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Fishing trip: A short essay on Intelligent Design, theology and metaphysics

My previous post, An exchange with an ID skeptic seems to have kicked off a firestorm of criticism. So many readers of this post have rebuked me with the question, “Why didn’t you argue [XYZ], when you were debating Dr. McGrath?” that I feel obliged to respond. My goals, in engaging with Dr. McGrath First of all, my dialogue with Dr. McGrath was an exchange of views, as I clearly stated in my opening paragraph. It was not a debate, and it was never intended to be such. Consequently, questions about who won are entirely beside the point. I wasn’t aiming for a “knock-out blow.” Dr. McGrath did a very good job of defending his viewpoint; and for that, I Read More ›

Does Evolutionary Theory Really Help Scientists?

For a number of years, many of us at UD have made the argument that evolutionary theory, in practice, is of almost no help whatsoever in getting at the secrets of biology. I’ve taken the position personally that it actually hurts, and that it is not a matter of indifference to the study of biology whether evolution is employed or not. ID is the way to go.

In this study reported on at Phys.Org, scientists looked at a particular portion of “non-coding” RNA in the zebra fish and found that it actually does code for a protein (which they call “Toddler”), and which turns out to be almost essential in the proper development of the embryo. Cutting out the sequence for “Toddler” results in improper development of, or the entire loss of, a heart, and subsequent death because the embryo fails to enter the gastrula stage of early embryonic development. Read More ›

Where do we get the probabilities?

What is the probability of a structure like the bacterial flagellum evolving under Darwinian processes? This is the question on which the entire debate over Darwinian evolution turns. If the bacterial flagellum’s evolution is absurdly improbable, than Darwinism is false. On the other hand, if the flagellum is reasonably probable than Darwinism looks like a perfectly plausible explanation for life. Dembski’s development of specified complexity depends on having established that the probability of structures like the bacterial flagellum is absurdly low under Darwinian mechanisms. Specified complexity provides the justification for rejecting Darwinian evolution on the basis of the absurdly low probability. It does nothing to help establish the low probability. Anyone arguing the Darwinian evolution has a low probability of Read More ›

An exchange with an ID skeptic

Recently I posted a reply on Uncommon Descent, to a post by Dr. James F. McGrath, an Associate Professor of Religion at Butler University, criticizing Intelligent Design. Dr. McGrath and I then continued to exchange views over on his post. I hope he will not mind if I reprint our online correspondence on this post at Uncommon Descent, where readers can view it at their leisure. I would also like to personally thank Dr. McGrath for his courtesy, professionalism and kindness, in taking so much of his time to respond to my queries. First, a little bit of background information. In his original post, Dr. McGrath had posed the following dilemma to Intelligent Design proponents: Either God can create a Read More ›

A.N. Wilson on Darwinism and Christianity

Now that Wilson mentions it, how come almost all the books claiming that morality is just a human construct that evolved from our being a social species are in fact written by Darwin’;s followers. And none by Bonhoeffer’s? That must mean something. Not nothing. Read More ›

Boldly going where no man has gone before — will we find ET’s or are we alone?

[ HT: KRock] The aim of this essay is to set the record straight on behalf of Norm Geisler in the landmark creation-evolution case Mclean vs. Arkansas as well exploring a few connections of ID/creation/evolution with Extra Terrestrials (ETs) and certain religious ideas. Ironically, the Uncommon Descent weblog owes much of its existence to an advocate of Extra Terrestrial (ET) origins of life on Earth, namely DaveScot Springer who built up the UD blog for several years before getting separated from it. I have promoted the work of another ET-ID fan, Dr. Andras Pellionisz. And last but not least, UD’s very own Rob Sheldon offered his hypothesis that comets throughout the universe participated in a massive coherent computation that created Read More ›

Former Canadian Defence minister said US is plotting an intergalactic war, Stephen Hawking not helping matters

[This is a light-hearted precursor to a more serious essay I’m writing about ID/Creationism and Extra-Terrestrials. Other than being a pre-cursor to that essay it has no ID content.] [youtube 2o4fdX8gUMY] Denyse reported earlier on the former Canadian Defence Minister Paul Hellyer. Wiki has this to say about him: In November 2005, he accused U.S. President George W. Bush of plotting an “Intergalactic War”. The former defence minister told an audience at the University of Toronto: “The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning…The Bush Administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the Read More ›