Monthly Archives: May 2011
Chesterton on materialism as a worldview
| May 31, 2011 | Posted by News under Philosophy |
From G. K. Chesterton, an early twentieth century Catholic writer, both anti-materialist and anti-Dawinist, in his Orthodoxy: (Courtesy Super flumina ) As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the […]
Reflections on Time
| May 31, 2011 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
Comments off
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My motorcycle gang (think “Wild Hogs”) planned to ride up to the Black Hills of South Dakota for the Memorial Day weekend, but the forecast was for cold and rain, so we called an audible and headed south through the deserts and mountains of northern New Mexico. On the way down we made a detour […]
Another windy day in the junkyard …
| May 31, 2011 | Posted by News under Biology, Darwinism |
From Jason Palmer at BBC News (19 May 2011), we learn, “Protein flaws responsible for complex life, study says.” This time mistakes produce more functional proteins: Tiny structural errors in proteins may have been responsible for changes that sparked complex life, researchers say.A comparison of proteins across 36 modern species suggests that protein flaws called […]
Has cosmic inflation collapsed?
| May 31, 2011 | Posted by News under Cosmology |
In Scientific American (April 2011), Paul J. Steinhardt asks “The Inflation Debate: Is the theory at the heart of modern cosmology deeply flawed? (April 6, 2011) : Summary Cosmic inflation is so widely accepted that it is often taken as established fact. The idea is that the geometry and uniformity of the cosmos were established […]
Why is the debate over design theory so often so poisonous and polarised?
| May 31, 2011 | Posted by kairosfocus under Intelligent Design |
To answer this one, we need to go as far back as Aristotle’s The Rhetoric some 2300 years ago. In this verbal self-defense classic — as in: “you gotta know what can be done, how, if you are to effectively defend yourself . . . ” — on what has aptly been called the devilish […]
PZ Myers lets the facts and logic fend for themselves
| May 31, 2011 | Posted by News under Atheism, Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
“Seriously, aren’t atheists ashamed of P.Z. Myers, asks Reb Moshe Averick (the “maverick”rabbi and author of The Confused, Illusory World of the Atheist), for The Allgemeiner (May 29, 2011): One of my mentors, Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, (of blessed memory), made the following, rather sobering, observation about human nature: “Nobody ever allowed something as trivial as […]
Evolutionist: Our Best Defense Against Anti-Science Obscurantism
| May 30, 2011 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Evolutionists say undirected, random events, such as mutations, accumulated to create the entire biological world. An analogy once used for this claim is that of a room full of monkeys pounding away at typewriters and producing Hamlet. Today the analogy needs to be updated from typewriters to computer keyboards, but otherwise remains apropos. When the […]
Who are the Real Freethinkers, Darwinists or ID Folks?
| May 30, 2011 | Posted by GilDodgen under Intelligent Design |
Arguing with Darwinists is like trying to teach calculus to people who have not yet mastered arithmetic. kairosfocus has an excellent presentation here. This is the kind of stuff Darwinists dismiss with a shrug of the shoulder while proclaiming that the Darwinian mechanism could have done it, and furthermore must have done it, because there […]
Louisiana: Goodbye, Darwin in the schools lobby. Now back to teaching. Or what?
| May 30, 2011 | Posted by News under science education |
In “Scientists Issue Letter Supporting Louisiana Science Education Act” (Evolution News & Views, May 27, 2011), John West tells us that 15 PhD scientists signed a letter saying that it’s okay for Louisiana teachers to discuss problems with Darwinism. The Louisiana Senate agrees: yesterday the Louisiana Senate Education Committee voted down a bill that would […]
Remember those primitive people who had no words for numbers?
