Category: Society

Video: Dr George Yancey documents progressivist anti-Christian and partisan biases in the university and even in IQ tests . . . with implications for addressing the commonly encountered “ID is Creationism in a cheap tuxedo” smear

Yesterday, I ran across the video to be shown below and posted a comment that I think needs to be headlined and seriously pondered if we are concerned that the university functions in an objective, fair-minded, truth-seeking way: This study (HT: WK) as presented in a short lecture by Dr George Yancey — a sociologist… more

On a case study of the willful closed-mindedness produced by the selective hyperskepticism of the New Atheist mindset

A couple of days back, we saw where Cornelius Hunter put up one of his dual post comments here at UD; on the recent proposal to set up a Darwin Day celebration. In glancing at the commentary at his personal blog, I came across the following highly revealing exchange involving one of the most virulent… more

ALERT: A caution on the ongoing hacker attack on the Java programming language

Off topic, but important as a service to UD’s readers. HERE. Pardon, I took some days before commenting, until I found some useful info beyond the media panic headlines. Notice the clip from Oracle’s advisory, the link to the FAQ and the further link on gory technical details. The bottomline is that over the past… more

Wiki’s F – - on ID, 6: Is all of this focus on the Wiki ID article mere tilting at a windmill that is pointless and so should be ignored?

( To comment, kindly go here) One of the objections to the markup of the Wiki ID article is that this is tilting at a windmill. I disagree. It should already be plain that the Wiki article is representative of a standard set of talking points used to polarise the unwary against design theory, and… more

Another F double minus: Continuing to correct Wikipedia’s article on ID

Yesterday, we saw how Wikipedia is one of the most influential sites on the Internet, how it vaunts itself on its commitment to NPOV, a neutral point of view: Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published… more

A tale of two tragedies, in China and the US — reflections and suggestions

Yesterday was a hard day, even for those like me who were quite late to the news. We woke up here to the news on BBC — a Caribbean tradition — that someone in China had attacked a classroom with a knife of some kind and had slashed twenty-two children. This, in a country where… 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

NOTICE: A few corrective remarks for some hostile scrutinisers from Anti Evo etc.

I have noticed that the usual hostile scrutinisers at some objector sites are back on their Saul Alinsky, dismissive mockery and well-poisoning tactics. (I suppose they have not liked the situation where in recent weeks we have had some useful and reasonably civil exchanges here at UD under living room rules, giving the lie to… 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

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

How to Bring Healing and How Not To

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

Gregory and the Subject of Human Extension

The following is a one-shot guest post by regular UD commenter, Gregory. I offer this because I know that Gregory’s been talking about Intelligent Design for years, and because it was my intention to give him the chance to make his case for the social sciences’ relevance to the ID discussion. As before, my posting… more

Beyond Functionalism in Architecture

The next video from the Engineering and Metaphysics conference is with Dr. Mark Hall. Hall attempts to reconnect with historic architectural principles through architecture critic John Ruskin, and show what, besides just functionalism and good looks, are needed for lasting architectural impact. We don’t often think of truth as an architectural value, or even see… more

Quantifying happiness: The ultimate scientistic (not scientific) pursuit

“No science can be about the purely objective or the purely subjective, which are both unattainable.” more

How to Talk to Your Professors About Your Darwin Doubts

There are two regular tragedies in the Intelligent Design movement. The first tragedy is the student who airs his or her doubts about Darwin, and a faculty member then makes it their life mission to block that student from a degree, or, if they get a degree, prevent them from getting any further. This sometimes… more

For record — Paul, Philemon, Onesimus, slavery etc. and the Christian ethics of the softened heart; a response to Dan Savage, Nick Matzke and others of like ilk

As Dr Torley recently highlighted here at UD, Mr Dan Savage, an activist for homosexuality, recently tried to trash Bible-based Christian ethics (at a conference on bullying) by accusing the Bible of advocating slavery. (We need not elaborate on his publicly displayed ignorance on issues linked to the general, historic, NT-based Christian view on the… more

Was Anders Breivik “not-insane”?

Other psychiatrists now find Norway massacre gunman Anders Behring Breivik ‘not insane’ – prison now possible “The experts’ main conclusion is that the accused, Anders Behring Breivik, is not considered to have been psychotic at the time of the actions on July 22, 2011,” the Oslo district court said in a statement which reopens the… more

“Rock Beyond Belief” (March 31, Ft Bragg, NC) flops, leaves questions as to why Prof Dawkins shared a stage with Aiden

While promoters of the US Army-hosted “Rock Beyond Belief” concert that featured prof Dawkins (of The God Delusion notoriety) and Aiden (the band behind the “Atheist’s anthem” vid that features a vampire clergy image and worse lyrics) projected 5,000 attendees, reports suggest a turnout of about 200 , mostly “civilian[s].” (One guesses, many would be… more

Q: “What does the design theory debate have to do with the law of non-contradiction (LNC)?” A: “A lot!”

The latest flare-ups in the debates over design theory in and around UD have pivoted on the Law of non-contradiction; one of the most debated classical principles of logic. Why on earth is that so? The simple short answer is: if we are to make progress in debates and discussions, we must be at minimum… more

FOR RECORD: CSU Professor Richard Weikart’s Lecture: From Darwin to Hitler

Since the question of the history of ideas roots of a certain Herr Schicklegruber’s thoughts seems to repeatedly come up, it is worth the while to here post the Lecture “From Darwin to Hitler,” by Prof Richard Weikart so that we all may see what he has to say: embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt For… more

For record, so no comments.

Comments may continue in the current “Who said this?” thread, here.

My own view is simple: no responsible discussion of this topic or related concerns can ignore the evidence brought forward by prof Weikart here. END

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U/D Jan 5: CSU not UC, Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader.