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Will Darwin’s last refuge be popular media?

Christian commentator Dinesh D’Souza has recently been arguing that the real problem with Darwinism in the classroom is that it is used to promote atheism. Today,

I noticed he had an interesting item in TotheSource, which is not yet archived, talking about Darwin’s own agnosticism-bordering-on-atheism. I have elsewhere pointed out that Darwinism has always been sold primarily as the creation story of atheism.

And with good reason. If we survey the patterns in the actual history of life from the Ediacaran period to the present, given what we know today, it is most unlikely that we would credit Darwin’s theory of natural selection acting on random mutations with explaining how most of it happened.
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That is why I was somewhat impatient with D’Souza’s contention that we need only prevent people from using Darwinism as a tool of atheism and everything will be fine. (See “Earth to planet D’Souza.”*)

The reality is that right now, scientists seem to be trying to dump Darwin’s theory as a theory of everything in biology, yet the secular chants of praise for Darwin have increased in volume in the popular media – competing with a flood tide of nonsense from evolutionary psychologists, flogging to journals material that, if only it were well written and a little more plausible, might have morphed into saleable “Clan of the Cave Bear” fiction. For that sort of thing, Darwin’s theory is far more essential than it is for biology.

Just up at Design of Life blog

Fossil fish find reveals that live birth is ancient, not modern. Live-bearing fish is from 380 million years ago. Read More ›

Dick to the Dawk says: “I don’t want to discuss evidence”

Richard Dawkins, in a face-off with Rupert Sheldrake, says “I don’t want to discuss evidence”. As the Saturday Night Live Church Lady would say, “Well, isn’t that just precious?” Dick: “But what worries me about you is that you are prepared to believe almost anything. Science should be based on the minimum number of beliefs.” Rupert: “But what worries me about you is that you come across as dogmatic, giving people a bad impression of science.” Read Sheldrake’s article Richard Dawkins comes to call to get more insight into Dick to the Dawk to the PhD’s modus operandi.

“Freeze” climate or care for children: Materialism vs ID

How should we spend on malnutrition compared to stabilizing global warming? Environmentalism vs common compassion come to opposite conclusions. Materialism versus intelligent causation worldviews strike again: —————–
May 30, 2008 ˜Forget Climate Change, We Should Spend on Nutrition; Mark Henderson, Science Editor, Copenhagen, Times Online

Malnutrition should be the world’s major priority for aid and development, a panel of eight leading economists, Read More ›

CNN article on Solar Power Sats

HT to Eric Anderson for the link.

How to harvest solar power? Beam it down from space!

By Lara Farrar
For CNN

Story Highlights

-Concept to beam solar power from satellites gains new global momentum

-Massive satellites would beam solar energy back to ground-based receivers

-Pentagon study says could be used for military operations, developing nations

Jyoti is the Hindi word for light. It’s something Pranav Mehta has never had to live without. And he is lucky. Near where he lives in Gujarat — one of the most prosperous states in India — thousands of rural villages lack electricity or struggle with an intermittent supply at best. Read More ›

Prominent theistic evolutionist Francis Collins stepping down from Genome Institute

According to a press release from National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI):

Bethesda, Md., Wed., May 28, 2008 — Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced his intention to step down on August 1 to explore writing projects and other professional opportunities.

Dr. Collins, 58, a physician-geneticist, has served as NHGRI’s director since April 1993. He led the Human Genome Project (HGP) to its successful conclusion in 2003, and subsequently initiated and managed a wide range of projects that built upon the foundation laid by the sequencing of the human genome.

Collins is widely known as a Christian scientist, and the author of the popular book The Language of God, advancing the view that Darwinian evolution can account for the development of life (though possibly not its origin). He draws the line at altruism in human beings, though evolutionary psychologists have aggressively staked that too, along with every manifestation of religion, as their territory.

 According to the Institute,

Dr. Collins explained that his decision to step down as leader of NHGRI came after much personal deliberation. “My decision was driven by a desire for an interval of time dedicated to writing, reflection and exploration of other professional opportunities in the public or private sectors,” he said. “The demands and responsibilities of directing an NIH institute do not allow the time commitment necessary for this. In addition, I may need greater latitude than my current position allows to pursue other potential positions of service without encountering any possible conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived.”

It well be interesting to see whether Collins pursues his interest in accommodating Christianity and Darwinism, and if so, how.

Also, just up at Colliding Universes:

Coffee Break question: Why are the space aliens always supposed to have superior technology?

Exoplanets: Will intelligence be common or rare? Read More ›

Times: Forget Climate Change

Repeating what I’ve been saying for a long time – there are better ways to spend money than a preemptive strike on global warming. The UK Times publishes an article about one of those ways. Times Online May 30, 2008 Mark Henderson, Science Editor, Copenhagen ‘Forget climate change, we should spend on nutrition’ Malnutrition should be the world’s major priority for aid and development, a panel of eight leading economists, including five Nobel laureates, declared yesterday. The provision of supplements of vitamin A and zinc to children in developing countries, to prevent avoidable deficiencies that affect hundreds of millions of children, is the most cost-effective way of making the world a better place, the Copenhagen Consensus initiative has found. Three Read More ›

Klaus on Freedom vs Environmentalism – parallels ID vs Materialism?

