Monthly Archives: November 2009
More Global Warming Fraud Humor
| November 25, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Global Warming |
[From a colleague:] “Back in 2004, the German-Austrian film ‘Downfall’ was released. The film depicted Hitler’s last days in his Berlin bunker. Since then, the portion of the film where a detached-from-all-reality Hitler goes on a tirade — lashing out and finally conceding all is lost — has been modified to poke fun at everything… more
Climategate Grins
| November 25, 2009 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
Go here. more
Neuroscience: My latest MercatorNet story: Brain scans and neurotrash
| November 25, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Neuroscience |
It’s the ultimate branding strategy. Just slap “neuro” before a word and the goofiest speculation becomes respectable science.” Here: Unfortunately, neurotrash may not always be harmless nonsense in marketing departments about what color of car people choose. Increasingly, in the form of neurolaw, it is catching on in the legal profession, in the same way… more
Meyer’s SIGNATURE IN THE CELL — one of Thomas Nagel’s top two books of 2009
| November 25, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life |
Steve Meyer’s SIGNATURE IN THE CELL continues to garner the praise it deserves. This from Thomas Nagel in The Times Literary Supplement: Stephen C. Meyer’s Signature in the Cell: DNA and the evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperCollins) is a detailed account of the problem of how life came into existence from lifeless matter – something… more
Manhattan Declaration — Where are the theistic evolutionists?
| November 25, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Culture, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science, theistic evolution |
About 150 Christian leaders were the original signatories of the recent manifesto asserting the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and liberty of conscience — the Manhattan Declaration. At the time of this writing, over a 100,000 have signed it (including me). I encourage readers of UD to read the document and sign it if it… more
Coffee! Evolution – Sometimes you just don’t know what or who to believe.
| November 24, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism |
A reader sends me this oldie but goodie: In “Can evolution make things less complicated? Scientists suggest cell origins involved a forward-and-backward process” Becky Ham for MSNBC.com explained (May 18, 2006 – a century ago in these times) that … the data suggest that eukaryote cells with all their bells and whistles are probably as… more
More on ClimateGate
| November 24, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Global Warming |
Here’s today’s Wall Street Journal on ClimateGate: Global Warming With the Lid Off The emails that reveal an effort to hide the truth about climate science. ‘The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the U.K., I think… more
De Novo Genes and Normal Science
| November 24, 2009 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Science can be wrong about some things and still make great discoveries and inventions. One can believe the earth is flat or that electrons are nothing more than tiny billiard balls and still make progress. The history of science is a fascinating story of erroneous theories and beliefs intertwined with remarkable progress. And even today’s… more
Neuroscience: Puzzle of consciousness: Man was conscious but immobile 23 years … but who besides him knew?
| November 23, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Neuroscience |
At the Mail Online, Allan Hall reports (November 23, 2009) on the case of a man who was conscious for 23 years, but no one knew because he was paralyzed. A car crash victim has spoken of the horror he endured for 23 years after he was misdiagnosed as being in a coma when he… more
Oddities Living in the Deep Blue Sea
| November 23, 2009 | Posted by DonaldM under Biology, Intelligent Design, Media, Science, The Design of Life |
We all know that our planet is awash with wonderful and beautiful life forms, none more so than we find in our oceans. This photo essay from the Fox News Website provides a glimpse into the strange world of creatures that inhabit the deepest parts of the seas. Truly remarkable. Here is but one example… more
36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
| November 23, 2009 | Posted by DonaldM under Cosmology, Culture, Philosophy, Physics, Religion, Science |
The title of this post is also the title of a recent book by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. According to the website for The Edge Foundation, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, known to Edge readers as a philosopher who has interesting things to say about Gödel and Spinoza, among others, enters into this conversation, taking on these and… more
De Novo Genes: The Evolutionary Explanation
| November 23, 2009 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Cells have remarkable adaptation capabilities. They can precisely adjust which segments of the genome are copied for use in the cell. They can edit and regulate those DNA copies according to their needs. And they can even modify the DNA itself, such as with adaptive mutations, to accommodate environmental pressures. And in addition to these… more
Horkheimer on Darwinism
| November 22, 2009 | Posted by Flannery under Darwinism, Philosophy |
 There is a strange belief abroad that critics of Darwinism are found chiefly among right-wing, ultra-conservative reactionaries and their cadre of uneducated backwoods religious fundamentalists for whom, according to Philip Kitcher, Darwin “serves evangelical Christians as the bogeyman.”1 Keith M. Parsons, writing for Eugenie Scott’s National Center for Science Education (largely an organization devoted to fear-mongering against ID), praised… more
Coffee!! Large Hadron Collider: If this “backwards time travel” is not a joke, it surely should be
| November 22, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Cosmology |
Woes of God particle researchers worse than woes of Job, in the Bible, apparently: Here’s a fun piece on the large Hadron Collider’s woes, when a passing bird dropped a piece of bread on it (yes!) , via Commentary Magazine – “Big Bang Machine Felled by Frenchman from the Future” by Anthony Sacramone (11/16/09): So… more
Climategate
| November 21, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Global Warming |
Here’s more on “Climategate.” My favorite line: “And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW [anthropogentic global warming] can be written off as a crank,… more
[Quasi-Off-Topic:] Long-Winded Senatorial Specifications
| November 21, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Humor, Off Topic |
Specifications have long been an intense interest of mine (e.g., go here). Below is an 833-word specification by our U.S. Senate that could have been said in one word — LOUISIANA. Indeed, the only state to which this specifcation applies is LOUISIANA. Congrats to Lousiana’s Mary Landrieu for snagging $100M in pork that’s associated with… more
De Novo Genes: What We Know and Don’t Know
| November 21, 2009 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
I once debated an evolutionist who listed a dozen or so major areas of evidence he said proved evolution. The problem was each of the areas of evidence was problematic for evolution. True, one could find within those areas, as he did, supportive evidences. But the story was not so simple. In fact the areas… more
Catalytic RNA An Unworthy Catalyst For A Serious ‘Origins’ Discussion
| November 20, 2009 | Posted by Robert Deyes under Intelligent Design |
The search for extra-terrestrial life has been a passionate focal point of space exploration for decades. While the idea of aliens eking out an ‘other-world’ existence continues to fuel scientific and religious debate, most recently with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences’ astrobiology conference (1), a similarly concerted search for life has focused on primitive unicellular… more
Put Up, or Shut Up!
| November 20, 2009 | Posted by PaV under Culture, Global Warming, Intelligent Design |
There’s breaking news today about the Hadley CRU in England which had its emails and data banks hacked into. CRU is the acronym for ‘Climate Research Unit’. Seems that some of the emails show some possible collusion when it came to producing and supporting data that didn’t fit into GW science. Some interesting quotes. How… more
Uncommon Descent Question 12: Can Darwinism Beat the odds – winner
| November 20, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Uncommon Descent Contest |
For Uncommon Descent Question 12: Can Darwinism beat the odds?, we have declared a winner, and it is Philip W at 11. Philip W must provide me with a valid postal address* via [email protected], in order to receive the prize, a free copy of the Privileged Planet DVD. Philip W tells me that he is… more