On February 12, which happens to be Charles Darwin’s birthday, Discovery Institute grants the Censor of the Year (COTY) award on individuals or organisations, recognising their “outstanding efforts in silencing debate about Darwinian evolution and alternative theories of life's origins.”
Past recipients of the award include Jerry Coyne, Neil deGrasse Tyson, the Commission on the General Conference of the United Methodist Church and the German Natural History Museum.
This year’s award goes to Wikipedia for the erasure of German palaeontologist Günter Bechly, disinformation about intelligent design and the biased treatment it gives to ID scholar Walter Bradley.
Source:
Klinghoffer, David. 2018. Happy Darwin Day! Our 2018 Censor of the Year Is Wikipedia. Evolution News & Science Today (12 February).
Gogonasus andrewsae. Image courtesy of Nobu Tamura, Creative Commons (CC BY 2.5).
Joel Kontinen
Darwin Day (12 February) has in recent years evolved into a materialistic holy day.
Sometimes, however, pro-evolution publications might report discoveries that undermine the importance of that day.
National Geographic did it in 2007. It published an article on fossilized muscle and other soft tissues from two armoured fish that are assumed to be “380– 384 million years” old.
The muscle was so well preserved that its three-dimensional shape was intact.
“The fish's remarkably well-preserved soft tissues include bundles of muscle cells, blood vessels, and nerve cells. They were found during recent electron microscope scans, the research team reported last week in the British journal Biology Letters.”
Evolutionists believe that one of the fishes, Gogonasus andrewsae, already had features that we share, at least to some extent.
They have since found an even older bony fish that they revere as our ancestor.
During the past few years, soft tissue has been found in a variety of animals thought to be many tens and even hundreds of years old.
The most logical explanation for this mystery is that the great dates assigned to most fossils are fictitious.
Source:
Markey, Sean. 2007. Fossil Meat Found in 380-Million-Year-Old Fish. National Geography news (12 February).
The BBC reminds listeners (and readers) that Darwin Day is just around the corner.
Joel Kontinen
Richard Dawkins has recently made more headlines by tweeting and re-tweeting questionable content than by anything even remotely resembling science. However, on the eve of Darwin Day (due to arrive on the 12th), he was featured in a BBC article that discusses whether evolution is merely a theory.
The article tried to explain what scientists mean when they say something is a theory.
By invoking Darwin, we get the impression that by evolution the BBC is referring to the Darwinian microbes to man story. Dawkins was quick to point out that by having to define what they mean by theory, scientists were already losing the battle, so he prefers to use the word fact instead.
“The evidence for evolution is so strong that to withhold assent [i.e. to not call it fact] would be perverse," he says.
There are several problems here. First, evolutionists tend to see minuscule changes, say in the shape of a bird’s peak or a moth’s colour, and then extrapolate these by many orders of magnitude.
But natural selection is not evolution. While it might explain the survival of the fittest, it cannot account for the arrival of the fittest.
Genetic information does not just happen. Neither does it increase through Darwinian mechanisms. In contrast, it tends to decrease with mutations.
Losing a trait can hardly be called progress.
Second, it would be preposterous to call anything perverse in a purely Darwinian world that does not accept a moral Lawgiver.
Dawkins seems to be bluffing.
Source:
BBC. 2016. The Vocabularist: When is a theory 'just a theory'? (9 February).
Soon it will be Darwin Day (12 February). It is also known as Academic Freedom Day, but Darwinians tend to shy away from such things, as they prefer to silence all other views except their own.
Discovery Institute grants the Censor of the Year (COTY) award on individuals or organisations, recognising their “outstanding efforts in silencing debate about Darwinian evolution and alternative theories of life's origins.”
This year’s award goes to the Commission on the General Conference of the United Methodist Church. While their motto is Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors, they refused to accept a book table sponsored by Discovery Institute for their General Conference.
Showing their preference for theistic evolution, they were unwilling to let people hear about intelligent design.
In 2015 the COTY award went to Neil deGrasse Tyson, and in 2014 to Jerry Coyne.
It is a big mystery why some churches think that evolution is the way God chose to create living beings. Jesus, the apostle Paul and even John Wesley would certainly have disagreed with them.
Source:
Klinghoffer, David. 2016, Closed Minds, Closed Doors: United Methodist Church Commission Is Censor of the Year. Evolution News and Views (9 February).
Neil deGrasse Tyson. Image courtesy of NASA/Bill Ingalls.
Joel Kontinen
Today, as some ardent evolutionists celebrate Darwin Day, we should not forget that it also is Academic Freedom Day.
David Klinghoffer describes the purpose of this award:
“COTY, as it's called for short, recognizes achievement in thwarting an open and informed discussion of science and scientific controversies. It is a serious thing -- since censorship is serious and often but not always casting fear on less powerful individuals whose ideas the censor doesn't like. That was the case with last year's winner, biologist Jerry Coyne, who with his partners at the Freedom from Religion Foundation was successful in silencing a young physics professor who dared to provide students with information about intelligent design.”
This year’s recipient of the Censor of the Year Award is Neil deGrasse Tyson of Cosmos fame. Mr. Klinghoffer explains why the award goes to Tyson:
“Cosmos represented a highly imaginative rewrite of the history of science. It was designed to convey an impression that faith was always an obstacle to scientific discovery, that all legitimate scientific controversies are in the past, that skeptics of scientific orthodoxy today are fools or worse.”
