2006

Michael Shermer writes in the Skeptic column of the December 2005 Scientific American There are many ways to be spiritual, and science is one, with its awe-inspiring account about who we are and where we came from. “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself,” began the late astronomer Carl Sagan in the opening scene of Cosmos, filmed just down the coast from Esalen, in referring to the stellar origins of the chemical elements of life. “We’ve begun at last to wonder about our origins, star stuff comtemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter, tracing that long path Read More ›

Today is the opening day of the http://researchid.org website. Readers are invited to visit it. Here is a letter from the founder:

The intelligent design community needs dynamic and interactive websites where professionals and students can gain valuable information about ID, and at the same time contribute their own knowledge and information to the site. Today is the grand opening of just such a synergistic website called ResearchID.org. To fulfill this need for vibrant interaction, ResearchID.org is a knowledgebase compiling and synthesizing research on intelligent design.

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Do traceable lines of descent exist that might ultimately permit characterization of the genomes of organisms basal to the clades for the highest categories? The answer to this question increasingly appears to be no. Recent work on genomic structures demonstrate that all living organisms are genetic composites: mosaics and chimeras composed of bits and pieces of multiple genomes derived from multiple sources.
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The base of the universal tree of life appears not to have been a single root, but was instead a network of inextricably intertwined branches deriving from many, perhaps 100 or more, genetic sources. The traditional version of the theory of common descent apparently does not apply to kingdoms as presently recognized. It probably does not apply to many, if not all, phyla, and possibly also not to many classes within the phyla. (from Malcom Gordon’s paper on monophyly)

When Intelligent Design advocates talk to evolutionists concerning the origin-of-life, the standard response is almost always something like “Evolutionary theory says nothing about the origin of life. Whether it was RNA world, or a special act of creation, evolution is an entirely different subject than abiogenesis.” However, I think that this argument is illegitimate. In fact, large-scale evolutionary theory depends thoroughly on specific notions of abiogenesis.

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Denyse O’Leary at Post-Darwinist is a compadre: Here is what I think drives that sort of behavior [i.e., Christian Scholars like Simon Conway Morris talking nonsense about ID]: Some Christians in science are into emotional meltdown re ID because they have suddenly realized what is at stake: – The only way to rule out ID is to deny that God acts in the universe, period. If he acts at all, his action may in fact be detected. – If one insists as an article of faith that God’s action cannot be detected in principle or that it is wrong to attempt to detect them, that is a new article of faith, and one that is at odds with traditional Christian Read More ›

Europeans resist “mad cow disease” because their ancestors were selected for cannibalism….Jews were selected for higher intelligence than other peoples because of the calculational demands of money-lending…

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This just in from a colleague at Discovery Institute: There is a new episode of the IDTF podcast available at: http://intelligentdesign.podOmatic.com. This week we offer a brief summary of The Design Revolution: Answering The Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design. Help spread the word: http://www.podOmatic.com/podcast/tell/intelligentdesign. Be sure to visit the IDTF website at www.idthefuture.com, and keep up with the latest news on the debate over how to teach evolution by going to Evolution News and Views at www.evolutionnews.org.

Biologist Stanely Salthe at Binghamton University is at the top of the Discovery Institute’s Dissent from Darwin honor roll.

Stanley Salthe

I am a critic of Darwinian evolutionary theory — which was my own erstwhile field of specialization in biology. My opposition is fundamentally to its sole reliance on competition as an explanatory principle (in a background of chance). Aside from being a bit thin in the face of complex systems, it has the disadvantage, in the mythological context of explaining where we come from, of reducing all evolution to the effects of competition. …
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Being materially empty, it appears capable of explaining almost anything, and so we need to be cautious about its use. Is it a Borgesian cognitive poison?

The irony is this “cognitive poison” is being indoctrinated into young minds at his school:

Evolution for Everyone: How to Increase Acceptance of, Interest in, and Knowledge about Evolution

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A friend of mine asked me to write a foreword to a forthcoming book critiquing Darwinism and promoting ID. I’m giving the foreword below but keeping the author and the book anonymous for the time being. In the foreword, I argue for the following claim:

Evolutionary theory, in its grand macroevolutionary Darwinian form, flies in the face of the scientific method and should not be taught except as a discredited speculative hypothesis that properly belongs to nature religions and mystery cults and not to science.

