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Thursday, August 11, 2016

Easy to Be an Atheist If You Ignore Science

By Rick Pearcey • August 11, 2016, 03:12 PM

Moshe Averick writes at Algemeiner.com:

Although the general public is disconcertingly unaware of it, it is a fact that scientists do not have even the slightest clue as to how life could have begun through an unguided naturalistic process absent the intervention of a conscious creative force.

Read more here (don't neglect the comments).

Moshe Averick is author of new book Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused World of Modern Atheism.



Thursday, September 4, 2014

Belief vs. Science: Lacking Scientific Support, UN Seeks "Young Woman" to Sell Global Warming

By Rick Pearcey • September 4, 2014, 10:46 AM

Andrew Bolt writes at the Aussie Herald Sun:

Professsor Ross McKitrick says in a new paper that the warming pause has now lasted an astonishing 19 years at the surface and 16-26 years in the lower troposphere.
. . .

With the science against the faith it has so frantically promoted, the UN searches for someone who will turn the debate.

Note well: it’s looking for someone who isn’t a scientist but who can play on guilt, racial politics, gender politics and victimhood.

"The UN has outed itself with this stunt," Bolt concludes. "Its criteria ensure no leading climate scientists need apply. See, this is no longer about science at all."



Monday, January 13, 2014

Caffeine May Boost Long-Term Memory

By Rick Pearcey • January 13, 2014, 08:57 AM

At Medical News Today:

New research suggests that a dose of caffeine after a learning session may help to boost long-term memory. This is according to a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Related
Espresso Crisis? 10 Best Coffee Machines 
Coffee Reduces Risk of Cancer



Tuesday, December 31, 2013

On Ice: Stranded "Climate" Scientists Ring in 2014

By Rick Pearcey • December 31, 2013, 01:08 PM

At Fox News:

Passengers and crew who set off on an expedition to prove climate change are ringing in the new year in the same place where they have been for the past week: stuck in ice at the bottom of the world.

The 74 scientists, tourists and crew on the Russian ship MV Akademik Shokalskiy, which has been trapped near Antarctica since last Tuesday, are expecting to be airlifted from the ship by a helicopter. . . .

We're "stuck in our own experiment," the Australian Antarctic Expedition is quoted as saying Monday.

The leader of the expedition is Chris Turney, "a professor of climate change at Australia’s University of New South Wales." Turney remains "adamant that sea ice is melting, even as the boat remained trapped in frozen seas," Fox reports.

Related
Upset Gore Realizing "Man-Made Global-Warming Claims Are Falling Apart" 
Top U.S. Climate Official: 15 Years With No Global Warming Not a Trend -- Video
Global Warming Theory Challenged by Top UK Scientific Body 
Oxford Debate: Climate Realism Beats Warming at Campus Showdown



Monday, September 30, 2013

Atheist Philosopher: Students Should Be Taught About Intelligent Design Theory

By Nancy Pearcey • September 30, 2013, 11:03 AM

Bradley Monton, a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado, identifies himself as an atheist. But in his book Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design, he explains why he thinks teaching students about the concept of a designer for nature is good pedagogy. 

From an interview in Salvo:

Do you think intelligent design should be taught in public schools?

What I know from being a teacher these past thirteen years is that it's wrong to ignore matters that students may have heard about or are certainly going to hear about in the future. For example, did you know that the California teacher guidelines for K–12 students state that if a student asks about intelligent design, he should be told that it doesn't belong in the science classroom -- that he should talk to his family or pastor about it instead? Shutting down discussion and debate in this fashion is bad pedagogy. Teachers should be forthright about all of the evidence and tell students that issues regarding the origin of life are still open for debate.

Do you teach your own students about intelligent design?

Yes, I do talk about intelligent design in my philosophy of science course, and the students are very interested in it. In high school, science was taught to them as just a monolithic body of facts with no understanding of theory development or of how the theories we have now were built by scientists rejecting past theories and in ways that were often controversial and involved scientific revolutions and complicated factors of human psychology. As a result, they don't understand how science works. I have found intelligent design to be a fruitful way of teaching students how science actually functions and that it is a human endeavor filled with controversy.

You write in your book that you don't fully endorse intelligent design. In your opinion, what are some of the weaknesses of ID?

At one time, I would have said that the greatest weakness was the failure of ID proponents to put a theory on the table that makes testable predictions, but that all changed with Jonathan Wells's book The Myth of Junk DNA. In it, Wells predicted that this purported junk DNA -- these stretches of DNA in our genome that many scientists had claimed were useless -- would be purposeful for the structure of human biology. Well, within the past year or so, empirical investigation has confirmed that there is in fact much less junk DNA than scientists had previously thought. It's just a great example of a testable prediction that was made by a proponent of intelligent design that turned out to be successful.

Related
From Stephen King to Francis Schaeffer: Cosmos "Suggests Intelligent Design"
Christianity Is a Science-Starter, Not a Science-Stopper 
Christmas Spirit in Space and Time 



Monday, March 18, 2013

Power Over People: When Big Government Teams Up With Big Neuroscience

By Nancy Pearcey • March 18, 2013, 12:22 PM

"In the recent State of the Union address, President Obama has said he will commit the United States to a ten-year project to build a comprehensive map of the activity of the brain. He believes that the proposed Brain Activity Map is an economic gold mine,” writes Denyse O’Leary at MercatorNet.com.

But, as John Markoff reports in the New York Times:

Many neuroscientists are skeptical that a multiyear, multibillion dollar effort to unlock the brain’s mysteries will succeed. “I believe the scientific paradigm underlying this mapping project is, at best, out of date and at worst, simply wrong,” said Donald G. Stein, a neurologist at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. “The search for a road map of stable, neural pathways that can represent brain functions is futile.”

And yet, if the project does succeed, what will the federal government do with the increased power over the human mind?

True enough, if the research succeeds, it might result in better prosthetics or speech technology for paralytics.

But it might also, as Markoff notes, result in better methods of mind control.

As C.S. Lewis warns, power over "nature" often means power over other people, using nature as the means.

Related
Review: "The Magician's Twin -- C.S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society" 
Dawkins: Nazi Eugenics "May Not Be Bad"?



Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Big Fat Myth: All Scientists Are Religion-Hating Atheists

By Nancy Pearcey • March 5, 2013, 10:20 AM

The UK Guardian takes on the New Atheists in an article with a provocative title, "It's a Big Fat Myth That All Scientists Are Religion-Hating Atheists."

Sylvia McLain writes:

Reinforcing the scientist = atheist stereotype, whether you are for it or against it, necessarily excludes people.  No one should be excluded from science if they want to do it, be excited about it or read about it. . . . 

The cartoon stereotype that all scientists are religion-hating atheists isn't just annoying; it is harmful. It is divisive and does nothing to encourage people into scientific discovery.

In fact, it reinforces the idea that only a certain type of person can do science. This is not true. Professional science has enough diversity problems as it is, with women and minorities still grossly under-represented, without throwing religious-typing in there too.

Public scientists and critics alike need to take a bit more care in lumping all scientists into the same stereotypical category. The world is much more complex than that.

Related
Christianity Is a Science-Starter, Not a Science-Stopper
Texas Chooses Science Over Secularist Dogma
Astronomer Alleges Religious Discrimination at University of Kentucky



Thursday, January 24, 2013

Women in Combat: Feminism vs. Science, Sex, Love, and War

By Rick Pearcey • January 24, 2013, 10:50 AM

In "Obama Ignores Deadly Risks to Women in Combat," Arnold Ahlert writes at Frontpagemag.com:

It didn’t take long for the Obama administration to advance a pernicious piece of its promised radical agenda. Two days after the president laid out his far-left vision during the inauguration, senior defense officials announced that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta will lift the military’s ban on women serving in combat.

The move overturns a 1994 provision that prohibited them from being assigned to ground combat units. Panetta has given the various service branches until 2016 to come up with exemptions, and/or make any arguments about what roles should still reman closed to women.

Thus, another bit of gender radicalism has been shoved down the nation’s throat through executive fiat -- and this one is sure to have deadly consequences.

"It is precisely those deadly consequences -- especially for servicewomen -- that are irrelevant to feminists and their enablers, who have long pushed the idea that men and women are essentially interchangeable," Ahlert writes. "Nothing could be further from the truth, and combat is where those differences could produce deadly results."

Ahlert continues: "Ground combat is arguably the most physically grueling activity in which one can be engaged, and despite what the feminists would like Americans to believe about equality, science says otherwise: men have almost twice the upper-body strength as women."

Related
Poll: Voters Say Democrat Party More Likely Dominated by Extremists
Why Pro-Abortion Is Anti-Science



Saturday, January 12, 2013

Court Rules: Unborn Is "Child"

By Rick Pearcey • January 12, 2013, 05:50 PM

Bob Unruh reports at WND:

A ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court has concluded that a reference in state law that prevents exposing children to dangerous chemicals also protects an unborn child.

