Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Richard Dawkins’s famous long moment of silence …

I remember reading years ago violently conflicting opinions on Richard Dawkins’s famous/infamous/faked silence when a filmmaker asked him about the origin of genetic information.

Eventually the tape made its way to Barry Williams, the editor of an Australian journal called The Skeptic, who consulted with Dawkins and then published a blistering article with the title “Creationist Deception Exposed.” Williams at first seemed to be accusing the filmmakers of altering the tape by substituting a question Dawkins was never asked, but that accusation was never made explicitly and in any case was dropped after the creationists produced the raw tapes. (Phillip Johnson, The Wedge of Truth, pg. 40 (InterVarsity Press, 1999).)

Anyway, here’s a video and here’s his response. You da judge.

Also Read More ›

First Things editor scolds New York Times over Dawkins’s review of Behe

Apparently, in the most recent edition of First Things, Fr. Richard Neuhaus defends Mike Behe, author of Edge of Evolution. It’s not on line yet, but Fr. Neuhaus says, among other things,

You usually know that somebody is losing the argument when he loses his cool and resorts to bluster, abuse, caricature, and the invocation of authorities who agree with him.

He is referring, of course, to Richard Dawkins’s attempt to trash Behe’s book in The New York Times. He notes the curious fact that the Times should never have given the book to Dawkins to review anyway, without giving Behe the right of reply (which it would never dare to do):

It is hard to know what purpose is served by the Book Review in having Dawkins review Behe, except, possibly, to ostracize anyone who presumes to raise questions about prevailing Darwinist orthodoxies and, perhaps, to pander to the smug prejudices of the presumed readership of the Times. That does not instill confidence in the Darwinist materialism that they are so desperately defending.

This is all particularly interesting because Neuhaus is not especially one of the ID think tank Discovery Institute fans. Read More ›

Baylor closes ranks, defends Darwin against all lines of evidence

Baylor’s move to shut down Prof. Robert Marks’s exposure of Darwinism as the Enron of biology is a harder line than the institution took seven years ago. Curiously, the 2000 report on the Polanyi Center (long closed) had actually proclaimed, ” … the committee wishes to make it clear that it considers research on the logical structure of mathematical arguments for intelligent design to have a legitimate claim to a place in current discussions of the relations of religion and the sciences.” Presumably, Baylor honchos don’t think that any more. Is that because Bob Marks can actually do it now? Bill Dembski tells me that the shutdown committee had never suggested that he couldn’t put such papers on his own Read More ›

The Spiritual Brain: Introduction is now on line

Because so many people have asked me what The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist’s case for the existence of the soul addresses, I thought I would post the Introduction. It doesn’t deal with everything the book addresses, but it gives you some idea. In this book, we intend to show you that your mind does exist, that it is not merely your brain. Your thoughts and feelings cannot be dismissed or explained away by firing synapses and physical phenomena alone. In a solely material world, “will power” or “mind over matter” are illusions, there is no such thing as purpose or meaning, there is no room for God. Yet many people have experience of these things. We intend to argue that Read More ›

Bustrak on Differences between ID, Creationism & Evolution

Bustrak’s insightful comparisons and interesting definition and basis for Intelligent Design are published as an Opinion Article 2007-09-12 on the Michigan Tech Lode:   Web Exclusive: The differences between Intelligent Design, Creationism, and Evolution By: John Bustrak “Three terms, addressing the same issue, where everything in existence comes from, e.g. origins, are hotly contested. For the sake of the reader, I will define the terms as they relate to the issue of origins to the best of my ability: Evolution: the belief that everything came into existence through naturalistic (non-supernatural) means, that through chemical interactions the basics of life formed, then evolved into every living thing that now exists. Creationism: the belief that some sort of supernatural identity (deity or Read More ›

