2007

Moorad Alexanian makes an interesting comment here: Lee Smolin wrote in his third book, The Trouble with Physics, “He sees string theory as not a theory–only a set of curious conjectures in search of a theory. True, it has great explanatory power, but a viable theory must have more than that. It must make predictions which can be falsified or confirmed.” One can similarly say of Darwinian Theory of evolution, “I see evolutionary theory as not a theory–only a set of curious conjectures in search of a theory. True, it has great explanatory power, but a viable theory must have more than that. It must make predictions which can be falsified or confirmed.” Ken Miller and Richard Dawkins would respond Read More ›

Bill Dembski scooped me on the latest idiocy of Darwinism’s idiot child, evolutionary psychology:

Until very recently, it was a mystery to evolutionary psychology why men prefer women with large breasts, since the size of a woman’s breasts has no relationship to her ability to lactate. But Harvard anthropologist Frank Marlowe contends that larger, and hence heavier, breasts sag more conspicuously with age than do smaller breasts. Thus they make it easier for men to judge a woman’s age (and her reproductive value) by sight — suggesting why men find women with large breasts more attractive.

and on Fred Reed’s hilarious take on it. Reed, of course, knocks the stuffings out of the pillow. Responding to “Blue-eyed people are considered attractive as potential mates because it is easiest to determine whether they are interested in us or not”, he notes,

I think of those millions of pitiful Chinese women, sobbing quietly in corners, “Oh, how can I let him know I’m interested when I have these horrible dark eyes? Maybe I can write him a letter….”

One thinks also of the advice Naomi gives Ruth in the Book of Ruth. I doubt Boaz knew what colour Ruth’s eyes were. It’s not clear how he could.

Still, we need to put a pin on the map for this latest outburst of evo psycho … Read More ›

Is it fair to judge scientific theories by their offspring? For the greatest theory ever conceived, Darwinian evolution has begotten an idiot in evolutionary psychology. Here’s Fred Reed on the topic: I find in Psychology Today a piece called “Ten Politically Incorrect Truths about Human Nature,” explaining various aspects of behavior in Darwinian terms. The smugness of that “politically incorrect” is characteristic of those who want a sense of adventure without risk. Nothing is more PC than an evolutionary explanation, unless it explains obvious racial differences that we aren’t supposed to talk about. OK, the authors are going to explain why we mate as we do. “Blue-eyed people,” they write, “are considered attractive as potential mates because it is easiest Read More ›

I blogged once before about one of my favorite ID essayists, Roddy Bullock of idnetohio, who frequently posts at ARN.

Here is another essay that I found most insightful. Roddy is a clear thinker and a superb writer.

Let’s be honest: One of the main reasons that passions tend to run high in the ID versus Darwinism/materialism debate is that the implications are profound concerning ultimate issues and questions, especially, Is there any ultimate plan, design, meaning, or purpose in the universe and, most importantly, our lives?

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There couldn’t be a better example of the warfare between religion and science than anesthesia in childbirth. Religious folk, we are told, opposed anesthesia in childbirth because women should suffer, right? Indeed, the claim that religious folk opposed such anesthesia has become a minor but regular component of the folklore of materialism. Medical historian A. D. Farr actually went to the trouble of methodically searching the literature from Britain in the 1840s and 1850s, where modern anesthesia during childbirth was first introduced there. He found that religious opposition to the introduction of childbirth anesthesia was a figment of later propaganda. How did the idea get started, despite a lack of evidence? Well, now, that’s a story …. Read the rest Read More ›

Thumbster PvM has posted a response to a statement Robert Crowther made the other day at ID the future regarding the “Who designed the designer?” criticism espoused by ID critics.
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This of course comes as no surprise for those of us who hold that evolution was front-loaded (anatomical complexity in later animals was present but not expressed in the ancestral animals) by an intelligent designer. Nothing in macro-evolution makes sense except in the light of front loading! Excerpts with my emphasis: Surprises in sea anemone genome By Melissa Lee Phillips, The Scientist, 5/7/07 The study also found that these similarities were absent from fruit fly and nematode genomes, contradicting the widely held belief that organisms become more complex through evolution. The findings suggest that the ancestral animal genome was quite complex, and fly and worm genomes lost some of that intricacy as they evolved. It’s surprising to find such a Read More ›

I just wanted to bring this article in Science to the attention of this blog. The results are very intriguing–“these gene “inventions” along the lineage leading to animals were likely already well integrated with preexisting eukaryotic genes in the eumetazoan progenitor.” It seems that the very primitive looking sea anenome is a very sophisticated animal. [As an aside, though Darwinists will be quick to deny this—it’s very easy to deny anything (in fact, I deny that I’m writing this right now!)—this is completely contrary to what Charles Darwin himself expected; viz., that such complex regulatory functions developed in so short a period of time. Since it is soft-bodied, it doesn’t fossilze that well; but there is a well-preserved fossil in Read More ›

“Our goal is to mutate the world!” says Sloke Dunkin at Finch Foods. More…

Let me encourage readers of this blog to subscribe to SALVO, a countercultural magazine whose new website is now up and running: www.salvomag.com. SALVO is pro-ID and planning a special issue on the topic. I’m on their editorial board. The magazine effectively pushes the envelope on parody, which has become difficult in a culture that too often is a parody of itself. Here’s an example from their website:

The Blackburn fossil (left) and computer generated likeness (right) using Darwin Face software. Fossil found in Blackburn, WV by Dr. Zbyszek Wrozinkowski. MORE…

In my previous post, I cited a Miami Herald article that refers to “The National Center for Science Education, a pro-science watchdog group.” For the real pro-science watchdog group, check out the following links: www.pro-science.com www.pro-science.org www.pro-science.net That’s right. I own those domain names and they all refer back here. Let me encourage all contributors to this blog to use these domain names in referring to UD when they email Darwinists.

Check out the following story about Florida’s #2 education person who may lose out on the #1 spot because she has been tarred with ID (go here for the Miami Herald story). Apparently Wesley Elsberry, who has now moved on from the NCSE, is stirring the pot: . . . Until recently, the scientist in the picture, Wesley Elsberry, worked for the National Center for Science Education, a pro-science watchdog group. Now a visiting researcher at Michigan State University, he says the statement in question might be more controversial for Yecke than her other statements because it ”would tie her directly to advocacy of intelligent design.” But in his view, Yecke’s other words and actions already made her an advocate. Read More ›

Ruthie Blum interviewed George Gilder in the Jerusalem Post late last month. Here’s a sample from the interview: RB: How do you explain how this “incredibly improbable world could exist”? GG: Creation. I see creation in economics; I see creation in computer science. You can know everything there is to know about the physics and chemistry of a microchip, without having the slightest inkling of what function it’s performing, let alone what content it is processing. The same goes for network theory. You can know every electron or atom across a fiber-optic network, without having any idea of what contents are being transmitted. In network theory, you have seven layers of abstraction. Those same seven layers also apply, in slightly Read More ›

When you really analyze them, most of the strongest arguments against ID as an explanation for the development of life are of the form: “this just doesn’t look like the way God would have created things.” Perhaps not, but we are finding more and more that it does look very much like the way “we” design things. As far back as 1985, in my first book about PDE2D here and more recently in a Mathematical Intelligencer article here , I pointed out that life developed much the way software “develops”: minor improvements are made in small increments, but major improvements always involve one or more large irreducibly complex steps, and appear suddenly (in the fossil record, or in software releases). Read More ›