Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Bass Ackwards Darwinism

There are people who believe that because Darwin provided a theoretical basis that humans and animals have a common ancestor it becomes a rationale for treating humans more like animals. Thus we get things like Nazi Germany and the holocaust. I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Another equally valid way of looking at it is that common ancestry becomes a rationale for treating animals more like humans. Thus we get things like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. It’s all a matter of how you choose to look at it. It’s really more a reflection on your own soul which way you choose to see it. Good people do good things. Evil people do evil things. Read More ›

Great Deal on Three ID DVDs

This just in from a contact at Campus Crusade: Three documentaries on DVD, perfect for an ID collection, are now available for just $29.95 -– about $10 per DVD: Campuscrusade.com/8110E The three documentaries are: The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel Unlocking the Mystery of Life The Privileged Planet The Privileged Planet was, of course, co-written by Guillermo Gonzalez, Ph.D. Ben Stein’s Expelled asserts that Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure for challenging Darwinian Orthodoxy. Perhaps someone you know would enjoy seeing what is so controversial about Gonzalez’ ideas in particular and Intelligent Design, in general. The DVDs present solid scientific concepts in language the layman or laywoman can understand, with state of the art, memorable graphics.

Wikipedia’s Zealots

It seems Intelligent Design isn’t the only thing that Wikipedia distorts and censors…

Wikipedia’s zealots

The thought police at the supposedly independent site are fervently enforcing the climate orthodoxy
Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post Published: Saturday, April 12, 2008

As I’m writing this column for the Financial Post, I am simultaneously editing a page on Wikipedia. I am confident that just about everything I write for my column will be available for you to read. I am equally confident that you will be able to read just about nothing that I write for the page on Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia page is entitled Naomi Oreskes, after a professor of history and science studies at the University of California San Diego, but the page offers only sketchy details about Oreskes. The page is mostly devoted to a notorious 2004 paper that she wrote, and that Science journal published, called “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.” This paper analyzed articles in peer-reviewed journals to see if any disagreed with the alarming positions on global warming taken by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position,” Oreskes concluded.

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Berlinski versus Derbyshire

Recently, while speaking in southern California, I heard from a nationally-recognized academic expert on the ID / evolution debate that he refused to see Expelled, at least in its current theatrical release. “I don’t think I want to give any money to those guys,” he said dismissively. That’s OK — money is money, and the 9 or so bucks he might have spent on Expelled would show up in the box office totals — but at least this person hasn’t yet delivered himself publicly of opinions about the movie. No such niceties for ID critic John Derbyshire, who doesn’t actually need to see a movie before opining about it, as David Berlinski points out at National Review Online.

Baylor Prez Spins Expelled Worries: The God of the Bible is the God of the genome … but not of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab

Taking a break from “Imagining” no heaven, no hell, no Yoko Ono, and no delay till the Expelled DVD comes out, I note where John Lilley, Baylor’s president, has seen fit to defend his institution in the light of the unflattering portrait in Expelled. Except he doesn’t exactly. In the form letter – apparently written to people for whom, in his words, Expelled has been a “source of concern” – he manages to say nothing at all. Unless, that is, you believe faith and science are in conflict, in which case he reassures you that they aren’t. But if you do believe that, why would you want to attend or fund Baylor – or any religiously affiliated university? And why would Read More ›

Imagine Yoko Ono Shutting Down Showings of Expelled?

So far it is imaginary.

Ono is seeking at least $75,000 in damages and injunctive relief. (Her case turns on the use of some lines from her late husband John Lennon’s ”Imagine”*. )

On April 30, 2008, a New York-based United States judge, Sidney Stein, enjoined “further distribution” of Expelled until Yoko Ono’s lawsuit for copyright infringement is heard.

A legal eagle friend has shown me a copy of the judge’s order, with hand-scrawled changes. It means that new copies of the film can’t be sent out until the hearing later this month, but so far as I can see, the current copies of the film can continue to be shown.

*While finding the link to Lennon and “Imagine” on YouTube, I noticed quite a number of attacks on Expelled. But so far no one seems to have pirated footage of the film, or at least not that they are crowing about. I almost think that’s too bad. I am getting impatient. So many American friends have seen it, but it is not coming to Canada till at least June 6.

While we are here, how is Expelled doing after 17 days?

Well, as I write this (7:18 EST), Read More ›

Gambler’s ruin is Darwin’s ruin

The same day I first watched “Expelled” in theaters, I also watched the movie “21”. The movie “21” is based on the true story of MIT students who made a fortune in Las Vegas casinos through the use of mathematics.

The real story behind the movie began with an associate of Claude Shannon by the name of Dr. Edward O. Thorp of MIT. In the Early 60’s, Thorp published a landmark mathematical treatise on how to beat casinos. His research was so successful that Las Vegas casinos shut down many of their card tables for an entire year until they could devise counter measures to impede Thorp’s mathematics.

Thorp is arguably the greatest gambler of all time. He extended his gambling science to the stock market and made a fortune. His net worth is in the fractional to low billions. He is credited with some independent discoveries which were the foundation to the Black-Scholes-Merton equation relating heat transfer thermodynamics to stock option pricing. The equation won the Nobel prize and was the subject of the documentary: The Trillion Dollar Bet.

