even for free, in exchange for a share of the future winnings of the offspring. This would maintain high incomes for the stud-service providers while eliminating the risk for the buyers of the stud services. The result would be a general increase in the speed of race horses, and interest in horse racing could be increased by offering prizes for breaking race-course records.

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