Letter from Secular Coalition for America

A week ago I received the following from the Secular Coalition for America. I thought I would share it.

I am writing to tell you about my meeting last week, along with other representatives of CARD (Coalition Against Religious Discrimination), with Joshua DuBois, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

I entered the meeting with very mixed emotions. Although I was glad that the Secular Coalition for America has the political connections to meet face-to-face with the person who runs President Obama's new faith-based office, I was saddened that this meeting was even taking place -- saddened that our new president has decided to continue the failed faith-based policies of his predecessor.

The meeting was an open and often lively discussion of our concerns -- and each of us clearly expressed our disappointment that the Obama administration had decided to continue Bush's faith-based program without first dealing with the critical constitutional and civil rights problems it presents: direct funding of houses of worship, religious discrimination in hiring, and entangling secular and sectarian program content.

I left the meeting with the same kind of mixed feelings I had going in. One the one hand, Mr. DuBois seemed sympathetic to our constitutional and civil rights concerns; on the other, it's clear we will have a long wait to see if and how these concerns are going to be addressed. Nearly three months after he was appointed to run it, DuBois told us the new faith-based office is still getting organized and they are just beginning their information collection and policy review.

Unfortunately, until this process is complete, faith-based programs will continue to operate under the Bush administration rules.

We face a very difficult challenge in getting this administration to address all our concerns, so we will continue to put pressure on the White House -- but this meeting did reinforce that we do now have a place at the table.

As the cover story in the National Journal recently reported,

In the past, politicians in Washington and elsewhere could largely ignore the Godless. But those days are over. With their numbers growing, nonbelievers are intent on pushing a political and legislative agenda governed more by cool reason than by faith.

Thank you for your support and efforts that have helped to make this and many other meetings possible.

Sincerely,
Ron Millar, Acting Director
Secular Coalition for America

P.S. The Secular Coalition for America represents the interests of atheists, humanists, agnostics, freethinkers and other nontheists in our nation's capital. According to the latest ARIS study, our community is larger than Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Mormons and Jews - combined.

Evo vs Anti-Evo #12: Casey Luskin admits random mutation and natural selection.

Here is Luskin's attempt to refute evolution by using Hitchens' observation.

His argument is:

"While random mutations usually fail miserably at creating new complex biological functions, they are in fact quite good at messing up complex biological functions (or doing nothing). When natural selection occasionally prefers the "messed up" state, it's quite capable of preserving it. But the neo-Darwinian mechanism is not good at producing new complex functions."

"[E]xamples of loss-of-function in organisms may be best explained by natural processes of random mutation and natural selection. In this regard, features like functionless eyes on blind cave fish are probably best explained by Darwinian evolution. This poses no challenge to the validity of intelligent design in other cases. ID is far more interested in explaining the GAIN of biological function rather than loss of function."

"Hitchens, Dawkins and Carroll can have all the evidence they want that the neo-Darwinian mechanism can mess things up, turn genes off, and cause "loss-of-function." No one on any side of this debate doubts that random mutations are quite good at destroying complex features. Us folks on the ID side suspect that random mutation and natural selection aren’t good at doing very much more than that. And the constant citations by Darwinists of "loss of function" examples as alleged refutations of ID only strengthens our argument."

Basically he is saying that ID accepts evolution, random mutation and natural selection and being able to of preserving changes within a being as being a fact. But only if the affect is negative.

However, as PZ Myers states, in studies of seeing and blind fish, this mutation is actually beneficial - ergo a gain not a loss.

What's actually going on is that there is an increased expression of a gene called Sonic hedgehog, which causes an expansion of jaw tissue, including both the bones of the jaw and the array of sensory structures on the ventral surface — this is an adaptation that produces stronger jaws and more sensitive skin, what the fish finds useful when rooting about in the dark at the bottom of underground rivers to find food. The expansion of Shh has a side effect of inhibiting expression of another gene, Pax-6, which is the master regulator of eye development. Loss of eyes is a harmless (if you're living in the dark) consequence of selection for better tactile reception.

Maybe Luskin should do some research before he opens his mouth.