Pro-abortion is anti-science, and unborn children should not be subjected to it.

Related
Obama OKs Killing Unborn in Notre Dame Speech 
The Evil Religious Presidents Do 
Pro-Abort Representative Can't Bring Herself to Say "Heartbeat"



Friday, December 28, 2012

Hobby Lobby Won't Drop Christianity Over Extremist Abortion Drugs

By Rick Pearcey • December 28, 2012, 11:39 AM

CBN News reports:

The owners of Hobby Lobby say they must remain true to their faith, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to block the Obamacare contraception mandate. . . .

"The company will continue to provide health insurance to all qualified employees," attorney Kyle Duncan said in a statement posted on Hobby Lobby's website.

"To remain true to their faith, it is not their intention, as a company, to pay for abortion-inducing drugs," he said.

The federal government has no constitutional authority to impose anti-life insurance regulations upon any state, person, or business. Or to threaten Hobby Lobby with fines of more than $1 million a day for refusing to submit to Obama's state-imposed religion of secularism. 

Not only is this action imperialistic and immoral, it's not even Washington's job. We the People hire them to protect life and liberty, not to kill life and liberty. What's the matter with you, Washington?

Nothing could be further from the mainstream U.S. position on the freedom and dignity of the individual -- see the Declaration of Independence -- than that a central power structure would violate its constitutional oath of office to force a company to enable the killing of the unborn.

Obamacare is, therefore, extreme and uncivil. It is inhumane and degrading. It is anti-life, anti-science, and anti-freedom.

Hobby Lobby is standing with the angels on this. And with science (the two are in no way opposed). But Team Obama walks "in the counsel of the wicked." Shame on you, "Christian" Obama.

Related
Why Pro-Abortion Is Anti-Science 
Obamacare: Antithetical to the Declaration
Warning: Obamacare Gives Feds "State Police Power"



Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Cause-and-Effect Nativity vs. Modern-Day "Faith"

By Rick Pearcey • December 26, 2012, 12:18 PM

It's the Christmas Season -- and, therefore, as every schoolboy and girl ought to know, a time to think:

Cause and effect has little to do with modern-day religion, private spiritualities, personal ethics, Eric Hoffer’s “true believer,” varieties of religious experience, or with assorted “people of faith.”

Let us also not discriminate against orthodox secularists and naturalistic scientists who create their own private truths and valued feelings in an effort to cope as humans with an otherwise unbearable life.

The standard line these days is that questions directed to these private realms are considered impolite, out of bounds, and over the line. Presidential candidates get to pass “Go” and collect votes if they promise their faith really is just theirs -- that is, something merely private and inward, not public and not applicable to policy.

The Creator, and the information he communicates about life in the world, is permitted to inspire during devotions inside closets or during limited times of public tragedy, but he shall have no substantive impact on public life, foreign policy, and so on.

In contrast to a retreat into subjectivity, the Biblical mentality, including the world-altering events that launched Christmas in the first place, has much to do with the natural order.

The Bible knows that messages and songs and other intellectual and aesthetic content come not out of nothing.

Roman edicts are the creations of Roman Caesars, inns too full are the effects of a finite number of rooms plus many travelers hitting the road at the same time.

First-century people did not have electricity, but they knew night skies are not illuminated to reveal familiar daytime geography without a cause of light.

What is given in the Bible is a framework for distinguishing between campfires and angels, both of which are natural phenomena in a cosmos that is the product of a living Creator.

But both of which are also supernatural in a cosmos that is reduced, as some theorize, to particles cold and unaccounted for, arranged without reason in greater or lesser degrees of complexity.

Joseph and Mary knew where baby humans come from, how they are conceived, and how they arrive.

“There is one thing often said about our ancestors which we must not say,” C.S. Lewis writes in his essay “Miracles,” in God in the Dock (emphasis in original). “We must not say ‘They believed in miracles because they did not know the Laws of Nature.’ This is nonsense.” Why? Because “when St. Joseph discovered that his bride was pregnant, he was ‘minded to put her away’. He knew enough biology for that. Otherwise, of course, he would not have regarded pregnancy as a proof of infidelity.”

Mary and Joseph had questions that speak to this issue of cause and effect.

How could she be pregnant without physical relations with a man? Should Joseph reconsider marriage since knowledge of the natural order indicates Mary is not the virgin she claims to be?

They received answers that are reasonable in light of information from a Creator who has within himself the power of being and is free to act into history, just as human beings are empowered to act as well.

In effect, the God of Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and David says he will again act into human history, into what after all is his cosmos, to bring about a physical change in the living, physical environment he created in the first place.



Monday, September 3, 2012

The "Gay" Anti-Science

By Rick Pearcey • September 3, 2012, 06:33 AM

Attorney and columnist Matt Barber writes:

Woe to any scientist with an interest in objectively researching and reporting on “LGBT”-related issues. If your findings fail the left’s socio-political “butterflies-and-rainbows” litmus test, the “progressive” establishment will try to destroy you -- guaranteed. Thus, on these matters, honest scientific inquiry will require courage.

Kansas State University, July 2010: Family Studies professor Dr. Walter Schumm releases the most comprehensive study to date on the effects of homosexual “parenting.” Published in the Journal of Biosocial Science, the study determined, among other things:

Children raised in “gay” households are up to 12 times more likely to self-identify as “gay”;

Of those in their 20s -- presumably after they’d been able to work out any adolescent confusion or experimentation -- 58% of the children of lesbians called themselves “gay,” and 33% of the children of “gay” men called themselves “gay.” (Contrast these rates with current studies indicating that around 3% of the general population is homosexual.)

Just before the research was released, AOL News reported, “Schumm says it shouldn’t have taken until 2010 to do the meta-analysis. Too often his colleagues impose ‘liberal or progressive political interpretations’ on their studies, which inhibit further inquiry. ‘It’s kind of sad,’” he said.

Sad, yes, but it’s also by design. “I just want to know the truth about something,” he confessed. Unfortunately, there are many with an extreme socio-political agenda who depend entirely upon suppressing the truth.

“As if expecting a political backlash himself,” reported AOL, “Schumm concludes his study with a quote from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. ‘All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.’”

Indeed, left-wing backlash was both swift and fierce. Schumm was instantly decried as a “quack,” a “conservative plant” and a“fraud.” Over the past two years, both Schumm and his study have passed through all three of Schopenhauer’s fiery stages, only to emerge unsinged.

But the damage to honest inquiry was already done. The message to anyone else who might conduct such a study was clear: If you dare release research on homosexuality and we don’t like your findings, we’re coming for you.

Not everyone got the message.

University of Texas-Austin, June 2012: Dr. Mark Regnerus leads a team of researchers on another peer-reviewed homosexual “parenting” study labeled: "How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relations? Findings from the New Family Structures Study."

The study was published in the journal Social Science Research. Its website FAQ page summarizes the findings: “The data show rather clearly that children raised by gay or lesbian parents on average are at a significant disadvantage when compared to children raised by the intact family of their married, biological mother and father.”

Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink distills the research: “According to [Regnerus'] findings, children raised by homosexual parents are more likely than those raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from poor impulse control, depression and suicidal thoughts, require mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana.”

Again, you could’ve set your watch to the liberal response. They went ballistic.

Notorious homosexual activist Scott Rosenweig (aka, Scott Rose. Warning: link to Rosenweig’s extremist history is profane and offensive) filed a formal complaint, demanding that the University of Texas both investigate and, ultimately, fire Dr. Regnerus for his findings.

A gaggle of homosexualist academics and liberal activists pounced, bewailing the study as “homophobic” and “methodologically flawed.” Darren E. Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, conducted an “audit” of the already peer-reviewed study and arrived at the unassailable, scholarly and poignantly worded conclusion: “It’s bulls--t.”

Except that it wasn’t.

On Wednesday, the University of Texas -- no bastion of conservatism -- released a highly anticipated report on its findings,  summarily dismissing Rosenweig, Sherkat, and the dozens of “progressive” critics who couldn’t stomach the study’s game-changing implications. This painstaking inquiry was spearheaded by an independent consultant who formerly ran the Office of Research Integrity at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Noted UT-Austin: “As with much university research, Regnerus’ New Family Structures Study touches on a controversial and highly personal issue that is currently being debated by society at large. The university expects the scholarly community will continue to evaluate and report on the findings of the Regnerus article and supports such discussion.”

Still, observed the report, the research was properly conducted and “no formal investigation is warranted into the allegations of scientific misconduct lodged against associate professor Mark Regnerus.”

Experience of the millennia, indeed child-like common sense, frequently informs reality. Children are best served -- vastly so -- when raised by a mother and father.

Although there are sometimes unavoidable circumstances that short-circuit the mom-dad gold standard (single parenthood, etc.), this undeniable truth, to borrow from Schopenhauer, has, heretofore, been “accepted as being self-evident.”

