On the battle for academic freedom.

In Science Education, Academic Freedom Makes Progress Across America
David Klinghoffer | @d_klinghoffer

In a new ID the Future podcast, Sarah Chaffee surveys progress across the United States in enacting academic freedom (AF) legislation. Despite energetic disinformation campaigns by Darwin-only propagandists, the truth about the value of teaching critical thinking in science class is appreciated by more and more legislators, educators, and activists. Download the episode here, or listen to it here.

Miss Chaffee spoke to AF proponents in Alabama, Oklahoma, and Texas. Her interviewees stress the importance of “refraining from prohibiting teachers” from challenging their students with “more science not less,” of protecting educators from frivolous lawsuits and other career penalties, because “students have a right to know that there are a lot of deep questions here.”

Biologist Ray Bohlin, on the ground in Texas, makes a great point. Everyone always repeats the mantra about how “We need more scientists, We need more scientists, We need more scientists…” And that is true. But what about those students who can’t shake the intuition that life exceeds what Darwinian orthodoxy can explain – as, in fact, many professional scientists are coming to think?

Rather than make fools of those young people and tell them such doubts have no basis in objective science, why not admit the truth – that their insight is being borne out by research, including in mainstream evolutionary biology itself? Admit to them that the question of origins is complex: evolutionary theory has strengths, but also weaknesses.

Surely, in partly confirming what they already sense to be the case, that will have the effect of exciting their curiosity and encouraging them to consider science as a career in their adult lives. And that’s what we all want, says Dr. Bohlin, right?

On testing I.D

Yes, Intelligent Design Is Testable Science – A Resource Roundup
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

After perusing a recent article here (“Desperately Seeking Evolutionary Innovation by Chance”), a reader offers a classic challenge:

You post lots of criticism of evolutionary biology. Have you made any advancement in formulation of your own theory? What predictive power has it shown, if any?

The query, which is really three ways of putting the same question, is a classic because it has been asked so many times in various forms – What predictions does ID make? Is it exclusively a negative case against Darwinian theory? Is it really science? etc. It just so happens that an excellent new ID the Future podcast features Center for Science & Culture Fellow Jonathan Witt discussing exactly this set of issues relating to design theory.

Dr. Witt explains, contrary to the objections of critics, how and why intelligent design is testable. He discusses predictions from biology and astrobiology, and points listeners to an extended list of testable ID predictions available online.  Listen to it here, or download it here.

As to the future of ID, without prematurely giving anything away, that is set to include research into aspects of the genetic code; investigations into genomic elements presumed non-functional based on evolutionary theory, but predicted to be functional based on ID, and much more.

That said, the reader asks valid questions. Intelligent design as a theory of design detection has made many scientific advances over the past few decades. In fact, while not always going explicitly by the name “intelligent design,” ID has made so many advances — often reported in peer-reviewed scientific papers — that it’s impossible to give a thorough answer to the reader’s questions in this brief format. But because we’ve discussed ID’s scientific status and predictive power many times over in the past, that’s not necessary.

The following links are of special interest and relevance:

• “How Do We Know Intelligent Design Is a Scientific ‘Theory’?”
• “Does Intelligent Design Help Science Generate New Knowledge?”
• “Straw Men Aside, What Is the Theory of Intelligent Design, Really?”
• “A Positive, Testable Case for Intelligent Design”
• “Intelligent design has scientific merit because it uses the scientific method to make its claims and infers design by testing its positive predictions”
• “How Can We Positively Test Intelligent Design?”
• “FAQ: Does intelligent design theory implement the scientific method?”
• “How Can We Know Intelligent Design is Science?”
• “No ID Research? Let’s Help Out This Iowa State Student”
• “Peer-Reviewed Articles Supporting Intelligent Design”
• “Bibliography and Annotated List of Peer-Reviewed Publications Supporting Intelligent Design”

And that’s just for starters. Dear reader, if you’ll study these links, you will find the answers to your questions and more. Enjoy.