I would like in this thread to discuss whether the argument I make for this claim in terms of the absence of a rational connection between the “mountains and mountains of evidence” that Darwinists cite and the grand claim of their theory that a blind purposeless process can do all the creative work in biology holds up and whether it could be the basis for radically limiting Darwinism in the textbooks.

In this discussion, I don’t want any quibbles about the use of the term “Darwinism,” to the effect that we shouldn’t be talking about Darwinism but rather about evolutionary biology. If thinkers as diverse as Richard Dawkins, Lynn Margulis, and Stephen Jay Gould can call themselves Darwinists, then Darwinism is the appropriate designation. At any rate, I outline precisely what I mean by Darwinism in my paper “Unintelligent Evolution” (go here).

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After my post at UD (https://uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/1204) about creating a Hello World computer program by random mutation and natural selection, apollo230 alerted me to the fact that the Panda’s Thumb crowd had created a special thread designed to demolish my thesis. This pleased me to no end, because it was obvious that I had created major trouble. If my arguments and logic were utterly vacuous, no response would have been required.

Just to prove that I’m not a complete coward, I decided visited Panda’s Thumb, check out the thread, and make a reply. After wading through a tome of hand-wringing PT diatribes, I posted the following comment:

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I received this from from a political listserve to which I belong. Can anyone confirm this and provide more inside information? I’m interested in this because of what it may signify for textbooks related to ID. National Education Association Set to Endorse Homosexual Marriage Teacher’s union begins plans to promote homosexual marriage in public schools The National Education Association is set to endorse homosexual marriage at their convention coming up in Orlando June 29 through July 6. The new NEA proposal essentially says schools should support and actively promote homosexual marriage and other forms of marriage (two men and one woman, three women, two women and three men, etc.) in their local schools. The new proposal, expected to pass overwhelmingly, Read More ›

Eryn Brown of The New Republic contacted Bill in regards to whether “there been much other talk about the game[Spore] in ID circles”. Except for the post made here on UD I have not heard much mention of it although that’s most likely due to the game not being available yet. In my reply to Eryn I did note that I thought “there were some comparisons that could be made with Spore. For example, the modular design mentioned by Marc Kirschner can be compared to the animation system of Spore, where various sub-components will dynamically adjust to fit together and function as a new whole.” Read More ›

Over on Panda’s Thumb, frequent commenter Glen Davidson in a gratuitous Coulter bashing festival, asks Where have the relativistic effects of gravity been shown in the lab? Good lord, Glen. Relativistic effects of velocity and gravity have not only been demonstrated they are used in applied science. The Global Positioning System requires clocks so accurate and synchronized that differences in velocity and local gravity amongst orbital and ground based clocks must be compensated for in order to achieve desired accuracy. Doesn’t everyone know this? It’s really old news, Glen. Anyone claiming any broad based knowledge of science should not have asked the question you did. What’s your background again, Glen?

In his Panda’s Thumb article Ann Coulter: No evidence for evolution? Paul demonstrates a classic case of projection with this statement:

I’m not interested in writing such a lengthy rebuttal, and I’m sure this is exactly what Coulter is counting on—tell enough lazy lies, and no one in the world will have time enough to correct them conscientiously. She’s a shameless fraud.

This sounds exactly like what the tireless defenders of chance and necessity have done in their doctrinal libraries of “evidence” that chance and necessity are the drivers of change that turned bacteria into baboons. Tell enough lazy lies of all this evidence, 150 years worth of it now, and no one in the world will have time enough to correct them conscientiously. These tireless defenders of Darwinian doctrine are shameless frauds. Read More ›

Over at Panda’s Thumb Ian Musgrave opens his article Random Nonsense with

Over at Uncommon Descent William Dembski is linking to the random mutation site with approval.

Hello Ian? Is anyone home?

That article was written by Gil Dodgen not William Dembski. Your attention to detail is underwhelming and not at all surprising. It’s characteristic of the quality of everything you boys write.

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A fellow named William sent me, in a personal e-mail, the link below. I won’t disclose any further information about William, just in case his entire life and career might be destroyed by the DI (the Darwinian Inquisition). Have fun mutating any originally meaningful sentence into your next great novel! http://www.randommutation.com/darwinianevolution.htm