[Tyler]

Creationists Lay Claim to Conciousness
     

We've covered a lot of wild
theories and speculations about the nature
of consciousness over the years but this one takes the proverbial cake.
According
to a NewScientist article, Creationists Declare War over the
Brain, creationists want to resurrect Cartesian
Dualism with the claim that consciousness and cognition are outside
of the realm of science. Instead, they claim, a "non-natural"
explanation is required. They find the brain's cognitive
functions are so hard to understand that they must be evidence of
supernatural doings. If this sounds strangely similar to "irreducible
complexity", it should. These new claims seem to be originating from
the Discovery
Institute, the same creationist group whose failed "wedge strategy"
to push religious teaching into public schools was made famous in the
2005
Dover case. The article suggests the brain may be the next
battleground in the creationist's war against science. Which brings to
mind the question, if these guys don't do science, how did they come to
know a truth about consciousness that has eluded scientists for so long?
According to James Porter Moreland of the Discovery Institute, "I've
been doing a lot of thinking about consciousness and how it might
contribute to evidence for the existence of God". See the recent Conscious Entities
article for details on how their thinking also turns
consciousness into a new "proof" that evolution is false. This is bad
news for scientists. Already being criticized for not doing enough to
explain evolution, they now face the challenge of having to fight
misinformation in a completely new field as well.
   

http://robots.net/article/2677.html