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January 2014: Events that made a difference to ID

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Further to Barry’s suggestion that readers kindly remember Uncommon Descent in their year end giving (Donate button is on the main page):

My sense is that we are making some headway against what Leon Wieseltier has referred to as Darwinist dittoheads.

The main thing is to keep it up Here are five stories from January 2014 that illustrate what I mean. (I’ll follow them up with five stories from each of the subsequent months of course.) – O’Leary for News

 

1. Why I’m calling Darwin’s Doubt the news event of 2013

It stays near the top in paleontology because the questions cannot be suppressed any more by mere Darwinbabble. As of December 19, 2014 EST 3:00 am:

Incidentally, Christian Darwinist Karl Giberson allows us to know that the book’s publication was part of a “terrible year for evolution.” Presumably, that means a year in which facts matter.

2. Philosopher Thomas Nagel’s signal got picked up: “The intelligentsia was so furious [at him] that it formed a lynch mob” “Him” being philosopher Thomas Nagel, who has begun, in Mind & Cosmos Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False to question the unquestionable truths of naturalism, materialism, and Darwinism as if he had any right to do so. Computer science prof David Gelernter aptly titles the mob dogging him as “punks, bullies, and hangers-on.” Now, those people can indeed be very serious opposition, but not of the intellectual kind. His challenge remains on the table, of course unmet.

3. Meanwhile, back at the corpse candle farm, who would have expected Darwinian evolution to come up in The Edge’s list of science ideas ready to be retired? Courtesy science museum curator and sometime journalist Roger Highfield: “the dogmatic declaration of its ‘truth’ lures a thinker into a close-minded confidence, unjustified by even the best current science of evolution.” (Um, yes, if not worse, like, “punks, bullies, and hangers-on.”) Some, of course, blame “creationists” for the failure:

There are several related reasons why this unsubstantiated idea continues to be repeated without evidence. The first is fear that non-random mutations would be misunderstood and twisted by creationists to wrongly deny the reality and importance of evolution by natural selection.

Which, as a commenter helpfully translates: “We are intentionally obscuring and misrepresenting scientific data in order to deny any comfort to our political enemies.” But Darwin can be comforted in his grave: Jerry “Why Evolution Is True” Coyne remains faithful, and who could ask for more? Especially when “DNA studies shake the Tree of Life.”

4. A life form turned up that has gears, which everyone predicted could just randomly evolve. No, wait, … if life is full of machinery, machinery must “just happen,” right, or maybe … maybe … ?

5. We started to talk about William Dembski’s Being as Communion in a brief excerpt here:

Intelligent design is the study of patterns (hence “design”) in nature that give empirical evidence of resulting from real teleology (hence “intelligent”). In this definition, real 37 teleology is not reducible to purely material processes. At the same time, in this definition, real teleology is not simply presupposed as a consequence of prior metaphysical commitments. Intelligent design asks teleology to prove itself scientifically.

Also here:

In his book Mind & Cosmos, Nagel recognizes the bankruptcy of materialism in its mechanistic understanding of nature, but at the same time he wants to find a naturalistic basis for the teleology that animates nature. I desire to make common cause with such naturalistic nonmaterialists not because it is politically expedient in the controversy with Darwinian materialism but because theistic and naturalistic nonmaterialists are both attempting, without the blinders of materialism, to understand how teleology operates in nature. Thus, it seems to me, both sides should be able to come to some basic, even if limited, agreement on how teleology operates in nature and, at those points of agreement, advance a common teleological understanding of nature.

The book came out this year; we will see where it goes in 2015.

And that was just January 2014. On to February shortly.

See also:

February 2014: Events that made a difference to ID  We are definitely past having to care what Christians for Darwin think.

March 2014: Events that made a difference to ID  Old, taken-for-granted “truths” are collapsing; an information theory approach may help us forward.

April 2014: Events that made a difference to ID Despite these developments, naturalists would prefer chaos and nonsense to signals that point away from naturalism.

May 2014: Events that made a difference to ID  BUT then things took a really odd turn: It turned out that everyone who doubts Wade’s race theories is a creationist. Hey, is “creationist” the new “think for yourself”?

June 2014: Events that made a difference to ID  In June we began to think seriously about William Dembski’s then upcoming Being as Communion, a more philosophical look at design in nature

July 2014: Events that made a difference to ID  Among many other events, a UD Post where a famous chemist says no scientist understands “macroevolution” passed 200,000 views.

