Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Modularity and Design

The road to modularity Günter P. Wagner, Mihaela Pavlicev and James M. Cheverud Nature Reviews Genetics Volume 8 Dec 2007  “From our reading of the literature, origin of modularity research is still mostly based on model analysis rather than data. It is likely that we have not yet fully explored the range of theoretical possibilities to explain modularity, and more theoretical work will still be valuable. The models reviewed here, however, suggest an emerging theme. It seems that the origin of modularity requires both a mutational process that favours the origin of modularity and selection pressures that can take advantage of and reinforce the mutational bias.” Hot off the press and freely available, this EvoDevo paper admits that we need a Read More ›

Baylor Lariat asks for vote on intelligent design

If you go to the campus rag today, at the top you’ll find the following poll on which you can vote:

What do you think?

How should Baylor approach intelligent design research?
Encourage it
Discourage it
Prohibit it
Support it

Update 8:38 am est Saturday November 17: 

How should Baylor approach intelligent design research?

 How should Baylor approach intelligent design research?
print
 Encourage it 
1001
 Discourage it 
236
 Support it 
70
 Prohibit it 
41
  
1
  
1
  
1

Original story follows:

At 11:16 am EST, these were the results:

Encourage it 42
Discourage it 22
Prohibit it 6
Support it 4

Total votes: 74

The article accompanies a rambling story – more about Dembski, Marks, and the Baylor admin than they probably know themselves.
Read More ›

Michael Medved Becomes Discovery Fellow

Discovery Press Release: Discovery Institute Names National Talk Show Host Michael Medved as Senior Fellow SEATTLE — Michael Medved, nationally syndicated talk radio host and bestselling author, has joined the Discovery Institute in the role of senior fellow. The position cements a longstanding friendship and recognizes a commonality of values and projects across a spectrum of issues. “Michael Medved is an intellectual entrepreneur, a political and cultural polymath with great insights, judgment and wit. We are delighted to have this new relationship with him,” said Discovery Institute president Bruce Chapman. The sixth largest talk radio audience in the country, 3.7 million listeners, hears Medved’s daily three-hour radio program, The Michael Medved Show. Michael’s show is carried on more than 200 Read More ›

Phillip Johnson on the recent PBS Nova program on the Dover Trial – partial transcript

A friend was kind enough to provide a transcript of a podcast of Phillip Johnson talking about the recent PBS Nova episode on the Dover Trial. The interviewer is Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute. Here are points I thought particularly salient: Johnson: … What’s going on here is a process of soothing. The scientific establishment has decided that the way to get a reluctant American public to put aside their doubts and believe what they’re being told in the mass media, and in the textbooks, and in the museums about evolution is absolutely true is to reassure them that it doesn’t threaten [their] religion. Then after they have been talked into accepting the theory, then the types like Richard Read More ›

PBS Airs False “Facts” in its “Inherit the Wind” Version of the Kitzmiller Trial

From Evolution News and Views: More than 50 years ago two playwrights penned a fictionalized account of the 1920s Scopes Trial called “Inherit the Wind” that is now universally regarded by historians as inaccurate propaganda. Last night PBS aired its “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design” documentary, which similarly promotes propaganda about the 2005 Kitzmiller trial and intelligent design (ID). Most of the misinformation in “Judgment Day” was corrected by ID proponents long ago. To help readers sift the fact from the fiction, here are links to articles rebutting some of PBS’s most blatant misrepresentations:

Tania Lombrozo and the Puzzle of Design Inferences

Go here for a striking illusion, i.e., to see what happens when these pictures are turned right side up. That’s Tania in the pictures, btw. OK, so I had titled this entry “Tania Lombrozo, I Love You,” but that was more than a tad over the top (and anyway my heart belongs to this woman forever). Nevertheless I cannot help but feel a surge of intellectual affection — philia — at learning that someone is trying to understand the puzzle of when and why humans infer intelligent design, or more generally, default to teleological modes of explanation, whether correctly or not. (It’s that last bit that should be very useful to design theorists; see below.) Tania Lombrozo is an assistant Read More ›

Jumping Genes the Key to Evolution?

Here’s a link to a PhysOrg.com article talking about ERV’s (“jumping genes” per Barbara McClintock) and the newly discoverd role they seem to have played in primate evolution. Here’s a quote from the link: “Now it appears that another level of evolution occurs that is not driven by point mutations. Instead, retroviruses insert DNA sequences and rearrange the genome, which leads to changes in gene regulation and expression.” Excuse me if I’m wrong, but this, it seems to me, is the kind of thing that would be helpful to discuss here at UD.

