Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Phillip Johnson and Bayesian Priors

For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter.  We might more accurately term them “materialists employing science.”  And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence.  That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms . . . Phillip Johnson Johnson’s observation came to mind when I read HeKS comment to a prior post.  That comment recasts Johnson’s observation in terms of Bayesian priors.  It would be cumbersome to put everything in block quotes.  All that follows is HeKS: Read More ›

Science “Proves” Nothing

When someone says “the science is settled” one of two things is true:  (1) they know better and are lying; or (2) they are deeply ignorant about the philosophy of science.  Geraint Lewis, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sydney writes: . . . science is like an ongoing courtroom drama, with a continual stream of evidence being presented to the jury.  But there is no single suspect and new suspects regularly wheeled in.  In light of the growing evidence, the jury is constantly updating its view of who is responsible for the data. But no verdict of absolute guilt or innocence is ever returned, as evidence is continually gathered and more suspects are paraded in front of the Read More ›