The Wonder of Life

The following video is a TED talk by Alexander Tsiaras, an associate professor of Yale University in the Department of Medicine. Using the latest in technology, Alexander and his team have created a visualization of a human baby from conception to birth. As he says, the more we learn about the intricate details of the structure of the cell and replication, and collagen, etc., the more we must ascribe a Divine origin.

This type of research is leading more and more scientists to move towards the Intelligent Design theory as an explanation for the complexity of life. Illustra Media has also prepared several informative videos that explore the theory of Intelligent Design. I doubt that Alexander Tsiaras set out to advance this theory, but he has done so none-the-less.

This also advances the cause of the Right-to-Life movement by showing just how rapid is the development of the fetus. It's hard to justify abortion with this information, particularly after the first few weeks. Watch the video and come to your own conclusions. As I watched, I thought of these verses written by the Psalmist David.

"For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.
(Psalm 139:13-16)



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Thought Police

The New Bigotry

Once again Canadians who follow the news are being made aware of the great lurking danger that is facing our culture... that's right, it's those Christians again. A couple of them have actually dared to allow themselves to be placed in positions for which the leftists among us feel they should be disqualified.

The Government of Canada recently appointed Doug Cryer to a position on the immigration and refugee board. The problem is that this man has dared in the past to oppose same-sex marriage. He's also, (horrors), a Christian who believes that homosexuality is immoral. According to NDP critic Olivia Chow and the gay and lesbian group EGALE those two facts should disqualify him from this position. Their reasoning is that he would be biased against gay claimants.

Of note is that his views are shared by a great many Canadians, and if this disqualifies him and most other conservatives then, by default, all future government appointments must be given to social liberals. Actually, if you look at Canada's Supreme Court that would already appear to be the practice. Many of the changes in our culture have stemmed from precisely the type of muzzling and social engineering that these leftists appear to be promoting. Here's a thought - why not let the guy do his job. If he contravenes the rules, then challenge him!

The second appointment to come under scrutiny in the Canadian Press is the appointment of Gary Goodyear as Canada's Minister of State for Science and Technology. He dared to answer with a "no comment" when he was asked whether or not he believed in evolution. That certainly got the hounds howling against this admitted Christian. Here's a sample quote: “It is the same as asking the gentleman, ‘Do you believe the world is flat?' and he doesn't answer on religious grounds,” said Dr. Alters. “Or gravity, or plate tectonics, or that the Earth goes around the sun.”

So now the "theory" of evolution is as much a "fact" as gravity. That would be news to a great many eminent scientists who would say otherwise. Even if you want to say that and if Mr. Goodyear does believe in creationism, does that disqualify him from this position? If so, it would also disqualify Sir Isaac Newton, Kepler, Pasteur and a great many of the pillars of modern science who believed in creationism and believed it made them better scientists. They believed in a God who created the world according to a pattern. That belief spurred them to look for those patterns and the laws which He laid down in nature. Far from being an inhibitor, their faith enhanced their science.

A deeper look reveals the depth of animosity and bigotry against the faith community in the sciences. Even if you don't like Ben Stein's movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," you at least have to acknowledge that the scientific establishment has gone out of its way to make life difficult for believers, and even non-believers who dare to question evolution's place.

Here's the way I see it. Evolution has, for years, been the only acceptable view for origins within science. The reason for that was a fundamental shift from science as a simple pursuit of truth. That pursuit used to be defined by the willingness to go where the evidence leads. Now that has been replaced with an unofficial dogma that whatever explanation we come up with for the origin of man must be naturalistic. Whatever evidence there may be for special creation must be ignored because it appeals the supernatural.

This shift is then combined with the scientific principle that no theory is discarded until a more plausible theory emerges. These two lynchpins virtually assure that, even if there is a God who created this world, science will never investigate nor admit it. So we read the breathless reports on a regular basis of the numerous "missing links" that have been discovered only to find later that they aren't missing links at all. We still have textbooks that include "Haeckel's Embryos" as evidence for evolution when they were long ago proven to be fraudulent. This is one example of many. It appears that science has taken a leap of faith and pinned all of its hope on evolution.

