Dawkins on enlightenment: I am optimistic that the physicists of our species will complete Einstein’s dream and discover the final theory of everything before superior creatures, evolved on another world, make contact and tell us the answer. I am optimistic that, although the theory of everything will bring fundamental physics to a convincing closure, the enterprise of physics itself will continue to flourish, just as biology went on growing after Darwin solved its deep problem. I am optimistic that the two theories together will furnish a totally satisfying naturalistic explanation for the existence of the universe and everything that’s in it including ourselves. And I am optimistic that this final scientific enlightenment will deal an overdue deathblow to religion and Read More ›

“We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.” –Robert Wilensky HOMEPAGE: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~wilensky SOURCE: http://www.jimpoz.com/quotes/speaker.php?speakerid=855

I’d like to encourage people on the ground in the UK to comment on this and what it is likely to mean. Senior academics support Truth in Science Monday, 01 January 2007 As reported yesterday in the Sunday Times, twelve senior academics have written to the Prime Minister and Education Secretary in support of Truth in Science. The group was lead by Norman Nevin OBE, Professor Emeritus of Medical Genetics, Queen’s University of Belfast and included Antony Flew, former Professor of Philosophy at Reading University and a distinguished supporter of humanism. “We write to applaud the Truth in Science initiative,” the letter said. Empirical science has “severe limitations concerning origins” and Darwinism is not necessarily “the best scientific model to Read More ›

December was a record month for Uncommon Descent traffic. New Record 12/06 Average Daily Visits: 5,311 Old Record 06/06 Average Daily Visits: 5,262 New Record 12/06 Total Visits: 164,646 Old Record 08/06 Total Visits: 161,799 September is when we got nicked by Google delisting and traffic declined. We’ve finally recovered from that and are setting new records again. And for icing on the cake, in October we switched over to the Cutline for WordPress format which streamlined our website and so we got our new record number of visitors with barely half the bandwidth we were using for the previous records! Thanks everyone for a great 2006 and here’s to an even better 2007!

Happy New Year to all UD regulars. I expect 2007 to be a bang-up year for ID. Here are three things in particular I’m looking forward to in the coming year: A new ID friendly research center at a major university. (This is not merely an idle wish — stay tuned.) The publication of Michael Behe’s book with Free Press: THE EDGE OF EVOLUTION. The publication of the sequel to OF PANDAS AND PEOPLE, authored by Jonathan Wells and me and titled THE DESIGN OF LIFE: DISCOVERING SIGNS OF INTELLIGENCE IN BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS. P.S. I would also say that I’m looking forward to debating Barbara Forrest, but I’m giving 5 to 1 odds that she won’t even start negotiations for Read More ›