So why on earth would we intentionally and selfishly sabotage it?

While we don’t necessarily need studies to reaffirm that which is so obvious, it is helpful to find a fast-growing body of research available to refute the “new-normal-modern-family” propaganda that sits tendentiously atop today’s moral-relativist house of cards.

Still, those who seek to deconstruct legitimate marriage and the natural family will always endeavor to suppress honest inquiry. They must.

Even so, whether liberal or conservative, “gay” or straight, the scientific community should be allowed to pursue truth in an environment that holds objective scientific inquiry sacrosanct. They should be free to follow the evidence wheresoever it may lead, even when such ends prove unfashionable.

But alas, the lie shall forevermore seek to imprison truth. So it was in a world once flat; and so it remains in a world with throwaway parents.

But take heart. In the end, truth does prevail. For it is the promise of Truth Himself: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:30-32)

Matt Barber serves as vice president of Liberty Counsel Action.

Related
Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat
Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Children's View
Pro-Same-Sex "Marriage" Lesbian: "Institution of Marriage Should Not Exist"
What I Saw at Chick-Fil-A Today



Thursday, December 22, 2011

Politics, Science, and the Virgin Birth

By Rick Pearcey • December 22, 2011, 02:14 PM

Principles of science such as cause and effect may war against the private spiritualities of orthodox secularlists and greedy politicians (who pretend to create money out of nothing), but they are right at home in the reality-oriented information given in the events of Christmas No. 1.

That is to say: 

Cause and effect has little to do with modern-day religion, private spiritualities, personal ethics, Eric Hoffer’s “true believer,” varieties of religious experience, or with assorted “people of faith.”

Let us also not discriminate against orthodox secularists and naturalistic scientists who create their own private truths and valued feelings in an effort to cope as humans with an otherwise unbearable life.

The standard line these days is that questions directed to these private realms are considered impolite, out of bounds, and over the line.

Presidential candidates get to pass “Go” and collect votes if they promise their faith really is just theirs -- that is, something merely private and inward, not public and not applicable to policy.

The Creator, and the information he communicates about life in the world, is permitted to inspire during devotions inside closets or during limited times of public tragedy, but he shall have no substantive impact on public life, foreign policy, and so on.  

In contrast to a retreat into subjectivity, the Biblical mentality, including the world-altering events that launched Christmas in the first place, has much to do with the natural order.

The Bible knows that messages and songs and other intellectual and aesthetic content come not out of nothing.

Roman edicts are the creations of Roman Caesars, inns too full are the effects of a finite number of rooms plus many travelers hitting the road at the same time.

First-century people did not have electricity, but they knew night skies are not illuminated to reveal familiar daytime geography without a cause of light.

What is given in the Bible is a framework for distinguishing between campfires and angels, both of which are natural phenomena in a cosmos that is the product of a living Creator.

But both of which are also supernatural in a cosmos that is reduced, as some theorize, to particles cold and unaccounted for, arranged without reason in greater or lesser degrees of complexity. 

Joseph and Mary knew where baby humans come from, how they are conceived, and how they arrive.

“There is one thing often said about our ancestors which we must not say,” C.S. Lewis writes in his essay “Miracles,” in God in the Dock.

“We must not say ‘They believed in miracles because they did not know the Laws of Nature.’ This is nonsense.”

Why? Because “when St. Joseph discovered that his bride was pregnant, he was ‘minded to put her away’. He knew enough biology for that. Otherwise, of course, he would not have regarded pregnancy as a proof of infidelity.”

Mary and Joseph had questions that speak to this issue of cause and effect.

How could she be pregnant without physical relations with a man? Should Joseph reconsider marriage since knowledge of the natural order indicates Mary is not the virgin she claims to be?

They received answers that are reasonable in light of information from a Creator who has within himself the power of being and is free to act into history, just as human beings are empowered to act as well.

In effect, the God of Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and David says he will again act into human history, into what after all is his cosmos, to bring about a physical change in the living, physical environment he created in the first place.

Though she is not married, and although people will talk, Mary is asked by God whether she would like to be the virgin mother of the Messiah (see Luke 1:26ff).

For his part Joseph is asked, in effect: “Do you take this virgin with child as your lawfully wedded wife, seeing as I have used my power to create to conceive a baby in her womb?”

Joseph also knew eyebrows would be raised, but he agreed to move forward (see Matt. 1:18ff). Mary showed herself to be a woman of strength who by her choices maintained her dignity.

The above is excerpted from my "Christmas Spirit in Space and Time." Additional excerpts are forthcoming during this Christmas season. If you'd like to read ahead, go here.



Saturday, October 15, 2011

Pro-Abort Representative Can't Bring Herself to Say "Heartbeat"

By Rick Pearcey • October 15, 2011, 01:05 PM

John Jalsevac writes at LifeSiteNews:

The other week I drew attention to a shocking video in which a number of Planned Parenthood representatives repeatedly urged university students to ignore the science about when life begins. Not only did they suggest that the science has no bearing at all upon the debate about abortion, but they appeared even to cast doubt on the very ability of science to learn for certain key facts about the unborn child -- such as when the heartbeat begins.

Now comes another video, in which a leading lawmaker, a Representative in the United States House of Representatives, struggles to find a way to describe a bill in Texas that requires doctors to allow women to listen to the heartbeat of their unborn child before deciding to have the child killed through an abortion.

Of course, the fact that an unborn child has a heartbeat is deeply problematic for pro-aborts (“blobs of tissue” don’t generally have heartbeats), so how does Rep. Sheila Jackson manage to obscure this reality? She says that the bill allowed women to listen to “uh, sounds that, uh, might discourage this needed action."

Abortofascism is a cult that cannot stand the sunlight of scientific fact or ethical principle. It is a barbarism of blood and greed that no person of balance or good will could possibly and knowably embrace.    

Related
Why Pro-Abortion Is Anti-Science



Friday, October 7, 2011

He "Dared to Question" Evolution

By Rick Pearcey • October 7, 2011, 06:53 AM

"The Rutherford Institute is preparing to appeal a recent court decision against an Ohio science teacher who tried to teach his student to think critically about evolution," reports OneNewsNow.

I know this is impolite, but I should point out that sometimes the findings of "settled science" are wrong, as is suggested by this recent case in the news when a scientist, once ridiculed by his colleagues and "thrown out" of his research group, won a Nobel Prize.

But, no worries, my Darwinian faithful: Everybody but that high school science teacher knows that evolution is a fact!!!! and that Darwin could never, ever, never, ever really be scientifically challenged.



Wednesday, October 5, 2011

O'Reilly to Dawkins: "I Think Intelligent Design Made Everything Happen"

By Rick Pearcey • October 5, 2011, 09:25 PM

Bill O'Reilly aired an interview with arch-atheist Richard Dawkins last hour on "The Factor." 

During the interview Dawkins said atheism has absolutely nothing to do with the evil of Pol Pot, Mao, or Joseph Stalin, but that there is a logical connection between belief in God and evil in the world.

O'Reilly countered that religion provides a restraining influence on people like Mao and Stalin -- for example, "Thou shalt not kill."

O'Reilly also said he thinks you cannot explain existence simply on the basis of something like a "meteor crashed into the earth" and everything resulted from that.

"I think Intelligent Design made everything happen," O'Reilly concluded.

As a follow-up to this discussion, Dawkins (if he is open-minded) and O'Reilly might find Does God Exist?, a DVD discussion by Dr. Stephen Meyer, of interest.

Meyer is co-founder of the Discovery Institute, that notorious outfit that talks a lot about . . . Intelligent Design.

Nancy and I would argue that affirming the existence of God is about following the evidence wherever it might lead and that the Judeo-Christian worldview alone has demonstrated an ability to answer adequately the basic philosophic questions that every serious worldview must deal with and that every seeking person honestly asks.

Trust ("faith"), then, is a matter of the whole person making a commitment on the basis of good and sufficient evidence (as Francis Schaeffer so often put it).

It's not "blind faith" or that dumbed-down substitute called "religion" that some secularists are happy to shackle genuine critical thinkers with. 

The point? The affirmation of Intelligent Design emerges out of the evidence, not against it.

So, who knows, maybe we'll see the likes of a Stephen Meyer on "O'Reilly" in the not-too-distant future.

A "Factor" discussion about Intelligent Design and scientific evidence for the Creator would seem to make sense: It would, after all, fit rather nicely with the Founders' insistence that the Creator is so real, and that information from Him is so valid, that it is actionable politically up to the high level of being the basis for American freedom.

What did they write and spill their blood for? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

If there is no Creator, Mr. Dawkins, all of this exceptionalism falls to the ground. And the sun, the moon, and all the rocks and particles of your impersonal, mindless, meaningless, explanationless cosmos couldn't care less.

