“There is no controversy.” “There should be no controversy.” “It’s okay to expel those who pretend that there is a controversy.” “Academic freedom does not apply where the scientific consensus says there is no controversy.” … The Washington Post has a ridiculous editorial that elevates evolutionary theory to the same status as gravitational theory and the truths of mathematics (go here). Meanwhile, the Altenberg meeting coming up this summer brings together biologists who see the contemporary state of evolutionary theory as in upheaval (go here). Yes, the field is in disarray, but there is NO CONTROVERSY. What, are we living in a Kafka novel?

Every single intelligent design opponent I have encountered eventually starts mumbling about the sinister “Big Tent” of ID.

Big Tent = what you rent when you are entertaining 1800 of your closest friends in a shattering rainstorm

The argument goes something like this: If the ID guys were sincere in thinking that the universe and life forms show evidence of intelligent design, they would trim their numbers by driving out all those who think that:

– NASA’s dating methods are wrong

– The Bible is a source of useful information

– ID may not necessarily be correct (though Darwinists are obviously the downscale detritus of a bygone materialist age)

– global warming is caused mainly by the heat generated by hysteria over the issue

“Get rid of them all, and then – and only then – we will take you seriously … ” promises the establishment pay wallah.

Yeah really.

The problem is, of course, that once you know that Darwinism isn’t true, you don’t immediately know what is true. You just know where not to look for answers.

(And whether Americans are better off with the risks of al Gore or of al Quaeda is, in my opinion, moot.)

But one thing the ID guys sure won’t need if they take the pay wallah’s advice is … a big tent.

Also: Yes, another new blog. I have further enraged a number of people (who don’t have enough to do) by starting a new blog: Welcome to Colliding Universes. Read More ›

Any effort to give precise gradations of quantification to CSI is doomed to failure.  It reminds me of certain economists’ effort to quantify “utility” through a measurement called a “util.”  See here.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the concepts are very much the same.  We can all agree that the concept of “utility maximization” is very important and represents a real phenomenon.  But while we can say of utility there is a lot, there is a little, or there is none at all, there is no way to measure it precisely.  The “util” is useful as a hypothetical measure of relative utility, but it has no value as an “actual” unit of measurement, such as inches, pounds, meters, or grams.

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The Ian Ramsey Centre, Oxford A couple of weeks ago, I reported on the program for the upcoming Ian Ramsey Centre conference, “God, Nature, and Design” to be held July 10-13, 2008 at St. Anne’s College, Oxford University. An updated list of contributed papers has been posted. The list is noteworthy both for the range of topics considered, and the variety of home institutions of the authors. Should be a lively meeting.

Suppose you come across this tree: You know nothing else about the tree other than what you can infer from a visual inspection. Multiple Choice: A.  The tree probably obtained this shape through chance. B.  The tree probably obtained this shape through mechanical necessity. C.  The tree probably obtained this shape through a combination of chance and mechanical necessity. D.  The tree probably obtained this shape as the result of the purposeful efforts of an intelligent agent. E.  Other. Select your answer and give supporting reasons.

First straw flies past: The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is playing the “religion” card, of course:

… the statement noted, more than 11,000 Christian leaders in the United States have signed a letter affirming that evolution does not conflict with religious faith. The United Church of Christ recently sent out a pastoral letter expressing a similar position. Evolution “is based on a diverse and robust body of physical evidence, from fossilized bones to radiometric measurements of the ages of the Earth’s rocks,” the statement says. But the movie, by conveying misinformation about science and researchers, seeks to force religious viewpoints into science class …

AAAS’s PR people think that today’s serious Christians are stupid. That we haven’t seen the film, don’t know that the key issue it raises is intellectual integrity, and don’t even know that their tame clergy are, for the most part, the phantoms of a discredited liberalism – haunting churches awaiting rapture into condos.

Second straw: If AAAS is the large event, here’s a small one: A reader wrote me last night wanting to know what I thought of the fact that Expelled had flopped at the box office.

Much surprised, I wrote back, pointing out, Read More ›

Prominent climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball talks about the links between evolution and global warming controversies. HT to UD subscriber Frost for the link to the article. Environmental extremism must be put in its place in the climate debate By Dr. Tim Ball & Tom Harris Wednesday, January 9, 2008 Canada Free Press Many people are starting to realize that much of what they’ve been told about climate change by governments, the United Nations and crusading celebrities is simply wrong. Not surprisingly, the assertion that “the science is settled” in a field the public is coming to understand is both immature and quickly evolving, is triggering growing public skepticism. Alarmists respond by upping the ante, making even more extreme and nonsensical Read More ›