Thorp would probably be even richer today if Rudy Gulliani had not falsely implicated him in the racketeering scandal involving Michael Milken. Thorp, by the way, keeps a dartboard with Gulliani’s picture on it… 🙂

The relevance of Thorp’s math to Darwinism is that Thorp was a pioneer of risk management (which he used to create the world’s first hedge fund). In managing a hedge fund or managing the wagers in casinos, one is confronted with the mathematically defined problem of Gambler’s Ruin. The science of risk management allows a risk manager or a skilled gambler to defend against the perils gamblers ruin. Unfortunately for Darwinism, natural selection has little defense against the perils of gambler’s ruin.
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Was It “Shameful” for Expelled to Connect Darwinism and Nazi Atrocities?

Scholar Richard Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler asked me to publish this essay to Uncommon Descent. You can read more from Weikart here and my review of his highly recommended book is here. (Note: If you care about this subject, don’t listen to glib excuses and misdirection; read the book.)

I am glad to say that the Expelled flapette on this subject has spiked demand for Weikart’s meticulously researched work, especially because it features the work of Darwinist Nazis who had never before even been translated into English:

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,259 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Popular in these categories: (What’s this?)
#3 in Books > Professional & Technical > Medical > Medicine > Medical Ethics
#6 in Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Discrimination & Racism
#11 in Books > History > United States > African Americans
(at 9:41 am EST)

For a while, Weikart was the target of unscholarly attacks by people determined to obscure the role of Darwinism as an underlying belief very well suited to Hitler’s Third Reich.

Anyway, here is his essay:

Was It Shameful for “Expelled” to Connect Darwinism and Nazi Atrocities?

Many critics of Ben Stein’s new film, “Expelled,” have expressed distaste—and some have gone absolutely apoplectic—over his linking of Darwinism with Nazism. In an MSNBC article bioethicist Arthur Caplan called the film immoral and even ridiculously calls Stein a Holocaust denier, because of his audacity to link Darwinism with Nazi atrocities. Scientific American calls this aspect of the film shameful.

We need to clarify first that neither Stein nor anyone else in “Expelled” ever claimed that Darwinism was the sole culprit for the Nazi program for killing the disabled or exterminating the Jews. The argument was more circumspect: Darwinism was an important—but by no means exclusive—ingredient in the Nazi worldview that motivated them to pursue death for the “inferior” as a means to foster evolutionary progress. This is irrefutable, if anyone will simply examine the evidence (just read the chapter “Nation and Race” in Mein Kampf).

If we focus on the Nazi program to kill the disabled, we find that just about all historians who have examined the evidence have concluded that Darwinism did have something to do with it. The museum in Hadamar (which Stein visited in the film) and the accompanying book for sale there both explain the influence of Darwinism on the Nazi euthanasia program. Read More ›

Why not listen to the lady?

Youtube has a series of monotonous lectures by Barbara Forrest. They call Barbara the woman creationists don’t want you to listen to. Dear Barbara, after listening to you, I know who is really deceiving people, and who is really afraid (or is it paranoid?), and it is not those who support ID. ID is about following the evidence where it leads. It is not about America, or the US Constitution or undermining the rest of science. There is no one ready to steal away your power and supress your rights. ID is a theory that doesn’t automatically Expell evidence for intelligent causation, but considers it along side other explanations for physical phenomena. If Barbara is the best they offer, there is not much on offer. Read More ›

Global Cooling Evidence Continues to Cascade; Global Warming Zealots Unfazed

Researchers publishing in Nature report that parts of North America and Europe are expected to cool over the next decade.  See the story here.   But the author of the report remains a global warming zealot and fears that his science will be used to undermine his religion: “We thought a lot about the way to present this because we don’t want it to be turned around in the wrong way,” Keenlyside said. “I hope it doesn’t become a message of Exxon Mobil and other skeptics.”

How does one make a “pseudo-documentary”?

Mark Perakh now resorts to calling Ben Stein’s EXPELLED a “pseudo-documentary” (go here)? I know what a pseudo-science is (e.g., Darwinism, in its claim to account for biological complexity). And I know what a “mockumentary” is (e.g., This is Spinal Tap). But how does one interview real people about what they really believe and come out with a “pseudo-documentary”? Well, perhaps we should not be surprised. Mark Perakh offered this insight at the Panda’s Thumb pseudo-blog.

Stanford Fair Use Project to defend EXPELLED’s use of “Imagine”

I was speaking to one of the producers of Ben Stein’s EXPELLED the other day. We were discussing Yoko Ono’s suit against them for the brief clip of “Imagine” that appeared in EXPELLED. As it is, plenty of for-profit media/film outlets use clips of material for which they don’t get permission (you think the news networks or Jon Stewart’s Daily Show gets permission for everything they show?). Such use is legitimate and falls under what is called “fair use.” As I was speaking to the producer, he mentioned cryptically that there was a big development in the works that would greatly strengthen their hand against Ono. Well, it’s now clear what that is: “The right to quote from copyrighted works Read More ›

Oxford Rocks with ID (Pro and Con) This July

Word from the conference organizers is that many more papers were submitted to this conference than could possibly be accepted. “A very large number of excellent papers was submitted,” they write, “of which we were only able to accept a fraction.” GOD, NATURE AND DESIGN Historical and Contemporary Perspectives St Anne’s College, Oxford July 10th – 13th 2008 Invited (plenary) speakers include Michael Ruse, Richard Swinburne, Ron Numbers, John Hedley Brooke, Stephen Snobelen, and Holmes Rolston III (their bios are here). The line-up of contributed papers is remarkable for its depth and diversity. More papers will be added to this list as the acceptances come in. Y’all better book your place at the conference, like, now.