A little over a year ago, I wrote a reply to a post by skeptic John Loftus, arguing that in a godless universe, senseless evils are precisely what we would expect to happen. Shortly afterwards, Jeffery Jay Lowder, President Emeritus (and co-founder) of Internet Infidels, Inc., posted a reply to my post, which I’d like to respond to today. In my post, I accused John Loftus of making seven philosophical errors. Jeffery Jay Lowder has responded to each of my seven points. I’d now like to reply to Lowder’s arguments. Mistake #1: Loftus’ failure to take account of prior probabilities In his reply, Jeffery Jay Lowder conceded that John Loftus had failed to take account of prior probabilities in his Read More ›

I appreciate our commenters here at UD. The comment threads are often more enlightening than the OPs. For example, in the combox to my nullasalus Makes a Point Darwinist wd400 gamely presses the Darwinist line against several ID proponents. This great exchange caught my eye, because it encapsulates in just a few brief comments the entire debate between ID proponents and Darwinists. I especially want to thank wd400 for his civil and patient participation in this thread. Wd400 gets the ball rolling by claiming this article  provides an “in-depth look at what we know about the evolution of one system of cell-types and tissue, approached from a range of angles” phoodoo calls foul: You used one of the most classic Read More ›

First Things has posted a response – of sorts – to Stephen Meredith’s dreadful “Looking for God in All the Wrong Places.” See Intelligent Design Might be Wrong, but not the Way You Think by Stephen H. Webb. It is not the sort of reply someone who understands and advocates ID would have written. But at least it’s something.

Then get a load of the psychiatrists! The Copernican Principle, the idea that there is nothing special about Earth, has been a guiding principle of the search for extraterrestrial life. It’s a poor principle because there is lots that is special about Earth, and the general absence of space aliens is not likely an accident. Not to say we shouldn’t look, but looking with the wrong assumptions and for the wrong reasons will likely result in much frustration. That said, some make the case that Earth is the literal centre of the universe, in a detectible sense. So if there is no longer any place to put the newly fallen snow, we can excuse ourselves from shovelling, put up our Read More ›

As we have discussed many times, evolution is the most influential scientific theory in areas outside of science, for evolution carries a message that goes far beyond biology. And what is that message?  Read more

Every year, around five people in the United States die from snakebite. More than 38,000 Americans die from suicide every year – and the true figure is far higher, according to Julie Phillips, an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University, whose research on rising suicide rates has led her to conclude that suicide in the United States is “vastly underreported“. Over the pascouple of days, there has been a veritable deluge of news reports (see here, here, here, here and here ) about a “snake-handling preacher,” Jamie Coots, who was bitten by a rattlesnake last Saturday in Middlesboro, Kentucky, and who died an hour later, after refusing medical treatment. It’s estimated that no more than 125 churches in the Read More ›