Uncommon Descent

Archive for May, 2005

31 May 2005

Behe Responds to Bottaro

William Dembski

Proteins change single mutation by single mutation, amino acid by amino acid, so that’s the level of explanation that is needed. What part of “numerous, successive, slight” is so hard to understand?

30 May 2005

JW Montgomery weighs in against Orr

William Dembski

If (as Orr claims) I.D. “looks less and less like the science it claimed to be and more and more like an extended exercise in polemics,” isn’t it strange that it has recently convinced the foremost secular philosopher in England (Antony Flew) to give up his atheism?

30 May 2005

ID in a Wiley Math Textbook

William Dembski

A good Darwinist will imagine 2 or 3 far-fetched intermediate useful stages, and consider the problem solved. I believe you would need to find thousands of intermediate stages before this example of irreducible complexity has been reduced to steps small enough to be bridged by single random mutations

30 May 2005

As Doubts Keep Accumulating — The Case of Richard Smalley

William Dembski

What’s going to happen as scholars and scientists of the highest caliber — like Antony Flew and Richard Smalley — keep dumping evolution? Perhaps evolution really is a theory in crisis.

29 May 2005

Imagine with me for a moment …

William Dembski

Here is an email from one of my ID colleagues in the defense industry. Imagine this scenario, but with me instead of Bolton going not to the UN but to the NSF to head a new initiative on ID with lots and lots of tax dollars to back it up. Could this happen? Who would […]

29 May 2005

ID and the Charge of Fundamentalism

William Dembski

Baylor’s eclectic approach to gathering faith-and-learning resources meant they sometimes failed to screen out the culturally militant elements of evangelicalism. In a head-shaking blunder, Sloan’s team put William Dembski—point man for the Intelligent Design movement—in charge of a new science-and-religion center. It’s hard to imagine any step that would have been more effective in convincing skeptical faculty that Sloan was turning Baylor over to the fundamentalists.

29 May 2005

“Smithsonian to Screen a Movie That Makes a Case Against Evolution”

William Dembski

Smithsonian to Screen a Movie That Makes a Case Against Evolution
By JOHN SCHWARTZ, as reported in the NYTimes
Published: May 28, 2005
The Discovery Institute, a group in Seattle that supports an alternative theory, “intelligent design,” is announcing on its Web site that it and the director of the [Smithsonian] museum “are happy to announce the national […]

28 May 2005

Allen Orr in the New Yorker — A Response

William Dembski

Evolutionary biology is one big group-think in which its practitioners can no longer imagine the need to justify their theory…. Evolution has come this far in spite of the facts.

27 May 2005

Dutch Cabinet Supports Discussion of ID

William Dembski

According to the Prime Minister there are a sufficient number of scientists who have a special interest in this area.

27 May 2005

Eshel Ben-Jacob — Someone You Should Know

William Dembski

I reflect on the potential applications of the new understanding on ‘engineered self-organization of systems too complex to design’

27 May 2005

American Spectator Defends ID

William Dembski

The Little Engine That Could… Undo Darwinism
By Dan Peterson
What critics of Intelligent Design theory can’t accept is that its proponents are making scientific, fact-based arguments.
The American Spectator, June 2005

27 May 2005

Frank Schaeffer — Nowhere Near His Father’s Footsteps

William Dembski

The son, by contrast, has turned repudiating his father’s legacy into a full-time occupation.

27 May 2005

“Design proponents take movement to Web”

William Dembski

The following report by Science & Theology News discusses blogging for ID: http://www.stnews.org/articles.php?article_id=549&category=news.

27 May 2005

Ken Keller contra ID

William Dembski

“intelligent design,” a stalking horse for creationism

26 May 2005

“Students who cannot handle scientific challenges to their faith should seek guidance from a theologian, not a scientist.”

William Dembski

Advocates of ID pretend to use scientific methods to support their religious preconceptions.

26 May 2005

“Having Fun with Intelligent Design”

William Dembski

Here’s a novel, if perverse, take on why the teaching of ID should be encouraged: http://www.alternet.org/story/22039.

26 May 2005

Powers of Ten

William Dembski

Have a look at the video at the following site: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html. Is there any design-theoretic significance that on a logarithmic size-scale, we’re close to the middle of the known physical universe? Regardless of the answer to this question or whether there even is an answer, you’re in for a treat if you haven’t seen such […]

26 May 2005

Two Gifts for Richard Dawkins

William Dembski

the fossils of the “Cambrian Explosion” period, near the base of the geological column, include some of the most sophisticated eyes ever known to have existed — the compound eyes of trilobites have double calcite lenses, which defeat any slow evolutionary explanation, and, what is more, they have no precursor in the rocks

24 May 2005

Allen Orr’s Piece in the New Yorker

William Dembski

Allen Orr’s article against ID is now out in the New Yorker (go here). It’s as bad as I thought it would be. I’m on the road right now but will comment on it later in the week. Note that I remarked last week on this blog that a fact-checker from the New Yorker had […]

24 May 2005

“The Scientific Case Against Darwinism Is Largely Won”

William Dembski

The scientific case against Darwinism is largely won.

23 May 2005

To Stop Evolution: New Way Of Fighting Antibiotic Resistance Demonstrated By Scripps Scientists

William Dembski

Biologists have often thought about evolution in the same way many think about death and taxes — something inevitable. But Romesberg is a chemist, and he found himself asking not only how, but why evolution happens.

22 May 2005

Christianity Today’s 2005 Book Awards

William Dembski

Two ID books were selected among Christianity Today’s 2005 Book Awards: in the category of Apologetics/Evangelism, Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator; in the category Christianity & Culture, my book The Design Revolution (another of my books Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology received that same award in 2000). Awards like this […]

21 May 2005

Dawkins on Kansas in the London Times

William Dembski

“intelligent design theory” (ID) … its propagandists are slick, superficially plausible and, above all, well financed.

21 May 2005

Sorry, kids, but you’re just too stupid

William Dembski

The only reason for raising such questions before state education authorities is not to deepen the scientific understanding of teenagers but rather to sow deliberate confusion.

21 May 2005

Letters following up on Nature’s recent ID feature

William Dembski

to be effective in its support, the scientific community needs to understand the empirical claims of ID

20 May 2005

Springsteen vs. Dylan

William Dembski

They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway Five
Judge says to the High Sheriff,
“I want him dead or alive
Either one, I don’t care.”

20 May 2005

ASA on ID and Evolution

William Dembski

Scientific criticism of evolution should not be muted for fear of being labeled a creationist.

19 May 2005

Evolutionary Logic

William Dembski

Evolutionary logic has a further advantage, namely, the results are not required to be true, thus eliminating a tiresome (and now superfluous) restriction on the growth of evolutionary knowledge.

19 May 2005

Denis Alexander on ID

William Dembski

Denis Alexander is a molecular biologist with very solid credentials who is based at Cambridge University. He is also a theistic evolutionist who has written several books on the relation between science and Christian faith. His most recent is Rebuilding the Matrix (with Zondervan). Even though he is a critic of ID, he helped […]

19 May 2005

“The Design Inference” — Coming to paperback in 6 months

William Dembski

I just learned from my editor at Cambridge University Press that The Design Inference is going to be issued in paperback in the next 6 months. This is good news. When the book came out in 1998, it listed at $55. I believe it is now up to $85. This will take the price down […]

18 May 2005

Dembski on “No Free Lunch”

William Dembski

The New Yorker is doing a major piece on intelligent design next week written by Allen Orr