August 2009

Special invitation for Richard Dawkins – but any civil person is entitled to enter. There’s been some discussion here and elsewhere whether the the recent IEEE article by Dembski and Marks correctly characterizes Richard Dawkins’ famous METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL program. Does the program ratchet correct letters or does it let them vary? One is a partitioned or stair-step search, the other a more realistic evolutionary search. From The Blind Watchmaker, where Dawkins describes the program, its performance suggests that it could be either of these options (though he doesn’t say). On the other hand, from a (video-run of the program , go to 6:15), it seems to be the latter. It’s easy enough to settle this question: Read More ›

Hunter Baker, formerly a colleague of mine at Baylor and now associate provost at Houston Baptist University, has just published a book with Crossway titled THE END OF SECULARISM (go here for the Amazon.com listing). It provides a far-sweeping historical analysis of secularism within western culture. His critique of secularism is solid: Secularism is not neutral, nor is it something that simply happened thanks to the growing maturity and rationality of human beings. It is an understandable reaction to the various tragedies of church-state alliances in Western history. It is not, however, necessarily more rational nor more harmonious than any number of alternatives. It cannot claim the authority of science. It cannot escape the need to look beyond materialism in Read More ›

A curious piece was posted a few days back by Ewen Callaway at the New Scientist (go here). Its focus was on the recent IEEE paper by Robert Marks and me on conservation of information (for the paper, go here). Callaway remarks: “Even if a paper supporting ID has made it past peer review — and no doubt the arguments will rumble on — it seems like nothing much has changed.” Callaway and his colleagues are welcome to hide their heads in the sand and pretend that nothing has changed. But at the next Dover trial, as the body of peer-reviewed work supporting ID continues to grow (Marks and I have plenty in the pipeline, and there are other labs Read More ›

In the 1954 movie The Caine Mutiny, Humphrey Bogart plays the compulsive-paranoid Captain Queeg who is relieved of duty when unable to deal with a dangerous storm at sea. Upon return to port two officers face a court-martial for mutiny. The trial goes badly for them and they appear to be destined for prison until the final testimony of Captain Queeg where his underlying paranoia is suddenly revealed. In the courtroom sideways looks and wide eyes reveal a collective revelation: “Ohh, noooowwww I understand.” Read more

Richard Dawkins has a new book out soon; ‘The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.’ An unfortunate title perhaps, bearing in mind the type of acts that have performed under that banner headline in the past. So is Dawkins no more than a travelling conjurer pulling bunnies out of hats in the name of science? Is his show cart of evolution just a charade of smoke and mirrors?

Let’s be frank, Dawkins is in reality more dangerous than a harmless travelling charlatan – the type of twisting rhetoric that Dawkins engages in is the type that leads to tyranny, not to respectful dialogue or family entertainment. He should be more careful, but he seems to have sacrificed his cares on some high alter; perhaps the million dollar book deals are clouding his judgment, but in reality his atheism leaves him unaccountable to anyone but himself or his atheist friends in the Royal Society. Yes, his rhetoric often appears to be as dangerous as that of the atheism of the twentieth century that led to fascist and communist regimes that abused human rights and led to the deaths of millions. Read More ›

For a free copy of Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell (Harper One, 2009), help me understand the following: Accidental origin of life is the basic thesis of origin of life researchers. Life all just somehow sort of happened one day, billions of years ago, under the right conditions – which we may be able to recreate. But there is a constant, ongoing dispute about just what those conditions were. Here is the problem I have always had with accidental origin of life: It amounts to spontaneous generation. However, banishing the doctrine of spontaneous generation played a key role in modern medicine’s success. If we assume that life forms (for medical purposes, we focus on pathogens) cannot start spontaneously, then Read More ›

I have recently come across Peter Strawson’s argument for soft naturalism in his book  Skepticism and Naturalism 1985. Also as a chapter Skepticism, Naturalism and Transcendental Arguments in Epistemology: an anthology pp.33-41 What strikes me from this is that proponents of hard forms of naturalism are trying to have it both ways, in that they allow naturalism a privileged place where it is not subject to the type of skepticism that the naturalist insists must be applied to all other knowledge claims. Strawson’s argument for soft naturalism comes out of Hume’s problem of induction and seems a more consistent approach than hard naturalism that is logically unsustainable.

