Our friends over at www.Marxists.org are perplexed about Hegel’s views on evolution. I am not quite sure where Hegel sits in the Communist Pantheon, but apparently he has some degree of importance. In 1816 Hegel published his Philosophy of Nature (Part 3 of his Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences). Steven Houlgate has written on this book and has posted his critique at Marxists.org. Hegel states the following: “it is a completely empty thought to represent species as developing successively, one after the other, in time…. The land animal did not develop naturally out of the aquatic animal, nor did it fly into the air on leaving the water.” And also “even if the earth was once in a state where it Read More ›

The Theos funded report on attitudes to evolution and creation in UK society has now been published. It gives a confusing picture, although that didn’t stop the Guardian taking one figure out of context to give the spin required by the paper. Guardian news item Theos news item

The report, Faith and Darwin written by Comres not Theos to avoid bias, commented on page 102.

“Despite the decrease of religious practice in the UK and the recent media coverage of issues of science and faith, there is still a core of people who hold to Young Earth Creationism. However, interestingly, the youngest generations and highest educated people show inclinations towards believing in Intelligent Design. Could this be a pointer towards the dominant trend of tomorrow?” Read More ›

A recent poll from England, taken on the eve of Darwin’s 200th birthday celebrations, shows that nearly half of Britons have serious doubts about evolution. And this despite its being the big Year of Darwin and all the hoopla leading up to it and Britain being the home of Darwin and Dawkins and all that. Somehow the message just isn’t getting through.

Here in the United States, a recent Zogby poll indicates a significant increase in the number of people who think the evidence against evolution should be taught. That’s odd considering how often we’ve been told that there is no evidence against evolution and that its as well confirmed as the theory of gravity. Guess that message hasn’t gotten through either. Read More ›

Here’s the story: oudaily.com/news/2009/mar/02/design-debate-draws-crowd-laughs-catlett

This is the transcript of the interview I did with Alex Tsakiris at Skeptiko. It got a bit testy at times. Here’s a snatch on the subject of reincarnation. In the context, I was trying to explain that the fact that some children know what happened to a deceased adult is not necessarily obvious, slam dunk proof of reincarnation: [were these people trying to set me up? Wow!]

Denyse O’ Leary: … there’s probably more than one model that might explain what was happening responsible research is that the mind is not as closely link to the brain as has been formerly thought. So that way, one can move out into an area that’s well-sourced without attracting a whole bunch of [c]ranks because we do need to admit that this sort of research; any sort of research like this and I include that in the Christian community as well as others could attract [c]ranks. So that’s why some of us tend to try to be fairly based on.

Alex Tsakiris: I really have to take issue with that because I think it’s a strategy that folks in the parapsychology and in the other alternative conscious community have tried to do. Have tried to kind of bow to the altar of materialism and say, “No, we just want our little peace over here” and I think it’s a failed strategy. I think the accounts…

Denyse O’Leary: You’re the first person who has ever suggested that I was bowing to anyone like that but you go on.

Hey, the interview was a lot of fun, actually, and I hope you enjoy it.

(Note: I switched “pranks” in the quoted transcript above to [c]ranks. “Cranks” is what I said, and what I meant. Some of the rest of the transcript could do with editing for sentence flow and grammar, but I am not getting involved with that …

I am in no way responsible for the obviously bad transcript. Despite all my – widely attested – other faults, I speak perfect English. I probably could not make a significant grammar error if I tried. I would correct myself in mid-sentence.

Also just up at The Mindful Hack: Read More ›

A friend sends me this item from Urban Dictionary:

Chuck Johnson

Verb: related to Godwin’s law and Godwinism’s. To ‘Chuck Johnson’s’ is to label a person, group or philosophy with the reductio ad Hitlerum* tag as means to close down debate.

Chuck: transitive verb, meaning to a: toss , throw, Noun: Short for Charles

Johnson: refers to the owner of the news aggregating, formally conservative, anti jihad site and now anti-creationism pro Darwin website Little Green Footballs. Which has become synonymous with personality cults, blogtatorship and calling previous colleagues and acquaintances of long and respected standing fascists, Nazis, Racists or ID’er (derogatory term for a belief in creationism. For simply having web links or opinions on their own personal web pages which he/CJ disapproves of.

I must confess, I don’t really understand little green footballs at all.

I did not start covering the intelligent design controversy because I was especially right wing, had a hidden agenda, or was in anyone’s pay, but because the legacy mainstream media was doing such a lousy job that any well-informed freelancer with a blog could do better.

I do, however, remember the weird moment when “Chuck” (?) decided that the scientists who think that the universe shows evidence of design were somehow allied with Islamic fascists. I commented on that here.

The reality is quite otherwise. Muslims who want to grow in their faith while divorcing the politics of extremism are attracted to intelligent design precisely because it demonstrates that the universe is both God-guided and rational. However, that is entirely independent of conspirazoid claims about the Discovery Institute in Seattle.

A Muslim friend reminds me, at times, that traditional Muslim families in his neighbourhood love “Little House on the Prairie” reruns, but do not admire “Sex in the City.”  Well, I share their tastes. And anyone who wants to make a conspiracy out of that can go right ahead.

By the way, if you want to know what’s going on in Canada’s political culture, your first stop should be Deborah Gyapong’s blog. Gyapong, a reporter at the Parliamentary Press Gallery, knows the score.

[*reduction ad Hitlerum = Tell the world that your opponent in some discussion would have endorsed Hitler and the Holocaust. It is an excellent way to seriously complicate and throw confusion into a discussion about, say, which firm should get the contract for fixing potholes on paved highways, come spring, or whether a doofus dressed up as an erect penis should be lecturing about sex at a girls’ high school. People used to say “He’s the Devil’s man!” Now they say “He’s Hitler’s man!” It amounts to the same thing, really. It is not, in itself, an argument.]

Also at the Post-Darwinist: Read More ›

Each year about 100 million Monarch butterflies from Canada and northeastern United States make their journey to the Mexican Sierra Madre mountains in an astonishing two-month long migration (Ref 1).  They fly 2500 miles to a remote area that is only 60 square miles in size (Ref 1).  No one fully understands what triggers this mass movement of Lepidopterans.  But there is no getting away from the fact that this is a phenomenon that, as one review summed up, “staggers the mind”, especially when one considers that these butterflies are freshly-hatched (Ref 1).  In short, Monarch migrants are always “on their maiden voyage” (Ref 2).  The location they fly to is home to a forest of broad-trunked trees that effectively Read More ›