Monthly Archives: September 2010
Why Some People Favor Common Descent
| September 11, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
The scientific evidence does not favor evolution but that doesn’t mean we know all the answers. In fact some people who agree evolution is unlikely, nonetheless argue for common descent. This can be confusing because common descent is so often presented as integral to Darwin’s idea. But this need not be the case. Read more
George Williams (1926-2010) and the Theological Case for Evolution
| September 11, 2010 | Posted by Paul Nelson under Intelligent Design |
Do you still think God is good? — George Williams, 1987 (p. 157) In the commentary following the death on September 8 of leading neo-Darwinian theorist George C. Williams — go here for a representative selection — I’ve seen no mention of the considerable role of theology in Williams’s thought. I’d speculate that this silence […]
Of mind and matter: David Attenborough meets Richard Dawkins
| September 11, 2010 | Posted by Jonathan M under Intelligent Design |
An article was published in The Guardian today, featuring a discussion between Oxford Zoologist, Richard Dawkins, and the renowned broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough. Describing the transformation of a dragonfly larva into a dragonfly, the pair remarked, DA: I am a naturalist rather than a scientist. Simply looking at a flower or a frog has always […]
Responding to Merlin Part IV – A Clear Picture of a Directed Mutation
| September 11, 2010 | Posted by johnnyb under Intelligent Design |
This is a multi-part post in response to Merlin’s paper, “Evolutionary Chance Mutation: A Defense of the Modern Synthesis’ Consensus View”. See introduction and table of contents. In the last installment, we talked about how Merlin tried to paint a whole range of semi-directed mutations as “evolutionarily random”, and how this falls short when compared […]
George C. Williams
| September 11, 2010 | Posted by William Dembski under Evolution, Intelligent Design |
George Williams died September 8th, 2010. An evolutionist, he had insightful things to say about biology’s information problem. Commenting on the “separability of information and matter,” he wrote: “You can speak of galaxies and particles of dust in the same terms because they both have mass and charge and length and width. You can’t do that with […]
Drosophila’s Altimeter: Evolution Does it Again
| September 10, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Aircraft typically use air pressure measurements to determine their altitude above sea level. They may also use radar to directly measure their altitude above ground. Needless to say each approach is immensely complex. Insects also need to determine their altitude. Many do so by measuring how fast the ground passes beneath them. But new research […]
Why Secular and Theistic Darwinists Fear ID
| September 9, 2010 | Posted by GilDodgen under Intelligent Design |
In this comment I included an essay I wrote in 1994 at the behest of a Christian friend, David Pounds, after my conversion from militant atheism to traditional Christianity. Dave encouraged me to write it, but it only chronicles one aspect of the journey (the most significant one). But there was another extremely significant aspect […]
Barr on Hawking
| September 9, 2010 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
As regular readers of this blog know, Stephen Barr is no friend of ID. But here he gets it right on Hawking’s recent foray into theology. A sample: Physics scenarios and theories are merely mathematical stories. They may be fictional or describe some reality. And just as the words of a book by themselves can’t […]
Explanations of vertebrate diversity
| September 9, 2010 | Posted by David Tyler under Intelligent Design |
In 1996, palaeontologist Mike Benton published a fascinating analysis of tetrapod evolutionary data and concluded: “Competitive replacement has probably played a minor role in the history of tetrapods. In an assessment of the origins of 840 families of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, fewer than 26%, and probably fewer than 13%, were identified as candidate […]
Evolution is a Fact and a Theory: An Example From Michael Lynch
| September 9, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Evolution cannot be said to be absolutely true, but just about. Evolution could be false, but only if most everything we thought we knew is cleverly misleading us. Short of a massive cosmic conspiracy, evolution must be true. Either Darwin was right, or this is one of those Bobby Ewing dreams. This is how certain […]
