Category: Science

What qualifies as science in the wonderful world of Disney

The scientific enterprise entails: 1. observation 2. hypothesis 3. testing Consider this passage from the class text of an introductory cosmology class I took once upon a time: galaxies farther than 4300 megaparsecs from us are currently moving away from us at speeds greater than that of light. Cosmological innocents sometimes exclaim, “Gosh! Doesn’t this… more

Theology According to P.Z. Myers

Over on The Panda’s Thumb blog, Darwinian apologist P.Z. Myers recently posted a pejorative laden critique of a review article by Casey Luskin. Luskin was responding to a recent New York Times article on a study purporting to show how certain genes in fish might hold an important clue on how fins turned to feet.… more

Rosenhouse Concedes Without Realizing It

There is currently a discussion going on about Nagel’s new book, Mind and Cosmos between Ed Feser and Jason Rosenhouse. Feser takes Rosenhouse to task pretty well but there’s one thing that I think he overlooks – Rosenhouse actually winds up conceding the entire argument at the end. more

A video challenge to the evolutionary materialist world-picture that is often presented in the name of big-S Science

Our indefatigable Bornagain 77 has provided a link to a video documentary, The Signs: embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt (NB: Cf. notices at the linked. Of course, this is a challenge, showing it is not tantamount to endorsing everything claimed therein — such as, some claims on the Golden Ratio. {Added, 01:16: At the 1 hr… more

Wiki’s F – - on ID, 7: The polarising false narrative about “Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design”

(To comment, kindly go here) The title of this post is taken from a 2004 book by Forrest and Gross, which further intensifies the earlier accusation that Intelligent Design is “Creationism in a cheap tuxedo.” Given the agenda-driven hatchet job on Intelligent Design presented as a neutral point of view objective survey of Intelligent Design… more

Wiki’s F – - on ID, 5: Subtly distorting the truth on Discovery Institute’s policy on Education in public schools, multiplied by a failure of due disclosure on judge Jones’ Kitzmiller/ Dover ruling

( To comment, kindly go here) Last time, we showed how Wikipedia’s article on Intelligent Design flagrantly distorts the history of the origins of ID as a modern movement. Today, our focus is on a subtler distortion: From the mid-1990s, intelligent design proponents were supported by the Discovery Institute, which, together with its Center for… more

The Magician’s Twin — C[live] S[taples] Lewis and the case against Scientism

First, let’s watch: embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt Then, having watched, let us now discuss, in light of the ongoing debate on the rationality of scientism-rooted a priori evolutionary materialist atheism, here.  Also, the issues that come up as our civilisation metaphorically stands on the deck of a ship in Fair Havens and contemplates what… more

Movie night: Jay Richards on Signs of Design from Physics and Astronomy

Here: embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt while there is a rather long run-up that includes defining sci and ID, note especially 32:20 on. What do you think? END more

Wiki’s F – - on ID, 4: Correcting a widely circulated propagandistic false history of the origins of intelligent design as a scientific school of thought

(To comment cf. here) Just now, I see where an objector to ID was saying that I a am tilting at windmills to take time to take apart the introduction to Wikipedia’s anti-ID hit piece presented as a NPOV review of ID from significant and credible sources. It bears remembering, then, that by Wiki’s admission… more

Noted philosopher William Lane Craig responds to the American Humanist Association “Kids without God” web site

As I have just noted, the AHA has put up a blog promoting its brand of evolutionary materialist naturalism to children: . . . the AHA has a web site that promotes its brand of naturalism — in effect, atheism rooted in evolutionary materialism, but with the attempt to promote human values and being “good… more

The island that (maps notwithstanding) simply wasn’t there . . .

This morning, I ran across a news item on the “undiscovery” of Sandy Island off Australia: Most explorers dream of discovering uncharted territory, but a team of Australian scientists have done the exact opposite. They have found an island that doesn’t exist. (vid at the linked) This led me to think about the institution of… more

The Unreasonableness of Naturalism

Some of you may have already seen that Thomas Nagel’s new book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, has been subject to a blistering review in the liberal US weekly, The Nation. On the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s excellent Religion & Ethics website, I have commented on this… more

Debating Darwin and Design: Science or Creationism? (2)

Some readers here may be aware of an online debate I’m taking part in with a neo-Darwinist (and friend), Francis Smallwood. Francis blogs at Musings of a Scientific Nature. We are currently discussing the issue of whether intelligent design is just a recent strain of creationism, and whether it is a legitimate scientific theory. What… more

A reply to Dr Dawkins’ September Playboy interview

  In an interview with Playboy, September just past, Dr Dawkins made some dismissive remarks  on the historicity of Jesus, in the context of having made similarly dismissive talking points about Intelligent Design.  As UD News noted: PLAYBOY: What is your view of Jesus? DAWKINS: The evidence he existed is surprisingly shaky. The earliest books… more

Opposition to Fetal Stem Cell Experimentation Encouraged Nobel-quality Science

One of the common complaints about Intelligent Design is that it’s a science stopper. Something about how the idea that the conviction that intelligent agents are have produced extraordinarily advanced technology will discourage intelligent agents from producing extraordinarily advanced technology. With that in mind, I thought it’d be worth focusing on a recent, if not… more

UD PRO-DARWINISM ESSAY CHALLENGE

On Sept 23rd, I put up an essay challenge as captioned, primarily to objecting commenter Jerad. As at October 2nd, he has definitively said: no. Joe informs us that Zachriel has tried to brush it aside: Try Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). It’s a bit dated and longer than 6,000 words, (the 6th edition is… more

New book: The left’s stealth war to redefine science

“That partisanship has brought with it a willingness to discard science that refutes pet ideological causes appealing to the left. ” more

Nobel Prizes that will probably never get awarded

Shapiro won’t get the prize because, as the BioLogos people say, all truth is Darwin’s truth. Or something like that. more

Mathematics and Theology

I thought you all might be interested in an article I wrote titled Mathematics and Theology: Seeing to Infinity. The basic purpose of the article is to show how the “limit” concept from mathematics can be incorporated into theological reasoning. The larger purpose is to get theologians thinking more deeply about mathematics as a tool… more

On “seeing” — credibly knowing about — the invisible in science

Yesterday, following up from recent comment exchanges, I posted about the electron as an example of how we routinely deal with the invisible in science, and on how inductive — believe it or not that is now a fighting word — inference on sign is vital to science. This morning, I followed up on a… more

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