As a teen, I was told several times by fellow Christians that Charles Darwin recanted his theory of evolution on his deathbed. This 125-year-old legendwas believable because it played into the idea that no matter how wicked a life someone had led -- and we believed Darwin to be a vile man -- God would welcome them back, even in their final moments.

For Albert Einstein, who I will admit is one of my heroes, nearing the end did not make him a more religious man. His vague language on God had long been interpreted by the faithful that Einstein was a fellow believer. But, in a letter being auctioned in England, Einstein was quite critical of religion and the Jewish people, of which he was a proud member. From The Guardian:

Einstein penned the letter on January 3 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt. The letter went on public sale a year later and has remained in private hands ever since.

In the letter, he states: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

Einstein, who was Jewish and who declined an offer to be the state of Israel's second president, also rejected the idea that the Jews are God's favoured people.

"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

Avoiding Einstein's frank review of his people, I disagree with his interpretation of the Bible. Yes, Jesus spoke highly of a childlike faith, but does that mean the Bible's stories are "primitive" and "childish?"

Hardly. Even if you don't believe its accounts of Jewish history, the Gospels and the epistles, the complete book, covering 4,000 years from the Beginning to the End, is the greatest literary work ever.

It's more enjoyable, though, if you believe it.

This article was cross-posted at The God Blog.

Posted by Brad Greenberg at May 13, 2008 | Comments (1)

Florida’s news outlets are abuzz again with the latest developments in the state’s attempt to pinpoint guidelines for science education in public classrooms. This morning the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill 71–43 that requires public school teachers to offer “a thorough presentation and scientific critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution,” more obtuse wording than that approved by Florida's Senate last Wednesday.

The Senate’s bill, called the “Evolution Academic Freedom Act,” was spearheaded by Sen. Ronda Storms and aimed at granting educators the right to present scientifically grounded alternatives to evolution, along with protecting them from disciplinary action for doing so. The bill borrows largely from an academic freedom bill drafted by the Discovery Institute, the leading research center on intelligent design, and focuses on teachers’ First Amendment rights.

Proponents of both bills repeatedly stated that the legislation does not allow creationism or intelligent design to be taught in classrooms, and that neither bill includes religious language.

Florida legislators have until this Friday to come to agreement on the bill’s wording. Considering the House’s agreed-upon wording was already rejected by the Senate in earlier hearings, it remains dubious whether the legislators will be able to pass a bill at all.

Florida’s debate over evolution began last October, when the State Board of Education adopted new science education standards that identified evolution as the “fundamental concept” underlying biology. Before the new standards, the Board of Education’s statewide curriculum did not include the word evolution.

See CT Newsfeed's prior coverage of evolution and science education.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty at April 28, 2008 | Comments (0)

Expelled, a new documentary that argues the case for Intelligent Design from a Judeo-Christian perspective, has been in the headlines lately, prior to its April 18 theatrical release.

The film, hosted and narrated by Ben Stein, has been screened to invitation-only audiences at churches and for various Christian groups. But several critics have worked their way in to some of the screenings, most notably Roger Moore of The Orlando Sentinel, who recently trashed the movie in his blog.

A critic of another kind "crashed" a screening in Minnesota on Thursday night--Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and arguably the most outspoken critic of Intelligent Design and Creationism. Dawkins himself appears in the documentary--but claims he was duped into believing it was going to be an objective account of Darwinism vs. ID.

Jeffrey Overstreet, a film critic for CT Movies, broke the news on his own blog Thursday night after receiving an e-mail from a college student who was at the screening.

Stuart Blessman, the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities student, told Overstreet in the e-mail that Dawkins' appearance "was quite a surprise" to both the audience and associate producer Mark Mathis, who fielded questions afterward.

Blessman reported that Dawkins asked several questions, and complained that "any statement he made in the film was in fact under the assumption that he was being interviewed . . . for a film that was to take an even-handed look at the Intelligent Design/Evolution controversy."

It's not the first time Dawkins and other Darwinian experts say they were duped by the filmmakers. The Guardian reported last fall that Dawkins said, "At no time was I given the slightest clue that these people were a creationist front," he said. And The New York Times quotes Dawkins and other atheists who appeared in the film under a "deceptive invitation."

Blessman also wrote that "the Q&A then proceeded pretty uneventfully, with several of the questions addressed to Dawkins himself. Mathis and Dawkins also clearly had spoken on numerous occasions and appeared to continue an argument that they had started previously."

Blessman also reported that Dawkins complained that a colleague of his was turned away even though he (Dawkins) was admitted to the screening. That colleague, PZ Myers, a biologist and prof at the University of Minnesota-Morris, is actually featured in the film. Myers later blogged his own account of what happened here and here.

Myers wrote that he caught up with Dawkins and friends after the film, "which I hear is not only boring and poorly made, but is ludicrous in its dishonesty. Apparently, a standard tactic is to do lots of fast cuts between biologists like me or Dawkins or Eugenie Scott and shots of Nazi atrocities. It's all very ham-handed. The audience apparently ate it up, though. Figures. Christians have a growing reputation for their appreciation of dishonesty."

Read more about Expelled in earlier editions of Reel News at CT Movies.

3/26 UPDATE: There has been much discussion about the use of the word "crash" to describe how Dawkins got into the screening. Since this story posted, CT has learned that the screening was not an "invitation-only" event, but that attendees had simply signed up on a website--that it was open to anyone who signed up in advance. Tickets were not needed. CT regrets the choice of the word "crash" in the title and in the story, because neither Dawkins nor Myers were trying to "crash" the event, but had legitimately signed up for the screening as did everyone else who attended.