Advice for the Ruse vs. Nelson Undebate

Baby is yawning ’cause baby is bored. In three weeks, Michael Ruse and I will be asked to explain what evidence, arguments, or attractive baubles — you know: glass beads, tin whistles, loops of colored string — would persuade us to adopt each other’s viewpoint. An undebate, of sorts. A skeptical friend, who is a professor of biochemistry and prominent critic of ID, saw the debate announcement, and wrote me the following. Sounds boring, he said, unless you take some decisive steps to avoid the obvious. My reply is below his remarks, which I excerpt here: Actually, Paul, I believe this “undebate” has all the makings of a pretty humdrum affair. You’ll answer, as other commenters here would, “reproduce for Read More ›

Hundreds of Scientists Have Published Evidence Countering Man-Made Global Warming Fears

Challenge to Scientific Consensus on Global Warming: Analysis Finds Hundreds of Scientists Have Published Evidence Countering Man-Made Global Warming Fears Posted : Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:58:42 GMT Author : Hudson Institute Category : PressRelease WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares. More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age and/or that 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun’s irradiance. “This data and the list of scientists Read More ›

Ruse versus Nelson: What Would Make Us Change Our Minds? An Unconventional Debate, October 4

An alert mind keeps in reserve and in good trim all that’s needed to destroy its dogmas and opinions. It is always prepared to attack its “feelings” and to refute its “reasons.” — Paul Valery, Analects Next month, on Thursday, October 4, Michael Ruse and I are going to have a sort of un-debate. Each of us will be asked to spell out what would change our minds about the other’s position. More to the point, what would persuade us to adopt the opposing stance on evolution or ID? What evidence, what arguments, what whatever, would change Michael Ruse’s view of intelligent design? Conversely, what would turn me into a card-carrying Darwinian? Go here for information about the debate location Read More ›

Mary Midgley to debate ID in the UK, October 3rd, Kings College, London

Mary Midgley

She’s a tough-minded and plainspoken philosopher, and no fan of ID. In her eyes, it’s creationism in thin disguise.

But Mary Midgley is also no fan of Richard Dawkins:

Some of the claims of the supporters of versions of natural selection, she holds, might more properly belong in the Religious Education curriculum alongside Creationism and Intelligent Design.

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Baylor, Marks, Faust, and Selling One’s Soul

There is an ancient legend about a man named Faust, who sold his soul for temporal selfish gain and self-aggrandizement. Although the immediate but ephemeral rewards were intoxicating, the ultimate consequences were hideous.

The legend of Faust has inspired much art, music, and theater over the centuries. The reason is obvious: There is a fundamental truth and lesson to be learned.
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So where ARE the Friends of Robert Marks? Of intellectual freedom at Baylor?

 by Denyse O’Leary  The latest Baylor explanation of why Prof. Robert Marks’ evolutionary informatics website was taken down is that he wasn’t doing “approved research.” There is no precedent for this notion of “approved research” at Baylor — which is most likely why the Baylor administration did not cite it earlier. They have just thought the idea up and are taking it out for a spin. This is the latest in a variety of explanations. The original one turned on anonymous complaints. Another cited proprietary “Baylor branding.” Till now, none cited a doctrine of “approval.” Actually, if the Baylor administration were being honest, only one good explanation would be necessary. The story wouldn’t keep changing. The “approved research” slogan may Read More ›

Only “Approved Research” on our site! — And who gives approval?

The Baylor University student newspaper, the Lariat, finally has a piece about the academic discrimination case involving Prof. Robert Marks and his Evolutionary Informatics Lab (EIL). The story introduces an interesting new twist: now the problem with the EIL site is that it doesn’t contain “approved research.” And who is supposed to approve Prof. Marks’s research? His dean, Benjamin Kelley, who has admitted that he doesn’t understand it? And by what criteria does or doesn’t such research get approved? How about this criterion: If it’s about intelligent design and promises to lower the university’s prestige and undercut departmental funding, it does not constitute “approved research.” The Baylor administration seems to have no clue what a can of worms they are opening here. In effect, they no longer have a research university. Just as Baylor has a Tenure Review Committee (which denied Frank Beckwith tenure), will Baylor now institute a Research Review Committee (run by faculty and administrators who don’t do research, and whose first act will be to confirm and applaud the removal of Prof. Marks’s lab)?