Before I'm labelled as a complete imbecile (I likely will be anyway) let me say that the simple definition of evolution is change. This type of evolution is clearly demonstrated within species. All life adapts within certain parameters. Look at dog breeding for example. What has not been demonstrated is Darwinian evolution which claims that all life evolved from a single life form. I'm still looking for the evidence of "speciation", the transition between species which Darwin said would be clearly evident within the fossil record. Until and unless the evidence is seen, I think it would behoove scientists to admit that the theory of evolution is not the unassailable fortress it is purported to be. If it is, why do they feel the need to vilify scientists like Michael Denton, who wrote "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" in 1986.

Unfortunately, the two sides cannot even agree on a definition of the word. The Oxford Concise Science Dictionary defines it as "evolution: The gradual process by which the present diversity of plant and animal life arose from the earliest and most primitive organisms, which is believed to have been continuing for the past 3000 million years." Yet, scientists themselves, like Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology say: "In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."

The truth is that for evolution to be true it must be true across all fields of science. My point is this - stop making categorical statements that aren't true. To claim that all life on earth originated from one amoeba that crawled out of some primordial ooze or that flew here on the back of a comet is just as much of a faith claim as "God created."

Beyond that, stop this endless attack on any Christian who dares to throw his hat into the public arena. Some Christians I know are open and fair-minded and intelligent thinkers. Others I know are narrow-minded, repressive and ignorant. The same can be said for atheists and agnostics I know. Let's get on with it - and keep talking.

ORIGINS 101

The following is another article I saved in my files a while ago. This was written by Rusty Benson and gives a primer on the debate about origins which is taking place in the U.S. This is for those of you who want to know what all the fuss is about and what the differences are. Enjoy.

Origins 101: Worldviews Begin With Beginnings

Rusty Benson

AgapePress

Nearly a century-and-a-half after Darwin's Origins of the Species was published, and 75 years after the Scopes trial, the argument over life's origins still inflames contentious debate.

Today three distinct theories of origins compete for public affirmation. Darwinian Evolution remains entrenched as the orthodox position of the cultural ruling class. Once challenged by Creationism, Evolution's latest contender is a theory known as Intelligent Design (ID).

As in the past, the debate regularly surfaces in the context of which theory or theories should be taught in public schools.

In El Tejon, California, Americans United for Separation of Church and State bullied a school district into promising that it would never again offer a "course that promoted or endorses creationism, creation science or intelligent design." However, in Kansas the State Board of Education recently approved a set of science standards that question evolution.

Even President Bush has weighed in on the issue saying, "Both sides should be properly taught so people can understand what the debate is about."

So far that hasn't happened. The result is a largely confused public.

The following is offered as a synopsis of Creationism, Darwinian Evolution and Intelligent Design. For a more in-depth study of these theories and the implications of each, see the suggested resources listed at the conclusion of this article.

Creationism - Also called Creation Science, this theory attempts to defend the biblical account of the origins of the universe. Creationists freely admit that their presuppositions are different than evolutionists', and thus, their interpretation of the archeological evidence is often different.

In addition, creationists frequently use independent data from the fossil record and from radiometric and carbon-14 dating to make their case.

Variations of Creationism include the Young Earth Theory (closest to the literal Genesis account), the Gap Theory and the Day-age Theory.

Darwinian Evolution - Charles Darwin was a 19th century British naturalist who first offered a plausible naturalistic theory for the origin of life in his book On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

According to Darwin's theory, the universe is without a beginning and life on earth evolved over a span of three to four billion years by the process of natural selection. Natural selection, according to Understanding the Times by David Noebel, is "the process that through competition and other factors such as mutations, predators, geography, and time naturally and randomly allows only those life forms best suited to survive to live and reproduce."

Concerning the status of man in the evolutionary process, George Gaylord Simpson, paleontologist and evolutionist, bluntly stated: "Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned. He is a state of matter, a form of life, a sort of animal and a species of the Order Primates, akin nearly or remotely to all of life and indeed to all that is material."

