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Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. In its broadest sense, creationism includes a continuum of religious views, which vary in their acceptance or rejection of scientific explanations such as evolution that describe the origin and development of natural phenomena.
The teleological argument also known as physico-theological argument, argument from design, or intelligent design argument, is a rational argument for the existence of God or, more generally, that complex functionality in the natural world, which looks designed, is evidence of an intelligent creator. The earliest recorded versions of this argument are associated with Socrates in ancient Greece, although it has been argued that he was taking up an older argument. Later, Plato and Aristotle developed complex approaches to the proposal that the cosmos has an intelligent cause, but it was the Stoics during the Roman era who, under their influence, "developed the battery of creationist arguments broadly known under the label 'The Argument from Design'".
The neuroscience of religion, also known as neurotheology, and as spiritual neuroscience, attempts to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms. It is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. This contrasts with the psychology of religion which studies mental, rather than neural states.
Icons of Evolution is a book by Jonathan Wells, an advocate of the pseudoscientific intelligent design argument for the existence of God and fellow of the Discovery Institute, in which Wells criticizes the paradigm of evolution by attacking how it is taught. The book includes a 2002 video companion. In 2000, Wells summarized the book's contents in an article in the American Spectator. Several of the scientists whose work is sourced in the book have written rebuttals to Wells, stating that they were quoted out of context, that their work has been misrepresented, or that it does not imply Wells's conclusions.
Kenneth Raymond Miller is an American cell biologist, molecular biologist, and Professor Emeritus of Biology at Brown University. Miller's primary research focus is the structure and function of cell membranes, especially chloroplast thylakoid membranes. Miller is a co-author of a major introductory college and high school biology textbook published by Prentice Hall since 1990.
Stephen Charles Meyer is an American historian, author, and former educator. He is an advocate of intelligent design, a pseudoscientific creationist argument for the existence of God. Meyer was a founder of the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) of the Discovery Institute (DI), which is the main organization behind the intelligent design movement. Before joining the institute, Meyer was a professor at Whitworth College. He is a senior fellow of the DI and the director of the CSC.
Robert T. Pennock is a philosopher working on the Avida digital organism project at Michigan State University where he has been full professor since 2000. Pennock was a witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, testifying on behalf of the plaintiffs, and described how intelligent design is an updated form of creationism and not science, pointing out that the arguments were essentially the same as traditional creationist arguments with adjustments to the message to eliminate explicit mention of God and the Bible as well as adopting a postmodern deconstructionist language. Pennock also laid out the philosophical history of methodological and philosophical naturalism as they underpin to science, and explained that if intelligent design were truly embraced it would return Western civilization to a pre-Enlightenment state.
Neo-creationism is a pseudoscientific movement which aims to restate creationism in terms more likely to be well received by the public, by policy makers, by educators and by the scientific community. It aims to re-frame the debate over the origins of life in non-religious terms and without appeals to scripture. This comes in response to the 1987 ruling by the United States Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard that creationism is an inherently religious concept and that advocating it as correct or accurate in public-school curricula violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Paul A. Nelson is an American philosopher, noted for his advocacy of the pseudosciences of young earth creationism and intelligent design.
Godless: The Church of Liberalism is a book by best-selling author and American far-right columnist Ann Coulter, published in 2006. The book is an argument against American liberalism, which Coulter claims is anti-scientific, faith-based, comparing it with primitive religion, purported to have "its own cosmology, its own explanation for why we are here, its own gods, and its own clergy." Coulter argues that "the basic tenet of liberalism is that nature is god and men are monkeys."
Pharyngula, a blog founded and written by PZ Myers, is hosted on ScienceBlogs and on FreeThoughtBlogs (2011–present). In 2006 the science journal Nature listed it as the top-ranked blog written by a scientist based on popularity. The blog addresses a range of topics, including Myers's academic specialty, biology. It has become particularly well known for Myers's writing style and for his criticism of intelligent design and creationism. In 2009, Hemant Mehta ranked Pharyngula the most popular atheist blog, based on subscriber levels and other factors.
The Discovery Institute has conducted a series of related public relations campaigns which seek to promote intelligent design while attempting to discredit evolutionary biology, which the Institute terms "Darwinism". The Discovery Institute promotes the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement and is represented by Creative Response Concepts, a public relations firm.
Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism is a controversial biology textbook written by a group of intelligent design supporters and published in 2007. Its promoters describe it as aimed at helping educators and students to discuss "the controversial aspects of evolutionary theory that are discussed openly in scientific books and journals but which are not widely reported in textbooks." As one of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns to "teach the controversy" its evident purpose is to provide a "lawsuit-proof" way of attacking evolution and promoting pseudoscientific creationism without being explicit.
The Biologic Institute was a section of the Discovery Institute created to give the organization a facade of conducting biological research with the aim of producing experimental evidence of intelligent design creationism, funded by the Discovery Institute. It claimed offices in Redmond, Washington and laboratories in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Instead Biologic Institute consisted solely of a rented office space in Redmond which is no longer in use for several years although the web domain is still renewed. The 'research' listed for the group consists mainly of random and often irrelevant works by Intelligent Design supporters going back to their graduate school years. Several are notably articles, books or internally published content from Discovery's 'BioComplexity' journal which is not a legitimate scientific journal.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a 2008 American documentary-style propaganda film directed by Nathan Frankowski and starring Ben Stein. The film contends that there is a conspiracy in academia to oppress and exclude people who believe in intelligent design. It portrays the scientific theory of evolution as a contributor to communism, fascism, atheism, eugenics, and in particular Nazi atrocities in the Holocaust. Although intelligent design is a pseudoscientific religious idea, the film presents it as science-based, without giving a detailed definition of the concept or attempting to explain it on a scientific level. Other than briefly addressing issues of irreducible complexity, Expelled examines intelligent design purely as a political issue.
Paul Zachary Myers is an American biologist who founded and writes the Pharyngula science blog. He is associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM) where he works in the field of developmental biology. He is a critic of intelligent design, the creationist movement, and other pseudoscientific concepts.
Ontogenetic depth is a pseudoscientific idea proposed in February 2003 by Paul Nelson, an American philosopher of science, young Earth creationist and intelligent design advocate; he is employed by the Discovery Institute.
The Centre for Intelligent Design is an advocacy group, headquartered in Scotland that promotes the pseudoscientific principle. of intelligent design.
Mario Beauregard is a Canadian cognitive neuroscientist who is affiliated with the University of Arizona's psychology department. He is known for arguing that matter is not all that exists, writing that "Along with an increasing number of scientists, I believe vehemently that the materialist framework is not science." For this reason, he contends that the mind and the brain are fundamentally separate entities.
The Institut Suisse des Sciences Noétiques or ISSNOE is an established public utility nonprofit foundation dedicated to the scientific and comparative study of consciousness. The institute's research focuses on altered states of consciousness (ASC), like near-death experiences (NDEs), extrasensory perceptions (ESPs), and out-of-body experiences (OBEs).
References
- 1 2 Mesner, Douglas Alexander (2008). "The Ghost in the Machine". Skeptic. 14 (2): 72.
Journalist Denyse O'Leary, author of an Intelligent Design pseudoscience book titled By Design or By Chance? The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe. Indeed, The Spiritual Brain proves to be little more than a remanufacturing of Creationist arguments applied to the cognitive sciences.
- ↑ Gefter, Amanda (2008). "Creationists declare war over the brain". New Scientist. Archived from the original on March 6, 2023.
- ↑ Gefter, Amanda (2009). "How to spot a hidden religious agenda". New Scientist.
- 1 2 3 4 "O'Leary, Denyse 1950-". Contemporary Authors.
- ↑ "Catholic Education Resource Center". 2024. Archived from the original on September 27, 2024.
- ↑ "Denyse O'Leary". HarperCollins. 2024. Archived from the original on September 27, 2024.
- 1 2 "Denyse O'Leary". Salvo. 2024. Archived from the original on September 27, 2024.
- 1 2 Menuge, Angus J. L. (2008). "Reviewed Work: The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul by Mario Beauregard, Denyse O'Leary". Politics and the Life Sciences. 27 (2): 55–57. doi:10.2990/1471-5457-27.2.55. JSTOR 40072958.
- ↑ Stauffer, Jeff (2008). "The Spiritual Brain". Denver Journal. 11: 1.
- 1 2 Hassert, Derrick (2008). "The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul". Christian Scholar's Review. 47 (4): 499–501.
- 1 2 3 "ACS Podcast: Catholic Journalist Covers Faith & Science Beat Amid Its Hazards". Anglicanorum Coetibus Society. 2021. Archived from the original on September 27, 2024.
- ↑ Myers, PZ (2023). "The vortex of madness that is Denyse O'Leary". Freethought Blogs. Archived from the original on September 27, 2024.
- ↑ Myers, PZ (2023). "The appalling inanity of Denyse O'Leary". Freethought Blogs. Archived from the original on September 27, 2024.
