Uncommon Descent

Archive for July, 2006

31 July 2006

Why is a “giant” of evolution getting so excited about the “midgets” of ID?

William Dembski

In the latest New Republic Online, the irrepressible Jerry Coyne keeps the insults against ID coming:
. . . [O]ne has to ask whether Coulter (who, by the way, attacks me in her book) really understands the Darwinism she rejects. The answer is a resounding No. According to the book’s acknowledgments, Coulter was tutored in the “complex […]

30 July 2006

Are challenges to Darwinian theory from those outside the discipline legitimate?

GilDodgen

I would argue that, indeed, they are.
In a previous UD thread, Tom English made the following comment:
I have seen a number of brilliant and highly educated people do abysmally stupid things when they stepped outside their domains of expertise. Computer scientists make abysmal biologists. Journalists make abysmal biologists. Philosophers make abysmal biologists. Theologians make abysmal […]

30 July 2006

John Rennie can’t leave ID well enough alone

William Dembski

John Rennie, the chief editor at SCIAM, continues to do his cause more harm than good. All his naysaying against ID has to give the dispassionate observer pause whether there might not be something to it after all. Here is his latest: http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=i_d_is_bad_science_on_its_own_terms&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1.

29 July 2006

Radio Commercials Air in Kansas Supporting Standupforscience.com’s Approach to Teaching Evolution

William Dembski

As the debate over how to teach evolution continues, two new radio commercials promoting www.standupforscience.com and the online petition to “Stand up for Science, Stand up for Kansas” will air this weekend across Kansas.
One ad features molecular biologist Jonathan Wells, explaining that “it is imperative to understand both the evidence for and against a scientific […]

29 July 2006

God woun’t'a dun it dat way?

O'Leary

Bill Dembski asked me to post my comments in a recent discussion elsewhere, regarding intelligent design (ID) as we currently understand it.
Phil Johnson, the lawyer who put ID on the map, is currently seeking more input from the arts community (he calls it Wedge II).
I agree that the ID debate will develop along more useful lines […]

29 July 2006

ID as “marzipan confection”

William Dembski

The sign of erudition these days is the ability to craft culturally sophisticated terms of abuse. I want to urge others on this thread to list their favorite erudite term(s) of abuse for ID.
July 30, 2006
SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW
Laws of nature
A century and a half ago, Charles Darwin sparked a scientific revolution. Now that revolution has […]

29 July 2006

Youth — the key to unseating Darwinian materialism

William Dembski

Check out this forthcoming book, in which I understand that our very own Sal Cordova is featured. Note especially Sam Harris’s blurb — with people like Harris expressing such foreboding, one has to wonder how close we are to seeing the Darwinian house of cards collapse under the weight of its self-delusion. 

Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical […]

29 July 2006

Granville Sewell on theodicy

William Dembski

Is God Really Good?
Granville Sewell
Mathematics Dept.
University of Texas El Paso

                                                                                           .  
In debates over the theory of intelligent design, the “problem of evil” is frequently brought up by opponents of design: if we are the products of intelligent design, why is there so much evil and misery in the world? From a purely logical, or scientific, […]

29 July 2006

Templeton/Metanexus conference

William Dembski

Check out the following papers at the big June 2006 Metanexus conference: http://www.metanexus.net/conference2006/papers.asp. How well was ID represented?

29 July 2006

[quote mines]: “In science’s pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom”

scordova

In science’s pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics.
Jerry Coyne

28 July 2006

Shark fins & human limbs

Scottus

Researchers found that about a dozen genes that help give rise to a shark’s median fins — those that run along its back and belly — also determine where paired side fins will form on its body. These genes are known to play important roles in the development of paired limbs in humans and other […]

28 July 2006

Ernst Mayr at the millennium: A study in misplaced triumphalism

O'Leary

Darwinian evolutionist Ernst Mayr wrote in Scientific American in 2000:
“Let me now try to summarize my major findings. No educated person any longer questions the validity of the so-called theory of evolution, which we now know to be a simple fact. Likewise, most of Darwin’s particular theses have been fully confirmed, such as that of […]

28 July 2006

Allen MacNeill, Hannah Maxson on Cornell Evolution and Design Class

scordova

I provide here some snapshots of the Biology 467 Evolution and Design class at Cornell.  Allen MacNeill is the professor and Hannah Maxson is a student representing the IDEA club.  Whether what we hear is something we like or dislike, it still constitutes a data point which we should not dismiss.  Even if I may disagree […]

27 July 2006

FractoGene

Patrick

http://www.junkdna.com/fractogem/
http://www.fractogene.com/
On the subject of “junk DNA” Dr. Pellionisz believes these sections are caused by DNA being a “FractoGene” (Fractal DNA generating Fractal Organelles). I wouldn’t be surprised if DNA uses recursive mathematics for generating its complexity (plants do this for their structure at a macro level). As he explains it:
“[The] FractoGene approach to DNA, […]

27 July 2006

For your fall reading . . .