Intelligent Design (ID) - The heart of the theory of ID, according to Nancy Pearcey, author of the landmark book Total Truth, is that design in nature can be empirically detected.

She writes that ID "formalizes ordinary intuition." For example, we instantly recognize the difference in a landscape formed by wind, rain and erosion and one that includes Mt. Rushmore. That difference is the clear evidence of a designer. It's the same kind of observable science that enables an archeologist to distinguish between a rock and an arrowhead.

In presenting their case, proponents of ID often point to recent scientific research in three areas:

(1) The inner working of cells: Scientists are learning that living cells are like a complex assembly line in which each part serves a perfectly timed, specific purpose. If the whole system is not complete and functioning flawlessly, it cannot perform at all. ID proponents argue that this kind of irreducible complexity is clear evidence of a designer.

(2) The origin of the universe: ID proponents say that life is only possible when thousands of variants such as gravitational, nuclear and electromagnetic forces are meticulously set and balanced. Again, they claim this is the perfect working of a designer's plan.

(3) The architecture of DNA: DNA is seen as the most convincing evidence of the work of design. It is often described as remarkably computer-like, with the DNA code analogous to software that directs the DNA molecule (hardware). This information is embedded in the DNA molecule, but is separate from the matter that makes up the molecule itself. The question becomes: "Where did the information come from?" Answer: an intelligent designer.

Winner Take AllWhat's at stake in the debate? In short, everything. "Whatever a culture adopts as its creation story shapes everything else," Pearcey writes.

If evolution continues as our culture's official orthodoxy, Christians can only expect the complete secularization in all areas from education to entertainment, from philosophy to politics. And with the natural implications that human beings are neither accountable nor responsible, the future is likely to be one in which raw power rules.

But don't give up too quickly. Although it faces an uphill battle, acceptance of ID as a viable theory of origins is growing. At a minimum that could result in the re-establishment of the discarded idea that human life has inherent meaning and purpose. And that could change everything.

Doubts About Darwin

This is an older article that I had in my files. I wanted to share it because it sheds some light on how some things have changed and some things haven't. On the one hand, many more scientists have found the courage to question Darwinism. On the other hand, the climate for this kind of admission has gotten a great deal more difficult. It seems the more we learn the more questions are raised. I hope this will cause you to think.

DOUBTS ABOUT DARWIN

In the face of mounting evidence, more scientists are abandoning evolution.

by Thomas E. Woodward (Moody Monthly, 1991)

"For the last 18 months or so I've been kicking around non-evolutionary or even anti-evolutionary ideas. For over 20 years I had thought I was working on evolution in some way.

"One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for more than 20 years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. It's quite a shock to learn that one can be misled for so long.

"For the last few weeks I've tried putting a simple question to various people and groups: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution? Any one thing --- that is true?"

Colin PattersonSenior Paleontologist
British Museum of Natural History

IN JUNE 1987, the Supreme Court battle lines were drawn again: evolutionists on one side, creationists on the other. The battle was over Louisiana's "Act for Balanced Treatment of Creation-Science and Evolution," which required the teaching of both theories in public school biology classes.

Once again the creationists were soundly defeated, prompting Steve Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties Union to call the decision "a legal end to the creationism movement."

But what the creationists have not accomplished in courts and classrooms, they are now winning in universities and science labs around the world. You probably won't read about it in Time, Discover, or National Geographic, but a growing number of scientists and intellectuals are abandoning Darwin and their faith in evolution.

Recent advances in biology and other sciences have dealt such heavy blows to evolution that one scientist said, "This whole thing is coming apart at the seams."

In 1981, British paleontologist Colin Patterson started asking other scientists to tell him one thing they knew about evolution. Lecturing to biologists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, he said, "I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, `I do know one thing - it ought not to be taught in high school.'"

Patterson says modern science assumes that "a rationalist view of nature [evolution] has replaced an irrational one [creation]." He made that same assumption until 1980. "Then I woke up and realized that all my life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way." He said he had experienced "a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith."