But if there is a Creator and unalienable human rights are among the "blessings of liberty" -- as the empirical data, historical data, and reason itself leads us to conclude -- everything changes culturally and politically, for the good.

You could ask King George. Or Stephen Meyer. Or Richard Dawkins, if he's willing to think outside that very tiny materialistic box.



Friday, August 12, 2011

Upset Gore Realizing "Man-Made Global-Warming Claims Are Falling Apart"

By Rick Pearcey • August 12, 2011, 08:04 AM

Bill Bumpas writes at OneNewsNow:

One skeptic says Al Gore appears to be growing frustrated with those who don't buy into his campaign to fight supposed "global warming," and the latest evidence of that came during a recent speech in Colorado.

Gore spoke earlier this month at the Aspen Institute in Colorado, where Climate Depot executive editor Marc Morano says the former vice president's tone was a lament to the failure of man-made global warming claims.

"He voiced his frustration with copious amounts of curse words. He lost his cool, he lost his composure, and he made a lot of silly scientific statements claiming that volcanoes couldn't be an explanation, that sun spots couldn't be an explanation," Morano reports.



Monday, July 18, 2011

Science Books Don't Meet Texas Standards

By Rick Pearcey • July 18, 2011, 09:03 AM

Fear of Critical Thinking? "A study from the Discovery Institute shows that a leading textbook publisher is failing to comply with the new science standards in Texas," reports Bob Kellogg at OneNewsNow.



Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Teachers Letting Science Point to Creator

By Rick Pearcey • February 22, 2011, 07:05 AM

"A Christian educator is applauding a national survey that shows more than 900 biology teachers in public high schools are teaching creationism, which is thriving in the classroom," reports OneNewsNow.

"The New York Times recently brought attention to a survey published in an issue of Science magazine that shows only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendation of the National Research Council to only teach evolution," reports the news outlet.

"We really encourage teachers to teach multiple theories: evolution, creationism, intelligent design," says Finn Laursen, executive director of Christian Educators Association International.

"In other words," says Laursen, "just teach the science and let higher level of thinking speak for itself. . . . We know as followers of the biblical truth that if we just study science, it will point back to the Creator. And we even know the Creator's name."

Related
Christianity Is a Science-Starter, Not a Science-Stopper 
Dawkins: Nazi Eugenics "May Not Be Bad"? 
Darwinian Meltdown Reaches England



Friday, January 28, 2011

Is This Civil? IT Specialist Fired at NASA for Talking About Intelligent Design

By Rick Pearcey • January 28, 2011, 11:18 AM

To make matters worse, IT specialist David Coppedge, reportedly the most senior staff on his team at the Jet Propulsion Lab, also passed around a couple of DVDs that make a case for intelligent design.

Clearly, the guy is a threat to civil society, science, and global warming. Or not.

Recommendation: Somebody at NASA needs sensitivity training in the Declaration of Independence, which states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (emphasis added)

The Declaration of Independence affirms human liberty, which includes freedom of thought and discussion. Even at NASA.

And it recognizes the Creator as the center of gravity for American freedoms and American polity. Even at NASA.

So, NASA, free-thinking people would like to know: What exactly is your problem with the Creator, principles of freedom, and the Declaration of Independence?

For more, see "Protest David Coppedge's Persectution, Direct to NASA."



Monday, June 28, 2010

Why Are Women Freezing Their Eggs?

By Rick Pearcey • June 28, 2010, 02:25 PM

They're waiting for "Mr. Right," reports BBC.



Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Apostolic Images From 4th Century Under Street in Rome

By Rick Pearcey • June 22, 2010, 09:43 PM

Archaeologists have discovered the "earliest known images of the apostles Andrew and John . . . in the richly decorated tomb of a Roman noblewoman," reports the Guardian.

The tomb would have be built during the period when Rome was converting to Christianity from paganism, according to the project leader, Barbara Mazzei.



Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Global Warming Theory Challenged by Top UK Scientific Body

By Rick Pearcey • June 2, 2010, 06:50 AM

File under "Test Everything," including "Settled Science" -- "The Royal Society, Britain's version of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, has been forced by climate dissidents to officially review its previous statements in unquestioning support of global warming theory," writes Thomas Lifson at American Thinker.



Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Oxford Debate: Climate Realism Beats Warming at Campus Showdown

By Rick Pearcey • June 1, 2010, 10:08 AM

From "Climate Alarmists on the Run" at the Washington Times:

Former Vice President Al Gore was at his peak when the film An Inconvenient Truth made its initial Hollywood splash. Faith in man-made global warming had never been more widespread, with liberal academics and media subjecting to ridicule any who dared question the "settled science." Only a fool could deny that elevated carbon-dioxide levels had melted ice caps and stranded polar bears on rapidly diminishing ice floes.

How the tables have turned in a short time. On May 20, Oxford Union, the prestigious 187-year-old English debating society, formally considered the question of whether it was more important to focus on growing the economy or solving global warming.

Climate realism won the day, 135 to 110. It's no wonder, considering how the purportedly scientific arguments advanced in support of the scaremongering conclusions have fallen apart since the Climategate scandal invited verification of the left's previously unexamined claims.



Saturday, May 22, 2010

Synthetic Life -- or Synthetic Hysteria?

By Rick Pearcey • May 22, 2010, 02:03 PM

Raymond Tallis writes at Timesonline:

Craig Venter, the flamboyant US molecular biologist and entrepreneur, has been at it again. Not content with first-equal position in the race to give a complete description of the human genome, he has now announced that his team have created the world’s first synthetic life form. The editor of the journal Artificial Life has described this as “a defining moment in biology”. Dr Venter himself has claimed that his success has changed his “view of the definition of life and of how life works”.

Well, he would do, wouldn’t he? Before we get too excited, we should note that he has not actually “created artificial life”, as the headlines proclaim. He has synthesised DNA from basic chemicals; but lone DNA is not life. More, much more is needed. In this case, it was provided by an existing bacterium whose usual humble duty is to cause mastitis in goats. Into this the DNA was inserted. Yes, the resulting minute organism was new life but nearly all of that new life was taken off the shelf from nature.



Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Al Gore Resurfaces to Sell Oceanfront Property in Himalayas

By Rick Pearcey • March 2, 2010, 09:35 AM

From Investor's Business Daily:

Al Gore resurfaces in an op-ed to say that nobody's perfect, everybody makes mistakes and climate change is still real. And he has some oceanfront property in the Himalayas to sell you.

If hyperbole and chutzpah had a child, it would be the opening paragraph of Gore's op-ed in Sunday's New York Times. Gore surfaced from the global warming witness-protection program to opine that despite admissions of error and evidence of fraud by various agencies, we still face "an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it."



Thursday, February 18, 2010

Top U.S. Climate Official: 15 Years With No Global Warming Not a Trend -- Video

By Rick Pearcey • February 18, 2010, 10:01 AM

"When asked yesterday whether she agreed or disagreed with one of the world’s top climate-change scientists that there had been no statistically significant global warming over the last fifteen years, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Administrator Jane Lubchenco would only say 'that it is inappropriate to look at any particular short period of time to discern the long-term trend'," reports CNSNews.com.

Here is video from Eyeblast.tv.



Monday, February 15, 2010

Trump Wants Gore Stripped of Nobel

By Rick Pearcey • February 15, 2010, 10:29 AM

Noel Sheppard writes at Newsbusters:

"With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back," [Donald] Trump recently told members of his Westchester, New York, country club, according to the New York Post.

Referencing the Post, Sheppard notes that "the crowd of 500 stood and applauded. I guess there weren't any liberal media members there."



Friday, February 12, 2010

Global Warming Snow Job: Warm Air Holds More Moisture?

By Rick Pearcey • February 12, 2010, 10:01 AM

Mark Finkelstein writes at Newsbusters:

So more snow fell from Philly to D.C. because the temperatures were warmer than normal during the blizzards? 

That got me wondering: Just what were the temperatures in D.C. on the snow days, and how do they compare to the norm? 

And guess what?



Thursday, February 4, 2010

Greenpeace Tells Climate Change Chief to Resign

By Rick Pearcey • February 4, 2010, 08:22 AM

"Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is under increased pressure after the head of Greenpeace called for him to step down," reports the U.K. Telegraph.



Monday, January 18, 2010

World Misled Over Himalayan Glacier Meltdown

By Rick Pearcey • January 18, 2010, 08:50 AM

From the London Times:

A warning that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.



Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Dr. Stephen C. Meyer: Climategate Recalls Attacks on Darwin Doubters

By Rick Pearcey • December 22, 2009, 08:58 AM

Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell, writes at Human Events:

Believers in human-caused global climate change have been placed under an uncomfortable spotlight recently.

That is thanks to the Climategate scandal, centering on e-mails hacked from the influential Climate Research Unit (CRU) at England’s University of East Anglia.

The e-mails show scientists from various academic institutions hard at work suppressing dissent from other scientists who have doubts on global warming, massaging research data to fit preconceived ideas, and seeking to manipulate the gold standard “peer review” process to keep skeptical views from being heard.

