Take the test!

The “correct” answers (according to the test’s answer key) follow marked with a + sign. Read More ›

Here is another course which discusses ID: Genes and Genesis by Dr. Kevin Redding, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biological Sciences. I think the course tries to be somewhat even handed. (Thank you to Paul Nelson for alerting me to this course!) Interestingly, almost without any fanfare, in 2001 a plasma physicist and professor at University of Alabama in Huntsville taught Honors 399 : Physics, Philosophy and Fundamentalism which made an excellent survey of ID, physics and religion. The lectures used to be online, and regrettably, they are no longer. I would hope the course is offered again.

In response to my previous post here, great_ape made the following comments:

On the one hand, we must concede–we should concede, at least–that it boggles the mind how observed biological complexity can emerge from such a inherrently blind trial and error approach (BWM) [blind watchmaker]. Then again, given the timescale involved, the sequence/mutational space involved, the geographic scale involved–I do not even rule out interplanetary scale–well, those factors are also difficult to fathom as well.

I have yet to see a compelling argument–beyond “gee wiz, that’s sure a lot of complexity to generate”–that has convinced me the RM+NS [random mutation plus natural selection] process is *not* capable of generating observed complexity. Thus, I default to uniformitarianism, which holds that the forces in the past are effectively the same as those we see occurring today (i.e. RM+NS).

There are some key issues in these observations that I thought deserved a new thread, so here goes.
Read More ›

I was just over at Panda’s Thumb and saw that Tara Smith had put up a post informing her readers of a documentary about the Scopes trial to air on The History Channel tomorrow night. It also looks like they will say a little about intelligent design. Will they give ID a fair shake? Tune in to find out.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that a large percentage of research scientists admit to fabricating or manipulating data because of a sense of “being wronged.” Reporter Lila Guterman explains that The Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics will report that “perceived injustice” and scientific misbehavior are linked. From the article: Raymond G. De Vries, an associate professor of medical education at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and three colleagues last year reported surveying more than 3,000 scientists about whether they had ever engaged in misbehavior, such as changing a study because of pressure from a source of funds, or failing to present data that contradict one’s own research. One-third of the scientists acknowledged they had Read More ›

Forrest Mims did not Misrepresent Prof. Eric Pianka’s Statements by James Redford

Science and Intelligent Design By Norbert M. Samuelson The purpose of this paper is to examine some specifically philosophical questions about the current debate in selected North American public schools about including what is commonly called “intelligent design” (ID) as part of the schools’ official science curriculum. The issues I will raise focus around two broad questions: First, what is the logical status of the arguments for and against ID? Second, may the arguments presented for ID be considered “scientific”? My analysis will be grounded in two related but nonetheless distinct disciplines of intellectual history – the history of western philosophy and the history of modern western European science. Based on my historical analysis I will suggest some tentative answers Read More ›

A new course on ID has been offered at Cornell. This is the same school where the interim president of Cornell, Hunter Rawlings, declared war on ID and where a brave band of pro-ID students (like Hannah Maxson) and faculty (like Professor Mark Psiaki and Professor John Sanford) stood up in defiance. Cornell offers course on intelligent design

A Scientist’s Scientist John Barrow wins 2006 Templeton Prize By Julia Vitullo-Martin When Selfish Gene author Richard Dawkins challenged physicist John Barrow on his formulation of the constants of nature at last summer’s Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship lectures, Barrow laughed and said, “You have a problem with these ideas, Richard, because you’re not really a scientist. You’re a biologist.” For Barrow, biology is little more than a branch of natural history. “Biologists have a limited, intuitive understanding of complexity. They’re stuck with an inherited conflict from the 19th century, and are only interested in outcomes, in what wins out over others,” he adds. “But outcomes tell you almost nothing about the laws that govern the universe.” For physicists it is the Read More ›

Our very own Bill Dembski has decided to resign his post at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and has accepted the position of research professor of philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. On behalf of everyone at Uncommon Descent, I wish you the very best, Bill! To read more, go here. Welcome Back Home, Bill!

Everyone was wondering why the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise pulled all the Pianka stories. Well, none of us guessed and in hindsight it was rather obvious. At least it should have been obvious for me. The traffic generated by the stories was overwhelming the Gazette’s server. As of this minute two followup Pianka stories that weren’t linked by Drudge et al are back online. Forrest Mims explains it here. Update: Panda’s Thumb was informed by someone in the main office outside Seguin, as no one in Seguin would tell them anything, that the articles were removed in an unlikely accident. Forrest Mims on the other hand lives in Seguin, is a columnist for the local paper, and undoubtedly knows everyone there, says Read More ›

March was yet another month of steady growth in interest in Uncommon Descent as can be seen in the following Webalyzer graphs. December was an anomaly due to a very popular blog linking to a single post with a downloadable file in it (see the corresponding spike in (red bars) bandwidth). Lay a ruler across the tops of the total hits (green bars) or the number of visits (yellow bars) to see the slope of the average monthy growth. It works out to about 10% growth per month which means a doubling approximately every 7 months due to compounding.

So for all our authors and commenters… CONGRATULATIONS and THANK YOU! There’s steadily growing interest in what we have to say. And don’t forget about our advertisers. Clicking on the ads to see what they have to say helps defray the operating cost of our server.

Read More ›

One of Eric Pianka’s favorite sayings is “What good are lizards? What good are YOU?”. Well Eric, I’m a contributing member of the species that is developing the ability for the earth’s ecosystem to get off the third rock from the sun and secure a foothold on other worlds in other solar systems so that when this rock gets baked it won’t be the end of the line for life. The big picture, Eric, is that if life is confined to this planet it is a goner. Planets you see are things that are born, exist for a while, then die. If the life that’s on them doesn’t relocate itself then it dies too. If you look at the core Read More ›

Arthur Asuncion at UCI sends this notice about an ID event at UCI. I posted the following comment: Dear Arthur, I just spent some time at the iDesign UCI site. Thanks so much for sending the link. It’s a terrific resource. It is going to be very interesting to watch the Intelligent Design versus Blind-Watchmaker-Evolution debate in coming years, because technically competent people who have a reasonably well-integrated knowledge of modern hard science (mathematics — especially combinatorics — chemistry, physics, and software engineering), know way too much for very many of them to buy BWE for much longer. The first of the two main reasons that those with the above-mentioned technical knowledge and experience are holdouts, and continue to accept Read More ›

Mike Gene at Telic Thoughts, without having seen a transcript of the Lamar speech where the recording devices were ordered off (the published transcript is only the last 5 minutes of a 45 minute speech), decides that Forest Mims is a liar man of terrible misjudgement and misunderstanding. Mike Gene, who has surely read the student review saying Pianka PREACHES that 90% of the population SHOULD be wiped out by airborne ebola, a student review of Pianka’s class that echoes what Mims heard in the Lamar speech, must also think this student is a liar person of terrible misjudgement and misunderstanding too. I’m very disappointed in Mike Gene, whoever he is. No wonder Mike Gene refuses to identify himself. Wusses Read More ›