May 2013

Yesterday, I ran across the video to be shown below and posted a comment that I think needs to be headlined and seriously pondered if we are concerned that the university functions in an objective, fair-minded, truth-seeking way: This study (HT: WK) as presented in a short lecture by Dr George Yancey — a sociologist — on bias against Christians in the academy, among progressives (especially cultural progressives) and even in IQ tests, should give food for thought as we reflect on the above. Video: Dr Yancey’s  IQ test questions (strictly: fallacy-detection questions, evidently used by some to claim that Christians are less intelligent than secularist progressives and fellow travellers) are especially revealing of how biases are embedded in what Read More ›

Mark Perakh, who was an author at Panda’s thumb passed away. From the NCSE website: Perakh was born (as Mark Yakovlevich Popereka) on November 2, 1924, in Kiev, Ukraine. After serving in the Soviet Army during World War II, he earned the equivalent of a PhD in physics from the Odessa Polytechnic Institute in 1946. From 1950 to 1973, he conducted research and taught physics in several universities in the USSR, receiving a Diploma of Doctorate of Sciences from Kazan Institute of Technology in 1968. He emigrated to Israel, where he changed his surname to Perakh and was appointed a professor of physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in 1973. He subsequently emigrated to the United States in 1978, Read More ›

“Cool” is often presented as the iconic, somewhat glamorous state of being calm, collected, in control.  It is often viewed as highly desirable, sexy, balanced, stylish, just plain “right.” Oh, soo, desirable . . . But, beneath the surface of “cool,” there too often lurks a reptilian coldly amoral ferocity that marks all the difference between the Christian virtue of self-control and the manipulative, demonically controlling. The dark triad, satanic side of cool. Dark triad? Though this sounds a little like an overly melodramatic movie title, it is actually a term of art in modern psychology, to describe a destructive cluster of personality syndromes that is increasingly seen. As Susan Whitbourne, writing in a Psychology Today article, sums up in Read More ›

Taxonomic nested hierarchies don’t support Darwinism or common descent, actually the opposite. Michael Denton convincingly argued that nested hierarchies can be used to argue against macro evolution. If the fish are always fish, then they will never be birds, reptiles, apes, or humans. From a forgotten book called Catholics and the Theory of Evolution, there is a quote of Platnick and Nelson who were pioneers of transformed cladism: ‘Darwinism . . . is, in short, a theory that has been put to the test and found false’ Dawkins was clearly unhappy with the claims of Nelson and Platnick and the transformed cladists: It isn’t that any transformed cladists are themselves fundamentalist creationists. My own interpretation is that they enjoy an Read More ›

Reading through a recent article by KeithS over at The Skeptical Zone, I was reminded of the following lyrics from the musical Annie Get Your Gun: Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything Better than you. No, you can’t. Yes, I can. No, you can’t. Yes, I can. No, you can’t. Yes, I can, Yes, I can! The article, which is entitled, Things That IDers Don’t Understand, Part 1 — Intelligent Design is not compatible with the evidence for common descent, argues that evolution guided by an Intelligent Designer fares much worse – in fact, trillions of times worse – than unguided Darwinian evolution as an explanation of how living things arose in all their Read More ›

As observant readers will doubtless be aware, the generous pre-order deal (steep discount + free shipping + 4 free digital books) for Stephen Meyer’s forthcoming book, Darwin’s Doubt, was extended into the month of May by popular demand. Click here to take advantage now! You can also listen to this ‘ID the Future’ podcast featuring Casey Luskin’s interview with Stephen Meyer about his new book. This is not to be missed.

Johns Hopkins invited creationist Ben Carson to speak at the 2013 graduation. Unfortunately, he chose to withdraw as the speaker because gay rights activists complained about Carson’s comments against gay marriage. What is notable is that it is probably well known by now at Johns Hopkins that Carson is a creationist, and that didn’t stop the Johns Hopkins from inviting him to speak. Ben Carson Withdraws as Johns Hopkins Graduation Speaker Dr. Ben Carson announced Wednesday that he is withdrawing as graduation speaker at Johns Hopkins University, ceding to demands from students concerned about his controversial recent comments about gay marriage. “Given all the national media surrounding my statements as to my belief in traditional marriage, I believe it would Read More ›

