On their website, the British Centre for Science Education claims to be a "newly formed organisation with the primary purpose of stopping the teaching of Creationism in UK state schools." They've had a letter published in the Times, and has even been endorsed by a motion in the House of Commons.

However, David Anderson at "The BCSE Revealed" has been doing some digging, and has discovered some interesting facts. For example, the BCSE isn't "newly formed". It previously existed under the name "Black Shadow", but changed to the current name earlier this year.

Their old website is still accessible, and invites people to "Join The Fight" by joining the British Humanist Association. The group is also using its concern about creationism in schools as an excuse to make political jabs at UK's Prime Minister Tony Blair:

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the UK government under the leadership of Tony Blair has an unstated agenda to increase the influence & involvement of religious organisations in the running of our society. Many of these are associated with creationism & other forms of fundamentalism that seem to have crawled straight out of the Dark Ages.

So, it's a group using concern for science as a front for its metaphysical and political agenda. Isn't that what many critics are accusing the Discovery Institute of doing?

Over at Uncommon Descent, GilDodgen links to a debate between Richard Dawkins and David Quinn. It is worth a listen, as Quinn does a very good job of nailing Dawkins on his straw man arguments. However, what caught my ear was the way Dawkins didn't want to talk about free will. Why is this significant? Well, UD member eldinus spotted the same problem I saw. According to eldinus:

"I'm just not interested in free will, it's not a big question for me."-Dawkins

I find it funny Mr Dawkins would say that after he said the following as part of his "Dangerous idea""¦

"But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?"-Dawkins

Now, Dawkins must know that he has argued this before. So why did he act like he wasn't interested in this issue? Also, if you listen toward the middle of the debate (where Quinn first brings up free will), Dawkins seems to be denying his "Dangerous Idea." What's up with that?

[BTW, Krauze was the first one to comment on Dawkins' determinism.]

Here's a video on YouTube of Richard Dawkins hawking his new book, The God Delusion, on the Colbert Report, a talk show parody. The host, Stephen Colbert, is usually good at making people look stupid, but in this interview, he mostly lobs softballs at Dawkins. Too bad; I'm sure the two of them could have had a spirited discussion about how raising your children with religion is a form of child abuse, comparable to knocking out their teeth.

1989 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Sidney Altman authored 'The RNA World.' The opening paragraphs:

The phrase "The RNA World" was coined by Walter Gilbert in 1986 in a commentary on the then recent observations of the catalytic properties of various RNAs. The RNA World referred to an hypothetical stage in the origin of life on Earth. During this stage, proteins were not yet engaged in biochemical reactions and RNA carried out both the information storage task of genetic information and the full range of catalytic roles necessary in a very primitive self-replicating system. Gilbert pointed out that neither DNA nor protein were required in such a primitive system if RNA could perform as a catalyst. At that time, it had only been demonstrated that RNA could cleave or ligate phosphodiester bonds. Nevertheless, as is a frequent occurrence in science, a general hypothesis was constructed from a few specific instances of a phenomenon. This hypothesis proved to be very effective in stimulating thought about the origin of life on Earth. Ensuing discoveries of other natural catalytic RNAs that could cleave and ligate phosphodiester bonds, and the very recent observation that the region surrounding the peptidyl transferase center of a bacterial 50S ribosomal subunit contains RNA and no protein, further buttress the hypothesis. Finally, the so-called "evolution in vitro" methodology, which is able to scan an enormous number of nucleic acid sequences in vitro for any given function, has revealed that RNA, indeed, can have many different catalytic functions as so can, presumably, DNA.

DNA and RNA also carry information. How did the described catalytic function create information? If it did not then how did the information originate.

Smokey offered references. The abstract of one follows:

In vitro compartmentalization (IVC) has previously been used to evolve protein enzymes. Here, we demonstrate how IVC can be applied to select RNA enzymes (ribozymes) for a property that has previously been unselectable: true intermolecular catalysis. Libraries containing 1011 ribozyme genes are compartmentalized in the aqueous droplets of a water-in-oil emulsion, such that most droplets contain no more than one gene, and transcribed in situ. By coencapsulating the gene, RNA, and the substrates/products of the catalyzed reaction, ribozymes can be selected for all enzymatic properties: substrate recognition, product formation, rate acceleration, and turnover. Here we exploit the complementarity of IVC with systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX), which allows selection of larger libraries (1015) and for very small rate accelerations (kcat/kuncat) but only selects for intramolecular single-turnover reactions. We selected 1014 random RNAs for Diels"“Alderase activity with five rounds of SELEX, then six to nine rounds with IVC. All selected ribozymes catalyzed the Diels"“Alder reaction in a truly bimolecular fashion and with multiple turnover. Nearly all ribozymes selected by using eleven rounds of SELEX alone contain a common catalytic motif. Selecting with SELEX then IVC gave ribozymes with significant sequence variations in this catalytic motif and ribozymes with completely novel motifs. Interestingly, the catalytic properties of all of the selected ribozymes were quite similar. The ribozymes are strongly product inhibited, consistent with the Diels"“Alder transition state closely resembling the product. More efficient Diels"“Alderases may need to catalyze a second reaction that transforms the product and prevents product inhibition.

Would the existence of ribozymes having "substrate recognition, product formation, rate acceleration, and turnover" answer the information question. We know the end of this story- a cell. Is this the type of specificity required to fill in details like the generation of information rich DNA? If not where are they? Back to Altman.

