Monthly Archives: June 2011
Cosmology: String theory – a first step to understanding it …
| June 26, 2011 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design |
Douglas and Dine and their co-workers have taken the first steps in finding the statistical rules governing different string vacua. I can’t comment usefully on this, except to say that it wouldn’t hurt in this work if we knew what string theory is. – Nobelist Steven Weinberg, The Nature of Nature , p. 550 A… more
Sociologist: Darwinism is the astrology of science
| June 26, 2011 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism |
And its biggest asset right now is public funding and court judgments. Steve Fuller, agnostic sociologist at Warwick University (Britain) and author of Dissent over Descent, gives us an entertaining picture of astrology in the decades before its collapse that unmistakably echoes Darwinism today: … in the four centuries that separated the early Oxford scholastics… more
New atheist Sam Harris explains why he thinks but little of old-fashioned theistic evolutionist John Polkinghorne
| June 26, 2011 | Posted by News under Christian Darwinism |
New atheist and PhD neuroscientist Sam Harris on theistic evolutionist John Polkinghorne: … here is Polkinghorne describing the physics of the coming resurrection of the dead: If we regard human beings as psychosomatic unities, as I believe both the Bible and contemporary experience of the intimate connection between mind and brain encourage us to do,… more
Uncommon Descent contest: List the ten most significant ID books of the last 25 years
| June 26, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
[Contest closed for judging.] Contest judged here. Recently, a list was posted to Listverse identifying Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box as “#1 in a list of 10 books that screwed up the world” because “Despite much refutation from the Scientific community, many fundamentalists still use this as a “source” for proof that evolution is not… more
This just in: Most Americans believe in God
| June 26, 2011 | Posted by News under Atheism, Culture, Religion |
… as usual: Despite the many changes that have rippled through American society over the last 6 ½ decades, belief in God as measured in this direct way has remained high and relatively stable. – Frank Newport, “More Than 9 in 10 Americans Continue to Believe in God: Professed belief is lower among younger Americans,… more
Speaking of fake environment issues, …
| June 26, 2011 | Posted by News under Culture |
… like this one, here’s a doozy from the archives: On the first Earth Day, in 1970, some scientists predicted that pollution would make “breathing helmets” necessary in ten years’ time. Prophecy above may be used as a substitute for the usual Sunday apocalypse. Of course the prediction was fulfilled. It “shows environmental concern.” Such… more
Darwin’s Sunday School papers?
| June 26, 2011 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism |
In an act of touching faith, Darryl Cunningham tries his hand at cartooning Darwin’s pious legends here. No really, he believes every one of them. Hat tip: Pos-Darwinista more
But can politicians really afford to discuss the “evolution question” honestly?
| June 26, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design, science education |
In “Answering the Dreaded ‘Evolution’ Question” (The American Spectator 6.24.11), Jay Richards and David Klinghoffer explain how politicians can avoid the “speed trap” of the “evolution” question: Though a president doesn’t have much influence over state and local science education policy, reporters lie in wait for the unwary candidate, ready to pounce with a question… more
Environment follies: Suppose an asteroid had extinguished the trilobite instead of the dinosaur?
| June 26, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Culture, Media |
Few or no documentaries. Okay, that doesn’t matter. But this does: In unbylined “An Environmentalist’s Lament” (Breakthrough Journal, June 2011), we learn, once again, about the high costs of hype when it does matter: Take last summer’s BP oil spill in Louisiana. Covering the spill was the Super Bowl of environmental journalism. You couldn’t have… more
Why Darwinian medicine is a dead loss
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by News under Medicine |
In “Darwinian Medicine and Proximate and Evolutionary Explanations,” at Evolution News & Views (June 25, 2011), neurosurgeon Mike Egnor makes a critical distinction between proximate explanations and evolutionary explanations,s they apply to medicine: more
In science, you can consistently get it wrong and still keep your job?
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Science |
How’d that work out at a used car lot? In “Wrong Again: Planetologists Embarrassed” (Creation-Evolution Headlines, June 23, 2011), Dave Coppedge comments on getting it wrong about planets: In most careers, being wrong too often is grounds for dismissal. False prophets in ancient kingdoms were stoned or shamed out of town. Only in science, it… more
Selling Stupid
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by GilDodgen under Intelligent Design |
Granville Sewell’s sin is pointing out the obvious that anyone can understand. This represents a tremendous threat. As David Berlinski has observed, Darwinists — who have invested their worldview and even their careers in Darwinian storytelling — react with understandable hostility when told that their “theory” is simply not credible. It’s really easy to figure… more
Big Euro research fraud: More and more science today resembles the medieval trade in fake relics.
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by News under Science |
In Nature News, we learn: “Europe tackles huge fraud: Regulators scramble to recover millions of euros awarded to fake research projects.” (Quririn Shiermeier, 14 June 2011): talian authorities and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in Brussels, Belgium, have confirmed that they are prosecuting members of a large network accused of pocketing more than €50 million… more
Why the second law of thermodynamics really is a threat to Darwinist tenure
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by News under Intellectual freedom, Mathematics |
Granville Sewell, math prof, satirist of silly ideas, and apology recipient (from math journal), has this to say about Darwinists’ attempt to rescue their theory from the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Organization always decrees, left to itself. Anyone who has made such an argument is familiar with the standard reply: the Earth is an open… more
Intellectual freedom: Him now, you next
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by News under Intellectual freedom |
Unless, of course, it’s okay that bureaucrats and social engineers do your thinking for you … in which case, you won’t be next, you’ll just be toothpaste. “In Defense of ‘Hurtful’ Speech” (The Wall Street Journal June 24, 2011) Geert Wilders speaks out on an issue of critical importance to the intelligent designcommunity: free thought:… more
Who believed in the myth of junk DNA? – Michael Shermer, for one
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design |
In 2006, Skeptic Magazine publisher Michael Shermer wrote: “We have to wonder why the Intelligent Designer added to our genome junk DNA, repeated copies of useless DNA, orphan genes, tandem repeats, and pseudogenes, none of which are involved directly in the making of a human being. In fact, of the entire human genome, it appears… more
Evolution of human reason: Could we try getting the horse to pull the cart instead?
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by News under Human evolution |
In “Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory,” Hugo Merciera and Dan Sperbera argue (loaded word, that!) for a theory about how argument evolved: Reasoning is generally seen as a means to improve knowledge and make better decisions. However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This… more
It doesn’t matter whether you like David Brooks’ “Social Animal”; your moral and intellectual superiors do
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design |
And that’s what matters. Every Darwin myth you’ve ever heard is crammed into David Brooks’ recent happy face novel., The Social Animal (Even so, P.Z. Myers didn’t like it.) But, the curious thing is, notes John Gray in “Mr. Brooks’s Miracle Elixir”, is who did like it: DAVID BROOKS is not the first contributor to… more
Video: People always said you were “unexplainable,” now you can be proud of it
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by News under Origin Of Life, Video |
“The Unexplainable Interactive Computer Systems in Life” from Don Johnson on Vimeo: Johnson is the author of Probability’s Nature and the Nature of Probability. more
Extraterrestrials could have started life on Earth …
| June 25, 2011 | Posted by News under Extraterrestrial life, Origin Of Life |
Donald E. Johnson compiled a handy list of people who, beginning over a century ago, have suggested that extraterrestrials could have started life on Earth: S. Arrhenius., Worlds in the Making, 1908. Francis Crick, “The Origin of the Genetic Code” J. Mol Biol: 38, 1968, p. 367-379. Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, 1983, pp. 16-17.… more