See here for more about the Harvard Origin of Life project. In a nutshell they are setting out to demonstrate how DNA-based life could have originated from undirected interplay of chemicals. If ID is true then it predicts the Harvard project will fail. This is based on the ID hypothesis that the complex patterns found in the basic machinery of life are too complex to come about without intelligent guidance. Now if I may be so bold as to ask that ID theorists be allowed to make predictions based upon their own theory, and detractors are gracious enough to let us make our own predictions, then I don’t want to hear any more nonsense about ID making no predictions. This Read More ›

We often hear the ridiculous assertion that the theory of evolution is as well tested as the theory of gravity. The theory of gravity can predict precisely where the planets will be a million years from now. What can the theory of evolution predict a million years into the future? Essentially, ToE predicts nothing. It explains history after the fact which is a whole lot different than predicting something before it happens. Of what value is a theory with no predictive power? Why do we bother teaching our children a valueless theory of history that more often than not is disbelieved and causes so much strife? Just the facts, ma’am, please. All life on earth is related through common structures Read More ›

Check out this essay by Jack Woodall in The Scientist: Intelligent Design: The Clincher — A butterfly explodes the theory Follow Woodall’s argumentation to its inevitable implications: If I were the perfect designer I would invent a perfect world in which nothing could possibly ever go wrong or present any challenges or adversity. But then my world would be hideously boring and meaningless (and there would be nothing to learn, because learning takes effort, and effort means challenge and adversity), so I would no longer be the perfect designer of a perfect world. I couldn’t win for losing, and in either case (a “perfect” world or an “imperfect” world) my design would be imperfect, and therefore would not be designed.

Check out the following piece by G. K. Chesterton, published in 1920. . . . The Darwinians have this mark of fighters for a lost cause, that they are perpetually appealing to sentiment and to authority. Put your bat or your rhinoceros simply and innocently as a child might put them, before the Darwinian, and he will answer by an appeal to authority. He will probably answer with the names of various German professors; he will not answer with any ordinary English words, explaining the point at issue. God condescended to argue with Job, but the last Darwinian will not condescend to argue with you. He will inform you of your ignorance; he will not enlighten your ignorance. And I Read More ›

I received the following email from someone I will keep anonymous: Subject: blog entry on talk origins Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 12:35:41 -0500 From: snip To: Bill, we have met a few times and are clearly on opposite sides with regards to ID, but I think we are on the same side with regard to Christ (although I am a Mormon). For this reason I strongly think you should remove [the] blog entry on TalkOrigins google problem. First, it is mocking and exploiting talkorgins problems with a hacker. I have always hoped that the ID debate could happen more often at a higher level than that (I do criticize my fellow ID opponents when I feel that they also Read More ›

Apparently, in Britain, where the ID controversy (that was supposed to disappear after some court decision in the United States) rages and rages, an ID-friendly group called Truth in science is taking on one of the most famous frauds in biology, at museum – Haeckel’s nineteenth-century embryo drawings, reproduced in hundreds of textbooks worldwide, to demonstrate the incontrovertible truth of Darwin’s theory of evolution. The only problem is that Haeckel made up most of it. Embryos from various classes of vertebrates simply do not look as similar as he made them out to be. Read more at the http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/  

One of Canada’s national papers, the National Post, ran an op-ed (November 22, 2006) by a scientist who is a global warming skeptic. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus, University of Virginia, and former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, talks about how he was horsed around by ideologues, and it makes for interesting reading. Read More ›

Here’s a portion of a letter sent by Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe to the CEO of ExxonMobil. To me, at least, it is becoming increasingly apparent that science as a discipline has lost that essential quality which made science’s authority seem impregnible: objectivity. We increasingly live in a world where everything, including science itself, has been politicized. We’re witnessing the Fall of the Scientific Empire. The parallels to the ID-NDE debate are transparently clear. Instead of “burning the witches”, we’ll soon be seeing the “heretics” (those that don’t believe in NDE or Global Warming) burnt at the stake. I truly believe we find ourselves at a watershed moment in history. Should science itself be unmoored from its “objective” Read More ›

I’d like to take this opportunity to give a tip o’ the hat to Roddy Bullock for a really great read From Jefferson to Jones: Self-Evident Truths Made Illegal Self evident truths is a reference to the first line of the second paragraph of the United States’ Declaration of Independence made in congress by the 13 original states on July 4, 1776. To wit We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. It is often pointed out that the United States Constitution does not specify that inalienable rights are bestowed upon all men Read More ›

Some internet gossip is going around suggesting that I am about to start a “new job.” My job, and one I intend to keep for a long time, is as Research Professor in Philosophy at Southwestern Seminary. This is where I teach and this is where I derive my salary and benefits. I very much enjoy my students and colleagues. I recently spoke in chapel there, and, for the good of your soul, you do well to look at the text of my message: http://www.designinference.com/documents/2006.10.the_reach_of_the_cross.pdf. In addition to this “day job,” I have formal and informal affiliations with many groups and organizations. Because of some health issues in my family, we continue to live in the Waco area (Ft. Worth Read More ›

In celebration of the coming 1st anniversary of Judge Jones’ enforcement of an impenetrable wall of separation between church and state I present to you 45 holes in the wall. Read More ›

Of a recent indie anti-abortion film, Robert Novak writes, “Bella” was conceived by three young Mexican men — producer, director and lead actor — who are conservative Catholics and want to make movies removed from Hollywood’s movie culture of sex and violence. Bankrolled by a wealthy Catholic family from Philadelphia, they shot the film in 24 days in New York City. The star is Eduardo Verastegui, a Mexican heartthrob as a lead performer in TV soap operas who now lives in Los Angeles. A devout Catholic, he told me he was tired of movies showing Latinos as disreputable and immoral . He has learned to speak English in three years well enough to play the lead role mostly in English (with subtitles Read More ›