2010

Amazon.com product description: “This is currently the best book covering the relationship between genome and computer architectures.” – JOHNATHAN BARTLETT, Author / Publisher / Speaker / Director of Technology —– This book highlights the informational aspects of life that are generally overlooked or ignored in chemical and biological evolutionary scenarios. Each cell of an organism has millions of interacting computers reading and processing digital information, using digital programs and digital codes to communicate and translate information. Life is an intersection of physical science and information science. Both domains are critical for any life to exist, and each must be investigated using that domain’s principles. Yet most scientists have been attempting to use physical science to explain life’s information domain, a Read More ›

Frank Tipler writes at Pajamasmedia: The current battle for America is, as Angelo Codevilla has recently emphasized in his seminal essay, a war between the majority of Americans and America’s ruling class. This conflict is a reflection of a battle between the two greatest scientists of the past two centuries, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. Einstein famously claimed that “God does not play dice with the universe,” whereas Darwin claimed that God does, indeed, play dice with the universe. Codevilla pointed out the self-image of the ruling class rests on its belief that humans are the unforeseen outcome of chance mutations acted upon by natural selection. Not so. God decreed the evolution of humans before time began. The ruling class Read More ›

Virginia Ironside and Bob Brown advocate euthanasia. If Ironside had a child who was in terrible pain, she would hold a pillow over its head, as she would for any living creature that was suffering. Likewise Brown, the Australian Greens leader, explains that abolishing the federal statute that outlawed euthanasia would be his first legislative priority.  Read more

Michael Behe debates Stephen Barr on ID here.

In his post below Clive Hayden quotes Dr. Bruce Gordon: “spontaneous creation” minus “any cause illustrates the lack of an explanation rather than scientific comprehension.” nikkipolya objects: “The popular interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is also anything but comprehensible. Yet, it correctly explains most of the phenomena at the atomic level. Comprehensibility is a problem that only exists in the brain. You are trying to correlate two unrelated problems.” nikkipolya does not appear to understand Gordon’s basic point. The equations of quantum mechanics describe certain regularities (i.e., “laws”) of sub-atomic phenomena. In no sense do the equations of quantum mechanics explain how or why those regularities came into existence in the first place Thus, at its base, nikkipolya’ objection depends on Read More ›

In a recent Washington Times article, written by the Discovery Institute’s polymath Bruce Gordon, Gordon discusses the soundness of Stephen Hawking’s argument made recently which states that the universe could have been brought into existence merely by the laws of nature.

Stephen Hawking‘s new book, “The Grand Design,” co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow, contends that God is not necessary to create the universe because the laws of physics can do it alone. The “new atheist” crowd will cheer this message, but their credulity is a matter more of fiery sentiment than of coolheaded logic.

Mr. Hawking asserts that “as recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” But “spontaneous creation” minus any cause illustrates the lack of an explanation rather than scientific comprehension. It also runs counter to a question Mr. Hawking voiced years ago: “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”

Shrine gate at Itsukushima shrine, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. Photo by Dan Smith.

One of Paul Gauguin’s most famous paintings is entitled: “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” Historically, the world’s great civilizations have offered very different answers to these three questions. In this post, I’d like to draw readers’ attention to a fascinating lecture given by Kagefumi Ueno, entitled “Culture and Religiosity in Modern Japan.” Ueno is a “cultural thinker,” who has published several books and spoken at various congresses. Currently, he is Japan’s ambassador to the Holy See in Rome.

As someone who lives in Japan, I found Ueno’s talk deeply insightful and very perceptive. It’s a must-read for people who are interested in Intelligent Design: although Ueno focuses on the profound differences between Japanese religiosity and Christianity, the implications for ID are obvious. To explain why, I’d like to quote a short passage from Ueno’s speech:
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For some time now, I’ve been threatening to publish an expose of the pretentious claims of self-styled “Thomists” who have argued that Intelligent Design is completely at odds with St. Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy. Well, this is it. The Big One. Get ready, and hold on to your hats. In today’s post, I’m going to comprehensively rebut a paper by a leading “Thomistic” critic of Intelligent Design, who contends that Thomists have nothing to fear from the scientific claims of Darwinism. I’m going to show that this ID critic actually contradicts what St. Thomas Aquinas wrote on the topic of origins, on no less than fifteen specific points (yes, fifteen!), which I shall call Aquinas’ “fifteen smoking guns.” I think my Read More ›

Natural Selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good. C.DARWIN sixth edition Origin of Species — Ch#4 Natural Selection NOT! Newly appearing good traits in a single individual will rarely get infused (or “fixed” ) into a population. To understand theoretically why this is false, visit: Gambler’s Ruin is Darwin’s Ruin. And now we have some poignant experimental confirmation of my theoretical prediction! In a paper published by the prestigious scientific journal Nature September 30,2010 we read: Our work provides a new perspective on the genetic basis of adaptation. Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did Read More ›

For the full program, go here.

In Foresight and Understanding (Indiana University Press, 1961), physicist and philosopher of science Stephen Toulmin rejected set “rules” for science. He argued that no single criterion (e.g., falsifiablity, prediction, etc.) encompasses the entire scientific endeavor. Toulmin advocated a Darwinian conception of science pursuant to which scientific theories succeed because they are better adapted at explaining the data than their rivals. How deliciously ironic it would be if Darwinism were dethroned as the paradigm of origins through a Darwinian process.

Cornell Geneticist John Sanford argued that Darwinism is wrong because the rate of genetic deterioration is so high that natural selection could not arrest it. If natural selection cannot arrest genetic deterioration, how then could it be the mechanism for evolutionary improvement? Sanford predicted through his research that human genome is deteriorating. This was a daring scientific prediction, and now Michael Lynch of the elite National Academy published on the topic for his inaugural paper. The NAS has now made the paper available to the public free of charge. Read it, and weep, literally: Rate, Molecular Spectrum, and Consequences of Human Mutation Unfortunately, it has become increasingly clear that most of the mutation load is associated with mutations with very Read More ›

 We have this report today about an earth sized planet orbiting a nearby star.  An excerpt:  An Earth-size planet has been spotted orbiting a nearby star at a distance that would makes it not too hot and not too cold — comfortable enough for life to exist, researchers announced Wednesday. If confirmed, the exoplanet, named Gliese 581g, would be the first Earth-like world found residing in a star’s habitable zone — a region where a planet’s temperature could sustain liquid water on its surface. And the planet’s discoverers are optimistic about the prospects for finding life there. “Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the Read More ›