Does this sound familiar at all?

To me, as a prominent skeptic of modern Darwinian theory, it sure does.

For years, Darwin-doubting scientists have complained of precisely such abuses, committed by Darwin zealots in academia.



Monday, December 21, 2009

Palin Blasts "Arrogance of Man" in Copenhagen

By Rick Pearcey • December 21, 2009, 12:09 PM

"The now-finished climate change summit in Copenhagen marks the 'arrogance of man,' former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said this weekend," reports The Hill.



Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Palin, Schwarzenegger Climate Dispute Heats Up

By Rick Pearcey • December 16, 2009, 08:50 AM

"Republicans' exchange over the prospect of man-made global warming goes another round as Palin responds to the California governor's assertion that her recent statements are an effort to gain publicity," reports a story at Foxnews.com.

"Why is Governor Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sorts of policies in Copenhagen that have helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment?," Sarah Palin asked at 9:36 pm yesterday on her Facebook page.

"Perhaps he will recall that I live in our nation’s only Arctic state and that I was among the first governors to create a sub-cabinet to deal specifically with climate change," the former governor of Alaska continues.

"While I and all Alaskans witness the impacts of changes in weather patterns firsthand, I have repeatedly said that we can’t primarily blame man’s activities for those changes. And while I did look for practical responses to those changes, what I didn’t do was hamstring Alaska’s job creators with burdensome regulations so that I could act 'greener than thou' when talking to reporters," Palin concludes.


Al Gore's End Run Around Press in Copenhagen

By Rick Pearcey • December 16, 2009, 07:13 AM

In this clip from Copenhagen, see Academy Award winner "We're not doing interviews right now" Al Gore score a touchdown for ignorance, hubris, and blind faith.


The Great Climate Change Hoax

By Rick Pearcey • December 16, 2009, 06:42 AM

"Climategate just confirms what has long been obvious to those paying attention and living in the real world," writes Peter Ferrara at American Spectator. "Global warming never had anything to do with science. It was all about power and money."

But power for what? "The UN saw it as a grand opportunity to expand its powers into a world government, and, in fact, is still breathlessly pursing this undemocratic, neo-fascist nightmare in Copenhagen. That explains the IPCC's hopelessly bad science. Other world governments saw it as a tremendous opportunity to expand their power and control, and so joined in encouraging the Grand Hoax."

Why did the international Left and media join in the hoax? "The worldwide Left and media fellow travelers (imagining themselves as 'liberals') who philosophically, and quite naively, favor such centralized government control as a means to do 'good,' joined in perpetuating the scientific hoax as well."

What did Green extremists hope to achieve? "Environmentalist extremist groups saw it as the chance for the final victory in gaining control over all private business, and hopefully achieving the ultimate environmentalist dream in repealing the Industrial Revolution. Michael Crichton's State of Fear is now revealed as the ultimate sourcebook for understanding these environmentalist organizations."



Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Sarah Palin: Copenhagen's Political Science

By Rick Pearcey • December 9, 2009, 09:19 AM

Question Politicized Authority: "Without trustworthy science and with so much at stake, Americans should be wary about what comes out of this politicized conference," writes Sarah Palin in a column at the Washington Post.

"The president should boycott Copenhagen," concludes the author of Going Rogue. 



Tuesday, December 8, 2009

U.S. Lawmaker to Copenhagen: End "Scientific Fascism"

By Rick Pearcey • December 8, 2009, 09:23 PM

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) "said Tuesday he is going to attend the Copenhagen conference on climate change to inform world leaders that despite any promises made by President Obama, no new laws will be passed in the United States until the 'scientific fascism' ends," reports Fox News.



Tuesday, December 1, 2009

If Climategate, What Else Are "Trusted Scientists" Cooking for Government?

By Rick Pearcey • December 1, 2009, 02:26 PM

Two Questions: Given the Climategate debacle, where else might "trusted scientists" be trying to pull the wool over the eyes of people at home and abroad, at great cost in pocketbooks and human liberty?

And where are the checks and balances on the combined supermonopoly of scientific and governmental power?



Monday, November 30, 2009

Mark Steyn: The Vast "Peer Reviewed" Censored Scientific Consensus Otherwise Known as Climategate

By Rick Pearcey • November 30, 2009, 07:53 AM

Thought Renegade Mark Steyn Offers Peerless Advice for the Climate Cultist: "Look for the peer-reviewed label! And then just believe whatever it is they tell you."



Saturday, November 28, 2009

Rigging a Climate "Consensus"

By Rick Pearcey • November 28, 2009, 10:30 AM

Damage Control: "The climatologists at the center of the leaked email and document scandal have taken the line that it is all much ado about nothing," states the Wall Street Journal. "Yes, the wording of their messages was unfortunate, but they insist this in no way undermines the underlying science. They're ignoring the damage they've done to public confidence in the arbiters of climate science."

The real issue: "The furor over these documents is not about tone, colloquialisms or whether climatologists are nice people. The real issue is what the messages say about the way the much-ballyhooed scientific consensus on global warming was arrived at, and how a single view of warming and its causes is being enforced. The impression left by the correspondence among Messrs. Mann and Jones and others is that the climate-tracking game has been rigged from the start."



Friday, November 27, 2009

Another Blow Against "Science" Behind Warming Politics

By Rick Pearcey • November 27, 2009, 07:36 AM

"Advocates and sympathetic politicians claiming that man-made global warming from uses of carbon-based energy sources mandates international controls on economically prosperous nations were already worried that their victory is slipping," writes John McLaughlin at American Thinker.

"Now another blow has been struck against 'basic science' used to support their case."



Tuesday, November 24, 2009

"Data Change" the Real Story Behind "Climate Change"?

By Rick Pearcey • November 24, 2009, 08:27 AM

"I Think I'll Delete the File" -- Regarding revelations from hacked emails at Britain's Climate Research Unit (University of East Anglia), a column at RedState asks, "How Does Knowledge Accumulate When the Scientists All Lie?"



Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Intelligent Design on Dennis Miller Radio

By Rick Pearcey • November 18, 2009, 12:59 PM

Comedian and talk show host Dennis Miller discusses intelligent design with Dr. Stephen Meyer, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design.

Here is audio of the interview. Meyer is scheduled for a full hour in-studio interview December 2 at 12 p.m. ET, 9 a.m. PT.



Monday, October 12, 2009

Scientists Rebut Claim That Man Causes Global Warming

By Rick Pearcey • October 12, 2009, 09:01 AM

"As the world focused on President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a small group of determined scientists gathered in a Senate office building to present evidence backing their claim that climate change is caused not by man but by nature, and that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but the hope for a greener planet," reports CNSNews.com.



Monday, September 21, 2009

Scientific Impossibility of Evolution

By Rick Pearcey • September 21, 2009, 07:13 AM

From WorldNetDaily:

What is it about a California-based Christian evangelist from New Zealand that makes him irresistible to even the most sophisticated secularist?

"You sir, are a fool who could not lie straight in bed. It is beneath me to even address you," wrote an online respondent to Ray Comfort's weblog Friday, "but I was passing by and saw this tripe, I could not constrain myself."

The lively interaction on his Atheist Central blog with scores of atheists and agnostics of all kinds -- from young students to decorated scientists -- has given Comfort unusual insight into the skeptical mind and led him to conclude atheism rests on a remarkably illogical and unscientific premise that became the title of his latest book, "Nothing Created Everything."

"I found over the last year, when I said an atheist is someone who believes nothing created everything, they go berserk and say, 'We don't believe that,'" said Comfort, co-host of "The Way of the Master" television show with actor Kirk Cameron and the head of Bellflower, Calif.-based Living Waters ministry.

Read the entire article.

Related
Christianity Is a Science-Starter, Not a Science-Stopper
Evolution vs. Creation: What Our Children Need to Know
Nazi Eugenics "May Not Be Bad"?



Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Glenn Beck & Black Pastor: "We Are Losing Our Freedom" -- Video

By Rick Pearcey • September 1, 2009, 02:41 PM

As this video indicates, Pastor Stephen Broden appears to get it. Big time.

Here's the website of Fair Park Bible Fellowship Church in Dallas.

If the Obamas have yet to settle on a church to attend, they might look carefully at this one.

We'll pay the gas and airfare.

Better yet, move the White House to Dallas. Get it out of occupied terrority.



Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Global-Warming Alarmists March on the South

By Rick Pearcey • August 19, 2009, 07:40 AM

Paul Chesser at American Spectator says Dixie is the "last frontier among the states for global warm-mongers to conquer."



Thursday, July 30, 2009

Banana-Eating Jungle Monkeys

By Rick Pearcey • July 30, 2009, 11:18 AM

A policeman can be fired for calling a black man a "banana-eating jungle monkey."

