Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Usefulness of Chance & Necessity

Over on Panda’s Thumb Arthur Hunt protests Phil Skell’s essay in Forbes where Skell describes the theory of evolution as not being useful to modern experimental biology. Hunt goes on to give an example in how it is useful. But Hunt plays the old bait and switch game. Every honest person with some knowledge of ID knows that ID doesn’t dispute common descent as the reason why all living things are deeply related. ID disputes the notion that chance and necessity alone produced all the living things and the differences between them. I don’t think anyone (including Phil Skell) will argue that knowing all living things are deeply related is not a sometimes valuable guiding heuristic to experimental biology. So Read More ›

Plantinga versus Dennett at the APA

Here’s a fascinating, anonymous account of the recent (Saturday, February 21, 2009) debate between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett at the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association (APA), in Chicago. The account is anonymous because the writer wishes to protect his academic career from discrimination — itself a fact worth noting about the current climate.

Ruse / Dembski Debate at the University of Oklahoma

Tonight at the University of Oklahoma there was a debate between Michael Ruse and William Dembski. I must say, it was one of the most cordial events I’ve been at, especially compared to last week’s event, where the question and answer session got pretty ugly. The topic was whether or not Intelligent Design was science. I tried to write down the gist of the debating points, so a summary of the debate follows.
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Tony Campolo – What’s wrong with Darwinism?

Influential Christian preacher Tony Campolo highlights some of the racial assumptions that were part of Darwin’s theory. Writing in Christian Today, ‘What’s wrong with Darwinism?’, 27th February 2009 he draws attention to the full title of Darwin’s first book ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.’ Campolo though believes that ethics should be the focus of those who reject Darwin’s theory. He further comments (referencing the Descent of Man 1871) that;

“Darwin went so far as to rank races in terms of what he believed was their nearness and likeness to gorillas. He further proposed the extermination of those races which he “scientifically” defined as inferior. To not do so, he claimed, would result in those races, which have much higher birth rates than his designated superior races, exhausting the resources needed for the survival of better people, and eventually dragging down all of civilization” Read More ›

Dr. Death (Eric Pianka) and His Disciples at it Again!

Perhaps you recall the outrageous statements by Dr. Eric Pianka of U. of Texas at Austin. Well, he’s still preaching his wacky “humans are the root of all evil” propaganda and enlisting the aid of some of his unfortunate students. (unfortunate because they’ve fallen under the influence of this nutty professor). Below is a video of some of his latest. The twisted logic and misinformation given here is beyond belief. You could laugh this off if it were just the rantings of some unknown in their basement, but Pianka has managed to grab some national attention, even if negative attention.

[youtube RQbzRRu-WpY]

 

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Increased Oxygen = Increased Biological Information, Which Explains the Cambrian Explosion

This is the kind of reasoning we can expect from “scientists” like Hillis, in an attempt to explain away the Cambrian explosion. For more, go here. Is there no shame left among Darwinists who propose such absurd ideas, or do they actually believe such transparent fantasies?

FAQ 3 Open for Comment

3] Intelligent Design does not carry out or publish scientific research Judge Jones of Dover and those who follow him are simply wrong: despite opposition and harassment, there is a significant and growing body of ID-supportive research and peer-reviewed scientific publications. (For instance, the Discovery Institute maintains a list of such research-based publications here. [In an earlier form, this list was actually submitted to Judge Jones, but he unfortunately ignored the brute facts it documents when he wrote his ruling based on misleading and inaccurate submissions by the NCSE and ACLU.]) A few plain words are also in order. For, there has been significant harassment and career-busting that have been targeted at ID proponents. For example, Dembski and Marks were Read More ›

Yet another coffee break! Distant iceball Pluto rescued by US state senator …

Mark Steyn, invincible Canadian humourist, writes that in Illinois,

Like some sort of rulers of the universe, state lawmakers are considering restoring little Pluto’s planetary status, casting aside the scientific community’s 2006 decision downgrading the distant ice ball.

An Illinois Senate committee on Thursday unanimously supported planet Pluto and declaring March 13 “Pluto Day…” The push for a state decree on Pluto comes from state Sen. Gary Dahl, a Republican whose downstate district includes Streator, birthplace of Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh. Dahl told colleagues Pluto is important to the local community, which considers the vote to downgrade Pluto to “dwarf” planet was unfair…

Maybe they could vote to downgrade Blago to dwarf planet instead.

More from Betsy Newmark here:

OH, yes. I’m sure that state Senator Dahl has truly helped his constituents with this resolution. It’s a platform that I’m sure will send him to the stratosphere in politics. Just what we need – more politicians who think that they can solve every question by political resolutions.

In case you want to know what I think? Read More ›

One for the “unabashed bigotry” files

At Britain’s Daily Telegraph, Christopher Booker assures us that he is familiar with “the unabashed bigotry of staunch Darwinists.”

Lots of us are. They glory in their ignorance.