The paper on evolutionary informatics by Robert Marks and me that was recently published in an IEEE journal (go here for the paper) continues to generate discussion on the Internet. One criticism is that it at best is consistent with theistic evolution but does not support ID. I think this is a mistake. I’ve said for over a decade now that ID is consistent with the most far-flung evolutionary change. The key contention of ID is that design in nature, and in biology in particular, is detectable. Evolutionary informatics, by looking at the information requirements of evolutionary processes, points to information sources beyond evolution and thus, indirectly, to a designer. Theistic evolution, by contrast, accepts the Darwinian view that Darwinian Read More ›

Synopsis Of The Fourth Chapter Of Nature’s IQ By Balazs Hornyanszky and Istvan Tasi

Semiotix – Stephen Pain The distinction between “theorising” and “belief” is extremely important because our attitude differs towards them. In a theory the reified concept of the sign does not have an ontological status but an epistemological one. While in belief, the concept has often a clear ontological one. Uexküll believed in his concept of the Bauplan in the same way as Bergson believed in the vital force. The concept of a plan is of course no different from the creationist’s concept of “intelligent design”. Any usage of the Bauplan is further complicated by its ideological usage in The Biological State, Uexküll‘s template for the German State, one that was anti-democratic and in many instances attractive to the Nazi of Read More ›

In recent years evolutionists have been trying to pin down the theological implications of evolution. If evolution is true–and of course evolutionists believe it is true–then what does this tell us about god? From blogs to books to conferences at the Vatican, the “fact” of evolution is being integrated with our theology. The latest example of this science-informs-religion movement is Robert Wright’s op-ed piece in today’s New York Times which resurrects Charles Peirce’s pragmatism. It is yet another example of evolution’s abuse of science. Read more

Janna Levin, Columbia astrophysicist, gives us the cutting-edge science on the origin of the universe: there was nothing, really nothing, nothing at all … but the potential to exist. Was it Aristotle who said that nothing admits no predicates? So where did nothing get the potential to exist and then bring the universe into existence? Not to worry. Janna does give us this assurance: “We know that something happened.” Yes, this is science at its best. Let’s not bring God or design into this discussion — we wouldn’t want to be accused of “acting stupidly.” Oh, one more thing, she’s an assistant professor (go here). Want to bet that she doesn’t have problems getting tenure? Compare this to Guillermo Gonzalez Read More ›

This month’s Scientific American is another example of evolution’s influence on science. Read more

I’m told that the Maroochydore High School, Queensland, Australia, staff voted unanimously to record the following message on their school telephone answering machine, prompted by a school policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children’s absences and missing homework. Apparently, the school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children’s failing grades changed to passing grades — even though those children had double-digit absences during the semester and didn’t do enough work to finish their classes. LISTEN AND ENJOY!

Here’s my MercatorNet column about the decline of traditional media (known to bloggers as “legacy mainstream media”). Anyone interested in the intelligent design controversy should think carefully about how the media are changing.

Hint: Imagine a world in which media went to someone other than the Darwin lobby to find out what might be wrong with Darwinism …

I don’t accept the thesis that the old media declined because they were partisan. Rather they became more ridiculously partisan as they were declining.

Single-minded partisanship is – in a free society – usually an outcome of consumer choice. People can get their news from lots of sources. So if they choose your source, you can develop the story as you like.

But – by contrast – how many air traffic controllers are permitted to bug pilots with their opinions about politics and religion? How many weather forecasters would last long if they likewise bugged farmers seeking data on the tornado watch?

So the tsunami of consumer choices in media fuels partisanship – but also opportunity. Read More ›