Here’s an email from someone I banned from this blog. If you can’t see why I’ve lost all patience with people like this, then you need to be spending your time elsewhere in cyberspace. William, Is there the slightest possibility you might ‘open’ your ID forum to dissenting views? You have some very dedicated apostles […]
Month: November 2005
Leo Kadanoff on Complexity
http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/audio/05-06/public_lectures/kadanoff
KU’s New Class — Creationism, Intelligent Design and Other Religious Mythologies
[Updated links 30nov05: http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/13286369.htm http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Creationism_Class.html] [From a colleague:] The University of Kansas is flexing its anti-religion muscle again, this time by announcing the introduction of a new course in the Religion department: “Creationism, Intelligent Design and Other Religious Mythologies.” To be taught by a professor of religion, no scientists allowed. God forbid that the students […]
Interview with Christian Renewal
Not much new here except for some observations about my time at Baylor, observations I was finally in a position to share, not being on the Baylor faculty anymore. –WmAD William Dembski: An Intelligent Voice in the Design Debate An interview by Glenda Mathes (appeared in the 28sep05 vol24, no2 issue of Christian Renewal) Dr. […]
Harvard Crimson on ID
FAVORITE QUOTE: “Edwards says conservative evangelicals are responsible for the framing of the intelligent design debate. ‘Evangelicals thrive on being embattledÂÂâ€â€their identity is tied up into being attacked and their defending principles,’ Edwards says. ‘Being attacked by science only validates their position.’” Let me just add that being attacked by theologians like Edwards further validates […]
Rosine Chandebois on the Blind Watchmaker
[From a colleague and friend:] D’aucuns disent aveugle l’horloger qui a concu la vie, mais c’est son horologe qui nous frappe tous de cecite: les uns aveugles par tant d’intelligence, les autres etant les pires aveugles parce qu’ils n’en veulent rien voir. [Some call blind the watchmaker who conceived of life, but it is his […]
The Designer’s “Skill-Set”
In September, Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show devoted several programs to the topic of evolution (“Evolution, Schmevolution — Who’s Right, Who’s Full of It”). What’s more, I appeared on one of those programs (go here and here). In those programs, Stewart & Co. had some lines that were not only funny but also memorable. The […]
Why Inferring Design Does Not Require Knowledge of the Designer
Critics of ID often charge that unless we have explicit knowledge of the designer, we cannot infer design. Thomas Reid, in critiquing David Hume, showed that this charge is unfounded. To see this, go here.
Software is Eternal
Benjamin Franklin realized that software is eternal two centuries before Alan Turing came to that realization. As a young man in 1728, Franklin composed his own mock epitaph, which read: The Body of B. Franklin Printer; Like the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies […]
“Science Wars” — transcripts now available
The transcripts for the American Enterprise Institute’s October 21, 2005 shindig on ID (“Science Wars: Should Schools Teach Intelligent Design?”) are now available here: http://www.aei.org/events/filter.all,eventID.1169/transcript.asp.
The Scientific and Medical Network
Let me encourage you to think seriously about supporting this organization: http://www.scimednet.org. Its mission statement is “To challenge the adequacy of scientific materialism as an explanation of reality.”
“Ode to the Code”
[From a colleague:] There’s an interesting article in the American Scientist from last year that is worth revisiting. It examines whether the genetic code is optimized for reducing the impact of point mutations. Apparently it is according to the author. Given that there are exponentially large numbers of potential codon usages, if the genetic code […]
Molecular Motors at the Limits of Nanotechnology
Ask yourself, Why do biological systems exhibit molecular machines at the smallest level permissible by the properties of matter? “Evolution” provides less and less a convincing answer. Molecular motors 9 November 2005 http://www.iop.org/EJ/news/-topic=1009 A new special issue of Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter edited by Joseph Klafter and Michael Urbakh contains invited papers from some […]
The Former President of Cornell — Also a Darwinophile
I’ve reported on this blog about the current president of Cornell, Hunter Rawlings, and his recent diatribe against ID (search under “Rawlings” on this blog). Interestingly, the past president of Cornell, Frank Rhodes was very much in the same mold. I heard him speak at a C. S. Lewis Foundation event at Cambridge in 1994 […]
ID on Paula Zahn Now
[From a colleague:] Last night CNN devoted almost 45 minutes to the ID controversy. CNN’s Religion and Values correspondent Delia Gallagher did the segment on Paula Zahn Now. Most of the show consisted of the usual spin, but Mike Behe got lots of air time and came across well. My favorite part came after interviews […]