The creationists are in town this week in Darwin’s birthplace. I have been out of town myself so could not attend any of the weekday sessions, but I do hope to get to the Saturday lecture, which stars Stephen C. Meyer, one of the founders of the Discovery Insitute, the begetters of the “Intelligent Design” (ID) idea. If I can get there, I’ll report back to the local humanists and comment here.
Interestingly, although the Disco people like to promote ID as a “scientific” theory, without actually doing any science, the inspiration behind the programme in Shrewsbury appears to be religious, and specifically Christian. The event information (not on line, as far as I can find) says: “We believe there is not one debate but two: one debate about interpretations of the scientific evidence – what has come to be known as Intelligent Design versus random processes – and another between two faith positions: an originally good world which has been in decline as a consequence of human wrongdoing, or an originally simple and amoral world which has been evolving into something more complex and better.” No room allowed here for any other interpretations, apparently, particularly the possibility that you can have a view on evolution that is not a “faith position”.
There is the common straw man version of evolution: “Evolution involves progress “up” the evolutionary tree, each step requiring the addition of information to the genetic code. Random processes do not produce meaningful information.”
If anyone has any information about the weekday presentations, I’d be interested to hear about them. [bpsdb]
Filed under: badscience, education, irreligion, philosophy of science, pseudoscience, scepticism, science, supernatural | Tagged: creationism, Darwin, Discovery Institute, evolution, intelligent design, Shrewsbury Deep Waters, Stephen C Meyer
[...] majority of biologists, then they would try to understand the theory. Especially as the series of meetings in Shrewsbury, Darwin’s birthplace, was billed as “an assessment of the evidence for design which has [...]
[...] Creationism in Darwin’s birthplace More about Stephen Meyer’s lecture on Intelligent Design Other creationists who crashed the Darwin party Deep Waters Trust out of its depth [...]
[...] Creationism in Darwin’s birthplace More about Stephen Meyer’s lecture on Intelligent Design Other creationists who crashed the Darwin party [...]