New intelligent design conflict hits BU | By Claire St. Amant
The Baylor Lariat | Sept. 11, 2007
www.baylor.edu/Lariat/news.php?action=story&story=46756

City editor
Baylor has received the national spotlight once again for another controversy involving intelligent design research. Dr. Robert Marks, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, posted what university officials are calling “unapproved research” on his personal Web site hosted by Baylor’s server. The research, which concerns informatic computing and the evolutionary process, was conducted as part of Marks’ Evolutionary Informatics Lab. Baylor shut down the site in early August, shortly before a scheduled meeting to discuss the issue with Marks; his attorney, John Gilmore; Baylor General Counsel Charles Beckenhauer; Provost Dr. Randall O’Brien; and dean of engineering Benjamin Kelley — whom Gilmore credited with shutting down the site. President John Lilley did not attend.

“(Kelley) did not give my client the benefit of a meeting or a phone call,” Gilmore said.

Baylor officials say the site was removed from the server because Marks didn’t follow either of the approved processes for posting research, and the subject matter is immaterial.

“There is a whole process every professor must go through to publish academic research,” John Barry, vice president for marketing and communications, said. “He just needs to go through the proper channels.”

Barry said when publishing research on Baylor Web sites, professors can either have the backing of their department, school or dean, or decide to work independently of the university and identify it as such. Marks was working independently of the university. . . . Read More ›

“Baylor Forces Professor to Shut Down Site”

Here’s the Syracuse University student paper weighing in on the Baylor Academic Freedom Crisis — one wonders when the Baylor student paper, The Lariat, is going to have something to say about this.

Baylor forces professor to shut down site
By: Nicole Loring | Posted: 9/10/07
Source: The Daily Orange (Syracuse University Student Paper)

Just before the 2007-2008 academic year began, Baylor University shut down a personal Web site, dedicated to the theory of intelligent design, of distinguished professor Robert J. Marks II.

A Baptist university in Texas, Baylor is now entrenched in a legal battle with the electrical and chemical engineering professor, who claims his academic freedom was violated when his Web site was shut down without his knowledge.

The site in question, Evolutionary Informatics, cites its mission as “investigating how information makes evolution possible.” The site featured links to Marks’ personal publications and presentations on intelligent design.

Attorney John Gilmore, who is representing Marks, said it all began when the professor gave a podcast interview with the Discovery Institute, Read More ›

They would have believed in CREATION?! – if it wasn’t in the Bible?

Now and then someone has written to me to claim that it’s just not true that mid-twentieth century physicists disliked the Big Bang because of the religious implications of the idea of a beginning to the universe. A contact, however, quotes Simon Singh’s Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe:

The British physicist William Bonner, for example, suggested that the Big Bang theory was part of a conspiracy aimed at shoring up Christianity: ‘The underlying motive is, of course, to bring in God as creator. It seems like the opportunity Christian theology has been waiting for ever since science began to depose religion from the minds of rational men in the seventeenth century’

Fred Hoyle was equally scathing when it came to the Big Bang’s association with religion, condemning it as a model built on Judeo-Christian foundations. His views were shared by his Steady State collaborator, Thomas Gold. When Gold heard that Pius XII had backed the Big Bang, his response was short and to the point: ‘Well, the Pope also endorsed the stationary Earth.’
Scientists had been wary of the Vatican’

However, this wariness sometimes bordered on paranoia, as noted by the English Nobel Laureate George Thomson: ‘Probably every physicist would believe in a creation if the Bible had not unfortunately said something about it many years ago and made it seem old-fashioned.’ (pp. 361-62

So Singh has apparently noticed some of the same kind of stuff as I have.

Also, new at The Mindful Hack, Read More ›