But a scientist can be fired for not calling Man a "banana-eating jungle monkey."

The former penalizes people for their racism; the latter penalizes people for their lack of evolutionism. 

A bit odd, don't you think?

After all, if the evolutionary picture is the whole show, is not Mankind per se a "banana-eating jungle monkey"? Or at least a close cousin?

Racism is evil.

But we learn that from our true Creator. Not from nature.

Not from an impersonal, indifferent cosmos.

And not from the monkeys, from the bananas, from the jungle, or from those who believe in them. 

Surely, you understand the difference.

Our Founders did: "Endowed by our Creator . . ."

It takes a Creator to start a country. Well, at least a country worth living in.


Give Trees Legal Standing in Court?

By Rick Pearcey • July 30, 2009, 08:43 AM

As endorsed by Obama's "top science adviser" John P. Holdren. CNSNews.com has the story.

And while we're at it, don't forget the kids. Especially after they've developed sufficiently to qualify as "human beings."



Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Obama Science Czar: Born Baby "Will Ultimately Develop Into a Human Being"

By Rick Pearcey • July 28, 2009, 02:20 PM

"President Obama’s top science adviser said in a book he co-authored in 1973 that a newborn child 'will ultimately develop into a human being' if he or she is properly fed and socialized," reports Terry Jeffrey at CNSNews.com.
 
Jeffrey highlights the following quote from Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions, coauthored by John P. Holdren, who is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology:

The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being.

"Holdren co-authored the book with Stanford professors Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. The book was published by W.H. Freeman and Company," writes Jeffrey.

The implications of this low view of human life are profound and disturbing.

Imagine, for example, how cost-efficient government-run healthcare might become if by the end of life, people who were once human beings can now be classified by compassionate federal bureaucrats with Ph.D.s as no longer developmentally human, having lost through age, disease, and lessened social contact the requisite criteria to quailfy as humanity.

Billions upon billions of dollars might be saved if Moms and Dads across the land can simply be unplugged, dehydrated, rounded up, or liquidated in some other budget-saving fashion. Imagine the savings for Social Security. Then imagine the uplifting speeches from a smiling president before a ga-ga crowd of slavish media and citizen drones.

The only catch: Government will have taken the place of the Creator, and human beings made in the image of the real Creator will rebel.

The inhumanity of Obama's science czar is already among us in the rivers of blood known as abortion. It is a slaughter of decency and humanity for which feminists, judges, and secularized politicians will be held accountable.

How to avoid widening and deepening the inhumanity? Return the federal government to its Constitutional limits and liberate the American people on the basis of Declarational principles. There is a Creator who gives unalienable rights, and any entity that seeks to usurp his place is an idol that no free-thinking person need obey. 

In the real America, you have value and significance and worth because of who you are as created in the image of God.

Government is instituted among men to protect that, not to destroy it, not to find some clever way around it, and certainly not to liquidate those who resist secular inhumanity as free and noble beings created in the image of God.  

Related
Dawkins: Nazi Eugenics "May Not Be Bad"?
"Dr. Doom" Pianka Speaks: Transcript



Thursday, July 16, 2009

Infanticide Advocate Peter Singer Argues for Healthcare Rationing

By Rick Pearcey • July 16, 2009, 08:12 AM

Singer's article "Why We Must Ration Healthcare" appears here.

Singer notes that, "in the current U.S. debate over health care reform, 'rationing' has become a dirty word." But, he argues, "health care is a scarce resource, and all scarce resources are rationed in one way or another."

Hence, says the Princeton bioethicist: "The debate over health care reform in the United States should start from the premise that some form of health care rationing is both inescapable and desirable. Then we can ask, What is the best way to do it."

"His reasoning is similar to that recently employed by President Obama when he explained at a fixed townhall event why elderly Americans should be put on ice floes," writes Matthew Vadum at American Spectator.

Related:
Hundreds Die in UK Mental Hospitals
Abortofascism and Free-Market Homicide



Monday, June 29, 2009

Gazooks! Betraying the Planet!!

By Rick Pearcey • June 29, 2009, 10:14 AM

"Remember the good old days -- when dissent was patriotic?," writes Mark Finkelstein of Newsbusters.  Well, "Fuggedaboutit.  Dissent isn't merely unpatriotic now.  It's downright treasonous.  Just ask Paul Krugman" over at the NYT.

"If, like virtually all House Republicans and a handful of Dems," Finkelstein continues, "you don't agree with the likes of Henry Waxman on the need to take radical measures on the climate, you're guilty of . . . 'a form of treason.' Treason against the planet, to be precise."

Frightened but want more from Finkelstein on Planet Patriot Klugman? Go here . . .



Thursday, June 25, 2009

EPA's Own Research Expert "Shut Up" on Climate Change

By Rick Pearcey • June 25, 2009, 09:44 AM

"Environmental Protection Agency officials have silenced one of their own senior researchers after the 38-year employee issued an internal critique of the EPA's climate change position," reports WorldNetDaily.

Related:
After Global Warming
Global Warming Unearths Ancient Dragon



Wednesday, June 24, 2009

After Global Warming

By Rick Pearcey • June 24, 2009, 11:11 AM

"The house of cards that is the science behind 'climate change' is collapsing at exactly the same time it is being imposed by the Obama administration and Congress as an ideological 'truth'," writes Larrey Anderson at American Thinker. "America is facing the perfect storm of an imploding scientific theory that will be enforced by the rule of law."

"Make no mistake," Anderson continues, "the bid bad wolf of truth is about to blow the straw house of global warming to bits. This is why there was a sudden shift, in the last nine months, from the use of 'man made global warming' to 'climate change' by the proponents of the theory."

Related:
Argentine Glacier Advances Despite Global Warming
Global Warming Unearths Ancient Dragon
Poll: Global Warming Message Losing Ground
Czech Prez: What Climate Activists Really Want



Monday, June 15, 2009

Conspiracy Watch: Argentine Glacier Advances Despite Global Warming

By Rick Pearcey • June 15, 2009, 11:06 AM

It's becoming increasingly clear that the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy to resist science, destroy humanity, and disrepect Al Gore has gone intercontinental.

AP has the latest on a rebellious ice mass

Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier is one of only a few ice fields worldwide that have withstood rising global temperatures.

Nourished by Andean snowmelt, the glacier constantly grows even as it spawns icebergs the size of apartment buildings into a frigid lake, maintaining a nearly perfect equilibrium since measurements began more than a century ago.

"We're not sure why this happens," said Andres Rivera, a glacialist with the Center for Scientific Studies in Valdivia, Chile. "But not all glaciers respond equally to climate change."

Related:
Global Warming Unearths Ancient Dragon
Poll: Global Warming Message Losing Ground
Czech Prez: What Climate Activists Really Want



Monday, June 1, 2009

Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore Launches Run for Alabama Governor

By Rick Pearcey • June 1, 2009, 09:24 AM

"Barack Obama has another outspoken critic on the stump today," reports WorldNetDaily.

"Judge Roy Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court launches his run for governor of that state and hits the national media promoting release of his autobiographical manifesto, So Help Me God.

Related:
Those 10 Commandments: Did Chief Justice Moore Go Too Far?



Monday, May 18, 2009

Farah: Obama Wants Civil Dialogue Over Murder of Unborn Humans

By Rick Pearcey • May 18, 2009, 07:48 AM

Go ahead. Make Nice. But Notre Dame party-spoiler Joseph Farah of WND chooses not to play by Obama's pathetic, inhumane, and bloody rules:

If I were presiding over a public policy that called for the murder of unborn babies for any reason or no reason at all, that provided mandatory public funding of those procedures both domestically and in foreign countries, that required doctors and nurses to perform abortions even if they were conscientiously opposed, that permitted experimentations on living human embryos, that promoted even partial-birth abortions outside the womb and that called for the extermination of infants who somehow defied all the odds and managed to survive efforts to kill them before birth, I guess I would want to frame the debate in such a way as to diminish the hideous monstrousness of my morally indefensible position.

He doesn't really want people who recognize what abortion is to approach the debate with "open hearts." He wants us to harden our hearts.  

More on "The Blowback of Notre Dame," by Joseph Farah at WND . . .

Related
Obama OKs Killing Unborn in Notre Dame Speech
Episcopalian High Priestess: "Abortion Is a Blessing!"

What About Obama, Mussolini, and the Unmentionable Herr Hitler?
The Evil Religious Presidents Do
How to Argue Like a Fascist
American Fascism: Obama and Mussolini


Obama OKs Killing Unborn in Notre Dame Speech

By Rick Pearcey • May 18, 2009, 06:47 AM

"After receiving an honorary doctorate in law at the University of Notre Dame’s graduation ceremony yesterday, President Barack Obama delivered a speech to the school's graduating seniors that sought to legitimize his position in favor of the legal killing of unborn children," reports Terry Jeffrey at CNSNews.com.

