After interacting with Nick Matzke on several different topics over the last few days, I feel like I know how Peter Venkman felt here (starting at 0:40).  Let me explain:  1.  In this post Matzke accused of me of being “incompetent or dishonest” and “ignorantly, uncomprehendingly” quote mining Niles Eldredge for the proposition that “change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record.”    I proceeded to show that I quoted Eldredge accurately and in context exactly for the proposition I was advancing and requested Matzke to apologize for his boorish accusations.  Instead of doing the right thing, Nick went into full Darwinist spin mode.  He evaded and tried to change the subject.  He never owned up to, Read More ›

I am conducting a test here, and I hope our readers will help me. Suppose the following terms used to describe a person were all you knew about that person: “outspoken about politics” “gifted debater” “very strong beliefs about gun laws” “dedicated” “bright” “from religious family that attends Bible study meetings” In the combox below, please indicate whether from these descriptors you would: A Assume the person is likely a conservative Republican B. Assume the person is likely a progressive Democrat C. Decide there is not enough information to make any sort of conclusion about the person’s political views. Thank you for your assistance in this test. I will post the meaning of the test after I get several answers.

The second law says when a cold object is in contact with a hot object, the two objects will eventually arrive at the same temperature, and once in equilibrium, one object will not become spontaneously colder again without an external agent. This illustrates that undirected natural forces will favor certain configurations of matter and energy and that the configurations cannot be undone without an external agent. Here is another simpler illustration. Start out with tray of fair coins in the all-heads configuration. Shake the tray or do something so as to get the coins flipping. You’ll notice it never reverts back to all heads. In fact for a large set of fair coins, the law of large numbers says the Read More ›

In my prior post I demonstrated how most forms of the atheist argument from evil are incoherent. To review, that argument boils down to this: Major Premise: If an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being (i.e., God) existed, he would not allow evil (by which I mean that which I personally do not prefer because evolution has conditioned me not to prefer it) to exist. Minor Premise: Evil (by which I mean that which I personally do not prefer because evolution has conditioned me not to prefer it) exists. Conclusion: Therefore, God does not exist. We see then that the atheist makes an illogical leap. His argument is true only if it is false. The word “evil” has objective meaning only if Read More ›