Monthly Archives: September 2005
The Problem of Improvable Design
| September 30, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Dave Jarvis offers an interesting variant of the suboptimality anti-design argument at http://joot.com/dave/writings/articles/design.shtml. His variant is based on the recent finding that mammals under certain conditions can regenerate organs previously thought unregenerable. I responded to this line of objection in The Design Revolution, chapter 6 (“Optimal Design”). Here is a relevant portion of that chapter: more
“Just Say No to ID”
| September 30, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
For anti-ID paraphernalia (including buttons, T-shirts, coffee mugs and more), go here. more
Life After Dover
| September 30, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Before the Dover trial concludes, I want to offer some remarks about what I take will be its long-term significance. I want to do this now so that critics won’t be in a position to accuse me of spinning or rationalizing the outcome of the trial once it is reached (of course, they’ll still find… more
Dover Expert Witness Reports Available Online
| September 30, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
Last spring The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) hired me as an expert witness in the Dover area school district case regarding ID (Kitzmiller v. Dover). That case went to trial this week (26Sep05). Because the focus of that case and trial is a book titled Of Pandas and People and because I am the… more
Reply to the “Wiesel 38″
| September 30, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
Authors of Proposed Changes to Kansas Science Standards Dated March 29, 2005 September 27, 2005 To: Members of the Kansas State Board of Education Re: Letter from THE ELIE WIESEL FOUNDATION FOR HUMANITY dated September 9, 2005, signed by Elie Wiesel and 37 other Nobel Laureates more
ID-Phobia Goes National
| September 29, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science |
Exhibit 1: Letter by 6 Nobel laureates et al. to all 50 governors of the United States — go here. Exhibit 2: DEFCON’S top 10 Places Where Science Education is Under Threat — go here. As these exhibits indicate, the other side is pulling out all the stops. It makes you wonder whether they’ve got… more
Missense Meanderings
| September 29, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Evolution |
MISSENSE MEANDERINGS IN SEQUENCE SPACE: A BIOPHYSICAL VIEW OF PROTEIN EVOLUTION Mark A. DePristo, Daniel M. Weinreich and Daniel L. Hartl “Taken as a whole, recent findings from biochemistry and evolutionary biology indicate that our understanding of protein evolution is incomplete, if not fundamentally flawed.” more
Computational Intelligence Society
| September 29, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Intelligent Design |
The Evolutionary Computation Technical Committee of the Computational Intelligence Society recently recently drafted the following statement at its Montreal meeting (go here for the full report; note that the minutes of this meeting will eventually appear here): more
Hysteria in Iowa
| September 29, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Guillermo Gonzalez, ID theorist extraordinaire, spoke last night (9/28) at University of Northern Iowa (UNI). He was invited to speak there by the local chapter of Sigma Xi back in August. When the biology professors there caught wind of it in mid-September, they organized a petition statement very similar to the one organized by Hector… more
So who does set the ground rules for science?
| September 29, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science |
Rob Pennock, as the witness of the hour in the Dover case, is citing me shamelessly. According to the local paper (go here), the quote of the day is: “So long as methodological naturalism sets the ground rules for how the game of science is to be played, (intelligent design) has no chance (in) Hades.”… more
Noah Riner
| September 29, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science |
CHURCH/STATE AT DARTMOUTH By William F. Buckley Jr. Tue Sep 27, 8:06 PM ET The whole business of whether public schools can permit “intelligent design” to be acknowledged as an alternative to Darwinian evolution in explanation of human life will begin democratic exercises in a courtroom in Pennsylvania this week. There are regular flashpoints on… more
Religion (especially the type that rejects evolution) may be bad for your health
| September 28, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Religion |
Societies worse off “when they have God on their side” By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent September 27, 2005 The Times RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today…. [For rest of article, go here.] By the way, Gregory Paul, the… more
University of Kansas Chancellor Speaks Out!
| September 28, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
From today’s Chronicle of Higher Education. And just remember, those are our tax dollars with which he is going to indoctrinate our kids and oppose intelligent design. Here’s a novel thought: Let chancellor Hemenway and his colleagues come up with their own support that does not require the government establishing a secular religion based on… more
Open Letter by Kenneth Miller
| September 28, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
From: Kenneth Miller [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 2:17 PM Subject: Re: Some other questions… Dear Friend, You are one of scores of people who have written messages to me as a result of my scientific testimony at trial in Harrisburg, PA. I hope you will forgive the fact that I cannot possibly reply… more
Chuck Asay Hits the Nail on the Head
| September 28, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Evolution, Intelligent Design |
Colorado Springs Gazette on the Dover case, Tuesday’s edition (9/27/05). more
A Primer on Probability for Design Inferences
| September 28, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
I’ve just posted two pieces on my designinference.com website about the role of probabilistic reasoning in design inferences. The first is titled “A Primer on Probability for Design Inferences.” This piece is new. The second is chapter 33 from my book The Design Revolution, titled “Design by Elimination vs. Design by Comparison.” more
Conway Morris vs. Dawkins
| September 28, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Darwinism, Evolution |
Agreeing Only to Disagree on God’s Place in Science By GEORGE JOHNSON September 27, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/science/27essa.html?ei=5070&en=a8b05baabb3ce5f6&ex=1128484800&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print … On matters scientific, Dr. Dawkins, who came from Oxford, and Dr. Conway Morris, a Cambridge man, agreed: The richness of the biosphere, humanity included, could be explained through natural selection. [I’ve corresponded with Conway Morris; he regards natural… more
Der Spiegel on ID
| September 27, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
On the Trail of Intelligent Design By Michael Scott Moore http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,376919,00.html … UCSD in [2001] had the only student club in America devoted to intelligent design. It was called the IDEA Club — “Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness” — and its website invited atheists and believers, evolutionist professors and young-Earth creationists, Phys.-Ed. majors and Hindus —… more
Still Hectoring Guillermo Gonzalez
| September 27, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Letters to the Editor By REGISTER READERS http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050927/OPINION04/509270355/1035/OPINION September 27, 2005 Intelligent designer behind such a planet? By Hector Avalos more
Why ID Needs to Be Defeated
| September 27, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Steven Jay Gould tells us why in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes. After conceding that critics of evolution had a strong case at the Scopes trial, Gould still thinks their intellectual descendants need to be neutralized: “They are a motley collection to be sure, but their core of practical support lies in the evangelical right,… more