The beautiful little film about why the Cambrian explosion is a problem for Darwinism, here. Also view The Privileged Planet free – another beautiful, controversial little pic, about why the late, revered Carl Sagan should have known he was “not being truthful” about Earth being just yer average planet.

Here:

In his 1518-page “European Declaration of Independence,” Breivik reveals himself as an unapologetic champion of modern biology and the scientific worldview. Indeed, despite his right-wing views in some areas, he does not believe that the progress of science can be left to private enterprise. Instead, it requires lavish and permanent support by the state. He argues that 20% of government spending must be devoted to scientific research (pp. 1188, 1386), and he insists that funding science is more important than government help for the poor. “Welfare expenditure should not take precedent over the 20% fixed sum dedicated to science/technology, research and development.” (p. 1195)

– John G. West, The Professor and the Madman (Evolution News & Views, July 27, 2011)

Sounds just like yer everyday “science blogger.” He probably supported compulsory, tax-funded education in Darwinism. Read More ›

I’m not quite sure who Michael Denton is. I’ve read his two books, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis and Nature’s Destiny. It was Crisis that first inspired me to exclaim to myself, How could you have been so stupid as to have been duped into believing this transparent Darwinian-gradualism-and-random-mutation-natural-selection nonsense? In Destiny he presents some remarkable insights, not just about the fine tuning of the laws of physics, but about the remarkably fine-tuned properties of water, the carbon atom, light, and much more, for the eventual appearance of living systems. For Denton’s comments about stardust see here. For his comments on mathematics see here. So far, ID theory has addressed two primary domains: cosmology and biology. However, I believe that Read More ›

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution states that the species arose from earlier species. Slight changes accumulating over long time periods resulted in one species giving rise to a new species, over and over.  Read more

In “Fundamentalist Christian or Deranged Social Darwinist?” (Evolution News & Views, July 27, 2011), political scientist John G. West tells us that the guy didn’t want Christians (for example) involved in public policy:

Breivik harbors a special concern that Christians not be able to influence issues related to science and public policy “in any way.”

Why? Read More ›

Here: Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion. The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals. “Minority Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas” July 25, 2011 Skepticism is warranted. Thoughts?

You’ve seen the scrub-yer-rep ads here. One enynterprising group decided to test it. Follow UD News at Twitter! PS: People have written to UD News, asking to have poorly thought-out posts removed. We do it, in principle, but we don’t have a really big admin staff. We spent the resources on a troll monitor instead, for the protection of immature young persons who may happen to do that.

Multiverses come in many varieties. In this post, I won’t be talking about unrestricted multiverses, in which anything that can possibly happen, actually happens in some universe. Instead, I’ll be talking about the more modest claim that our universe is just one of a vast number of universes with varying physical constants and different laws of nature, and that there is something called a “multiverse-generator” which churns out baby universes. In an influential essay entitled, The Teleological Argument: An Exploration of the Fine-Tuning of the Universe (in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, 2009, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.), Dr. Robin Collins argues that a “multiverse-generator” doesn’t eliminate the need for fine-tuning. The analogy he uses is that of a bread machine, which must have the right structure, programs, and ingredients (flour, water, yeast, and gluten) in order to produce decent loaves of bread. Similarly, the problem with a “multiverse-generator”, whether of the inflationary variety or some other type, is that the laws of the multiverse generator must be just right – i.e. fine-tuned – in order for it to (occasionally) produce universes whose constants and initial conditions permit the subsequent emergence of life. Thus invoking some sort of multiverse generator to explain the fine-tuning of our universe merely pushes the fine-tuning up one level: it doesn’t make it go away.

As Dr. Collins puts it (emphases below are mine):
Read More ›

Stephen B writes that ‘Creationism is faith-based; Intelligent Design is empirically-based.’ Revealed Theology, Natural Theology, and the Darwinist Concoction of “ID/Creationism.” However, comments are closed [N.B. it is now working and open so you can post your comments at the above link if you wish] so I wanted to respond by posting a new thread if that is OK. There is a difference between creationism and ID, I agree, but I don’t think it is along the lines of evidence vs presuppositions a priori vs a posteriori. Both must start with presuppositions; creationism starts from Scripture and natural evidence and is closer to the two book approach of Francis Bacon, ID tends to be a one book approach, but I would argue Read More ›

At New Scientist (25 July 2011), Richard Webb asks, “Should we worry about what the LHC is not finding?” Skeptical math guy Peter Woit certainly thinks so (here). Webb reports,

Supersymmetry proposes that every particle predicted by the standard model has a meatier cousin that turns up only at extremely high energies. But the LHC has not found any such super-particles. “Squarks” and “gluinos”, partners of the standard-model quarks and gluons, have been ruled out at energies up to 1 teraelectronvolts (TeV), according to an analysis of the LHC’s first year of collisions.

Besides, Read More ›

In “Why Do Parrots Talk? Venezuelan Site Offers Clues” (Science, 22 July 2011) Virginia Morell explains

Researchers have discovered details of the parrotlets’ ecology and life histories, and the project has now entered a new phase focusing on their communicative skills. Last week, researchers reported that the contact calls of wild parrotlet nestlings—vocalizations that function much like a name—are not genetically programmed. Instead, they learn these calls from their parents, almost like human children learning their names. It is the first study to provide experimental evidence for learned vocalizations in wild parrots.

Not sure about the “names” claim. Do the parrotlets associate these calls with themselves? Attach significance to them? Keep them through life?

That the calls wouldn’t be genetically programmed is no surprising find. Consider this starling: Read More ›