Mr. Booker writes,

As an old hand at tangling with Darwinists, I was well aware that a howl of furious protests would greet my item last week describing their curious inability to recognise just how much of the story of evolution Darwin’s theory cannot explain, For pointing out that they rely on no more than an unscientific leap of faith to believe that an infinite series of minute variations could bring about all those extraordinary leaps in the evolutionary story, such as the emergence of the eye and countless others, I was derided as “stupid”, “idiotic” and “scientifically illiterate”. Clearly I was unaware all these riddles had been solved by genetics and the decoding of the human genome.

The trouble is that, as my colleague Dr James Le Fanu has lucidly set out in his admirable new book Why Us? How Science Rediscovered The Mystery Of Ourselves (Harper Press, £18.99), the unravelling of the genome has done nothing of the kind. When mice, men and chimpanzees all turn out to be made of almost identical genetic material, the unknown factor which determines why the same building blocks should give rise to such an astonishing variety of different life-forms leaves the Darwinian thesis as full of holes as ever. To believe that genetics have solved the riddle relies as much on a leap of faith as that Biblical ‘Creationism’ which causes the more fanatical Darwinians to foam at the mouth.

But the difference is that the Darwinists have the law on their side = in a corrupt administration, the right to persecute whomever they please.

Meanwhile a bunch of well-meaning idiots has written to the Daily Telegraph advising us that Read More ›

Coffee break: Billions of Earths in our galaxy?

According to some, our galaxy has billions of Earths.

Think what that will do for the slumping real estate market …

So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System.

Very few of these would be capable of supporting life, however. Most are gas giants like our Jupiter, and many orbit so close to their parent stars that any microbes would have to survive roasting temperatures.

But, based on the limited numbers of planets found so far, Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one “Earth-like” planet.

This simple calculation means there would be huge numbers capable of supporting life.

Oh wait … what’s the market reach for extraterrestrial bacteria?

A key question, obviously, is why would a planet only have unicellular, and not multicellular life?

Also, today at Colliding Universes, my blog about competing materialist and non-materialist theories about our universe: Read More ›

Phil Skell writing for Forbes says Theory of Evolution worse than useless

Nothing much for me to add since I entirely agree with Skell. I note that the comments following the Forbes article fail to include any substantive dispute – just the usual ad hominem and hand waving.

The Dangers Of Overselling Evolution

Philip S. Skell, 02.23.09, 01:47 PM EST

Focusing on Darwin and his theory doesn’t further scientific progress.

Last week, University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne criticized Forbes (See “Why Evolution Is True”) for including views skeptical of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in its forum on the 200th anniversary of his birth. As a member of the National Academy of Sciences, I beg to differ with Professor Coyne.

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[Off Topic] Newest Book: TOUGH-MINDED CHRISTIANITY

My newest book, co-edited with Thomas Schirrmacher, has just been published and is now available for immediate shipping from Amazon.com (go here). It is an extensive collection of essays in honor of John Warwick Montgomery. JWM’s no-nonsense brand of apologetics, in which he was willing to put everything on the table for discussion and to consider all evidence pro and con on any topic, has certainly been an inspiration to me in the ID movement. If Phillip Johnson is the father of the ID movement, then JWM is its godfather.

Pop quiz (no cheating!)

To take the quiz — or to play along — here’s your background information, and no cheating by looking into cell biology textbooks or using Google or PubMed. 1. Topoisomerases are essential enzymes, found in all organisms, which solve topological problems arising from the double-helical structure of DNA. Now, assume: 2. All organisms on Earth share a common ancestor, the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). OK — quiz time. Given (1) and (2), what should we expect to find, with respect to the homology of topoisomerases, when we examine organisms descended from LUCA in different parts of the Tree of Life? Multiple choice: A) Homologous topoisomerases B) Non-homologous topoisomerases C) Can’t say. Make your best guess, and then go here: Read More ›

STATEMENT BY IOWA FACULTY ON HF 183: THE EVOLUTION ACADEMIC FREEDOM ACT

A recent bill introduced into the Iowa State Legislature has prompted the defenders of Darwinian Dogma to issue the following statement:

STATEMENT BY IOWA FACULTY ON HF 183: THE EVOLUTION ACADEMIC FREEDOM ACT

We, the undersigned members of institutions of higher learning in Iowa, urge our legislators to reject passage of “The Evolution Academic Freedom Act” (HF 183) introduced by Rod Roberts (R-Carroll). The language of this bill comes primarily from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which has conducted lobbying efforts and political activism against the teaching of evolution since 1994.

Evolution is as established a scientific theory as any other theory in science. It is misleading to claim that there is any controversy or dissent within the vast majority of the scientific community regarding the scientific validity of evolutionary theory. Since there is no real dissent within the scientific community, then “academic freedom” for alternative theories is simply a mechanism to introduce religious or non-scientific doctrines into our science curriculum.

Similar efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in schools repeatedly have been found to be unconstitutional, something witnessed most recently in Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005) in Pennsylvania.

We, therefore, urge our legislators to recognize HF183 as part of a long history of creationist assaults on science education, and reject passage of this bill.

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