Patterson says one of the main reasons for his skepticism is that there are no real transitional forms anywhere in the fossil record. (Transitional fossils would be in-between forms, such as fish gradually developing arms and legs and turning into land animals.)

"I don't think we shall ever have any access to any form of [evolutionary] tree which we can call factual," he says. Although Patterson still believes that evolution has occurred, he emphasizes that belief in creation or belief in evolution is equally a faith-commitment. This is the heart of his Darwinian "heresy."

Reasons for Doubt

Actually, Patterson is far from being the most extreme of evolution's new intellectual skeptics. Some researchers have completely abandoned Darwinism as a credible theory.

Because of recent findings in genetics, molecular biology, and information science, a growing number of these skeptics are also embracing the concept of an intelligent creator as the most plausible explanation of the origin of life.

Still, they have developed their views independently of the Genesis creation account. Most assume the earth is billions of years old. And because their critiques are directed to a scholarly audience, their methods differ from those of traditional scientific creationists. Through careful research and quiet reasoning, these creationists have calmly presented their case to evolutionary scientists and earned a hearing.

Their greatest inroads have been through critiques of the widely accepted chemical evolution theory (which says the first cell evolved from a "chemical soup" rich in amino adds and other organic substances).

As scientists have studied in detail the intricacies of the cell --with its chemical factories and spiral-ladder molecules of DNA that record millions of bits of genetic information-- many have started wondering how all this could have happened by chance, through natural processes.

One prominent skeptic is British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, famous for his research on the origins of the universe. Hoyle claims that believing the first cell originated by chance is like believing a tornado could sweep through a junkyard filled with airplane parts and form a Boeing 747. Instead, through a theory of "genes raining down from space," Hoyle theorizes that where there are major gaps in the fossil record, new genetic material was incorporated into existing species to produce more complex structures. He believes the creator of these genes from space is not God, but some superintelligent extraterrestrial life.

Reassessing the Mystery

In 1984, three former evolutionists, with doctorates in chemistry, materials science, and geochemistry wrote the first comprehensive critique of chemical evolution, The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories (see "Books About Origins," page 24). With pages of mathematical equations and chemical formulas, it dealt serious blows to the theory that life started by chance.

Despite the book's creationist content, evolutionists have widely praised it. The most surprising endorsement came from Dean Kenyon of San Francisco State University, co-author of Biochemical Predestination, a key work on the evolution of the first cell.

After he read Mystery, Kenyon offered to write the book's foreword. In it, he says the book is so full of fresh and original critiques of chemical evolution that he is puzzled that other scientists have not voiced similar criticism

According to Kenyon, many scientists hesitate to admit or study the theory's problems because they "would open the door to the possibility (or the necessity) of a supernatural origin of life." So they continue looking for naturalistic solutions.

Others, recognizing chemical evolution's problems, have adopted a theory called "directed panspermia," or that life was sent here from another part of the universe. The problem is, they still haven't answered how life originated. They have just moved the question outside our solar system. In the epilogue of Mystery, the authors explain how philosophical biases have prevented many scientists from considering the possibility of creation. Then with scientific precision, they argue that a "Creator Beyond the Cosmos" is the most plausible explanation of life's origin.

That does not mean that science has discovered the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. According to one of the book's authors, chemist Charles Thaxton, science cannot affirm a supernatural origin of life. This is because science is limited to what can be known through man's senses, and God cannot be known by our senses alone.

But science can distinguish natural causes from intelligent causes, Thaxton says. For example, through our senses we can conclude that the faces on Mount Rushmore had an intelligent cause and that the ripple marks on the seashore had a natural cause. Similarly, science can conclude that the vast store house of information recorded along the DNA molecule of even the simplest cell must have an intelligent cause (see "Signature of Intelligence," page 27).

What science cannot do is show what kind of intelligence caused it, whether a Creator-God, extraterrestrials, or something else. That must be shown through apologetics, Thaxton says, not science.

