This is not the post I originally expected to make. But in light of the comments both here and on other blogs, I will start with a New Year’s resolution: Keep Intelligent Design Intelligent. ‘Intelligent design’ is presumably something more than a long-winded way of saying ‘design’. The phrase implies that the design Read More…
Month: December 2008
Carl Zimmer on Irreducible Complexity
Darwinist Carl Zimmer, who maintains a blog over at the Discover Magazine website recently posted this little diatribe on irreducible complexity. Oh No! I’ve Seen the Impossible! My Eyes! Ah, the things you learn from creationists… If you’ve ever read about intelligent design (a k a “the progeny of creationism”), you’ve probably encountered their favorite Read More…
Analogy to human intelligence
As ID proponents we often make two claims 1. ID makes no statement about the designer. 2. The bacterial flagellum resembles an outboard motor. The second claim is an analogy to human intelligence (which can be expressed as a valid inference to the best explanation). However, the second claim is a statement that the designer Read More…
ID and the Trajectory of Observational Resolution
If I may be so bold, I would like to excise a commenter’s comment from Denyse’s thread, The canals that just had to exist on Mars, and redirect to what I consider to be the greatest weakness of Darwinian orthodoxy, and that is the trajectory of the evidence, which is almost never addressed by anti-ID Read More…
Hey, it’s Christmas. I am allowed to be a bit off topic, right? And this is about your daughter …
My favourite mag Salvo has sent round a free article – which turns out to be one I wrote in 2006 – Less than Zero – the drive to be impossibly thin: Last October, there were some unaccustomed hisses on the Madrid catwalk—directed against gaunt girls. Size 0 scored 0. One in three models, at Read More…
Another Christmas tale: The canals that just had to exist on Mars
The lesson is simple enough. Schiaparelli, Lowell, Wells, and a host of other scientists and popularizers wanted to see life on Mars. The alien enthusiasts just wanted to see what was fuzzy as straight and geometrical because they wanted Mars to be populated with aliens.
I would like to donate to Wikipedia, but …
Wikipedia has a big fundraising push right now. Here’s what I sent to donate@wikimedia.org: To whom it may concern, Wikipedia is a useful resource for uncontroversial areas, but in areas of controversy I find it quite biased. My own extensive biography at Wikipedia is terribly slanted. Colleagues who try to correct misrepresentations find their edits Read More…
Holiday Humor
embedded by Embedded Video
Intelligent design and popular culture: Population crank is now U.S. science and technology policy director
The thing for Uncommon Descenters to grasp about the Holdren appointment is this: It made no difference to the incoming U.S. administration that Holdren was completely wrong.
A Resolution for Darwin Year
I have accepted an invitation to comment regularly on Uncommon Descent for the Darwin Anniversary 2009 (200 years for Darwin himself and 150 years for Origin of Species). My plan is to draw attention to some ideas, arguments, articles and books relating to the ongoing ID-evolution debate. I’ll also say something about when and where Read More…
EV Ware: Dissection of a Digital Organism
Can undirected Darwinian evolution create information? In a celebrated paper titled “Evolution of Biological Information,” a computer program named ev, says yes. It claims to illustrate the following properties of evolution. “[Ev shows] how life gains information.” Specifically “that biological information… can rapidly appear in genetic control systems subjected to replication, mutation and selection.” Ev Read More…
Evolution Emanation Seminars
All ID proponents invited (or not): http://www.insightcruises.com/seminar_d/sa03_seminar.html “Why People Believe In Strange Things” should be a fun one.
A Christmas tale: Neuroscientist discovers hope for stroke victims – and science establishment’s hostility
I’ve been reading Norman Doidge’s The Brain that Changes Itself, and in Chapter 5, Midnight Resurrections, he tells the compelling story of Edward Taub, who bucked the establishment and won. In the mid-twentieth century, a central dogma of neuroscience was that the brain does not change. This had a major impact in decision-making about treatment Read More…
Evolutionary psychology: The scam getting nailed at last?
Can this really be happening? Or am I going to wake up from some Nutcracker Suite fantasy tomorrow morning to discover that the cat is violently sick, due to a regrettable attempt to eat the Christmas flower arrangement? Get this: In Scientific American (December 19. 2008), a load of evolutionary psychology rubbish gets nailed. In Read More…
RNA Getting Lengthy
ScienceDaily reports on an interesting experiment relevant to OOL scenarios. With the aid of a straightforward experiment, researchers have provided some clues to one of biology’s most complex questions: how ancient organic molecules came together to form the basis of life. Specifically, this study demonstrated how ancient RNA joined together to reach a biologically relevant Read More…