Slumming at Talk.Origins (go here), I ran across the following remark in reference to the Ruse-Dennett Briefwechsel (discussed on this blog here): I wonder if Ruse has actually watched “The Root Of All Evil?”. And if childen were indoctrinated with the most extreme forms of racial bigotry by parents who were Nazis or supporters of apartheid, would we not consider that to be abuse? Is it not abuse only where we agree with the doctrine which is being imposed on the child? The only point on which I would differ with Dawkins is that his focus on religion is too narrow. The real threat is absolutism – the unshakeable conviction that one is in possession of an Absolute Truth, be Read More ›

Frank Tipler co-authored a book with John Barrow entitled The Anthropic Cosmological Principle which was a peer-reviewed book published by Oxford University in 1987.

The principle thesis:

Intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and, once it comes into existence, it will never die out.

They derive the thesis from Schrodinger’s equation

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Chicken will grow teeth when pigs can fly.

Well, better start searching the skies for flying pork—scientists have discovered a mutant chicken with a full set of crocodile-like chompers.

The mutant chick, called Talpid, also had severe limb defects and died before hatching. It was discovered 50 years ago, but no one had ever examined its mouth until now.
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As Michael Ruse remarked when he gave me permission to quote the following exchange between him and Daniel Dennett: “feel free to quote — after all, I am in deep sh** already!!!”

HIGHLIGHT OF THE EXCHANGE: “I think that you and Richard [Dawkins] are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design – we are losing this battle, not the least of which is the two new supreme court justices who are certainly going to vote to let it into classrooms – what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues – neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas – it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims – more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will.”

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I’ts hard to imagine a more exciting time to be participating in this discussion. Just the past 24 hours have brought some incredibly exciting exchanges and inside information, see here and here. But most entertaining of all is Eugenie Scott recruiting churches to defend Darwinism:

Check this out.

And this.

So, Eugenie Scott wants to join forces with religious groups to defeat… what? Defeat a scientific theory? Aren’t scientists supposed to do that?

Ever heard of a Trojan Horse?

I can see the strategy now. Somewhere in the dank, dark caverns of Oxford U….

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I often see misunderstanding of what ID is about. It’s about inferring design by critical analysis of a pattern and the ways that pattern could have come to exist. I find a comparison with a lottery to be the easiest way to understand this.

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Here’s an excerpt from the Statement:

Science is a process of seeking natural explanations for natural phenomena. Scientists ask questions about the natural
world, formulate hypotheses to answer the questions, and collect evidence or data with which to evaluate the hypotheses.
Scientific theories are unified explanations of these phenomena supported by extensive testing and evidence. The theory
of evolution, supported by extensive scientific findings ranging from the fossil record to the molecular genetic relationships
among species, is a unifying concept of modern science. Of course, our understanding of how evolution works continues to
be refined by new discoveries.

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[For more on this book, go here.]

I felt it appropriate to honor those who have stepped forward at the risk of their professions and reputations to stand up for free and open inquiry. I would like to also honor those who would wish to have their names put on the list today, but who must wait until the time is right. On behalf of all of us at UncommonDescent, to the 500, thank you! Over 500 Scientists Declare Their Doubts Over Darwin

One thing that has always irked me is that rarely on this site do we find any critics of ID attempting to challenge the tools/methods of ID directly. For example, one could claim that “CSI isn’t a reliable indicator of intelligence” or “the explanatory filter breaks down under certain conditions” or “ID regularly produces false positives under x conditions” or “Irreducible Complexity can indeed be overcome via a Direct Pathway” and then show why and/or how. Instead, arguments are almost always made against the implications or we’re arguing over the interpretation of various data. Perhaps these challenges are not made because it’s so difficult to make sustainable arguments in this regard but I’d like to at least see people try. As such, I decided to make a topic on this myself with the last challenge to ID as the subject: “Irreducible Complexity can indeed be overcome via a Direct Pathway” Read More ›

The observed effects of random mutation plus natural selection can account for temporary changes in finch beak size, pigmentation changes in moths, and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. It has never been observed creating novel 1) cell types, 2) tissue types, 3) organs, or 4) body plans. All four of those creative events must be explained by any theory of evolution. In the neoDarwinian theory or modern synthesis these are explained by the never observed accumulation of minor random mutations filtered by natural selection. Obviously taking the mechanism that changes the size of a finch beak and making it the mechanism that changes a bacterium into a finch is one heck of an extrapolation. However, I’m in a quandry over whether Read More ›

Pat Hayes at Red State Rabble tries to present the face on Mars as an example in false positives equivalent to the appearance of design in cellular machinery. When will uncritical thinkers like Pat Hayes cop to the fact that seeing the Virgin Mary’s face in a tortilla is not the equivalent of seeing design in an interdependent network of subcellular biological nanomachinery so complex it makes the US Space Shuttle and all the supporting infrastructure at Cape Canaveral, right down to every nut, bolt, transister, and bit of software code, look simple in comparison?

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Myers says: Once upon a time, I was one of those nerds who hung around Radio Shack and played about with LEDs and resistors and capacitors; I know how to solder and I took my first old 8-bit computer apart and put it back together again with “improvements.” In grad school I was in a neuroscience department, so I know about electrodes and ground wires and FETs and amplifiers and stimulators. Here’s something else I know: those generic components in this picture don’t do much on their own. You can work out the electrical properties of each piece, but a radio or computer or stereo is much, much more than a catalog of components or a parts list. Electronics geeks Read More ›

Project Strawman Steve is nearing its 700th Steve and the Thumbsters are ecstatic.
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No takers for the St. Charles side of a nuclear evolution debate. What a surprise! Read More ›