Genesis Revisited scientifically summarises the scientific field of Creation Science (warning: science) [transcript]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on Jun 22, 2009 - 103 comments

Teach the Controversy. Because we know that the earth sits on giant elephants which in turn ride an even gianter turtle. [more inside]
posted by cerebus19 on Jun 16, 2008 - 74 comments

Stupid Design Neil deGrasse Tyson gives a short view from the other side of the coin. (SLYT)
posted by Benny Andajetz on Jun 15, 2008 - 40 comments

16% of US science teachers believe human beings have been created by God within the last 10,000 years. 25% of science teachers spend some time teaching about creationism or intelligent design. 12.5% teach it as a "valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species". 2% say they do not cover evolution at all. Teachers who have taken more science courses themselves devote more time to evolution - "This may be because better-prepared teachers are more confident in dealing with students' questions about a sensitive subject."
posted by Artw on May 19, 2008 - 205 comments

Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a pro-Intelligent Design, anti-evolution polemic, arrived in theaters Friday to overwhelmingly negative reviews and anemic ticket sales. In response to the claims made in the film comes Expelled Exposed, a website which seeks to "show you why this movie is not a documentary at all, but anti-science propaganda aimed at creating the appearance of controversy where there is none."
posted by Pope Guilty on Apr 20, 2008 - 359 comments

The Inner Life of an Intelligently Designed Cell? Remember The Inner Life of a Cell animation (discussed here)? Apparently the Discovery Institute (recently discussed here) is showing it in presentations with a new title and narration, and without attribution.
posted by homunculus on Nov 20, 2007 - 20 comments

Sex Ratio Theory, Ancient and Modern - An 18th Century Debate about Intelligent Design and the Development of Models in Evolutionary Biology [pdf file]. The design argument for the existence of God took a probabilistic turn in the 17th and 18th centuries. Earlier versions, such as Thomas Aquinas’ 5th way, usually embraced the premise that goal-directed systems (things that “act for an end” or have a function) must have been created by an intelligent designer. This idea – which we might express by the slogan “no design without a designer” – survived into the 17th and 18th centuries, and it is with us still in the writings of many creationists. The new version of the argument, inspired by the emerging mathematical theory of probability, removed the premise of necessity. It begins with the thought that goal-directed systems might have arisen by intelligent design or by chance; the problem is to discern which hypothesis is more plausible. From Professor Elliott Sober.
posted by amyms on Nov 8, 2007 - 28 comments

Science is better: An enormous scientific study has conclusively demonstrated that "diet had no effect" on rates of women getting cancer or heart disease. Because the study investigated the efficacy of overall low fat diets, rather than the more recently developed hypothesis that saturated fats are the only pernicious kind, some leading medical researchers accept these findings but still think there MAY be a direct link between certain diets and major health problems in women, but (and here's the money shot) "if they did a study like that and it was negative, then I'd have to give up my cherished hypotheses for data." Now that, my friends, is a heartwarming example of one of the pinnacles of human creativity, the scientific method, which is under so much attack these days. . .
posted by twsf on Feb 7, 2006 - 29 comments

Incompetent Design is yet another entry in the battle regarding the origin of humans.
posted by knave on Dec 9, 2005 - 38 comments

Intelligent Design on trial! The ACLU of PA is blogging the current trial in Dover, PA between the parents of students and the local school board which wants to teach students Intelligent Design. Over at The Panda's Thumb, they're also keeping track of the goings on. The main ACLU website has statements from most of the plaintiff's experts in the case, including this long, well-supported pdf from philsopher Barbara Forrest, whose testimony is being used to dismantle the canard that ID is not Creationism. Over at the Legal Affairs Debate Club Beckwith and Laylock argued, last week, about whether teaching ID is legal. For background: this 2002 special report from Natural History Magazine on Intelligent Design Creationism.
posted by OmieWise on Oct 6, 2005 - 81 comments

Did the discovery of evolution lead to Darwin's agnosticism, as claimed? Carl Zimmer wonders. More importantly, can evolution be reconciled with Christianity?
posted by daksya on Aug 11, 2005 - 90 comments

Bush comes out in favor of teaching "intelligent design" alongside evolution in American schools. Is this the latest evidence of the White House willing to champion worthy but controversial ideas that have been sidelined by liberal bias, or strictly from Paul Krugman's theoretical headline, "Shape of Earth: Views Differ"? [Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Lone Star State, Texas educators ignite brouhaha by adding Bible study to the public-school curriculum].
posted by digaman on Aug 2, 2005 - 343 comments

Why "Intelligent Design" Isn't. The New Yorker takes an informative look at the "factual" basis for so-called "Intelligent Design" theory, while an all too infrequent victory is won in Georgia.
posted by scrim on May 25, 2005 - 196 comments

"Set your irony meters on maximum." All this week, a three-member subcommittee of the Kansas State Board of Education is holding hearings on how to teach science. [background] Creationists, er, advocates of "intelligent design," are using it to bootstrap their claim that evolution through natural selection and creationism are two sides of a story. While many scientists are boycotting what one newspaper is calling "Barnum on steroids," IDers have brought out the big guns -- including one Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish, Muslim, newspaper columnist with a Masters in history and a close associaton with a group that presents evolution "as a conspiracy of the Jewish and American imperialists to promote new world order and fascist motives." Get your official scorecard to the Scopes Trial II here!
posted by docgonzo on May 10, 2005 - 125 comments

Noted British atheist Antony Flew has changed his mind, persuaded by scientific evidence that God exists and that "intelligence must have been involved" in the origin of life. As Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at the University of Reading and the author of several influential books on the subject of atheism, Flew was once one of rationalism's leading lights. He now compares his beliefs with the predominantly American concept of Intelligent Design. "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads," he says.
posted by gd779 on Dec 10, 2004 - 172 comments

Blinded By Science: How `Balanced' Coverage Lets the Scientific Fringe Hijack Reality. How and why the media has failed so completely to educate the American public on the massive environmental dangers we face. (via WorldChanging)
posted by stbalbach on Nov 11, 2004 - 11 comments

"Just for the record, do you believe the Sun goes around the Earth or the Earth goes around the sun?" : Ages before "Intelligent Design", a bold PaleoCreationist pseudoscientific gobbledygook - embodied by Tom Willis, Creationism's man in Kansas and head of the Mid Atlantic Creation Research Society - strode the Earth. The AAAS dissected the mess in "Lions, Tigers and APES, Oh My! ; Creationism vs. Evolution in Kansas" ( Google cache) and one writer concluded : "The War between the creationists and the public schools is over. The creationists appear to have won" : now, in a Kansas that's scientifically proven flatter than a pancake, Mona Lisa is as happy as a clam, and Kissing Frank's ass and appeals to mysterious watchmakers predominate, while on the national stage, God is a real estate developer.

Meanwhile, a new group proposes better zoning bylaws : Scientists and Engineers for Change
posted by troutfishing on Sep 30, 2004 - 22 comments

Oh, God! Under the Bush administration there were a lot of things we had to forget, things like how democratic presidents get elected, how to sell democracy to undemocratic peoples, how to be free, patriotic, etc. Now, it seems, is the time to forget all about this menace to mankind: SCIENCE.
posted by acrobat on Apr 23, 2003 - 35 comments

Evolution resumes in Kansas. Two of the three state school board members who de-emphasized evolution in the science curriculum have lost in primary elections. Survival of the fittest is a bitch, ain't it?
posted by rcade on Aug 2, 2000 - 2 comments