Mazur, author of Altenberg 16, interviews him here.

On the whole, he emerges as a dense, wealthy ignoramus outside his own field and cultural interests. He has a one track mind, backs down when confronted with evidence, then just picks himself up and gets back on the same track again, as if he hadn’t heard. Here’s a snippet or two: Read More ›

The contest was judged here April 16, 2011. Here, a commenter asked O’Leary,As you’ve obviously got your finger on the pulse of the lay of the land and people trust and know you sufficiently well to confide in you such thoughts I wonder if you’d care to proffer a guess as to the time-line for the fall of Darwinism, based on the relative frequency of such encounters with Darwin-doubters?? Commenter JemimaRacktouey is too kind; most people who talk to me just want to bend a pliable ear, and in my trade one learns to just listen. But she has a really good idea there, so I thought, let’s throw it open: What do you see as the timeline for Darwinism Read More ›

… how they came to doubt Darwinism. As if doubting Darwinism were yet illegal … Well, I tell them, stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. If doubt is a problem for you now, you are your own prison. And just think what you saved the Darwinian State by not doubting openly.

Howard Van Till was once one of the best-known Christian evolutionists, but since his “What good is stardust?” article in Christianity Today arguing that nature is “fully gifted” and thus God never intervenes, he has increasingly moved toward what some describe as process theology.

He acknowledges his change of views, and has this to say in The Nature of Nature: Read More ›

How can someone who says, almost proudly, that ethics is an illusion of the genes mesh with Christianity, a religion that puts obedience to God’s word and will right at the heart? In fact, it is not as difficult as it seems, so long as you remember that I am offering a naturalistic account of ethics, and Christianity is a supernatural religion. I am saying that if you ask, “Take God out of the equation and can you still get ethics?” my answer is, “Yes, you can, if you are talking about normative ethics, but when you enter the metaethical realm you find that it is all biology and psychology, with no further meaning. The thought that there is something Read More ›

Andrew Sibley writes*, While there is little doubt about the desire of theistic evolutionists to maintain their commitment to theism, it is pertinent to ask what follows logically from the scientific acceptance of some forms of theistic evolution, especially those that claim that it must be understood within methodological naturalism where all evidence of God’s handiwork is excluded from science by definition.  What follows logically is a silent God and a loud Darwin. *Andrew Sibley, “The Nature and Character of God”, p. 98 , in Should Christians Embrace Evolution?: Biblical and scientific responses, Norman C. Nevin, ed. (Inter-Varsity Press: Nottingham, 2005). Foreword by Wayne Grudem,

Pro-design Jay Richards has responded to neo-Thomist Ed Feser’s attack on evidence for design in nature. Also: “Thomas Aquinas as ancient evolutionary psychologist”

The Discover interview with non-Darwinist (whatever she may feel forced to claim) evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis:

“All scientists agree that evolution has occurred… The question is, is natural selection enough to explain evolution? … This is the problem I have with neo-Darwinists: They teach that what is generating novelty is the accumulation of random mutations in DNA, in a direction set by natural selection… Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn’t create. …I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change — led to new species. I believe it until I looked for evidence. … Read More ›

… allegiance to Darwinism has become a litmus for deciding who does and who does not hold a ”properly scientific’ world view. ‘You must choose between faith in God and faith in Darwin; and if you want to be a secular humanist, you’d better choose the latter.’ So we’re told. We doubt that those options are exhaustive. But we do want, ever so much, to be secular humanists. In fact, we both claim to be outright, card-carrying, signed-up, dyed-in-the-wool, no-holds-barred atheists. [ … ] Still, this book is mostly a work of criticism; it is mostly about what we think is wrong with Darwinism. The cry of their heart is to follow anyone or anything but Darwinism, for the sake Read More ›

Some years ago I read a book called “Lying for God”. It was a systematic emotionally laden deconstruction of YEC. I wondered with disbelief at the time, whether people who are YECs really would knowingly lie to promote their understanding of the world. That was a long time ago, and since then I have frequently come across many people who spout what seem to me to be lies to uphold all sorts of worldviews. It was with this background that I was intrigued by a headline in New Scientist “Biologists create self replicating RNA molecule“. This piece of writing is unashamedly designed to promote the RNA world wishful thinking hypothesis of the spontaneous generation of life. The post describes how Read More ›

In a recent and very courteously worded article entitled, St. Thomas and the Inadequacy of Intelligent Design, Professor Beckwith summarizes his main beef with ID as follows:

According to Dembski, we discover design in nature after we have eliminated chance and law… Design, therefore, is not immanent in nature. It is something that is imposed on nature by someone or something outside it.

This means that for Dembski as well as other ID advocates, nature’s order, including its laws and principles, need not require a mind behind it except for in the few instances where the explanatory filter allows one to detect design.

Beckwith sees this line of argument as dangerous, because its case for a Designer of Nature is merely probabilistic rather than certain, and thus vulnerable to being falsified by future scientific discoveries. He later contrasts this view which he ascribes to Professor Dembski with his own theological position, which he believes rests upon a more secure metaphysical footing:

For the Thomist, and for many other Christians, law and chance do not eliminate design. “Design” does not replace efficient and material causes in nature when the latter two appear impotent as explanations (i.e., Dembski’s “gaps”). Rather, efficient and material causes require final causes… What is a final cause? It is a thing’s purpose or end… For the natural processes – even if they are complete and exhaustive – seem to work for an end, and that end is its final cause. This is why, in his famous Five Ways (or arguments) to show God’s existence, St. Thomas includes as a fifth way an argument from the universe’s design as a whole, appealing to those scientific laws that make motion possible…

Here are two quick questions I’d like to ask Professor Beckwith.

1. Which would you regard as the best piece of evidence for God’s existence:

(a) the existence of meaningful instructions in the natural world;
(b) the occurrence of end-oriented processes in the natural world; or
(c) random behavior taking place in the natural world?

2. Which gap do you think is greater:

(i) the gap between (a) and (b), or
(ii) the gap between (b) and (c)?
Read More ›

  Bradley Monton, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder:Bradley Monton, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder: The theory of intelligent design holds that certain global features of the universe provide evidence for the existence of an intelligent cause, or that certain biologically innate features of living things provide evidence for the doctrine that the features are the result of the intentional actions of an intelligent cause which is not biologically related to the living things, and provide evidence against the doctrine that the features are the result of an undirected process such as natural selection. He adds, This is a doctrine that I endorse, though I realize that not all atheists will Read More ›

In “Left brain, right brain: researchers link neurology to political orientation” Andrew Duffy, Ottawa Citizen Postmedia News April 7, 2011) tells us,

The study, published in the online edition of Current Biology, found that people who identified themselves as liberal tended to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes (ACC), a region of the brain that monitors uncertainty and conflict.Meanwhile, those who identified themselves as conservative had larger amygdalas. Among other things, the almond-shaped amygdala processes emotions related to fear.

Researchers believe the physical differences reflect the nature of voters: that liberals tend to be more comfortable with uncertainty while conservatives are more sensitive to fear.

Observers have noted that Canada, mid-election, is currently a target for this sort of thing.

Those who read all the way down to the bottom will encounter the lines: Read More ›

The debate: Does Good Come From God II by Sam Harris vs William Lane Harris 7 April 2011 at Notre Dame is now on YouTube.

Part 1 of 9 – Harris vs Craig – Does Good Come From God Read More ›