Monthly Archives: April 2013
PZ Myers defends ID-Friendly University Course!
| April 30, 2013 | Posted by scordova under Education, Humor, Intelligent Design |
Jerry Coyne has infiltrated a heretofore secret ID operation at Ball State University. Since the secret is now out and in the hands of the Darwinists, I may as well report on it. Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana, is a public university (i.e., part of the state university system). … The course is taught […]
Remembering Alfred Russel Wallace
| April 30, 2013 | Posted by David Tyler under Intelligent Design |
This year marks the centenary of the death of Alfred Russel Wallace, sometimes portrayed as “Darwin’s goad”. However, as Andrew Berry argues, Wallace should be remembered as a “visionary scientist in his own right, a daring explorer and a passionate socialist”. He was awarded the Order of Merit, the highest honour that could be given […]
Here is That Fish With Clear Blood
| April 29, 2013 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Unlike most areas of science which ask “how?,” evolution, as Ernst Mayr was fond of pointing out, asks “why?” And these days evolutionists are asking themselves why a fish has clear blood. Yes the Ocellated Ice Fish (see the above video) has no hemoglobin. That makes it unique among all the organisms with bones. Hemoglobin is an […]
20% of biology teachers in Pennsylvania are creationists
| April 29, 2013 | Posted by scordova under Creationism, Intelligent Design, News |
There was an interesting poll of biology teachers in Pennsylvania that were given the freedom to respond to more than one choice when given the opportunity to express belief in evolution, creation or ID. If evolution is defined as “change over time”, then even creationists and ID proponents could be said to believe in evolution. […]
Creationists Characterized as Gloating over Vandalization of Evolution Center
| April 29, 2013 | Posted by scordova under Creationism, News |
Arsonists reportedly destroyed a well known Science Center in Naples Italy that promotes Evolutionism. From the pages of the Journal Nature: http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/496169c On the night of 4 March, unknown arsonists destroyed the famous City of Science centre in Naples. This shocking event has been publicly welcomed by some hard-line creationists in Italy, who disapprove of […]
Can a Darwinist consistently condemn a con man who couldn’t have done otherwise?
| April 28, 2013 | Posted by vjtorley under Intelligent Design |
Some readers will recall the case of the Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel, former dean of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Tilburg University, who was publicly exposed in 2011 for faking his data in several dozen published papers about human behavior that had made him famous – and who, after being caught, decided […]
Comparing Evolution to Empirical Observations Such as Gravity
| April 28, 2013 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
In evolutionary thought there is a stark contrast between its scientific ambiguity and its metaphysical certainty. There are all kinds of problems in explaining how the world could have arisen on its own, and yet at the same time evolutionists constantly assure us that evolution is a scientific fact. For example, while Philip Ball urges his […]
Evolutionist: Let’s Admit it, We Don’t Fully Understand How Evolution Works
| April 27, 2013 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Philip Ball’s opinion piece in this week’s Nature, the most popular science magazine in the world, is news not because he stated that we don’t fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level, but because he urged his fellow evolutionists to admit it. On this 60th anniversary of the discovery of the DNA double helix, Ball reviews […]
The Promotional Trailer For Darwin’s Doubt, by Stephen C. Meyer
| April 26, 2013 | Posted by News under News |
Go here to pre-order the book!
FOR RECORD: AF’s insistent strawman misrepresentation tactics and false accusation of fraud (“CSI is a bogus concept so it would not figure in anyone’s calculations . . . “) exposed . . .
| April 26, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Atheism, Complex Specified Information, Creationism, Design inference, Functionally Specified Complex Information & Organization, ID Foundations, Science, worldview issues/foundations and society, Selective Hyperskepticism |
Comments off
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Sometimes, it is necessary to speak for record on rather unpleasant matters. This is one of them, in response to longtime objector AF’s willfully continued misrepresentations and false accusations. Accordingly, I clip 479 in the Oldies thread, with reference to my corrective at 459 and AF’s retort at 465 that compounds the misrepresentations and false […]
John Kerry is All Wet
| April 25, 2013 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
Secretary of State John Kerry said on April 22, 2013: “The [climate change] science is screaming at all of us and demands action.” This chart is from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with annotations by Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit. It shows that the alarmists’ computer models (the blue line) do not match reality (the […]
Richard Dawkins Voted The World’s Top Thinker
| April 25, 2013 | Posted by News under News |
This is the kind of headline I’d expect to see from the Onion. If only it were so…
Stephen Meyer To Feature On Michael Medved Show Tomorrow
| April 24, 2013 | Posted by News under News |
Dr. Stephen Meyer will feature in the third hour of tomorrow’s Michael Medved show, the first of his new Science & Culture Weekly Update series. Be sure to tune in!
