Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

All at sea about science and theology: Jerry Coyne cites Andrew Dickson White on Galileo

Over on his Why Evolution Is True Website, Professor Jerry Coyne has posted a short passage on the papal condemnation of Galileo, excerpted from Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company, 1896). However, all the passage proves is that neither White nor Coyne understand the theological doctrine which they are attacking: they are all at sea about the dogma at which they are aiming their barbs. The Conflict Thesis The reason why Professor Coyne quoted from the work of Andrew Dickson White at some length was that White was a zealous proponent of what historians of science refer to as the conflict thesis – the view Read More ›

New challenge to Darwinism? Further to “Scientists, shut up and …

It sounds like Louis is trying to conjure the rabbits from the hat with math around variation rather than with selection. It doesn’t work, of course, but it's a change from the usual. Read More ›

Evolutionist: “This Picture Has Creationists Terrified”

Popular evidences for evolution are the DNA comparisons between species and how they align with the expected common descent pattern. Species that are thought to be more closely related on the evolutionary tree have been found to have more similar DNA, and species that are thought to be more distant on the evolutionary tree have been found to have greater differences in their DNA. The DNA comparisons, evolutionists argue, confirm the expected pattern. Indeed, evolutionists often presented such evidence with great confidence. As Christian de Duve once triumphantly declared: “All [organisms] are descendants of a single ancestral form of life. This fact is now established thanks to the comparative sequencing of proteins and nucleic acids.” But while evolutionists were quick Read More ›

Interesting take on Ham on Nye debate: Commentator says it was all just about business for both

Both Leahy and Luskin are in general right but does anyone really believe that the shards of today’s legacy media would care about a debate about, say, the 600 million-year-old comb jellies that are making matchsticks of Darwin’s “tree of life”? That's not remotely who those ambulance chasers are. Read More ›

Nature makes an ID-friendly report on the Solar System (officially it’s not YEC friendly)

At the scandalous premiere of Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian Institution several years ago, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez said something to the effect “not only are we in the right place in the universe, we’re alive at the right time!” Dr. Gonzalez, normally unexpressive and soft spoken, was uncharacteristically emphatic about being alive at the right time in cosmic history, suggesting the window of arrival of homo sapiens and modern technology happened within an exceedingly narrow time frame. He was so emphatic that one would surmise he was seeing a miracle, as if whatever was the source of the universe specially ordained this time and place in the fabric of reality. From the prestigious scientific journal Nature: Caught in the Act Read More ›