Speculation Presented As Fact (or, Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit)

I don’t watch a lot of television, but I must admit that I enjoy the History Channel. The other night I was watching a program on the origin of the universe and life. At one point the narrator commented (I paraphrase), “And then, unknown chemical reactions caused life to form.” This is obviously pure speculation presented as fact, and my Carl-Sagan-inspired baloney detection kit went into immediate overdrive. I said to myself: “Self, how do they know that unknown chemical reactions caused life to form? No evidence is presented for this claim. And how did all that complex information-processing machinery come about through chemical reactions?” Baloney detection is a two-edged sword.

On Moral Progress In A Materialist World

A commenter in my last post gave a very nice summary of the current state of thinking about moral progress among matrialists.  Obviously, by definition, materialists cannot point to a transcendent moral code by which to measure moral progress.  Indeed, it is difficult for them to account for moral progress at all because if materialism is correct, the “is” in a society defines the “ought.”  The commenter took a stab at it nevertheless and came up with this:  In terms of progress: I would say that progress is measured by the increase or decrease of the sphere of human recognition. We today recognize the humanity of African-Americans — a recognition that was denied to their ancestors. It is the contrast between Read More ›

Veritatis Splendor or Veritatis Peccator?

Recently I posted “Darwin at Columbine,” in which I pointed out that Eric Harris, a great fan of Charles Darwin, believed he had evolved to a higher plane of existence and that his killing of his “inferior” classmates was the work of natural selection.  I hoped to spark a debate about whether Harris’ understanding of Darwinism is an aberration with no relation to the theory, or a logical (if perhaps misguided) extension of the theory.   The debate that ensued discussed this topic at a high level and I wish to congratulate the commenters on both sides for their insights into the issue and the general civility of the discussion. I wish to respond, however, to one commenter who suggested that by pointing out the connection between Read More ›

Reading Level Comparison

Thanks to one of our commenters for pointing out this website that calculates the reading level of blogs.  Just for fun I inserted UD and it came back “High School,” which means that the general discussion at this blog is at a high school level.  I then inserted Pandas Thumb and it came back “Elementary School.” Make of this what you will.

Will Darwinists just grow up about social Darwinism or not? Maybe not …

Recently, at the Post-Darwinist, I have received many posts from Darwinists who protested my mentioning the fact that the recent school shooting in Finland was driven by social Darwinism. Some of them have resolved never to read my blog again as a result. (Be still, my heart! Be still! How can you be sure they will keep their promise?) Anyway, I wrote, This tragedy has provoked an enormous outburst of protest from Darwinists on account of my noting that the shooter’s motive was social Darwinism. On the rare occasions when a shooter’s motive has been anti-abortion advocacy ( Rudolph) or fundamentalist madness ( Yates), I have NEVER been excoriated by an anti-abortionist or fundamentalist for openly discussing that fact. Indeed, these types Read More ›

Pathological consequences of Darwinism vs ID

The global warming debate has striking parallels to the evolution/intelligent design debate. James Lewis explores the pathological consequences when political correctness replaces the search for truth in science: “Trofimko Lysenko is not a household name; but it should be, because he was the model for all the Politically Correct “science” in the last hundred years. Lysenko was Stalin’s favorite agricultural “scientist,” peddling the myth that crops could be just trained into growing bigger and better. . . . Hundreds of thousands of peasants starved during Stalin’s famines, in good part because of fraudulent science. . . . The explosive spread of AIDS occurred when the known evidence about HIV transmission among Gay men was suppressed by the media. . . Read More ›

Darwin at Columbine

In a recent post Denyse O’Leary linked to a news story coverning Pekka Eric Auvinen, the Finnish student who killed eight in a shooting spree at his school.  Apparently Auvinen was an ardent Darwinist who considered himself to be an instrument of natural selection.  He wrote:  “I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgaces of human race and failures of natural selection.” One of O’Leary’s interlocutors more or less accused her of cherry picking her data to push her personal religious agenda.  Apparently this person believes this case is an aberation, and it is unfair to suggest a connection between Darwin’s theory and a school shooter’s self understanding as an instrument of natural selection.  Not Read More ›

IntelligentDesign.org

Here’s the press release regarding this new website: New Website, intelligentdesign.org, launched to counter misinformation from PBS Seattle – “The new website launched today, intelligentdesign.org, provides people searching for information about intelligent design (ID) online an easy way to access the leading ID websites,” says Robert Crowther, director of communications for the Center for Science & Culture at Discovery Institute. Discovery Institute is hosting the new site on its servers. According to Crowther, intelligentdesign.org is not a Discovery Institute focused website, but rather a site that highlights the websites owned and operated by a number of pro-ID organizations, scientists and scholars, such as the Intelligent Design Network, Access Research Network, and Uncommondescent.com. One of the main resources at intelligentdesign.org is Read More ›