William Dembski

Here are two books you’ll want to put in your Amazon.com cart and read this fall. I’ve blurbed each of them. For Wells’s book I wrote: “Darwinists will be furious over this book, gnashing their teeth and vilifying its author — because biologist Jonathan Wells masterfully exposes their bizarre delusions and replaces them with what […]

27 July 2006

Delving into the Neanderthal Genome

Scottus

“Goal is to help understand how the human brain evolved”
There are no firm answers yet about how humans picked up key traits such as walking upright and developing complex language. Neanderthals are believed to have been relatively sophisticated, but lacking in humans’ higher reasoning functions.
Full Article

26 July 2006

Howard Van Till’s journey from Calvinism into freethought

William Dembski

Questions: (1) Leaving aside Calvinism, is Howard Van Till a Christian at all? Would he even accept that designation? (2) Given that he has veered so far from Calvin College’s statement of faith, is it legitimate for him to maintain his formal affiliation with the school as “professor emeritus”? Are professors emeritus held to the same […]

25 July 2006

UD — An Insight Catalyst

GilDodgen

One of the things I really enjoy about UD is that it is a catalyst for new insights.
I have blogged at UD on numerous occasions about computer programs and computer programming and their relationship to ID and Darwinian theory (for example, here and here). Doug’s post, Hidden Codes Within Codes, inspired some new insights.
Michael Denton […]

25 July 2006

Hidden Codes Within Codes….

Douglas Moran

 
The New York Times is reporting here on a discovery published in Nature of of a second code hidden in DNA.  According to the author,
“In the genetic code, sets of three DNA units specify various kinds of amino acid, the units of proteins.  A curious feature of the code is that it is redundant, meaning that […]

25 July 2006

Political correctness alert: Non-Darwinist philosopher doubts equality of women

O'Leary

John Davison of our list was referred to by one of our authors as “incorrigible” (so much so that the author hastened to print his views! - a good sign).
Well, here’s another one for you.
Agnostic Australian philosopher David Stove, not content to take on Darwin, apparently had the intellectual courage, as a friend puts it, […]

25 July 2006

400,000-Year-Old DNA Intact?

Patrick

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060714/sc_afp/swedenspainscience_060714171218

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STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A Swedish-led team of scientists has discovered 400,000-year-old DNA in bear teeth, the Uppsala University in Sweden said.
The team, made up of Swedish, Spanish and German researchers, discovered the remains of the bear in a cave in […]

25 July 2006

“How Has Darwinism Persisted?”

Scottus

The incorrigible John A. Davison offers insight into why the naked emperor still lingers:
Darwinism has persisted because it failed to recognize the nature of first causes. It is only natural to assume that results had causes and it is the duty of the scientist to find and reveal those causes. At this science has been […]

24 July 2006

What is a “pseudo-journalist”?

William Dembski

Wesley Elsberry, in blogging about Denyse O’Leary’s recent coming on board here at UD, refers to her as a “pseudo-journalist” (go here)? What a curious designation. Does Wesley’s use of the prefix “pseudo” simply indicate his disapproval of O’Leary and, in particular, her failure to accept his brand of evolution? Or does the prefix indicate […]

24 July 2006

Read my lips: “I take all responsibility for any errors in those chapters”

William Dembski

In April I announced on this blog Ann Coulter’s then forthcoming book GODLESS (go here). There I remarked, “I’m happy to report that I was in constant correspondence with Ann regarding her chapters on Darwinism — indeed, I take all responsibility for any errors in those chapters.” Jim Downard, rather than simply taking me at […]

24 July 2006

Thinkquote of the day: Why career scientists cannot afford to consider challenges to Darwinism

O'Leary

by Denyse O’Leary
ARN correspondent
Lawyer Edward Sisson writes with considerable insight about the career scientist’s dilemma:
There is also a unique reason why scientists are particularly averse to developing an opinion that the theory of unintelligent evolution cannot explain all of the diversity of life on earth, and that an intelligent-designer theory may be necessary to […]

23 July 2006

The Penguins March Again

O'Leary

In yesterday’s post on March of the Penguins, I quoted British Darwinist Steve Jones, noting
A group of penguins standing upright looks like co-operation, but in fact the ones on the outside are struggling to get in and those on the inside are trying to stand their ground: it’s a classic Darwinian struggle. The idea that […]

22 July 2006

Evolutionary Theory and Monty Python’s Black Knight

William Dembski

Just as Monty Python’s Black Knight was whittled from a full human to a stump, so evolutionary theory is finally being whittled to its proper size. Where, in the whittling of the Black Knight, is evolutionary theory (stage I, II, III, IV, or V?):

22 July 2006

Shermer critiqued over his recent piece in SCIAM on confirmation bias

William Dembski

Graeme Hunter (a philosophy professor at the University of Ottawa examines Michael Shermer’s recent piece on confirmation bias published in Scientific American:
. . . Shermer tells us - or rather science does and Shermer is only its messenger - that opinionated people actually suffer from what is called a “confirmation bias”, which Shermer defines as […]

22 July 2006

SSDD: Shallit and Elsberry’s Equivocations and Bluffs

scordova

(adapted from: Analogy, Induction, and Specious Arguments.)
Equivocation is a powerful technique if one has an indefensible position. For example, here is a way that one can argue that feathers cannot be dark:

A feather is light.
What is light cannot be dark.
Therefore, a feather cannot be dark.

Around 2003, Shallit and Elsberry put together a paper attempting […]

22 July 2006

ID vs. Darwinism: Same evidence, different interpretations?

O'Leary

ID advocates and Darwinists can look at the same evidence and see different things. The recent National Geographic film March of the Penguins created a minor furore because some thought of it as pro-ID, though the filmmakers denied that.
One difficulty is that, denial or not, elements of the penguins’ behavior inevitably raise questions about […]

21 July 2006

Unwitting Pro-ID Peer-Reviewed Articles on the Increase . . .

William Dembski

Here is an ID research paper published in PNAS. Note that some important principles of evolutionary theory are criticized in the abstract. This research shows how ID is capable of being applied in biology.
Genetics
The regulatory utilization of genetic redundancy through responsive backup circuits
( evolution | gene duplications | modeling | systems biology | noise […]