Robert Bellah hits the “evolution of religion” circuit
The Brit riots: “When churches disappear, the vacuum is filled by gangs or tribes.”
Why atheists do end up kicking cats
ID and Prager University
As many UD readers know, I was once a Richard Dawkins-style atheist. I was not just an ordinary, garden-variety atheist, but a really obnoxious, nasty, self-aggrandizing, pathetically prideful atheist like Dawkins. I prided myself in using my intellectual capacities in an attempt to destroy any belief that materialism cannot explain everything. What a fool I was. The story of my conversion is available, but the most salient point concerning ID is that my interest and expertise in basic science, engineering, and especially highly sophisticated computational algorithms, led me to recognize the inherent design in living systems and the transparent desperation of ID opponents to explain away the obvious. A major influence in my journey over the years has been Dennis Read More ›
200 million-year-old eel, discovered alive, predates current eel fossils
NCSE’s Eugenie Scott To Soon Visit Glasgow, Scotland
This event might be of interest for some of our UK readers. Yours truly will certainly be there. From here. Topic: Evolution & Global Warming Denial: How the Public is Misled Time: Thursday, September 15 · 7:00pm – 10:00pm Venue: The Walkabout Bar, 128 Renfield St, Glasgow G2 3AL (please note the change). More info: In the US, teachers have long been being pressured to eliminate the teaching of evolution or to teach “alternative views” – meaning creationism. Recently, they also are receiving pressure either to not teach global warming, or to teach “alternative views”, such as that global warming isn’t actually occurring, or that it is not anthropogenic. As with the arguments used by anti-evolutionists, global warming deniers propose Read More ›
Lotteries shocka!!: It ISN’T chance that someone gets multiverse-level lucky.
Natural selection simply must produce complex specified information, because chance can’t do it.
Connaisseur’s guide to pop science: If it mentions “space wormholes,” it’s not serious
Beavers illustrate complex specified information, they don’t author it.
National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins faces a problem more challenging than the human genome: Race bias
Beavers as designers (are they intelligent?)
Beaver dams are amazing objects in our natural environment, being shaped from piles of felled trees and stones arranged to block streams and create ponds that protect these busy rodents [easily up to 50 – 60 lbs, over 100 lbs on record] from predators, allow them to build their lodges, and provide watery highways for them to move about as they do their business. The dams range up to nearly 3,000 feet [a bit under 1 km] in length, and up to 7 ft [2+ m] at base and 14 ft [nearly 5 m] in height. Consequently, the beavers are keystone creatures, affecting the water table, providing handy bridges used by many animals, reducing the tendency of streams to flood, providing refuges for trout and young salmon, and eventually creating characteristic meadows as the ponds silt up. Read More ›