In the latest New Republic Online, the irrepressible Jerry Coyne keeps the insults against ID coming: . . . [O]ne has to ask whether Coulter (who, by the way, attacks me in her book) really understands the Darwinism she rejects. The answer is a resounding No. According to the book’s acknowledgments, Coulter was tutored in the Read More…
Month: July 2006
Are challenges to Darwinian theory from those outside the discipline legitimate?
I would argue that, indeed, they are. In a previous UD thread, Tom English made the following comment: I have seen a number of brilliant and highly educated people do abysmally stupid things when they stepped outside their domains of expertise. Computer scientists make abysmal biologists. Journalists make abysmal biologists. Philosophers make abysmal biologists. Theologians Read More…
John Rennie can’t leave ID well enough alone
John Rennie, the chief editor at SCIAM, continues to do his cause more harm than good. All his naysaying against ID has to give the dispassionate observer pause whether there might not be something to it after all. Here is his latest: http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=i_d_is_bad_science_on_its_own_terms&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1.
Radio Commercials Air in Kansas Supporting Standupforscience.com’s Approach to Teaching Evolution
As the debate over how to teach evolution continues, two new radio commercials promoting www.standupforscience.com and the online petition to “Stand up for Science, Stand up for Kansas†will air this weekend across Kansas. One ad features molecular biologist Jonathan Wells, explaining that “it is imperative to understand both the evidence for and against a Read More…
God woun’t’a dun it dat way?
Bill Dembski asked me to post my comments in a recent discussion elsewhere, regarding intelligent design (ID) as we currently understand it. Phil Johnson, the lawyer who put ID on the map, is currently seeking more input from the arts community (he calls it Wedge II). I agree that the ID debate will develop along more Read More…
ID as “marzipan confection”
The sign of erudition these days is the ability to craft culturally sophisticated terms of abuse. I want to urge others on this thread to list their favorite erudite term(s) of abuse for ID. July 30, 2006 SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW Laws of nature A century and a half ago, Charles Darwin sparked a scientific revolution. Read More…
Youth — the key to unseating Darwinian materialism
Check out this forthcoming book, in which I understand that our very own Sal Cordova is featured. Note especially Sam Harris’s blurb — with people like Harris expressing such foreboding, one has to wonder how close we are to seeing the Darwinian house of cards collapse under the weight of its self-delusion. Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Read More…
Granville Sewell on theodicy
Is God Really Good? Granville Sewell Mathematics Dept. University of Texas El Paso                                                                                           .  In debates over the theory of intelligent design, the “problem of evil” is frequently brought up by opponents of design: if we are the products of intelligent design, why is there so much evil and misery in the world? From Read More…
Templeton/Metanexus conference
Check out the following papers at the big June 2006 Metanexus conference: http://www.metanexus.net/conference2006/papers.asp. How well was ID represented?
[quote mines]: “In science’s pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom”
In science’s pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. Jerry Coyne
Ernst Mayr at the millennium: A study in misplaced triumphalism
Darwinian evolutionist Ernst Mayr wrote in Scientific American in 2000: “Let me now try to summarize my major findings. No educated person any longer questions the validity of the so-called theory of evolution, which we now know to be a simple fact. Likewise, most of Darwin’s particular theses have been fully confirmed, such as that Read More…
Allen MacNeill, Hannah Maxson on Cornell Evolution and Design Class
I provide here some snapshots of the Biology 467 Evolution and Design class at Cornell. Allen MacNeill is the professor and Hannah Maxson is a student representing the IDEA club.  Whether what we hear is something we like or dislike, it still constitutes a data point which we should not dismiss. Even if I may disagree Read More…
FractoGene
http://www.junkdna.com/fractogem/ http://www.fractogene.com/ On the subject of “junk DNA” Dr. Pellionisz believes these sections are caused by DNA being a “FractoGene” (Fractal DNA generating Fractal Organelles). I wouldn’t be surprised if DNA uses recursive mathematics for generating its complexity (plants do this for their structure at a macro level). As he explains it: “[The] FractoGene approach Read More…
For your fall reading . . .
Here are two books you’ll want to put in your Amazon.com cart and read this fall. I’ve blurbed each of them. For Wells’s book I wrote: “Darwinists will be furious over this book, gnashing their teeth and vilifying its author — because biologist Jonathan Wells masterfully exposes their bizarre delusions and replaces them with what Read More…
Howard Van Till’s journey from Calvinism into freethought
Questions: (1) Leaving aside Calvinism, is Howard Van Till a Christian at all? Would he even accept that designation? (2) Given that he has veered so far from Calvin College’s statement of faith, is it legitimate for him to maintain his formal affiliation with the school as “professor emeritus”? Are professors emeritus held to the same Read More…