Monthly Archives: December 2010
He said it: John Templeton on meaning and purpose
| December 31, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Culture |
Would it not be strange if a universe without purpose accidentally created humans who are so obsessed with purpose? – Sir John Templeton, The Humble Approach: Scientists Discover God (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation, 1998) Some of wouldn’t recognize that Templeton Foundation today. Curious to know what has changed.
Speciation Reduced To Little More Than A ‘Gut Feeling’
| December 31, 2010 | Posted by Robert Deyes under Intelligent Design |
Buried in the most recent scientific literature there is a story of love, sex, and intrigue that has all the makings of a hearty Mills & Boon novel. The central characters of this plot are not lovers wrapped in each others arms but fruit flies that choose their sexual partners according to the microbiota that […]
Neuro-politico-nonsense
| December 30, 2010 | Posted by vjtorley under Intelligent Design |
Well, it seems that the silly season is upon us. A study conducted earlier this month by the University College of London’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (directed by Professor Geraint Rees) reveals a startling correlation between between people’s political beliefs and the size of two specific regions of their brains: the amygdala and the anterior […]
New Peer-Reviewed Paper Challenges Darwinian Evolution
| December 30, 2010 | Posted by Jonathan M under Intelligent Design |
Over recent months, papers challenging key elements of Darwinian theory — the kind of papers which are supposed not to exist — have increasingly been slipping through the net and finding their way into the peer-reviewed literature. One such paper, “Is gene duplication a viable explanation for the origination of biological information and complexity?,” authored […]
Peeking through the Forrest to look at the trees …
| December 30, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism, Religion |
Christian Darwinists are fond of reassuring us all that Christianity and Darwinism are a natural fit. They don’t seem to have taught the chant to everyone yet. Old Earth creationist Stephen E. Jones has noted, Barbara Forrest, has explored what she believes are the religious implications of neo-Darwinism and astronomy in her article, “The Possibility […]
ID – Predicton or accommodation?
| December 30, 2010 | Posted by Steno under Intelligent Design |
Alister McGrath makes some interesting comments on the need for prediction in science, noting that a natural theology may be possible on the basis of accommodation within an ‘inference to the best explanation.’ He writes; ‘…some theories concern entities or situations in which predictions may seem inappropriate or simply impossible. If natural theology rests primarily […]
A better kind of beauty, or: Why some people mistakenly reject Intelligent Design as unaesthetic
| December 30, 2010 | Posted by vjtorley under Intelligent Design |
This post is intended as a follow-up on the post, Children of a better god? by idnet.com.au. I would like to suggest that the real reason why some people (including many Christians) dislike Intelligent Design is an aesthetic one. Their notion of beauty is overly influenced by mathematics: they define beauty as a delicate and […]
Has the growth in interest in design helped to chase blatant philosophical materialism out of textbooks?
| December 29, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism, Education |
Wanted: Examples from recent textbooks that match these examples from the 1990s through 2001?: From Joseph S. Levine and Kenneth R. Miller, Biology: Discovering Life (D.C. Heath and Co., 1st ed. 1992, p. 152: Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence […]
Hello World! – An Introductory Post
| December 29, 2010 | Posted by nullasalus under Design inference, Intellectual freedom, Intelligent Design, Philosophy |
Greetings all. Since I’m going to be contributing some posts here at Uncommon Descent, it’s been suggested I explain to everyone just where I’m coming from intellectually and in the context of the Intelligent Design discussion. Before I do that, I just want to express my thanks to the powers that be on this site […]
Do you have to be an American liberal to believe in extraterrestrials?
| December 29, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Culture |
Yes, folks, I thought this was Hoax News at work too. But Michael Medved reports, These clashing opinions on extraterrestrials amount to more than a trivial split on an arcane topic; they connect, in fact, both logically and emotionally to big conflicts over worldview, culture, politics and America’s role in history.In Colorado, these conflicts erupted […]
First cup of coffee!! At last – a man for Misshelver!
| December 29, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Culture, Darwinism |
A friend has unearthed another Darwin troll “reshelving” books: Reshelving antievolution books in the name of science Every time I go into the Hastings bookstore here in Butte, Montana, I get annoyed to see antievolution books in the science section, especially since these books are not scientific in their antievolutionism, but motivated by the intelligent […]
James Bradley disses Dembski’s The Design Inference — 12 years after its publication!
| December 28, 2010 | Posted by Clive Hayden under Intelligent Design |
It looks as though the folks at BioLogos are targeting all the main works of design theorists, and the flavor of the month this time is William Dembski’s The Design Inference. Retired Calvin College mathematics professor James Bradley has been called in to do the demolition. His “scholarly” take-down of Dembski’s book is here: http://biologos.org/uploads/projects/bradley_scholarly_essay.pdf […]
Children of a better god?
| December 28, 2010 | Posted by idnet.com.au under Intelligent Design |
I have been listening to a few lectures by Christians who are convinced that the standard models of evolution explain all of biology including life’s origin. They say that evolution also explains all of cosmology. For them, this gives them, the evolutionary creationists, “a better god” than any model that requires a lesser form of “interventionist god”. […]
Coffee!! But the fake past was so much more FUN!!
| December 28, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism |
In Science , we read: Altering the Past: China’s Faked Fossils Problem Richard Stone Specialists and collectors around the world have long decried the flood of sham fossils pouring out of China. But Science has learned that many composites and fakes are now finding their way into Chinese museums, especially local museums. One paleontologist estimates […]
Professor: God Would Not Create the Giraffe’s Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve
| December 28, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
One thing evolutionists agree on is that their theory is also a scientific fact. It is a curious point of consensus given that, of all the many, many evolutionary claims, it is the one that is most obviously and undeniably false. It is not that evolutionists fail to prove their theory to be a fact. […]
Can a Non-Expert Challenge a “Scientific” Consensus?
| December 27, 2010 | Posted by GilDodgen under Intelligent Design |
Many of us in the ID community are repeatedly challenged with the assertion that those without “credentials” in evolutionary biology are, essentially by definition, disqualified from questioning Darwinian orthodoxy. It is true that if a mathematician claims to have a proof of a new theorem in computational number theory, the challenger should be able to […]
Are microbes helping shape the weather?
| December 27, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Global Warming, Science |
Lots of things are up in the air these days, … Recent research published in PNAS suggests that the diversity of microbial life in the air is on par with the soil, at least in urban areas, yet the air remains vastly understudied in comparison. “Just seven or ten years ago we didn’t realize bacteria […]
DarwinLeaks: New blog aims to leak Darwin stories, no jail time anticipated
| December 27, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Culture, Darwinism |
With a hat tip, one supposes, to Wiki Leaker Julian Assange, a friend alerts me to DarwinLeaks hoping it will “do the same to Darwin and disciples from a history of science point of view.” The blog is in Portuguese, but can be translated at the site. It certainly looked interesting; when I checked in, […]
Coffee!: Things can’t just be weird, can they? I mean …
| December 26, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Biology, Darwinism |
From Live Journal via Mark Shea, originally at Why Evolution is True (Jerry Coyne’s site), we have the Brazilian Treehopper, also this model … And if you think that’s weird, see these. The funny part is the proposed Darwinian explanation: A first guess is that it’s a sexually-selected trait, but those are often limited to […]
Coffee!: Even-handed, sure – provided you have only one hand
| December 25, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Culture, Darwinism |
A friend writes to note, “Evolution and its rivals” – a special issue of the philosophy journal Synthese focused on the creationism/evolution controversy – was just published. Fortuitously, as part of a special promotion on the part of the journal’s publisher, access to Synthese is free until 31 December 2010. When you get there, you will […]