"Obama told the graduates of the nation’s most well-known Catholic university that abortion 'has both moral and spiritual dimensions' -- although he did not explain why he had made this conclusion -- and made it quite clear that, even so, he has no intention of moving from his position that it ought to be legal for a pregnant mother to have a doctor kill her unborn child for literally any reason at any stage of pregnancy."

More on Obama at Notre Dame from CNSNews.com.

Related
Episcopalian High Priestess: "Abortion Is a Blessing!"
What About Obama, Mussolini, and the Unmentionable Herr Hitler?
The Evil Religious Presidents Do
How to Argue Like a Fascist
American Fascism: Obama and Mussolini



Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Scientists: Facebook, Twitter May Harm Moral Values

By Rick Pearcey • April 14, 2009, 10:53 AM

Telegraph reports: "Today's fast-paced media could be making us indifferent to human suffering and should allow time for us to reflect, according to researchers."




Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Texas Chooses Science Over Secularist Dogma

By Rick Pearcey • April 1, 2009, 01:52 PM

The Discovery Institute, where Pearcey Report editor at large Nancy Pearcey is a fellow of the Center for Science and Culture, announces an advance in educational and scientific freedom:

Austin, TX -- Today [March 27], the Texas Board of Education chose science over dogma and adopted science standards improving on the old "strengths and weaknesses" language by requiring students to “critique” and examine “all sides of scientific evidence.” In addition, the Board -- for the first time -- specifically required high school students to “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations. 

The new science standards mark a significant victory for scientists and educators in favor of teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution.

“Texas now has the most progressive science standards on evolution in the entire nation,” said Dr. John West, Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute.  “Contrary to the claims of the evolution lobby, absolutely nothing the Board did promotes ‘creationism’ or religion in the classroom. Groups that assert otherwise are lying, plain and simple. Like the boy who cried ‘Wolf,’ the Darwin only lobby always screams ‘creationism!’ anytime educators or policymakers try to ensure a fair presentation of the scientific evidence both for and against evolution. Let’s be absolutely clear: Under the new standards, students will be expected to analyze and evaluate the scientific evidence for evolution, not religion. Period.” 

Regarding teaching creationism or religion in the public school classroom, a couple of points are worth noting.

First, this is a terrific win for academic freedom, but it should be remarked that nothing in the Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution forbids teaching creationism or religion in the classroom. Entrenched secularist dogma on this matter is less than convincing.

In fact, progress in the American experiment in liberty advances from the fixed point of a knowable and objectively existing Creator who endows humanity with unalienable rights. The Constitution is a legal contract designed to protect those rights so that what Mark Levin in Liberty and Tyranny calls a "civil society" might come to actuality, which is what happened in the course of human events that we call the American Revolution.

The 1st Amendment forbids Congress from sticking its Federal Nose into our business, educational or otherwise -- something those who embrace a secularist tryanny over the minds of free human beings seem to disapprove. The 1st Amendment does not forbid Texicans or the rest of us from exercising our freedom and our sovereignity in education.

Here's the 1st Amendment in its entirety:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  [emphasis added]

The question therefore is not whether creationism or religion can be taught in the classroom. Of course they can. The real question is this: What's the evidence? If the evidence for or against a particular theory of origins is scientific, then present the case for and against, let the students think for themselves, and let them make up their own minds. Even in biology class.

The second point is that the Creator acknowledged in the Declaration, and against whom Congress is prohibited from passing laws against, is not a matter of "religious" belief or "faith" in the poor sense of the word bandied about inside and outside of secularist circles today.

The more rigorous, concrete, humane, and Biblical concept of faith has to do with the commitment of the whole person to that which is rationally, empirically, and existentially knowable as true. It is a worldview commitment rooted in truth about God, man, and the cosmos -- that same worldview, by the way, which provided the critical intellectual mass needed to launch modern science in the first place.

This wholistic approach has nothing to do with subjectivist "values," privatized "faith," emotional crutches, blind believism, or other characteristics swimming about in congressional waters, "religious" meetings, secular baptisms, and marketing strategies of the ACLU. 

The wonder and dignity of humanity male and female created in the image of a knowable God who endows each of us with unalienable rights cannot be squeezed into such limiting, dehumanizing, and regressive nonsense. It's time we all broke free of those chains. Bravo, Texas!




Monday, March 30, 2009

Protest Notre Dame, Disinvite Obama From the Presidency

By Rick Pearcey • March 30, 2009, 03:06 PM

"The outrage over Notre Dame inviting President Obama as commencement speaker has not abated," reports OneNewsNow.

"Last week, pro-lifers strongly voiced their anger about a pro-abortion president being invited to speak at a prominent Catholic university, which supposedly upholds church doctrines such as the sanctity of life. But they also are objecting to the school's plan to give Obama an honorary Doctor of Law degree. Notre Dame has been flooded with complaints, but university President John Jenkins will not be deterred."

Says Notre Dame graduate Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League: 

If Jenkins won't do the right thing and disinvite Barack Obama, then we are absolutely going to have no choice but to go out and rain on Barack Obama's parade on May 17 in South Bend, Indiana. . . . We are already working with pro-life leaders around the country, especially throughout the Midwest, to put on the mother of all protests.

In his language and policy moves, this man Barack Obama is a rogue official occupying the office of the President of the United States.

Why rogue? Because, for example, he is in violation of the Declaration of Independence, which is the Foundational Vision Statement of the United States of America and which acknowledges that every single human being is endowed by our Creator with "certain unalienable rights," including the rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Well, dead preborn American citizens are deprived of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And no American politican ought to serve who favors the liquidation of the preborn in aborcentration centers that mar and bleed the land.

One would think that governing according to the Vision Statement of the United States is not above the paygrade of the president of the United States.

One would think that respecting unalienable rights endowed by the Creator upon alive but preborn American citizens is not above the paygrade of the President of the United States.

One would think that elementary scientific and inclusive facts of biological life regarding the humanity of unborn human beings created in the image of God is not above the paygrade of the President of the United States.

What kind of man is this? Let us hope not, but is Barack Obama too much of a political ideologue to care about the facts, the Declaration, the Constitution, and that liberating vision of life that American heroes have bled and died for on battlefields across history and across the world, both within and without the borders of our homeland?

No only should Barack Obama be disinivited from Notre Dame, the American people should rise up and disinvite him from the presidency. His pro-abortion, anti-life policies are an embarrassment to civilized humanity under the Declaration, under the Constitution, and under God. Yes he was elected, but he now imposes tyranny. He now wars against the American experiment in liberty under God. 

Americans must take every opportunity to disinvite not just him, but his alien, anti-American, inhumane, and anti-Creator coup against the foundational Mission and Vision Statement of this land. We can yet still enjoy the "blessings of liberty," but this will require a return to the Creator to whom our Founders looked and from whom those blessings derive. It will require casting off the chains of the Federal Empire and its new Emperor on the Potomac.

No only should pro-life Americans "rain" on Obama's parade, they ought to thunder and lightning upon it, with a few cats and dogs thrown in for good measure. May the "mother of all protests" at Notre Dame have many children.




Friday, March 27, 2009

Pre-Pub Update: Nancy's New Book

By Rick Pearcey • March 27, 2009, 11:54 AM

A hard-copy prepublication version of Nancy's new book arrived in the mail today. This edition is also being sent to expert readers who have requested such a copy. More about this later, but comments already coming in are quite positive, for which we are thankful.

Remembering that politics follows culture -- especially during these days of an oppressive secularism, governmental and otherwise -- I can honestly say that this next volume offers a mighty blow against the forces of manipulation, fragmentation, and inhumanity at large in so many areas of contemporary life, thought, and society.  

Nancy and I are thrilled with how this project has developed, and we appreciate the vision and support of Philadelphia Biblical University in producing this hard copy and in supporting Nancy's writing and thinking. Great job all!




Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Amazing Octopus Fossil Proves Evolution?

By Rick Pearcey • March 25, 2009, 09:47 AM

Hardly. But, hey, "scientific" Darwin-thumpers need their comforting crutch. Truly free thinkers are willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

That's one reason I appreciate the information and approach given in the Biblical worldview. That liberating data calls for wholistic commitment based on objective truth, evidence, and sound reasoning vis-a-vis God, man, and the cosmos.

In other words, if something is not true to the evidence: Don't "believe" it. Not even if it's about "God." Especially if it's about God. Or kings, Presidents, preachers, used-car salemen, journalists, "hard-charging" leaders of ministries, and guys who wear white coats.

This approach is far more scientific -- and humane, by the way -- than what is allowed by the closed-down, reactionary attitude of ideological defenders of materialism disguised as science. Such silly peer pressure.

So don't be surprised when I say from time to time -- as I have said to the lovely, beautiful, and brilliant Nancy -- that I a) reserve the right to reject Christianity if the evidence requires such a decision, and b) that such an approach is utterly Biblical.