Czech President Vaclav Klaus published Blue Planet in Green Shackles and challenged Al Gore to debate on climate change. Having survived and overcome Marxism, he has fascinating insights into the parallels of centralized Marxist control mentality and the modern environmentalism trying to impose its utopian ideals on the rest of us. His insights appear to apply to understand the parallel efforts by materialists / atheists to impose their “scientific” worldview of macro-evolution on the rest of the world. See article and book abstract below.
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Czech President Klaus ready to debate Gore on climate change

Washington – Czech President Vaclav Klaus said Tuesday he is ready to debate Al Gore about global warming, Read More ›

Freeman Dyson – Environmentalism: The New Secular Religion

Freeman Dyson (one of our greatest living thinkers IMO) talks about Global Warming in a New York book reviewThe Question of Global Warming . Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe Read More ›

Bogus Computer Simulations

This one, published by New Scientist, really takes the cake. From the article:

God may work in mysterious ways, but a simple computer program may explain how religion evolved.

By distilling religious belief into a genetic predisposition to pass along unverifiable information, the program predicts that religion will flourish… The model assumes… that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to communicate unverifiable information to others. They passed on that trait to their children…

The model looks at the reproductive success of the two sorts of people — those who pass on real information, and those who pass on unreal information.

It would be a colossal understatement to call this utter silliness, and it stuns me that anyone would take this seriously, much less allow it to be published as a “scientific” study by “The World’s No.1 Science and Technology News Service.”
Read More ›

Out-of-print early ID book now available as a .pdf

An early ID book (possibly the earliest), The Mystery of Life’s Origin by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, and Roger Olson (1984), with a foreword by Dean Kenyon, has been out of print for a while, I am told. But a .pdf can be downloaded here for now.

Information theory is a special branch of mathematics that has developed a way to measure information. In brief, the information content of a structure is the minimum number of instructions required to describe or specify it,  whether that structure is a rock or a rocket ship, a pile of leaves or a living organism. The more complex a structure is, the more instructions are needed to describe it. —Charles Thaxton, biochemist

Meanwhile ….

Study: Sun not special, therefore alien life should be common?

Does time’s one-way street prove that other universes exist? Read More ›

Realism & Equity on Climate Change Policies

Before spending trillions of dollars trying to control climate change, shouldn’t we get a second opinion on both the science and policy options? S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science, U. Virginia & former director of the US Weather Satellite Service weighs in onThe Global Warming Debate. He reviews evidence against anthropogenic global warming detailed in the report Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change Singer notes:

My purpose here is to show that this concern is misplaced, that human activities are not influencing the global climate in a perceptible way, and that, in any case, very little can be done about global climate change. It is unstoppable; we should not even try to influence it. . . .I will also argue that –should it occur — a modest warming is on the whole beneficial. Read More ›

Claims of De Novo active protein

This paper will be quoted for many years as the basis for faith in the de novo origin by evolution of useful proteins. How good is the evidence? De Novo Origination of a New Protein-Coding Gene in a yeast species by Wen Wang et al “THE total number of different proteins in all organisms on earth is estimated to be 10exp10 to 10exp12. How the protein repertoire evolved the giant diversity that underlies the evolution of the complexity of life is attracting many evolutionary biologists to the field. Origination of new genes is an important mechanism generating genetic novelties during the evolution of an organism. Processes creating new genes using pre-existing genes as the raw materials are well characterized, such Read More ›

Anyone want to try this game and let me know if it’s good?

This time on ID the Future, Casey Luskin — changing things up a little — sits down to talk with videogame artist Dennis DeMercer about his recent work on the Nintendo DS version of the forthcoming game Spore. Working with Amaze Entertainment, DeMercer was responsible for animating 3-D creatures ranging from single-celled organisms to advanced intergalactic civilizations in a game that centers around players evolving creatures from one species into another in order to climb the evolutionary ladder.

But is this highly anticipated game as much an example of the cultural pervasiveness of Darwinian evolution as it seems? Ironically, no. Luskin and DeMercer discuss their discovery that, despite the obviously evolutionary theme, Spore’s game-play actually hinges on intelligent design theory, because success depends entirely on the ability of the player — i.e. intelligent agent — to fashion a creature ready to take on the growing challenges of its environment.

Win the popular culture and you’ve won everything. See, they can’t really Expell DeMercer.

Also, just up at The Mindful Hack

Neural Buddhists, Christians, and the Mud that failed Read More ›

Many worlds: Maybe easier to make pay than make sense?

Bill Dembski wanted to know, re the multiverse (many worlds) theory: here:

Do many worlds present a business opportunity? Would it be possible, for a modest fee, for people to have worlds named after them? Are worlds, like genes, patentable?

A physicist friend figures that it’s better – or worse – than that. It might work for business but it would whack science cold because

Discovering the laws of our universe matters no more than noting the random tosses of dice. It certainly does not bring us closer to the heart of things. Think of any logically possible theory, and it probably holds true somewhere. Technology still makes sense in a multiverse, of course, but science as a pursuit of truth certainly loses some of its shine.

By the way, hat tip to Paul Glenn, commenter of the week, for noting in a comment to this post that there is no controversy over Darwinian evolution in North America in the same sense as there are no homosexuals in Iran.

Just up at Colliding Universes Read More ›