It’s not turtles all the way down; it’s design all the way down: from the constants of physics, to the production of life-permitting chemical elements in supernovae that are coincidentally unstable and spew out these elements to produce rocky planets on which life can exist, to the characteristics of carbon formed in a very narrow […]
Month: September 2007
Design at many levels
In the popular media, the picture that we get of the ID controversy is this: primitive man attributed many phenomena in Nature to design, science has progressively removed the need for the design hypothesis from these phenomena one by one, and now a group of religious fanatics is trying to make a last stand in […]
World Net Daily on “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”
Ben Stein to battle Darwin in major film Actor-commentator stars in ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ Ben Stein, the lovable, monotone teacher from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “The Wonder Years” is back in the classroom in a major motion picture release slated for February 2008. But this time, the actor will be on the big […]
Book review: Science’s Blind Spot: Making sense of Darwin’s devout
When I first encountered Biola adjunct prof Cornelius G. Hunter’s Science’s Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2007), I was intrigued by the possibility that it might help me understand the people who want to destroy the careers of anyone who doubts that Darwinian evolution can produce mind from […]
Futility 101
Heard about the Council of Europe’s draft resolution against ID. Sighed. Smiled to myself. And then I took my worn paperback copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance down from the shelf: The real University…has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salaries and receives no material dues. The real University […]
George Orwell’s New Europe
Here are extracts from the Council of Europe’s Draft Resolution against ID, Creation, and anything that does not toe the materialist line. Note the passages in bold. A. Draft resolution 1. For some people the Creation, as a matter of religious belief, gives a meaning to life. Nevertheless, the Parliamentary Assembly is worried about the […]
EXPELLED makes front page of NYTimes
I can’t say I feel sorry for these atheistic scientists in agreeing to interview for EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED. When the BBC interviewed me for their Horizon documentary on ID (Horizon = the UK version of PBS Nova), they gave the ID side no warning that the program would be titled A WAR ON SCIENCE […]
Stu Pivar’s book Lifecode: So what’s in it? Why the fuss?
Okay, here at last is Jerry Bergman’s review of Stuart Pivar’s Lifecode. Yes, Stu Pivar was the friend of Steve Gould who was suing and then unsuing PZ Myers. Also, note the new book announcement about Jerry Bergman.
“Ayala’s Potemkin Village” — review of Francisco Ayala’s DARWIN’S GIFT
Francisco Ayala’s latest book, DARWIN’S GIFT TO SCIENCE AND RELIGION, defends Darwinism against ID. For my review of that book for Science & Theology, go here.
What does it mean to be scientifically literate in the 21st century?
How do we measure the scientific literacy of a society? How do we boost it? What is the value of this literacy? Who is responsible for fostering it? These were questions posed by Seed Magazine to its readers in its second annual Science Writing Contest. Among the judges were Adam Bly, editor-in-chief and founder of […]
ID And The Arts
Where does artistic expression come from? Why do almost all of us, as humans, seem to have an insatiable desire to create? Why do certain works of art endure over centuries?
Why Bob Marks’s lab got trashed
Here’s what I think of the whole mess (and I am not an American and do not live anywhere near Waco or Baylor and have nothing but trouble to expect from either side in this matter.):
John Lennox: His new book and his upcoming debate with Dawkins
“God’s Undertaker – Has Science Buried God?” by John Lennox, has now appeared with Lion-Hudson in the UK and with Kregel in the US. The book had previously appeared in Germany (Lennox knows German very well) and had an enormous impact there. Lennox is a Reader in Mathematics and Fellow of Green College, University of […]
The evolution of feathers. Watch the time line.
From “Evo-Devo of feathers and scales: building complex epithelial appendages” http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~cmchuong/2000CurrOpinGenetandDev.pdf p5 and p6 “Archeopteryx existed ~145 million years ago and appears relatively advanced: it has different types of feathers over the body but still has teeth, claws in the wing, and a feathered tail. The flight feathers in the wing are asymmetric, suggesting that […]
The Emerging Complexity of the Genome
Recently, a friend who thinks about (and has published on) the nature of the eukaryotic genome, said to me, “Paul, no one really knows what the genome is any more.” He went on to explain that the picture most biologists carry around in their heads, of the relationship of genes to organismal form and function […]