Monthly Archives: August 2009
Behe-McWhorter Back Online
| August 31, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
[Update 8.31.09: The McWhorter-Behe interview is back online at Bloggingheads; Robert Wright, who heads Bloggingheads, was incommunicado during the interview's removal and on his return to wired reality decided to put the dialogue back up. For his explanation of what happened, go here: bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/22075] [Update 8.28.09: Michael Behe has just posted his take on the… more
More coffee!! Darwinism and popular culture: If this is love, please hate me instead
| August 31, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism |
This guy, David Loye, an American progressive, wants a kinder, gentler evolution, and tells us about the real Darwin: “In the Descent of Man Charles Darwin wrote only twice of “survival of the fittest” — but 95 times about love! 92 times about moral sensitivity. And 200 times about brain and mind.” Yes, but did… more
Coffee!! Darwinism and pop culture: Pop fiction discovers the Discovery Institute
| August 31, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism |
That shows, like nothing else, how the design debate is taking off. The previously faceless functionaries at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute get to be villains for the public at large, not just for threatened Darwinists, in a new anti-DI novel, The Book of God and Physics : The Jesuits aren’t the villains in this clash… more
The Seen and Unseen in Science and Theology
| August 30, 2009 | Posted by Steno under Intelligent Design |
Another interesting paper I have come across recently was published by the American Scientific Affiliation Hyung S. Choi , Knowledge of the Unseen: A New Vision for Science and Religion Dialogue, ‘Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith’ 53.2 (June 2001): 96-101. http://www.asa3.org/asa/pscf/2001/pscf6-01choi.html A few quotes: “While contemporary physics and cosmology take seriously the knowledge of… more
Dawkins’ Latest Book Sees Criticism of Evolution in Same Vein as Holocaust Denial
| August 30, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Darwinism, Evolution |
The TimesOnline (go here) has an extract from Dawkins’ latest book, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. Here’s an extract of the extract: …Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence… more
Dinnertime Design Detection
| August 29, 2009 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
Last evening I was talking to a friend about how my dad had to learn morse code when he was in the navy, and he related a funny design detection story (not that he put it in those terms). My friend had a cousin (we’ll call him Bill), and when he was a teenager Bill developed a nervous… more
D Rad – Painting in the infrared colors
| August 29, 2009 | Posted by Mario A. Lopez under Biology, Science |
I learned about this bug back in 2001 and fell in love with it. Here is partly why: Painting in the infrared colors Olga Glazunov - Chaskor, August 27, 2009 The bacterial protein has the capacity for absorption and emission in the infrared spectral region, was successful (put into action) in mammalian cells. This protein can be… more
Coupled Complex Specified Information
| August 29, 2009 | Posted by niwrad under Biology, Intelligent Design |
Imagine this paradoxical scenario: NASA decides to construct a new space station and a new space shuttle. It assigns to a team of engineers the job of designing the station and to another team the job of designing the shuttle, without any specifications about the relations between the two projects and the mandate that they… more
Decoding D’Arcy Thompson – Part 1
| August 28, 2009 | Posted by Alfred Russel under Intelligent Design |
When I was a Zoology undergraduate at Oxford my teachers often referred to D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s book “On Growth and Form”. They acknowledged it as a work of undoubted erudition, but somehow they evaded any impact it might have on our studies. That was reserved for Darwin, and Darwin alone. Returning to “on Growth and… more
Wired
| August 28, 2009 | Posted by Clive Hayden under Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science |
Wired.com has a new article about why ID isn’t science because it’s been falsified. Usually the tactic against ID is that it isn’t a science because it isn’t falsifiable. I reckon use whatever club is closest at hand when you’re interested only in beating ID instead of being consistent. The article states: “You look at… more
The Human Mutation Rate and Its Implications
| August 28, 2009 | Posted by Patrick under Biology, Darwinism, Evolution, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
Every time human DNA is passed from one generation to the next it accumulates 100–200 new mutations, according to a DNA-sequencing analysis of the Y chromosome. This number — the first direct measurement of the human mutation rate — is equivalent to one mutation in every 30 million base pairs, and matches previous estimates from… more
William Lycan Defends Dualism
| August 26, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Atheism, Philosophy |
A new day is dawning when philosophers of William Lycan‘s stature start questioning materialism and making conceptual room for dualism: I mean to have shown here that although Cartesian dualism faces some serious objections, that does not distinguish it from other philosophical theories, and the objections are not an order of magnitude worse than those… more
DNA’s use in computer chip design
| August 26, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
Interesting that DNA can exhibit such fine-grained usefulness in engineering design when, by Darwin’s lights, it is cobbled together by a sloppy unguided evolutionary process. It would seem that when the instruments we use are more refined than the things we are designing, the instruments themselves are likely to be the product of design. Building… more
Behe and McWhorter on Bloggingheads
| August 26, 2009 | Posted by Paul Nelson under Intelligent Design |
Their chat is here. I don’t think Bloggingheads science regulars Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer (who complained publicly and behind the scenes about my Bloggingheads segment with Ron Numbers) are going to like this. more
Cambrian Explosion Caught on Film
| August 26, 2009 | Posted by David Coppedge under Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Media, Video |
Illustra’s new film “Darwin’s Dilemma” delivers a knockout punch to Darwinism on Sept. 15. Darwin has tried to dodge the Cambrian explosion for 150 years; how can he survive this? more
Uncommon Descent Contest Question 10: Provide the Code for Dawkins’ WEASEL Program
| August 26, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism |
Special invitation for Richard Dawkins – but any civil person is entitled to enter. There’s been some discussion here and elsewhere whether the the recent IEEE article by Dembski and Marks correctly characterizes Richard Dawkins’ famous METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL program. Does the program ratchet correct letters or does it let them vary?… more
Hunter Baker’s THE END OF SECULARISM
| August 25, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Atheism, Culture, Religion, Science |
Hunter Baker, formerly a colleague of mine at Baylor and now associate provost at Houston Baptist University, has just published a book with Crossway titled THE END OF SECULARISM (go here for the Amazon.com listing). It provides a far-sweeping historical analysis of secularism within western culture. His critique of secularism is solid: Secularism is not… more
The argument just keeps rumbling on …
| August 25, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
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A curious piece was posted a few days back by Ewen Callaway at the New Scientist (go here). Its focus was on the recent IEEE paper by Robert Marks and me on conservation of information (for the paper, go here). Callaway remarks: “Even if a paper supporting ID has made it past peer review —… more
A Bogey Moment: The Human Chromosome Count
| August 24, 2009 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
In the 1954 movie The Caine Mutiny, Humphrey Bogart plays the compulsive-paranoid Captain Queeg who is relieved of duty when unable to deal with a dangerous storm at sea. Upon return to port two officers face a court-martial for mutiny. The trial goes badly for them and they appear to be destined for prison until… more
Is Richard Dawkins a stage magician?
| August 24, 2009 | Posted by Steno under Intelligent Design |
Richard Dawkins has a new book out soon; ‘The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.’ An unfortunate title perhaps, bearing in mind the type of acts that have performed under that banner headline in the past. So is Dawkins no more than a travelling conjurer pulling bunnies out of hats in the name… more