Twenty years ago, evolutionists would not have seriously considered any book criticizing chemical evolution and advocating creation. Yet even the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine and the Journal of College Science Teaching have given Mystery high marks.

"The volume as a whole," the Yale Journal said, "is devastating to the relaxed acceptance of current theories of abiogenesis [chemical evolution]."

And Yale biophysicist Harold Morowitz, no friend of creationism, called the book "an interesting start with considerable scientific thrust." Several of the world's authorities on chemical evolution have described the book as a "brilliant critique" and an "important contribution."

A Theory in Crises

On another front, Michael Denton, an Australian biologist and self-described agnostic, has also challenged Darwinian faith. His book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis shows that evolution's intellectual foundations have been steadily eroding and that only a philosophical "will to believe" in Darwin remains. New findings of biology are bringing us very near to a "formal, logical disproof of Darwinian claims," Denton says.

Citing evidence from fossils, embryology, taxonomy, and molecular biology, Denton shows that Darwin's "grand claim" -- that all life forms are interrelated and evolved from a single cell -- has not been supported by one empirical discovery since 1859, when Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

Murray Eden, professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Denton's book "should be made required reading for everyone who believes what he was taught in college about evolution."

Even the renowned British anthropologist Ashley Montagu has praised Denton: "I found him to be a writer of the most astonishing range of knowledge in the natural sciences, and a scientist whose criticisms are, for the most part, just and telling." Still, he says Denton's critique does not destroy the "fact" of evolution; it only questions how it happened.

On this point, Montagu seems to have missed Denton's summary of Darwin's theory as the "great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century." Denton shows not only that there is no fossil evidence of any major changes between different kinds of animals, but also that it is impossible to imagine how these radical changes could have happened step by step through natural selection.

Denton carefully probes, for example, the absurdity of a land mammal gradually evolving into a whale and the implausibility of a reptilian scale transforming into a feather or a crude amphibian egg becoming a vastly more complicated reptilian egg.

He points out that birds, which supposedly evolved from reptiles, have a completely different "flow-through" lung. What, Denton asks, are the possible intermediate stages between a reptile's branching, dead-end lung and a bird's flow-through lung?

More important, Denton shows how molecular biology is posing even greater problems for evolution. Since scientists have started probing the structure of proteins and DNA, they have been able to compare the "chemical spelling" of these structures in different species. In the 197Os, some scientists claimed this new data would be the final blow to creationism. Instead, the sequences of chemical units in proteins and DNA seem to show no trace of the family tree that evolution teaches.

Denton traces the striking pattern of "equidistant isolation" of every group, as shown in the variations in Cytochrome C, a protein found in species as diverse as yeast, carp, and man. "Thousands of different sequences, protein and nucleic acid, have now been compared in hundreds of different species," he says, "but never has any sequence been found to be in any sense the lineal descendant or ancestor of any other sequence."

Later, Denton adds, "There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available one century ago, it would have been seized upon with devastating effect by the opponents of evolution theory like Agassiz [a Harvard biologist who opposed Darwin], and the idea of organic evolution might never have been accepted."

According to Denton, science has so thoroughly discredited Darwinian evolution that it should be discarded. Yet because he is agnostic and does not accept biblical creationism, he offers nothing to take its place. Instead, he suggests that science may find some other natural explanation in the future.

He appears to be open, however, to the general concept of intelligent cause."Is it really credible," he asks, "that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest element of which -- a functional protein or gene -- is complex beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man?"

Pointing to God

Paul said, "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made" (Rom. 1:20).

Despite the evidence against evolution, most biologists will probably not abandon Darwin. Many will continue to belittle creationism as the equivalent to believing in a flat earth and will continue to teach evolution as a basic fact of biology just as gravity is a fact of physics.

But because of scientists like Patterson, Thaxton, and Denton, the scientific community is no longer ridiculing those who doubt evolution and believe there is an intelligence behind DNA and the beginnings of life. Several researchers have admitted that reading The Mystery of Life's Origin has made them think positive thoughts about God for the first time in years.