On further reflection, many doubts have been raised about whether or not the original genetic/catalytic material could have been RNA as we know it today because extreme conditions on the primitive Earth might have led to the rapid chemical degradation of RNA. Nevertheless, even if the precise chemical nature of the early genetic/catalytic material differed from present-day RNA, it seems reasonable to conclude that the RNA World did exist at some time. If very primitive life on Earth did not arise until about 3.5 billion years ago, there was, perhaps, a period of 0.5 billion years in which to sample many polymer sequences that originally arose through non-biochemical mechanisms and that ultimately evolved directed the first self-replicating systems.

What was the nature of these self-replicating systems? Is there a pathway to cellular systems containing enough descriptive information to evaluate?

A post in ID The Future entitled 'Does George Smoot, Nobel Laureate, See Physical Evidence of Design in the Cosmos?' raises the issue of teleology on a cosmic scale. From the post:

"However, like several other prominent contemporary physicists (e.g., Arno Penzias, Owen Gingerich, and Paul Davies), Smoot has made remarks that suggest he considers the best explanation for certain features of the natural world to be a teleological or purposeful cause–what we in the ID community refer to as intelligent design and what the pope recently described as creative reason."

The ultimate in front loading- the universe itself. Here's more:

"In an interview in the same book, Smoot describes the evidence for purposeful fine tuning in greater detail:

"In order to make a universe as big and wonderful as it is, lasting as long as it is"”we're talking fifteen billion years and we're talking huge distances here"”in order for it to be that big, you have to make it perfectly. Otherwise, imperfections would mount up and the universe would either collapse on itself or fly apart, and so it's actually quite a precise job. And I don't know if you've had discussions with people about how critical it is that the density of the universe come out so close to the density that decides whether it's going to keep expanding forever or collapse back, but we know it's within one percent." (p. 168)"

Now back down to earth and the philosophical materialists inhabiting it.

"Philosophical materialists insist that matter and energy are all there is. How do they respond to the testimony of such scientists? They hope no one will notice. One tactic of philosophical materialists (who represent roughly 10 percent of the American population as well as a small minority of the global population) is to try to present those who see physical evidence for design in nature as marginal crackpots or as purely motivated by religious faith. This tactic becomes increasingly difficult when respected scientists stand up and notice in public the plain evidence of nature."

We know these tactics. Krauze posted a list of brass knuckle debating tactics. But tactics aside, here's a question for the anti-telic commentors in the group. Does your position on mainstream evolutionary theory prejudice your view on the origin of the universe itself?

On August 21, 2006 Nicholas Matzke and Mustafa Akyol answered questions and gave their differing responses during a dialogue featured at Islam Online. Matzke works for the National Center for Science Education and Akyol is a Muslim writer whose blog details his views on religion, politics and ID. Here is a part of the exchange. Matzke writes:

"many people think that if evolution is true, and there is a natural explanation for life, then God of a higher power doesn't exist. But this is really not the case."

True. However some espouse the same ideas as Matzke while advancing the view that evidence supporting evolution is also evidence against creation or biblical credibility. The above statement could be aimed at that faction.

"Does anyone feel that their faith is threatened by the fact that we have a natural explanation for the weather, i.e. hurricanes, droughts, rain, snow, lightning, etc.?"

Few meteorologists take issue with scriptural views and meteorology inspires more confidence than disciplines related to natural history. Weather forecasts are tested every day and weather forecasters take a beating when they are wrong. The indirect testing of evolution contrasts with meteorology. Time constraints and unrepeatable pasts events are obstacles for historic disciplines like abiogenesis and evolution.

"All of these things are mentioned as being controlled by God in the Bible (and I assume other holy texts and religious traditions), and many people pray about these things, but for some reason no one goes around and accuses the meteorologists and climatologists of promoting atheism."

Perhaps it is because they do not do so. Mustafa Akyol made the case:

However, by the term evolution, modern Darwinians mean something more. They argue that life on Earth is the product of the blind forces of nature and that there is no Creator worth speaking about. "Chance and necessity," as the famous atheist Jacques Monod argued, is their substitute for a Creator. Also George Gaylord Simpson, one of the gurus of neo-Darwinism, in his book "The Meaning of Evolution" put this quite clearly. "Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind," Simpson wrote, "He was not planned." (Simpson 1967, p. 345)

Now I don't think this openly atheistic idea is compatible with Islam. And it is not compatible with the scientific evidence, either. It is a philosophical presupposition that is imposed onto the scientific evidence. Intelligent Design theorists have unveiled this crucial fact and that's why they have been receiving so much reaction.

We are proud to announce a new contributor to Telic Thoughts, William Bradford. You may know him from his blog, Intelligently Sequenced, where he frequently posts on new research that is relevant to intelligent design.

Barry at withallyourmind.net has found a great article by the 19th-Century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, called "38 Ways to Win an Argument". Evidently, old Schopenhauer cared more about winning than being right (or maybe he was just parodying some bad debate tactics he'd experienced). Just look at these examples:

3. Ignore your opponent's proposition, which was intended to refer to some particular thing. Rather, understand it in some quite different sense, and then refute it. Attack something different than what was asserted.

14. Try to bluff your opponent. If he or she has answered several of your questions without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow. If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.

21. When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character. But it is better to meet the opponent with a counter-argument that is just as superficial, and so dispose of him. For it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth.
Example: If the opponent appeals to prejudice or emotion, or attacks you personally, return the attack in the same manner.

And my personal favorite:

38. Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand. In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. This is a very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect.