Eric Hedin had a post at Science & Culture Today (The Discovery Institute’s former Evolution News) that seems to fully commit to Platonic idealism and to teleology. Which is surprising since he is a Ph.D. in particle physics, from my own University. It will be found here.

Its final two paragraphs will give you the general drift, but you should read Hedin’s post, which is short:

To imagine that each of the millions of species of living creatures on Earth “evolved” by a weeding-out process, undirected by any idea of the wholeness they would ultimately manifest, runs counter to our experience with functional design and the known limitations of the laws of nature. If prolific reproductivity is the “goal” of natural selection, why should life have ever evolved to anything beyond bacteria? Cancer cells, as a mutation from original design, would seem to be evolution’s crowning achievement.

The wholeness of living organisms testifies to their metaphysical origin as an “idea,” originating in the mind of their Maker. The evidence suggests that creatures exceed the boundaries of what is possible by undirected natural forces. Even information, as we understand it, appears to fall short as the groundwork for life. Apparently, life comes from life, and nothing else will suffice. Life is a brilliant idea!

Is there some way we can counter this argument? The title of his article is “In Defiance of Evolution, Life is an Idea”. Is evolutionary biology finally totally defied?

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Photography Contest.

John Harshman, Third Place.

Lauri Lebo is an advocacy coordinator and organizer for the Pennsylvania State Education Association. As a reporter, she covered the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial and wrote a book about her coverage, The Devil in Dover. She is a recipient of NCSE’s Friend of Darwin award in 2026. We asked her to write a few paragraphs linking to her recent article in the Reviews Reports of the National Center for Science Education. – Matt Young

It’s been 21 years since the First Amendment test case of Kitzmiller v. Dover, in which U.S. District Court judge John E. Jones III ruled that “intelligent design,” a form of revamped creationism, is unconstitutional to teach in the public schools.

While the parents who sued and science teachers celebrated, the school board members and their legal team had little to say. Looking back, most people involved in the trial said that few minds were changed. Many were just glad the national spotlight was no longer shining on Dover.

But roots run deep in south-central Pennsylvania, and history repeats itself. Some on the religious right quietly started preparing for the next opportunity.

I still get asked about comparisons between Kitzmiller v. Dover and attacks today on our public schools. Particularly, what did we learn about defeating school boards pushing a religious agenda? In this article in the Reviews Reports of the National Center for Science Education, I delve into what worked then and what works today.

Photography Contest.

Al Denelsbeck, Runner-up.

Another optics problem! The submission was by design relatively low in resolution, so I asked for the original and cropped it so as to reveal more information. More below the fold.

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Today (August 1) is the 282nd birthday of Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, the Chevalier de Lamarck. He died in 1829, so we do not have him here to answer questions about his thought. To me he was the first evolutionary biologist, even if his mechanism for adaptation was mistaken.

Sadly, his work has often been misunderstood, and is still being described incorrectly today. He invoked two mechanisms of evolutionary change. One was a general tendency for organisms to get more complex. This must have seemed like a possibility back in 1800, at the height of the Romantic era, when grand trends of nature were in fashion.

The other is his mechanism of Use and Disuse. Organisms that made more use of particular organs or features thereby influenced their hereditary substances to have those be bigger and stronger in their offspring. Note that this is not the same as having the effects of the environment influence the hereditary substances. It is the will of the organism that does the job, not just the direct effect of the environment.

There are increasing numbers of misunderstandings of Lamarck’s theories.

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