In fact, as the evidence pointing to a "creative intelligence" at work in the universe accumulates, and the number of Darwinian skeptics grows, more scientists are openly considering the possibility that this intelligence has already communicated with man.

Christians now have the opportunity to show them the wealth of apologetic evidence that identifies that intelligence as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then the historical evidence of Christianity can be presented in the "courtroom of the intellect" without it being thrown out on the technicality that God does not exist.

Thomas Woodward, an associate professor at Trinity College of Florida, formerly served with UFM International in the Dominican Republic.

The Great Debate

In light of the uproar surrounding the release of Ben Stein's "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," and in response to requests I'm printing a series of articles I've collected over the years dealing with the ongoing debate between Darwinists and the Intelligence Design scientists.

By way of definition, Intelligent design is the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection ". This assertion has been vehemently opposed by the scientific establishment who claim that this is simply the creationist's method of bringing religion in the back door. This ignores the fact that many intelligent design theorists are not Christians nor religious. They simply have come to these conclusions through their scientific research.

The argument that intelligent design is a religious argument is, I think, answered well by Phillip E. Johnson, author of Darwin On Trial. He wrote: "..The very persons who insist upon keeping religion and science separate are eager to use their science as a basis for pronouncements about religion. The literature of Darwinism is full of anti-theistic conclusions, such as that the universe was not designed and has no purpose, and that we humans are the product of blind natural processes that care nothing about us. What is more, these statements are not presented as personal opinions but as the logical implications of evolutionary science."

That being said, the first article is from Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship and an author of numerous books.

A Passion for Truth: Darwin Strikes Back
(Originally published February 6, 2007 on Breakpoint by Charles Colson)

A couple of years ago on this program, I had this to say of the book Doubts about Darwin by my friend Thomas Woodward: "The motivation for [the] . . . founders of the [intelligent] design movement to instigate this 'reformation within science' is a passion for intellectual truth-telling."

Woodward displays this passion for truth-telling yet again in his marvelous new book, Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelligent Design. What Woodward wrote about just a few years ago is even truer today. Amid a firestorm of criticism and abuse from committed Darwinists, the intelligent design movement continues to press forward, gaining scientific credibility and even grudging respect from some evolutionists. But as Woodward shows, there's still a long way to go.

Because the more respect intelligent design gains, the more alarmed the Darwinists become. Their thinking goes something like this: It's one thing for those religious people to talk about a creator God—that's religion; but now they are talking about science—so, they figure, "Let's label it religion." Woodward writes, "These sentiments were echoed in public declarations, verbally and in print, by Darwinian defenders, warning . . . that Intelligent Design is religion, not science . . . This statement," Woodward continues, "emerged as the number-one talking point for Intelligent Design opponents [over the last few years]."

The idea makes for a great sound bite, as the popular press is well aware. But it has no ground to stand on, and that's becoming increasingly obvious if you spend any amount of time researching the issue. Intelligent design theorists come from all backgrounds and creeds; some of them aren't "religious" at all. What they have in common is what Woodward calls a "scientific paradigm" that allows for design in any natural mechanism that can't be explained simply by chance or purely natural causes. His meticulously researched book clearly explains the scientific reasoning behind this paradigm.

Ironically, it's the anti-intelligent design forces that are fully committed to a religious dogma—a dogma whose foundation is starting to show dangerous cracks. Their religion is materialism, and some of them even admit it, like Harvard geneticist Richard Lowentin. Woodward quotes him as saying: "We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs . . . because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism."

Well, he's being honest, at least. But who is it now who's confusing science and religion?

Suggest the presence of something outside of and greater than the universe we know, and Darwinists get all but hysterical. Take the case of researcher Richard Sternberg. He isn't even an intelligent design advocate himself, but when he dared to publish a peer-reviewed article on intelligent design in his scientific journal, the Darwinists acted more like Grand Inquisitors than scientists, cutting off his access to research and trying to limit his academic freedom.

In light of such nonsense, the continuing quest of intelligent design theorists is all the more intriguing and admirable. As Woodward points out, this criticism is even cause for gratitude, because it is leading many intelligent design theorists to be more thorough in their research and to sharpen their arguments.