August 2014: Events that made a difference to ID  Famous Darwin follower, Jerry “Why evolution is true” Coyne, was really mad that information theorist William Dembski is allowed to speak at his fort, Fort Chicago University

September 2014: Events that made a difference to ID  It was becoming obvious that no one who knows the facts need be defensive about doubting the naturalist spin.

October 2014: Events that made a difference to ID Even establishment science media are now moving to recognize the problems with Darwinian evolution theory.

November 2014: Events that made a difference to ID  Not only has the kill-ID bomb not exploded, but lots of people besides us are beginning to notice that fact.

December 2014: Events that made a difference to ID  Fake Facebook pages started in an attempt to discredit ID theorists. (People fake Rolexes, not Timexes.)

Follow UD News at Twitter!

Comments
12 Robert Byers December 22, 2014 at 2:26 am it was a great debate for Ham and for yEC.
It was a disaster for the cause of truth. Ham was seriously unprepared and missed many opportunities to expose egregious weaknesses and falsehoods in Nye’s arguments. Many listeners came away from this debate deceived by Nye's unrefuted false and misleading arguments. This was a serious disservice to truth-seeking open-minded listeners in the audience.cantor
December 24, 2014
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canter NO. it was a great debate for Ham and for yEC. it was the greatest audience YEC ever had, especially for non YEC folks. Ham did a great job on the important points and the rest. Sure he did. NYe is congratulated for agreeing to it but he failed intellectually in so many ways. He didn't do evolution proud. He is a entertainer more then a persuader. Lets have more.Robert Byers
December 22, 2014
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You believe that my comment is representative of the criticism of ID
Read much? *If* the above post is representative...cantor
December 20, 2014
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If the above post is representative of the ones to come for the remainder of the year it will certainly be a good indicator of just how lame criticism of ID is these days.
Burn? Let's just agree that both can readily stand next to each other: You believe that my comment is representative of the criticism of ID and I will believe that News's five events are representative of the 'events that made a difference to ID' in 2014.hrun0815
December 20, 2014
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A great event was the Ham/Nye event.
. It was great for Bill Nye. For Ken Ham not so much. Ham missed many opportunities to expose egregious weaknesses and falsehoods in Nye's arguments. This was a serious disservice to potential open-minded listeners in the audience. .cantor
December 20, 2014
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Well these are some good points for iD. The books are important because they reach the educated public. the people. Some points here are too much about persons being chased by other persons. A great event was the Ham/Nye event. it wasn't iD but its all hybrid right now. YEC buy and promote iD thinkers and actions. In fact it was a great year for creationism. If some cat said it was bad for evolutionism well finally the , Christian thing , kicked in and a honest statement was made. Including being honest to oneself which is no small matter for anyone. Its been a embarrassment of riches for the good guys this year. so why not ten times better for next year. Time has come to kill the beast. Evolutionary biology and any non acceptance to the fingerprint of God in nature can be now knocked out of the ring. I think the revolution really is smashing a historical intellectual error and scientific incompetence. Merry Christmas.Robert Byers
December 20, 2014
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If theses [sic] five events are representative of the ones to come for the remainder of the year it will certainly be good indicator of just what a research endeavor ID is these days.
. If the above post is representative of the ones to come for the remainder of the year it will certainly be a good indicator of just how lame criticism of ID is these days. .cantor
December 19, 2014
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Meanwhile, over at The Skeptical Zone they are mourning the death of ID. Evidence never did matter much to those folks.Mung
December 19, 2014
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If theses five events are representative of the ones to come for the remainder of the year it will certainly be good indicator of just what a research endeavor ID is these days.hrun0815
December 19, 2014
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If you didn’t mis-understand, does that mean you deliberately changed “Evolution is True” should be retired to evolution should be retired? Or did you just mis-communicate what you meant?
Please provide a link to an example where you applied the same inane nit-picking to a post by Coyne or Myers or Moran or Dawkins. .cantor
December 19, 2014
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If you didn't mis-understand, does that mean you deliberately changed "Evolution is True" should be retired to evolution should be retired? Or did you just mis-communicate what you meant?Bob O'H
December 19, 2014
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Nothing was misunderstood. He was talking about the popular cult of which Darwin's followers are the beneficiaries to the detriment of science. We agree.News
December 19, 2014
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Meanwhile, back at the corpse candle farm, who would have expected Darwinian evolution to come up in The Edge’s list of science ideas ready to be retired?
And indeed it didn't: Highfield's point was that "true" is not a good term to use to describe evolutionary theory: he was silent over whether evolutionary theory itself should be abandoned. What can we conclude about ID if one of the "events that made a difference" was totally mis-understood?Bob O'H
December 19, 2014
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