Posted by Mark Moring at March 20, 2008 | Comments (71)

Christian scientist Francis Collins landed on President Bush's list of President Medal of Freedom awards, according to the Associated Press. The director of the National Human Genome Research Institute is being honored with the nation's highest civilian award for his leadership and for expanding the understanding of human DNA.

Collins is known for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project, which mapped and sequenced human DNA and determined its functions. He converted to Christianity after reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.

He also landed on Christianity Today's Book Awards 2007 for his book The Language of God: 'A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

Previous coverage includes:
Not Too Simply Christian | Two approaches to apologetics.
The Genome Doctor | The director of the National Human Genome Research Institute answers questions about the morality of his work
Creation or Evolution? Yes! | Francis Collins issues a call to stand on the middle ground.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam at November 1, 2007 | Comments (2)

James Watson, with Francis Crick back in 1962 one of the co-discoverers of the DNA double -helix, is in rhetorical hell for saying in an October 14 interview that he is "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."

Watson also said he sees no reason to believe different races in different parts of the world should have evolved identically, and that while we may hope all groups are equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."

Now faced with the cancellation of his British book tour (Watson has written a new book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science) and an international outcry, a "mortified" Watson, 79, is now busily apologizing "unreservedly."

"I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said," Watson said during an appearance at the Royal Society in London. "I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways that they have."

"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."

Interesting. This is the same un-boring Watson who in the past has been the author of any number of provocative comments that seek to reduce human life down to the size of the double-helix. Watson has said, "You know, the only people who say that stupid people don't exist are people who are not stupid. We know that if we go to homeless people there is an underclass with a very strong mental disease component. Those people can't pull themselves together, the brain just won't allow it. So it is not that they are weak in character, they are seriously unequal."

Watson is a persistent advocate of eugenics--improving human capacity through genetics. As practiced under people such as Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler, eugenics also became a convenient excuse to eliminate "undesirables." Watson thinks we can do eugenics right this time, though.

Should Hitler harm us for the next 200 years by saying that we cannot do genetics? People say to me that 'you are acting like Hitler'. People have accused me of being a Nazi just because I won't accept raw evolution, because I wanted to filter it a little and try to improve the quality of human life," he says. "We can say that we want to improve human beings genetically but we don't want to do it by the ways that were attempted in the past."

As William Dembski slyly comments, "Anybody willing to offer predictions about when Darwinists will be getting back big time into the eugenics business?"

For Watson now to wonder how he could have said such things seems disingenuous. The comments track very well with his reductionistic, materialistic scientism. Yes, it's good that he has apologized. But it seems odd that a man of such great learning and accomplishment would be so scientifically naive. Almost any debate in science has a nature vs. nurture component, and for Watson to boil everything down to DNA seems myopic at best. If differering "races" have different IQ or test scores, could some of that difference be explained by life experiences, nutrition, and educational opportunities? Why so quickly resort solely to biological explanations?

Certainly Watson's bias is for materialistic answers to life's questions. As he said once,

"The book of the DNA sequence would in time be regarded as more relevant to human life than the Bible.

"It tells us who we are," he says, adding without a hint of irony: "I've never read the Bible, so I'm not sure I've missed much."

One hopes that in the coming days Dr. Watson will figure out what he has been missing.

Posted by Stan Guthrie at October 22, 2007 | Comments (11)

Last week, Opinion Journal's Naomi Schaefer Riley attended a public debate between Darwinian biologist Richard Dawkins, most (in)famous for his recent work, The God Delusion, and mathematician–Christian apologist John Lennox. The debate focused on the question, Does God exist?

What’s newsworthy is not so much that the debate occurred or that it received so much press; it only takes a monthly glance at the New York Times bestseller list to see that this question, and the atheistic rants that often ensue, get our attention. According to Riley, the debate between the two Oxford scientists, which took place at the Alys Stephens Center in Birmingham, Alabama, on October 3, had been sold out for weeks prior, and received more buzz than Alabama football, which apparently is saying something.

What may be surprising to some about the debate, not least of all Richard Dawkins himself, is that many believers are eager to attend such events and to heartily engage the intellectual conclusions of each side. To watch two brilliant scientists construct arguments, and, in good English fashion, throw in some rhetorical punches along the way, is both entertaining and instructive. Dawkins and other atheist-apologists might envision Christians running away from such challenges, afraid and dejected. What they may be horrified to find out is that such debates actually spur many Christians to ask big questions, examine their beliefs, and arrive at even more robust reasoning for accepting the gospel as “gospel truth." As Riley quotes apologist Jonalyn Fincher as saying, “If our God is the God of truth, what are we afraid of?”

As a counterproposal, would Dawkins and the rest of the New Atheist league be willing to sit in for a session at next month’s Apologetics Conference, featuring J. P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, and Gary Habermas? Just a thought.

*Look for our review of fellow Oxford scholar Alister McGrath's response to Dawkins in the November issue of Christianity Today.

Posted by Katelyn Beaty at October 15, 2007 | Comments (8)

The Field Museum hopes a new Darwin exhibit will strike a blow against creationism, so writes the Chicago Tribune. The report by William Mullen expresses some disgust that anyone could still doubt Darwin's account of evolution. Mullen offers a brief primer on the life and work of Charles Darwin, whose theories published in the 1859 book On the Origin of Species, Mullen says, became the "foundation of all biological thinking."

I appreciated the reporter's Darwin recap. The article read a little bit like what Christianity Today tries to do in many of our stories with historical and theological context. That's when I realized what Mullen had done. He used the Field Museum exhibit as a news hook to catechize his readers about Darwin's theories. It's enough to make you wonder where science ends and dogma begins.

Posted by Collin Hansen at June 13, 2007 | Comments (3)