You might even call freedom of thought an unalienable right, endowed by the Creator, which, of course, religious and secular tyrants hate.




Monday, March 16, 2009

Poll: Global Warming Message Losing Ground

By Rick Pearcey • March 16, 2009, 08:03 PM

Good. Now if we can just increase public skepticism regarding the overheated, unconstitutional, bloated federal government.




Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Czech Prez: What Climate Activists Really Want

By Rick Pearcey • March 10, 2009, 06:02 PM

Save the planet, right? Perhaps not, according to this report from CNSNews.com:  

Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, told the International Conference on Climate Change that the true aim of environmentalists is to stop global development, not save the planet.
 
Klaus, an economist by trade and a skeptic of the theory of man-made global warming, delivered the keynote speech to an audience of more than 600, including 75 scientists, economists, and environmental policy experts, as the conference got underway in New York City on Sunday.
 
“Their true plans and ambitions: to stop economic development and return mankind centuries back,” he declared. “It is evident that the environmentalists don’t want to change the climate. They want to change our behavior. Their ambition is to control and manipulate us.”

Here's the rest of the story from CNSNews.com.




Monday, February 23, 2009

Iowa Academics Resist Evolution Freedom

By Rick Pearcey • February 23, 2009, 01:06 PM

They believe it, that settles it. Think "peer pressure."

STATEMENT BY IOWA FACULTY ON HF 183:
THE EVOLUTION ACADEMIC FREEDOM ACT

We, the undersigned members of institutions of higher learning in Iowa, urge our legislators to reject passage of "The Evolution Academic Freedom Act" (HF 183) introduced by Rod Roberts (R-Carroll). The language of this bill comes primarily from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which has conducted lobbying efforts and political activism against the teaching of evolution since 1994.

Evolution is as established a scientific theory as any other theory in science.  It is misleading to claim that there is any controversy or dissent within the vast majority of the scientific community regarding the scientific validity of evolutionary theory. Since there is no real dissent within the scientific community, then "academic freedom" for alternative theories is simply a mechanism to introduce religious or non-scientific doctrines into our science curriculum.

Similar efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in schools repeatedly have been found to be unconstitutional, something witnessed most recently in Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005) in Pennsylvania.

We, therefore, urge our legislators to recognize HF183 as part of a long history of creationist assaults on science education, and reject passage of this bill.

Now if students were able to examine the scientific evidence for themselves, there's no telling where that might lead. Consider the following outrage in HF 183:
It is therefore the intent of the general assembly that this Act be construed to expressly protect the affirmative right and freedom of every instructor at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary level to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological evolution. (italics added)
OK, freedom-lovers. You've got your marching orders!

On the other hand . . . 




Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Let Freedom Ring on Darwin Holy Day

By • February 11, 2009, 08:28 AM

It's Casey up to bat in U.S. New & World Report. Hits home run.



Monday, February 2, 2009

Students Invited to Seminar on Science and Intelligent Design

By Rick Pearcey • February 2, 2009, 05:15 PM

An opportunity for free-thinkers:

"The Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute announces an extraordinary opportunity for college students in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to participate in an intensive nine-day seminar that will prepare them to make research contributions advancing the growing science of intelligent design (ID) . . . ."

In addition, here are links for articles on DiscoveryDarwin, and the intellectual contribution of Biblical thought-forms to the rise of modern science.



Saturday, January 31, 2009

Global Warming Unearths Ancient Dragon

By Rick Pearcey • January 31, 2009, 11:55 PM

The cable channel Sci Fi bravely aired tonight an "original movie" titled Wyvern.

This creature feature features the following terrifying plot: "When global warming unearths an ancient dragon, a small Alaskan town will be destroyed, unless . . ." You'll have to figure out the rest.

But why call this broadcast brave?

Because it dares to link ancient dragons and global warming, thereby raising in the mind of every school boy and girl a simple question: What's more mythical, ancient dragons or global warming?

I guess they're right about Sci Fi Saturday: "The Most Dangerous Night on Television."



Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Free Thought on Darwin at Union-Tribune

By Rick Pearcey • March 5, 2008, 07:32 AM

There's an uncivilized outbreak of intellectual freedom re Darwin over at the San Diego Union-Tribune.

A guy with two science degrees has a column explaining why "Darwinists confidently assert there is no controversy over evolution: They actively shut down such scientific debates from taking place."

Nice work, if you can get it funded.

Clearly, this fellow is a danger to the public peace, secular agenda, last Saturday's living Constitution, and the post-American way.

Union-Trib editors ought to be praised. But are they ready for the 3 a.m. materialist knock at the door?



Thursday, November 23, 2006

Dawkins: Nazi Eugenics "May Not Be Bad"?

By Rick Pearcey • November 23, 2006, 05:40 PM

The headline at LifeSite is stunning: "Anti-Religious Extremist Dawkins Advocates Eugenics." Moreover, says the kicker, Dawkins "says Nazi regime’s genocidal project 'may not be bad'."

The report begins: "A leading international anti-religion crusader and supporter of Darwinian theory, Dr. Richard Dawkins, has said that the pseudo-science of eugenics that drove the Nazi regime’s genocidal project 'may not be bad.'

"Since the end of the second world war," LifeSite reports, "the name of eugenics, the social philosophy that the human species or particular races ought to be improved by selective breeding or other forms of genetic manipulation, is one that conjures instant images of the Nazi death camps and 'racial hygiene' programs."

Now comes Dawkins: "In a letter to the editor of Scotland’s Sunday Herald, Dawkins argues that the time has come to lay this spectre to rest. Dawkins writes that though no one wants to be seen to be in agreement with Hitler on any particular, 'if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?'”

People are outraged, as one might expect. But it's hard to disagree with Dawkins, if one accepts Darwinian presuppositions.

Evolutionary theory asserts an unbroken line of continuity between life and nonlife, from the empty void of nothingness, to the impersonal particle, to the unconscious amoeba, to the cute little monkey, to the magnificent artist decorating the Sistine Chapel.

In such a framework, there seems no logical or moral barrier to the breeding of human beings for particular kinds of purposes, whether that breeding is imposed by a secular state or promoted by the free market. If the Darwinian view is correct, then what evolutionists regard as our true creator -- the cosmos -- has produced a form of existence (humanity) which over time has come to possess the power to manipulate human reproduction.

That same cosmos, however, is silent regarding the morality of reproductive manipulation and control. The impersonal universe is indifferent to such concerns. In this view, there is no Heaven above, no Hell below, and the particles care not about peace on Earth.

Let us consider where this line of thinking would lead us, if we are to take it seriously as a reality-oriented truth-claim about life in this world. If it is agreeable in principle to breed humans for "mathematical, musical, or athletic ability," then what possible ethical objection could there be to breeding blacks for speed, Jews for herding, whites for swimming, and women for yielding milk?

The rocks do not cry when a baby dies. Electrons do not pause at half-time for a moment of silence. Venus does not remember where it was when JFK died.

If that’s all there is to existence -- variations on the theme of cold rocks and impervious particles –- then, in the impersonal Darwinian universe, what really is the spectre? "Hitler" isn't the spectre. We are, that is, humanity, those who wonder and question.

Yes, conceptually speaking, Hitler is at one with the ethically insensate cosmos, for he believed in the rule of power in the struggle for survival of the strong over the weak.

No, subjecting human reproduction to the eugenic machine in the struggle for survival isn’t the problem: We are. We resist. We question and slow things down. We ghosts of humanity are cogs in the machine.

So the question is: Who are we to stand in the way of progress? The Darwinists want to know. Who are we to question? The Darwinists want to know. And who are we to think we’re special, not exhaustively identified with nature? The secular priests know what to do: Let doubters be cast out as alienated misfits unreconciled to science.

But we revolt. We shake our fists against the indifferent, empty sky. And that is good. We accept the aspirations of meaning and worth and goodness that animate our lives. Our heartache in the face of worldviews too small tells us the sky may not be as empty as some presuppositions require.

There are voices other than those typified by Mr. Dawkins, who is driven to excess by the impress of his view of life. They are rebellious voices who ask questions first and trust later.

I have heard there are people abroad in the land, wild people. They think the science and the evidence and their humanity point in a direction shockingly different from Darwin. There is talk about a strange worldview founded upon a Creator who endows every single human being, every race, every color, with certain inalienable rights. Add a little water and sunlight, it is said, plus determination, and this worldview yields an amazing bounty of human freedom, creativity, beauty, and love.

Hope abounds. Sadly, some may not be able to endure the night without Darwin to console their emptiness. On the other hand, the shadowy world of eugenics and death camps seems less likely to last without Darwin's hand to block the light and justify the darkness.

Orthodox atheists may not like it, but the shouts of the evolutionary priesthood may signal the demise of a great secular dream. Besides, the alternative looks pretty good: There's something appealing about holding science up without casting humanity down.

Note: The entire LifeSite story is here.
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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report.