Believing that religion hampers scientific progress, Dr. Tyson has repeatedly ignored historical facts and fabricated quotes to further his naturalistic / materialistic worldview.
In other words, he has attempted to censor all views that do not agree with his opinion of the past, the present and the future.
Source:
Klinghoffer, David. 2015. Censor of the Year: Neil deGrasse Tyson Broadcast His Photoshopped Narrative of Science to Millions. Evolution News and Views (12 February).
Dr. John G. West’s recently updated book looks at the danger of scientism.
Joel Kontinen
Darwin Day (12th February) is almost here, and the faithful are already making preparations for celebrating it with pomp and circumstance. In a naturalistic /materialistic worldview, it is the closest thing to Christmas.
It is obvious that they don’t like Christmas, especially if it includes the word Christ – and they don’t want you to like it, either.
But they want you to celebrate Evolution Sunday in church, which, of course, would be a form of idolatry. After all, Charles Darwin wanted to do away with God who reveals Himself in human history as Creator and Saviour.
What are the likely consequences of an ideology based on the belief that apart from nature, nothing else exists?
In 2007 Dr. John G. West’s book Darwin Day in America: Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science was published. Recently, World magazine printed an excerpt of the book’s updated edition.
Dr. West, Vice President of the Discovery Institute and Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture, says:
“Our culture is witnessing the rise of what could be called totalitarian science—science so totalistic in its outlook that its defenders claim the right to remake every sphere of human life, from public policy and education to ethics and religion. Science is a wonderful enterprise, but during the Obama era, it’s being twisted in ways that are unhealthy for both science and society.”
During Obama’s presidency, science has eroded freedom and secularists have sought to silence all dissenting views in the public arena. They want to remove Christian morality and replace it with a vague Darwinian ethics. This leads to a gross devaluation of human worth, including experimenting with humans, which smacks of what Josef Mengele did at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Dr. West says that Mr. Obama endorsed the Cosmos television series hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has not hidden his anti-Christian agenda under a bushel.
West also mentions Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer, who believes that “the life of a newborn baby is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.”
This is diametrically opposed to the Christian gospel, which sees mankind as special. After all, Jesus only became a human being. He only redeemed mankind, not animals.
Over half a century ago, C. S. Lewis warned of the dangers of scientism. This is something that all too many of today’s scientists have chosen to ignore.
Source:
West, John G. 2015. From science to scientism in the Obama era. World (February 7).
As evidenced by Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, questioning Darwinian evolution has become hazardous for scientists, academics, teachers and students. Recently a British scientist was expelled from the Royal Society for his unorthodox approach to dissenters.
Now, with Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday just around the corner, science journals are praising the man and his achievements while keeping silent on the weaknesses and consequences of his theory.
However, dissent against Darwin has by no means become extinct. Discovery Institute, for instance, is scheduling its Academic Freedom Day on Darwin’s birthday (February 12). The celebrations will include a video and essay contest for high school and college students.
Darwin once stated, "A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."
His supporters have obviously forgotten the advice he gave. Thus the need for Academic Freedom Day. For more details, go to Academic Freedom Day. com .
Charles Darwin's birthday was celebrated on February 12. Image: Wikipedia
Joel Kontinen
Charles Darwin’s birthday (February 12) is evolving into a secular alternative to Christian holy days such as Christmas and Easter for atheists, humanists, skeptics and other evolutionists. Thus many Darwinists are in the habit of wishing each other Happy Darwin Day and even sending Darwin Day cards via the internet.
St. Charles celebrates his 200th birthday next year but the science journal Nature already reminded its readers of the importance of his birth and wished all a happy Darwin Day.
In the USA February 12 has traditionally been remembered as Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, but humanists and other anticreationists want to push Lincoln aside and replace him with a man who was born on the same day and the same year (1809) - Charles Darwin.
Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States from 1861 to 1865. He advocated the elimination of slavery and during the Civil War he issued a declaration that abolished slavery in the southern states.
Darwin’s view of mankind was much more sombre than Lincoln’s. In his book Descentof Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) he predicted, “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time, the anthropomorphous apes. . . will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla.” (vol. 1, p. 201).
In other words, Darwin did not have a very bright view of the Australian aborigines or other people of colour.
Darwin’s thoughts had far-reaching consequences. In Australia, aboriginals were hunted down like animals and they were almost brought to extinction. In the United States, a pygmy named Ota Benga was first exhibited in the St. Louis World Fair (1904) and later in the Bronx Zoo and in many countries eugenics was used to eliminate undesired traits from mankind. This evolution was starkest in the programs of the German Nazis.
Recently, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised, saying he was sorry how his country had treated the aborigines. He remembered to mention Darwin’s harmful effect.
Perhaps we should think twice before we start sending Darwin Day cards.
Sources:
Darwin, Charles, 1871. (republished 1981) The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ham, Ken; Wieland, Carl; Batten, Don. 1999. One Blood: The Biblical Answer to Racism. Green Forest: Master Books.
Wieland, Carl. 2008. A sorry day—with an unlikely twist.
http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/5631/
I’m a translator and writer currently living in Finland. I have three academic degrees: a BA in Bible and Theology, an MA in Translation Studies, and an MA in Biblical Studies.
Olen koulutukseltani sekä filosofian maisteri (pääaine: englannin kielen kääntäminen ja tulkinta) että teologian maisteri (Uuden testamentin koulutusohjelma). Lisäksi olen suorittanut BA-tutkinnon (Raamattu ja teologia).
Posts