Are the stickleback fish in Lake Washington really reversing evolution, as the media releases claim? Or just tailoring their existing design? A much more remarkable example of apparent reverse evolution is a little fish in Washington State, U.S.A. The threespine stickleback is named for its bony armour plate. But as Seattle’s Lake Washington became highly polluted over the years, the predatory trout population could barely see the sticklebacks. Many threespines got by with relatively little armor plate. However, when the lake was cleaned up during the mid-twentieth century, trout could see better. The threespine once again developed body armour which made it unpalatable to trout. It dug back into its genetic code to find traits to survive in a changing Read More ›

Scientific Consensus? – That Global Warming is Natural – and BENEFICIAL?!
Dr. Arthur Robinson will be announcing Monday that over 31,000 scientists reject’s IPCC’s contention of anthropogenic global warming. They further hold that the natural global warming is beneficial. The site gives an excellent summary of supporting research. This cite and its history are instructive on the methods to overturn the ruling paradigm and media mentality. ——————–

ADVISORY: Dr. Arthur Robinson (OISM) to Release Names of over 30,000 Scientists Rejecting Global Warming Hypothesis

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The NCSE is up to its usual spin of the issues at their ExpelledExposed website. One of their targets is Caroline Crocker. Crocker and others respond in this video: ID Rockumentary

In this essay Richard Dawkins proposes the following:

In fact, natural selection is the very opposite of a chance process, and it is the only ultimate explanation we know for complex, improbable things… We need a better explanation [than design by space aliens], such as evolution by natural selection or an equally workable account of the painstaking R&D that must underlie complex, statistically improbable things.

An equally workable account? An “ultimate explanation”? R&D? R&D is research and development. R&D is design. The logic and terminology of design is inescapable, even by those who deny that design exists.

Richard Dawkins is certainly not a stupid person, but I find it amazing that he cannot see the obvious problem here. Natural selection is not random, but it does not create anything; it only throws stuff out.

The F-35 fighter aircraft (for which our company is designing a new pilot ejection parachute), did not come about by throwing out the Wright Flyer biplane, and then throwing out the Piper Cub, and then throwing out the F-16. The impotence of natural selection as a creative force is transparently and logically evident.
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California’s top court legalizes gay marriage Hat Tip to Wesley Elsberry’s message board for homozygous church burnin’ ebola boys After the Bar Closes.

Assessment of the reliability of climate predictions based on comparisons with historical time series by Koutsoyiannis et al. explore: “How well do the models capture the scaling behaviour of the real climate, by assessing standard deviation at different scales.” By their results they specifically throw down the gauntlet of “falsifiability” challenging IPCC to its very foundations. (Is it “scientific” or poltical.) Thought provoking on the role of science and verifiability in the public sphere. (Emphasis added) ———————
Abstract
As falsifiability is an essential element of science (Karl Popper), many have disputed the scientific basis of climatic predictions on the grounds that they are not falsifiable or verifiable at present. This critique arises from the argument that we need to wait several decades before we may know how reliable the predictions will be. Read More ›

In “The Neural Buddhists” (New York Times, May 13, 2008), David Brooks (yes, he of the BoBos, the bohemian bourgeois*) references Tom Wolfe’s dramatic 1996 article “Sorry, but your soul just died,”

.. in which he captured the militant materialism of some modern scientists.To these self-confident researchers, the idea that the spirit might exist apart from the body is just ridiculous. Instead, everything arises from atoms. Genes shape temperament. Brain chemicals shape behavior. Assemblies of neurons create consciousness. Free will is an illusion. Human beings are “hard-wired” to do this or that. Religion is an accident.

In this materialist view, people perceive God’s existence because their brains have evolved to confabulate belief systems.

Uh huh.

Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard and I took it all to pieces in The Spiritual Brain. There was no basis whatever from the new neuroscience for that view – on the contrary, the new neuroscience was killing it!

Brooks, author of BoBos in Paradise, acknowledges, Read More ›

Flagella-like Propulsion for Microrobots Using a Nanocoil and a Rotating Electromagnetic Field Bell, D.J.   Leutenegger, S.   Hammar, K.M.   Dong, L.X.   Nelson, B.J.   Inst. of Robotics & Intelligent Syst., ETH Zurich Abstract A propulsion system similar in size and motion to the helical bacterial flagella motor is presented. The system consists of a magnetic nanocoil as a propeller (27 nm thick ribbon, 3 mun in diameter, 30-40 mum long) driven by an arrangement of macro coils. The macro coils generate a rotating field that induces rotational motion in the nanocoil. Viscous forces during rotation result in a net axial propulsion force on the nanocoil. Modeling of fluid mechanics and magnetics was used to estimate the requirements for such a system. The Read More ›