Monthly Archives: July 2010
Dawkins’ Philosophical Incoherence
| July 31, 2010 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
In River out of Eden : A Darwinian View of Life Richard Dawkins wrote: The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: ‘For Nature, heartless,… more
NY Times slaps ID foes PZ Myers and other ScienceBlog authors
| July 31, 2010 | Posted by scordova under Culture, Humor, Intellectual freedom |
The stench of non-science coming out of ScienceBlogs.com has gotten so bad that it has drawn the attention of the New York Times! See: Unnatural Science. It would appear that the opponents of ID must resort to means other than science to challenge the hypothesis of Intelligent Design. Rather than appeals to evidence, the foes… more
Tadpole shrimp – unchanged since the Triassic?
| July 30, 2010 | Posted by Steno under Intelligent Design |
There is an interesting news story in the Guardian about the tadpole shrimp Triops cancriformis that has managed to exist unchanged since the Triassic. Its life cycle involves a short breeding season with eggs laid in the mud. These eggs can survive for long periods as the mud dries out periodically. Guardian – World’s most ancient… more
Preserved mammalian hair from the Early Cretaceous
| July 30, 2010 | Posted by David Tyler under Intelligent Design |
Over the years, samples of amber recovered from numerous sites around the world have been found to contain petrified insects, plants and a variety of other exotic inclusions. Invariably, we get an insight into a past world where the flora and fauna look very modern. A recent discovery has identified mammalian hair in amber, whose… more
The common sense law of physics
| July 29, 2010 | Posted by Granville Sewell under Intelligent Design |
I was discussing the second law argument with a scientist friend the other day, and mentioned that the second law is sometimes called the “common sense law of physics”. This morning he wrote: Yesterday I spoke with my wife about these questions. She immediately grasped that chaos results on the long term when she would… more
Traipsing into Theology
| July 29, 2010 | Posted by idnet.com.au under Intelligent Design |
In a recent PNAS paper John Avise argued that evolution emancipates “religion from the shackles of theodicy” by getting any god off the hook as the source of seemingly cruel design defects in the human genome. Giving a god credit for the good designs, so the story goes, makes that god responsible for the bad… more
William Dembski’s Advice for Young Intelligent Design Scientists
| July 28, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
Click here to listen. On this episode of ID the Future, Anika Smith interviews mathematician and philosopher William Dembski on a break from teaching at Discovery Institute’s Summer Seminars on Intelligent Design. Listen in as Dr. Dembski shares his advice for young scientists interested in ID and the hope he has for the future of… more
Why Kissing the Wall is the Worst Possible Heuristic for Biological Discovery
| July 28, 2010 | Posted by Paul Nelson under Intelligent Design |
And would be the worst, whether one is an ID proponent or not. Many UD readers know the Australian molecular biologist John Mattick as a leader in thinking about functional roles for so-called ‘junk DNA.’ Mattick has earned the implacable ire of ID critics such as Larry Moran and T. Ryan Gregory, although not because… more
The Web Weavers
| July 28, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Imagine if you called a car salesman, explained the type of car you wanted to buy, and he exclaimed he has exactly what you are looking for. Furthermore, the car is almost new, has only a few miles, and yet is priced at a mere ten thousand dollars! You and a friend hurry over to… more
Blind Guides
| July 27, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Biology textbook authors George Johnson and Jonathan Losos are leaders in the life sciences. They are accomplished researchers and professors from leading universities—they are also blind guides. In their otherwise well written and highly produced textbook The Living World ((Fifth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2008), Johnson and Losos badly misrepresent science and make fallacious arguments when… more
Back to School: Do You Know What Your Child is Learning?
| July 26, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Another school year is set to begin at high schools and colleges where the next round of biology students will be filled with evolutionary misinformation. At the center of this propaganda campaign are the many biology textbooks used to indoctrinate young minds with old dogma. These textbooks contain the latest evolutionary newspeak, but the underlying… more
Evolutionary Thought in Action: The Subtlety of Metaphysics
| July 25, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
In my previous post I gave a typical example of evolutionary thinking and asked readers to identify the usual metaphysics that is interwoven. Here is the example: Read more more
Marilynne Robinson Takes on Darwinism
| July 25, 2010 | Posted by William Dembski under Culture, Darwinism |
Marilynne Robinson, one of College Crunch’s 20 most brilliant Christian professors, has a new book in which she takes on Darwinism: Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self. This book is based on Robinson’s Terry Lectures at Yale (see here). David Bentley Hart’ review of her book (see… more
Evolutionary Thought in Action
| July 25, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Evolutionists claim evolution is a fact as much as gravity is a fact. As with gravity, we may not yet understand the details of evolution, but evolution in one way or another is an undeniable fact. Well is it? One evolutionist is certain and wrote this to me: Read more more
Is Craig Venter’s Synthetic Cell Really Life?
| July 23, 2010 | Posted by DonaldM under Biology, Chemistry, Darwinism, Design inference, Evolution, Evolutionary biology, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life, Religion, Science, The Design of Life |
Bioethicist Gregory Kaebnick, Ph.D., has an interesting take on the recently announced synthetic cell created by a team of researchers led by J. Craig Venter at the J. Craig Venter Instititute (JVCI). In a recent article in The Scientist entitled Is the “Synthetic Cell” about Life?, Kaebnick writes: …the technical accomplishment is not quite what… more
Nature Editorial Attacks Christianity of Francis Collins
| July 22, 2010 | Posted by scordova under Culture, Darwinism, Intellectual freedom |
Casey Luskin reports : Nature Immunology Editorial Botches American Law and Science Education May, 2010 editorial in Nature Immunology makes it clear that they don’t trust religious persons–even those who are neo-Darwinian evolutionists like Francis Collins–in positions of scientific authority. The editorial (written by the journal’s editors) states: The openly religious stance of the NIH… more
PZ Myers Goes On Strike
| July 21, 2010 | Posted by DonaldM under Humor |
The major headlines from today’s news at Foxnews.com: Bailout Watchdog Calls Mortgage Programs a Bust, Obama Signs Wall Street Overhaul, Senate Poised to OK Jobless Benefits Bill, and Professor P.Z. Myers Goes On Strike With His Blog. Okay, that last one wasn’t one of the major, or even minor news stories at the Foxnews website… more
Johnny Cash on Irreducible Complexity and Evolution
| July 19, 2010 | Posted by William Dembski under Evolution, Humor, Irreducible Complexity |
I posted this over a year ago. For those who missed it, enjoy. ================= Yes, Johnny cash has written a song on evolution and irreducible complexity. It’s called “One Piece at a Time”: Question: Is Darwinian evolution more or less effective than Cash’s mode of evolution? YouTube Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1-zzJnKtDg Here are the lyrics (thanks to… more
Dominant paradigms in science and their attendant anomalies
| July 19, 2010 | Posted by David Tyler under Intelligent Design |
Most of the time, scientific research seeks to build on theoretical foundations that have been carefully constructed by the wider research community, often over many years. If a theoretical framework is found to be robust, it gains widespread assent, with few interested in challenging it. Those who are attracted to the idea that science develops… more
Evolution is a Scientific Fact: Day 74
| July 18, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Evolutionists have little doubt about their idea. Indeed they consistently claim it to be an undeniable scientific fact. As one textbook explained, “The term theory is no longer appropriate except when referring to the various models that attempt to explain how life evolves … it is important to understand that the current questions about how… more