In an earlier column (27 March 2010), I offered constructive criticism of the position of Francis Beckwith, who had implied an incompatibility between the ID and Thomist approaches to design, and had condemned ID for advancing or at least implying a bad form of Christian theology:

https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/what-francis-beckwith-gets-wrong-about-intelligent-design/

Prof. Beckwith responded once to my article, but only touched on a couple of points, and in the course of his discussion misrepresented both my motivation and some of my arguments.  When I clarified my position (in Comment #8 below the article), Beckwith did not respond to the clarification.  Thus, he left the impression that he had demolished my argument, when in fact he had rebutted only a misrepresentation of just part of my argument.

I here undertake a constructively critical response to some arguments of Professor Edward Feser, who like Prof. Beckwith has contrasted ID unfavorably with Thomist design arguments and has accused ID of faulty theology.  I am hoping that Professor Feser will reply, here or on his own site, and will engage more fully with my comments than did Prof. Beckwith. Read More ›

Sal Cordova wonders why we can’t all just get along, after a senior JPL computer system administrator was demoted for loaning co-workers DVDs supporting intelligent design. Well, Sal, here is why we can’t: Darwinists, like Islamists, have the Final Revelation, after which there is no other revelation. No-God will punish all infidels. Of course, in practice, with Darwinists as with Islamists, that means that the fanatic must punish the infidel himself. That makes sense. Both God and No-God can be mighty slow in these matters, and the best way to keep up a fanatical faith is quick vengeance now against any and all dissenters. I wrote to a friend recently on this very topic: Harvard’s Steve Pinker reminds us that Read More ›

NASA was once a bastion of religious toleration. They sent 2 creationists to the moon (Reverend Jim Irwin and General Charles Duke). They let Buzz Aldrin quietly celebrate communion on the Moon, Sunday, July 20, 1969. On NASA’s official website is the record of this Christmas greeting of 1968: www.NASA.gov. Here is a video of that 1968 event: Apollo 8 Christmas Greeting from Genesis 1. And we have: Buzz Aldrin Sharing Psalm 8 in Flight.

Sad to see that this same organization is now suspected of harboring Darwinists who would vent their prejudices against one of UD’s very own contributors, David Coppedge, for much lesser actions (loaning a DVD to an interested coworker). Isn’t a little toleration in order?

In contrast, this could also be seen to be proselytizing a particular religious view:

“A NASA workshop defined ‘life’ to mean a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution,”

To paraphrase Rodney King, “can’t we all just get along?”

Read More ›

It’s worth repeating that if Charles Darwin had explained that evolution proceeds in fits and starts, his theory would have been ridiculed from the start. Imagine if Darwin had explained that, according to his theory of evolution, species rapidly appear as if planted there, and then go unchanged for eons. Darwin would have been laughed off the stage. Darwin had to present a narrative of gradualism. Funny thing is, the fits-and-starts narrative is today precisely what evolutionists tell us.  Read more

Biologos supporter Karl Giberson has recently posted what seems to be an olive branch to ID.  As we rarely get these from the TE/EC/Biologos camp, I think we should respond graciously to Dr. Giberson’s overture.

His remarks, under the heading, “Through a Glass Darkly”, are found at:

http://biologos.org/blog/through-a-glass-darkly-blog/

I was grateful when Dr. Giberson backed away somewhat from the tendency of TEs to throw out “God of the gaps!” as a shibboleth against ID.  He wrote:

 “Not all ID theorists insist on this however. I had a chance to chat with Michael Behe when we were on a panel a few months ago at Brigham Young University; I pressed him to find out just how far apart we were. I knew he accepted common ancestry and rejected young earth creationism, just as we do at BioLogos. Behe insisted that “design is empirically detectable” but he did not insist that such design requires intervention by God.

 “Fair enough.

“Perhaps it would be most appropriate to say that ID “tends to slip into god-of-the-gaps,” rather than equating it with god-of-the gaps, as its critics tend to do.”

I am grateful that Dr. Giberson is capable of noticing the exaggerations of some of his anti-ID colleagues, and pleased that he shows determination to find out what ID proponents say about themselves, and does not rest content with inaccurate second-hand reports.  For this I thank him.

I would add that Behe is not alone in his position.  Read More ›

Here’s an article that appeared today in my local paper. It will be interesting to see what the incoming Baylor president Kenneth Starr does about the Marks case when he arrives June 1st, especially in light of this recognition by College Crunch. For Prof. Marks to have his lab and research (see evoinfo.org) recognized and reinstated by Baylor as legitimately part of his job description would, perhaps, constitute a truer vindication of his work on evolutionary informatics. Even so, the College Crunch list, designating Marks as one of the “20 most brilliant Christian professors,” is a foretaste of good things to come.

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Baylor faculty member named one of ’20 Most Brilliant Christian Professors’

[alternative title in local paper: “In the Spotlight, Again: BU Professor Marks Nets Honor for Research in Evolutionary Informatics”]

[PHOTO CAPTION: Marks was named one of “The 20 Most Brilliant Christian Professors” by CollegeCrunch.org (link here).]