| May 30, 2011 | Posted by News under Human evolution, stasis |
Which shows how number sense evolved? Forget them. In “Geometry skills are innate, Amazon tribe study suggests,” (BBC News , 24 May 2011), Jason Palmer reports , Tests given to an Amazonian tribe called the Mundurucu suggest that our intuitions about geometry are innate.Researchers examined how the Mundurucu think about lines, points and angles, comparing […]
The Giraffe: A Model of Intelligent Design
| May 30, 2011 | Posted by vjtorley under Intelligent Design |
Image courtesy of Hans Hillewaert and Wikipedia. The recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffe is one of Professor Jerry Coyne’s favorite pieces of evidence for evolution. It is also the topic of a recent post of his on Why Evolution is True. Professor Coyne is certainly right about one thing: the recurrent laryngeal nerve of […]
Arsenic-driven origin of life takes hit
| May 30, 2011 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life |
In “Critics take aim at NASA ‘arsenic life’ study” (May 27, 2011), CBC News tells us Eight articles questioning a controversial study claiming that some bacteria can use the normally toxic substance arsenic to build DNA have been published in the journal Science.The study, published last December in Science, was led by NASA scientist Felisa […]
Humans evolved to get revenge?
| May 30, 2011 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design |
No, as a matter of fact. In “Winners, losers – and revenge” (Britain’s The Sunday Times, May 25, 2011), David Hawkes, reviewing a book, tells us, “The echoes of revenge drama, from Iago to Charlie Sheen, can still be heard today”and manages to discuss the subject meaningfully, precisely because he isn’t pretending to tell us […]
10 + 1 Questions For Professor Myers
| May 30, 2011 | Posted by Jonathan M under Intelligent Design |
When Michael Behe visited the UK, back in November, the Humanist Society of Scotland and the British Center for Science Education wrote up a list of “10 + 1 Questions For Professor Behe” which they subsequently distributed to their ranks of faithful followers. I responded, at the time, fairly thoroughly to the arguments made therein […]
But, what if the Cambrian robot is self-replicating?
| May 30, 2011 | Posted by kairosfocus under Intelligent Design |
Dr Liddle, commenting on the Cambrian Robot thread (itself a takeoff on the Pre- Cambrian Rabbit thread), observes at comment no 5: the ribosome is part of a completely self-replicating entity. The others aren’t. The ribosome didn’t “make itself” alone but the organism that it is a component of was “made” by another almost identical […]
Did humans evolve to “outrun the fastest animals on earth”?
| May 30, 2011 | Posted by News under Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
At Outside Online (“Fair Chase,”May 2011), Charles Bethea tells us On the plains of New Mexico, a band of elite marathoners tests a controversial theory of evolution: that humans can outrun the fastest animals on earth. Controversial? Yes, apparently: As ridiculous as this spectacle might appear, the men are testing a much-debated scientific notion about […]
Prediction: Based on Christianity Today’s article on Darwin-friendly Adam and Eve
| May 29, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Human evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion |
Genome mapper Francis Collins, who founded BioLogos, is hailed in the June 2011 article as “one of the most eminent scientists ever to identify as an evangelical Christian.” An unexpected paean – and one that furrowed my brow (p. 23).
Christianity Today article on BioLogos: A Darwinian, not a Christian view of evil is floated, in defense of Christian Darwinism
| May 29, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Animal minds, Christian Darwinism |
This had to happen, of course: John R. Schneider at Calvin College, according to “The Search for the Historical Adam” (Christianity Today, June 2011 ) Vices we associate with consequences of the Fall and original sin, such as self-serving behavior, exist in lower primates ad would have been passed on via evolution to humans. Thus […]
On Occasion, the Science is Actually Settled
| May 29, 2011 | Posted by GilDodgen under Intelligent Design |
We often hear the phrase “the science is settled” from Darwinists who claim that the infinitely creative powers of the Darwinian mechanism (random errors filtered through natural selection) can explain everything. This claim is simply absurd on its face. Anyone with any awareness of the evidence and a simple education in basic mathematical logic, who […]
Dumped BioLogians could make own Expelled film?
| May 29, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Christian Darwinism, Culture |
From my notes on Christianity Today’s June 2011 “Darwin ‘n Jesus ‘n me” article. The article offers a look at Christian Darwinist think tank BioLogos: Biblical exegete Daniel C. Harlow, along with theologian John R. Schneider, are being investigated for violating doctrinal standards at Calvin College, for their work in ASA’s Perspectives. BioLogos (Christian Darwinist […]