This morning, CH has by implication raised the issue that has been hotly debated recently: getting a cosmos out of “nothing.” I thought it would be helpful to headline my comment: ______________ >>  . . . “Something from nothing” is always problematic. Now, I know I know, here is Ethan Siegel of Science Blogs in partnership with Nat Geog, inadvertently illustrating the problem: It’s often said that you can’t get something from nothing. And while this may be true for most practical applications of your life, it isn’t true for our physical Universe. And I don’t just mean some tiny part of it; I mean all of it. When you take a look at the Universe out there, whether you’re Read More ›

Aristotle explained how objects in the sky move laterally whereas objects here on Earth move vertically, but how did it all start? The philosopher needed his Prime Mover to avoid an infinite regress in motion. The Unmoved Mover initiated motion without any prior motion. Isaac Newton overthrew Aristotle, but while the physicist’s new laws explained cosmic motion, they did not explain how the cosmos originated. For that a Creator was needed. Immanuel Kant provided an early version of how the cosmos could have evolved, but he remained in awe of the moral law within. Charles Darwin explained how the species, including any so-called moral laws, evolved, but how did life begin? Did not the Creator breath to life “a few Read More ›

Evolutionist Joel Cracraft’s courseEvolution: A Course for Educators is “informed” by thoseNext Generation Science Standards. That reminds us of how after the 2005 Dover trial, kangaroo court Judge John Jones explained … Read more

Martin Cadra has a wonderful blog focusing on non-Darwinian views on evolution. He recently highlighted some rare publications by field biologists who provide empirical evidence that challenges the idea that Darwinian evolution is the source of butterfly mimicry. Here is an excerpt: Since Darwin’s time mimicry is presented as one of the best example of the efficiency of natural selection. Several species should have been shaped by natural selection to resemble or mimic dangerous or poisonous species. It is supposed that protected by their shape and coloration they deceive their predators. Thus mimicry confers them a survival advantage. In many cases mimicry is believed to be found among butterflies where palatable species mimic unpalatable ones (so called Batesian mimicry). In Read More ›

Some recent posts by Jerry Coyne brought back memories of this article: So if we don’t have free will, what can we do? One possibility is to give in to a despairing nihilism and just stop doing anything. But that’s impossible, for our feeling of personal agency is so overwhelming that we have no choice but to pretend that we do choose, Why you don’t have free will Pretend? As in “make believe”? As in live one’s life according to a presumed falsehood? A religious person at least has some conviction (even a mistaken conviction) he is following the truth, but Coyne “knows” what he is following is false, but still does it. Nuclear physicist Dave Heddle offers another criticism: Read More ›

Over on The Panda’s Thumb blog, Darwinian apologist P.Z. Myers recently posted a pejorative laden critique of a review article by Casey Luskin. Luskin was responding to a recent New York Times article on a study purporting to show how certain genes in fish might hold an important clue on how fins turned to feet. I won’t rehearse the articles here, you can read them in the links. Rather, I want to look a bit more closely at Myer’s critique of Luskin’s article and the supposedly “scientific” problems he has with Luskin. He begins by highlighting a quote from Luskin’s article where Luskin writes, “Hox genes are known to be widely conserved among vertebrates, so the fact that homology was Read More ›

In my last post, The Edge of Evolution?”, I drew readers’ attention to a 2011 paper by the Croatian biochemist Dr. Branko Kozulic, titled, Proteins and Genes, Singletons and Species, which argues that the presence of not one but literally hundreds of chemically unique proteins in each species is an event beyond the reach of chance, and that since these proteins exhibit specified complexity (as the amino acids which make up the polypeptide chain need to be in the correct order), each species must therefore be the result of intelligent planning. (A parallel argument can be made for de novo protein-coding genes.) In this short post, I’d like to discuss a few falsifiable predictions which I believe are entailed by Read More ›

Larry Moran replied to my latest post with an admission of failure. He thinks he has failed to educate, but I think rather he is confusing the word ‘persuade’ with the word ‘educate’. He thinks I am rationalising junk DNA with a pile of ‘what-ifs’. But the fact is that most of my ‘what-ifs’ are already known to have some basis in reality. I am not denying any obvious reality. Indeed, the basic machinery of life looks like design, far more than when Paley was around. Yes, there could also be a great deal of junk. That’s why I have said a number of times that ID is not committed to the idea that there is no junk. Yet, from Read More ›