EXPELLED - The Movie

I don't usually do this, but I'm making an exception in this case. This is from Charles Colson's "Breakpoint." I had the chance to do some research about some of the cases that Ben Stein speaks of in his movie. I hope you have an open mind and watch it.

Myths about Expelled

Don't Believe Everything You Hear

If you have heard of the new documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, opening April 18, chances are you have heard all kinds of distortions and myths about it. So let me set the record straight about some of the most common myths.

Myth #1: Darwinists interviewed for this film were tricked into participating.
Not so. Each scientist interviewed for Expelled, on both sides of the evolution debate, knew who would do the interview and what it was for. Each of them signed a release, allowing the producers to use the footage of their interviews.

Myth #2: The film is anti-science.
Wrong again. Many distinguished scientists were interviewed for this film and given the chance to express their views. Just like their Darwinist counterparts, the advocates of intelligent design and their supporters who are interviewed are there to talk about science, not to dismiss it. These are people like Cambridge physicist John Polkinghorne; Oxford mathematician and philosopher John Lennox; journalist Pamela Winnick, who has received hate mail for covering the issue; and biologist Caroline Crocker, who was fired from George Mason University for discussing intelligent design in the classroom. Some of them are religious believers; some are not. But what they share is a commitment to science and the unfettered pursuit of truth. Expelled is not anti-science; it is anti-censorship.

Myth #3: Ben Stein, the actor and writer who hosts the movie, has lost his mind.
Bringing up this very issue in a conference call, Stein quipped that he probably has, "but it was a long time ago . . . probably sometime around 1958." Well, I have known Stein well for years, and he is as bright as a button and anything but out of his mind. On a serious note, Stein and his film's producers explained that the mud that people are flinging at him is just one small example of what happens to people who question Darwinian orthodoxy. The original idea for Expelled, said co-producer and software engineer Walt Ruloff, came to him when he was working on a project with a group of biotechnologists and learned "that there was a whole series of questions that could not be asked."

The prevailing ideology among many scientists—it turned out—he concluded, was keep your mouth shut, take the research money, and publish only the data that fits with "the party line." The issue that concerns Ruloff and the others behind Expelled is whether the scientific establishment in this country is going to allow genuine "freedom of inquiry," or simply shut up—and slander—those who do not toe the line.

Given all this, Ben Stein states, "As long as the cause is right, I'm happy to be in an uphill struggle."

Myth #4: Popular author and atheist, Richard Dawkins tells Ben Stein in this film that there could have been a designer of life on earth, but it would have had to have been "a higher intelligence" that had itself evolved "to a very high level . . . and seeded some form of life on this planet."

Well, actually . . . that one is not a myth. He really did say it—striking admission, though it is.

So, I urge you to go see Expelled when it opens at a theater near you. Believe me, in this case the truth really is stranger—and more compelling—than any fiction the film's detractors could possibly dream up.

Tidbits

Articles Worth Reading:

Darwinian Meltdown Over Intelligent Design - by Nancy Pearcey

Confronting Slavery in Today's World - by Kristin Wright




Global Warming Scary Movie

I'm not talking about Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" either! I now understand why all the media play about global warming. It turns out that the greatest danger to the planet is... the return of "The Blob." They just reran the movie on cable and I was fortunate enough to see SteveMcQueen's exceptional acting convince me that a creature made of either tar or molasses was going to devour the whole world!

But it was the end of the movie that sealed the deal. You see, "The Blob's" only weakness was that it couldn't stand the cold. So to defeat it they froze it with CO2. Then they transported it via military transport plane to the Arctic (why Canada allowed this I don't know). They parachuted this monster into the supposedly permanently frozen continent believing that they would never have to worry again.

Does Al Gore know about this? If so, is there another movie in the works? Perhaps he and David Suzuki should get together on this. In order to make it a more credible "scientific" movie, they could get James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici to produce it for them. It sounds like a sure-fire Oscar winner to me.