By Tim Woods Tribune-Herald staff writer
Thursday April 15, 2010
 
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/Baylor-faculty-member-named-one-of-20-Most-Brilliant-Christian-Professors.html

Robert Marks, Baylor University Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer engineering, once again finds himself in the spotlight.

Less than three years ago, Marks was at the center of an intelligent design-related controversy at the school.

But Marks now is being honored for his work, notably his research in the area of evolutionary informatics.

CollegeCrunch.org, a college resource Web site, named Marks as one of “the 20 most brilliant Christian professors.” Read More ›

On April 15, 2005 Dr. Dembski posted the first post to UD.  5,449 posts and five years later we are stronger than ever.  I am pleased to report that with over 10,000 daily readers we are serving tons of lurkers, the real audience of all of the posts and the debate back and forth.   Thank you to all who have made this site such a success (including those of our opponents who show up and engage with us respectfully).  Here’s to many more years of service! BTW, just in time for our birthday, we are moving up the server ladder in an effort to improve our download times, etc.  The upgrade should be complete in a couple of days.  Let us know how it’s Read More ›

Speaking as one who has worked in education curriculum, I would say that this news item, noted by Sal Cordova, is really a very significant change, so long as it lasts. The key point is the admission that “There are many biologists and philosophers of science who are highly scientifically literate who question certain aspects of the theory of evolution.” Um, yeah. How about the Altenberg 16? The key issue here is the “Darwinism only” approach to evolution. Few believe in it, and no one should. It is increasingly obvious that Darwinism is not the true origin of massive information inputs. But I would hardly be surprised if lobbyists and helpful ninnies are now running around shouting that the Board Read More ›

Sometimes the most ardent evolutionists are those who understand it the least. Many who are not life scientists take evolution to be the gospel truth—after all, evolutionists have told them it is a scientific fact. And unlike the life scientists who at least are familiar with the evidential quandaries, those more distant from the data are blissfully ignorant. For them evolution is all the more an unquestionable truth. Evolutionists have misrepresented science and now we are paying the price with increasing scientific illiteracy. Consider a recent peer-reviewed paper on how to succeed in convincing students that evolution is true. The authors consider the problem of consciousness:  Read more

The threats to the DNA in our cells are incredible. Radiation, carcinogens and even chemicals produced within the cell attack the DNA thousands of time every day. What is more incredible though is the cell’s DNA repair system, which you can read more about here and here. The worst kind of DNA damage is the so-called double-strand break where both strands of the double helix break. In response the cell mounts a swift and sophisticated response which new research is helping to elucidate.  Read more

Roy Varghese has just notified me of the death of Professor emeritus Antony Flew, the rationalist philosopher who died on April 8 aged 87, spent much of his life denying the existence of God, and then in 2004, dramatically changed his mind.

Here is Britain’s Telegraph’s obituary.

I feel lonely now. I remember sitting in the window seat at the U rez in about 1968, studying Flew. He really made people think.

Varghese is kind enough to thank me for contributions I have made to the discussion – essentially defending Flew.

For the record, here are some of those items: Read More ›

There has been a complexity explosion in biology – the fuse was lit in 1953 when the structure of DNA was discovered, but during the past two decades we have witnessed a dramatic expansion of data pointing to unanticipated levels of complexity. The hype surrounding the Human Genome Project suggested it would give us the blueprint of human biology and, as a consequence, would provide answers to our most probing questions. “Mina Bissell, a cancer researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, says that during the Human Genome Project, she was driven to despair by predictions that all the mysteries would be solved. “Famous people would get up and say, ‘We will understand everything after this’,” she says. Read More ›

One of the many fascinating designs in biology is the workings of our senses. Here, for example, is a description of recent findings on the actions of hair cells in the inner ear. It is yet another example of incredible biology at work:  Read more

There are many biologists and philosophers of science who are highly scientifically literate who question certain aspects of the theory of evolution

John Bruer
National Science Board, National Science Foundation
Lead Reviewer
What Happened to Evolution at NSB

Way to go National Science Foundation. Say it again!, “There are many biologists and philosophers of science who are highly scientifically literate who question certain aspects of the theory of evolution.”
Read More ›

A friend wrote recently to tell me that we learned recently from the BBC that toads can ‘predict earthquakes’ and seismic activity Common toads appear to be able to sense an impending earthquake and will flee their colony days before the seismic activity strikes. The evidence comes from a population of toads which left their breeding colony three days before an earthquake that struck L’Aquila in Italy in 2009. How toads sensed the quake is unclear, but most breeding pairs and males fled. They reacted despite the colony being 74km from the quake’s epicentre, say biologists in the Journal of Zoology. It is hard to objectively and quantifiably study how animals respond to seismic activity, in part because earthquakes are Read More ›