Stephen Hawking’s The Grand Design: The Banality of Evolution, Part 3
| September 8, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
In the twentieth century evolutionists resisted the idea of a “Big Bang” beginning of the universe. They wanted a universe that had no beginning but the evidence did not cooperate but rather increasingly pointed to the Big Bang model. Now cosmologists, such as Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professor of Mathematics Stephen Hawking, say the Big Bang […]
Dawkins Versus Darwin
| September 8, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Jonathan Jones has found a new role for Richard Dawkins—as a foil against which to prop up Charles Darwin. Dawkins is strident and clever where Darwin was thoughtful and straightforward. Read more
Responding to Merlin Part III – Merlin’s Delineation Between Darwinian and non-Darwinian Mutations and How It Falls Short
| September 7, 2010 | Posted by johnnyb under Darwinism, Evolutionary biology, Informatics, Intelligent Design |
This is a multi-part post in response to Merlin’s paper, “Evolutionary Chance Mutation: A Defense of the Modern Synthesis’ Consensus View”. See introduction and table of contents. Merlin spends a large part of the paper trying to establish what does and does not constitute a directed mutation. Merlin, I think, fails in her attempt to […]
Does Atheism Poison Everything? Debate Between David Berlinski and Christopher Hitchens
| September 7, 2010 | Posted by Clive Hayden under Culture, Darwinism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science |
The debate is happening today, Sept. 7th, at the Fixed Point Foundation. Our next debate features famed atheist Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and Dr. David Berlinski, author of The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. The question being debated: What are the implications of a purely […]
The Great Debate – Dembski & Behe vs. Miller & Pennock
| September 7, 2010 | Posted by Jonathan M under Intelligent Design |
A few weeks ago, the NCSE’s youtube channel uploaded a 2002 debate featuring our very own William Dembski and Michael Behe, each of whom presented a short description of their contribution to the science of ID, before being cross-examined by Michigan State University philosopher Robert Pennock, and Brown University biologist, Kenneth Miller. The debate was […]
Darwin’s Dilemma with added value (talks by Axe, Sternberg, Wells, Meyer) at SMU, September 23, 2010
| September 7, 2010 | Posted by Paul Nelson under Intelligent Design |
Details here.
“Is Intelligent Design Viable?” William Lane Craig vs. Francisco Ayala
| September 7, 2010 | Posted by Jonathan M under Intelligent Design |
Late last year, the eminent Christian philosopher and proponent of intelligent design, William Lane Craig, crossed swords in debate with the avid apologist for Darwinian evolution, Francisco Ayala, of the Biologos Foundation. The debate was chaired by philosopher of physics Bradley Monton of the University of Colorado, an ID sympathizer, though a convinced atheist himself. […]
Oxford Mathematician John Lennox Weighs-In On Stephen Hawking’s Recent Claim That The Universe Came From Nothing Through The Laws Of Nature
| September 6, 2010 | Posted by Clive Hayden under Culture, Education, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science |
There’s no denying that Stephen Hawking is intellectually bold as well as physically heroic. And in his latest book, the renowned physicist mounts an audacious challenge to the traditional religious belief in the divine creation of the universe…The Big Bang, he argues, was the inevitable consequence of these laws [of physics] ‘because there is a […]
Comments on Hawking and Dawkins
| September 6, 2010 | Posted by Steno under Intelligent Design |
There are a number of comments on Hawking’s claim that science disproves the existence of God over at the science and values blog. Plus some further reviews of Dawkins’ UK TV programmes on More4. http://science-and-values.blogspot.com/
Responding to Merlin Part II – What Makes an Evolutionary Process Darwinian or Not?
| September 6, 2010 | Posted by johnnyb under Intelligent Design |
This is a multi-part post in response to Merlin’s paper, “Evolutionary Chance Mutation: A Defense of the Modern Synthesis’ Consensus View”. See introduction and table of contents. Merlin’s paper spends a lot of time dealing with the synthetic theory as defined by its original exponents – as well it should, since modern biology owes many […]
