Category: Philosophy
Debating Darwin and Design: Science or Creationism? (1)
| September 11, 2012 | Posted by Joshua G under Creationism, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science |
A couple of days ago I posted my opening statement to a formal online debate I’m currently engaged in with Christian neo-Darwinist Francis Smallwood at Musings Of A Scientific Nature. My opening statement can be found here, and his here. What follows are my opening thoughts on the question whether ID is ‘creationism in a… more
Malicious Intelligent Design and Questions of the Old Testament God
| September 2, 2012 | Posted by scordova under Philosophy, Religion |
“The Lord God is subtle, but he is not malicious.” Einstein “I have second thoughts. Maybe God is malicious.” Einstein Can the Intelligent Designer of life create malicious designs? If the flagellum and other parts of bacteria are intelligently designed, it would raise the question whether microbially-based diseases and plagues are intelligently designed. It seems… more
The Shallowness of Bad Design Arguments
| August 26, 2012 | Posted by scordova under Comp. Sci. / Eng., ID Foundations, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality |
The existence of bad design, broken design, and cruelty in the world inspires some of the strongest arguments against the Intelligent Design of life and the universe. I consider the “bad design” argument the most formidable of the anti-ID arguments put forward, but in the end it is shallow and flawed. I will attempt to… more
Being a materialist atheist doesn’t help Jerry Fodor when he is up against Darwinism
| August 11, 2012 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Intelligent Design, News, Philosophy |
Well, there it is, folks. Cognitive neuroscience could not meet theoretical demands except by invoking Darwinism as a weapon to silence evidence-based dissent. more
ID as ‘Science of God’ (aka Theology)
| August 6, 2012 | Posted by Steve Fuller under Cosmology, Culture, Darwinism, Ethics, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science, Science, worldview issues and society |
A piece of mine has been just published in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC’s) excellent Religion and Ethics website. It provides a larger context for my own theologically positive approach to ID, which I realize is not everyone’s cup of tea. However, like Gregory Sandstrom, I welcome johnnyb’s intervention, which raises the issue of which… more
How to Bring Healing and How Not To
| July 28, 2012 | Posted by johnnyb under Engineering, Ethics, Philosophy, Society, Spirituality, Video |
In our final video for the Engineering and Metaphysics conference, we have Dr. Walter Bradley, famous in ID circles for his book, The Mystery of Life’s Origin. Here Dr. Bradley shares with us his work on helping relieve poverty in third-world countries through engineering. He also tells us about practices that people attempt to use… more
How do Models of Reality Relate to their Users?
| July 18, 2012 | Posted by johnnyb under Engineering, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Spirituality, Video |
Next up in our Engineering and Metaphysics conference lineup is Baylor’s William Jordan. Jordan compares the way that physics models relate to engineering with the way that theological models relate to religious practice. He looks at how innovation works in both theological and physical models, and how engineers and practitioners should treat them. He also… more
Asking Bill Dembski: Who are your favorite Christian or other theist authors?
| July 18, 2012 | Posted by News under News, Philosophy |
“I’ve read plenty by Christianity’s critics, but I can’t say I’ve ever had the reaction, “Gee, that really throws me for a loop. Now I’ve got to rethink that whole God business.” more
In an age when science-trained know-nothings sell books denouncing philosophy
| July 18, 2012 | Posted by News under News, Philosophy |
“Unlike in the natural sciences, the central questions in philosophy are pretty much the same as they ever were: What should I believe? How should I live?” more
Does the Constructal Law Give Evidence of Design?
| July 17, 2012 | Posted by johnnyb under Biophysics, Books of interest, Engineering, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Physics, Spirituality, Video |
In Bejan’s “Design in Nature”, Bejan promotes what he calls the “constructal law,” which states, “For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it.” Bejan has denied that this relates at all to any… more
The superiority of the designer compared to his design
| July 15, 2012 | Posted by niwrad under Intelligent Design, Philosophy |
According to Richard Dawkins, Intelligent Design does not explain complexity because the designer must be even more complex than the design. In my opinion, it is like to claim that the car industry doesn’t explain cars because the mechanical engineers are more complex than cars. Dawkins says that because has a priori commitment to reductionism/evolutionism,… more
Design Detection with Conditional Kolmogorov Complexity
| July 14, 2012 | Posted by johnnyb under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Complex Specified Information, Engineering, ID Foundations, Informatics, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Media, Philosophy, Video |
Next up in the Engineering and Metaphysics series is a presentation by Winston Ewert. This one is on a new informatics metric, called conditional Kolmogorov complexity. Check it out! more
Integrating Non-physical Causation Into Cognitive Models
| July 12, 2012 | Posted by johnnyb under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Engineering, ID Foundations, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Media, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Video |
For the next installment of the Engineering and Metaphysics Conference Videos, we have a talk on setting up a testable line between physical and non-physical causation, as well as how one can integrate non-physical causation into models of cognitive processes. more
From the Why does anything exist? files …
| July 9, 2012 | Posted by News under News, Philosophy, Physics |
“‘If, as Aristotle remarked, philosophy begins with wonder, then it ends with Grünbaum,’ Holt writes.” more
Richard Dawkins, who should stick to pop atheism, tries dealing with pro philosophers
| June 20, 2012 | Posted by News under News, Philosophy |
We didn’t have time to sweep up all the pieces, sorry. more
Physicists attack philosophy when they are no longer doing good physics
| June 9, 2012 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, News, Philosophy, Physics |
Multiverse, etc., proponents rattle on against philosophy – principally because philosophers can easily see through their pretenses by simple acts of logic. more
He said it: John Lennox on why Darwinism doesn’t require evidence
| June 7, 2012 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism, Intelligent Design, News, Philosophy |
In the contemporary scientific world we thus have the very unusual situation that one of science’s most influential theories, biological macroevolution, stands in such a close relationship to naturalistic philosophy that it can be deduced from it directly – that is, without even needing to consider any evidence, as the ancient arguments of Lucretius plainly… more
Philosopher: Ad hominem arguments okay – if against ID theorists
| June 5, 2012 | Posted by News under News, Philosophy |
” … it is permissible to engage in ad hominem attacks — provided that you are attacking proponents of intelligent design.” more
What’s wrong with higher ed?: “Science has precisely nothing to tell us about values”
| May 30, 2012 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, News, Philosophy, Science |
“It has nothing to do with meaning at all in fact.” more
From The Best Schools: Seeing Past Darwin III: Mary Jane West-Eberhard
| May 28, 2012 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Philosophy |
“Thus, the evolutionary process has depended upon the inherent, teleological capability of all living things to adapt themselves to circumstances, … ” more
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