Design, Teleology and Omega Watches
| April 24, 2013 | Posted by DonaldM under Cosmology, Design inference, Engineering, Intelligent Design, Philosophy |
The Omega watch company’s co-axial chronometer is billed as the most precise mechanical device in the world. In their video ad featured here, the images associate the intricate design of the cosmos with the design of the watch…a classic teleological argument. The implication seems to be that the intricate, superb design of the watch is […]
Chance Ratcliff’s video screen and the significance of search spaces
| April 24, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Functionally Specified Complex Information & Organization, ID Foundations, Intelligent Design |
In a comment in the oldies thread on Sunday evening, Chance Ratcliff raised a very instructive case study for a search space that is well worth being headlined. Let us adjust a bit on the calc of the config space, and reflect: _____________ CR, 111, Oldies: >> An illustration might be of some help. For […]
Is The Beta-Globin Pseudogene Functional After All?
| April 23, 2013 | Posted by News under News |
An interesting paper recently appeared in Genome Biology and Evolution finding that the Beta-globin pseudogene is under purifying selection. From the abstract, HBD encodes the δ-globin chain of the minor adult hemoglobin (HbA2), which is assumed to be physiologically irrelevant. Paradoxically, reduced diversity levels have been reported for this gene. In this study, we sought a detailed […]
Getting me an Education
| April 23, 2013 | Posted by andyjones under 'Junk DNA', Darwinism, Evolutionary biology, Intelligent Design, science education, The Design of Life |
Larry Moran has decided to educate me about junk DNA. I appreciate the level of detail he has provided. I am not an expert in this field. I do however have a brain and, as a physicist, a vastly superior brain (I joke, sort of). I am not an IDiot, nor am I a larey […]
Andre asks an excellent question regarding DNA as a part of an in-cell irreducibly complex communication system
| April 23, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under ID Foundations, Irreducible Complexity, Origin Of Life, Tree of life |
Newbie commenter Andre, in an exchange with Mr Matzke, asks some interesting questions concerning DNA. First, let us remind ourselves of what we are discussing, courtesy NIH: Next, Andre’s comment: DNA has the following; 1. Functional Information 2. Encoder 3. Error correction [4]. Decoder . . . can you please show me in a step […]
Video: Frank Turek and David Silverman Face Off On The Existence of God, With Themes Relating to Intelligent Design
| April 22, 2013 | Posted by News under News |
An interesting debate took place last week featuring Dr. Frank Turek and David Silverman, with a range of both strong and weaker arguments. The topic was the existence of God, but some I.D.-relevant themes came up in the debate. See it for yourself here.
ID Foundations, 18 (video): Dr Stephen Meyer of Discovery Institute presents the case for Intelligent Design (with particular reference to OoL)
Here, HT WK: embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt Take an hour and a half to learn what ID is about (yes, what it is really about [and cf. here at UD for correctives to common strawman distortions . . . ]), with particular focus on the origin of cell based life [OoL], through watching a […]
Take an hour and a half to learn what ID is about (yes, what it is really about [and cf. here at UD for correctives to common strawman distortions . . . ]), with particular focus on the origin of cell based life [OoL], through watching a public presentation in the UK from a leading ID thinker, Stephen Meyer.
Notice the distinction he underscores relative to the common demonising rhetorical projection of “Right-wing Fundamentalist theocratic agendas” etc.
I clip from the video:
Meyer’s summary of the design inference
Let me also draw in the design inference explanatory filter considered on a per aspect basis, as was presented in the very first post in the ID Foundations series:
The per aspect explanatory filter that shows how design may be inferred on empirically tested, reliable sign
(NB: Observe Meyer here, on ID’s scientific bona fides.)
It is probably also helpful to add the following, from a reply by Meyer to a hostile review of his book, Signature in the Cell. (It seems that things have got worse over the past few years, we used to have no-views — hostile pretended “reviews” of books not read — now we have hostile no-views of books not yet published.)
The central argument of my book is that intelligent design—the activity of a conscious and rational deliberative agent—best explains the origin of the information necessary to produce the first living cell. I argue this because of two things that we know from our uniform and repeated experience, which following Charles Darwin I take to be the basis of all scientific reasoning about the past. First, intelligent agents have demonstrated the capacity to produce large amounts of functionally specified information (especially in a digital form). [–> Notice the usage] Second, no undirected chemical process has demonstrated this power. Hence, intelligent design provides the best—most causally adequate—explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life from simpler non-living chemicals. In other words, intelligent design is the only explanation that cites a cause known to have the capacity to produce the key effect in question . . . . In order to [[scientifically refute this inductive conclusion] Falk would need to show that some undirected material cause has [[empirically] demonstrated the power to produce functional biological information apart from the guidance or activity a designing mind. Neither Falk [[the hostile reviewer], nor anyone working in origin-of-life biology, has succeeded in doing this . . .
Food for thought.
Foundational. END
