courtesy National Geographic They’re not in your home, right? So just watch and sleep tite. Nite nite. PS: If really scared, give to charities that keep them in wildernesses far way. Also, adopt a homeless kitty cat. Cats drive off alligators, tree bears, and claw-rake cobras. 😉 Follow UD News at Twitter!

The latest cluster of dismissive talking points on the design inference pivot on caricatures describing invisible fairy-tale like supernatural entities. These need to be answered for record, and so let me headline a comment post that addresses these in the context of the agit-prop message dominance rhetorical tactics they represent, augmenting a bit using the facilities provided for a WP blog post: _____________ >>we need to understand some agit-prop rhetorical strategies that are at work: 1: Notice how the focus has been pulled away from the central issue put on the table across the ’70′s by Orgel and Wicken, ORGEL, 1973: . . . In brief, living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the Read More ›

Despite claims to the contrary, no. Let’s roll the tape on a further expose of the type of rhetoric we are facing. (And no, as is now usual, KS did not respond to the point by point refutation and correction of his argument. Which, sadly, speaks volumes on the underlying mindset.) Clipping, 221 in the HeKS suggests a way forward thread: _____________ >>WJM, 194: >>William J MurrayNovember 19, 2014 at 8:37 pm Adapa said: You made the stupid demand that I prove a negative – that random genetic variations aren’t caused by invisible pixies and that natural selection isn’t caused by 27th dimension space aliens. I’ve only asked you to support your own assertion. If your assertion includes an unsupportable Read More ›

One of the rhetorical gambits we are currently encountering is an attempt to drive a wedge between Dembski’s use of “Specified Complexity” and Orgel’s.  Accordingly, I noted as below at 83 in VJT’s CSI thread: _____________ >> I have always emphasised functionally specific complex organisation and associated information, FSCO/I, which is what is directly relevant to the world of life, and is pretty directly observable, starting with text and technology. When objectors can bring themselves to acknowledge that observable phenomenon ant the linked constraint on possible configurations imposed by interactions required to produce functionality, then we can begin to analyse soundly. Orgel actually spoke in the direct context of biofunction, and Wicken used the term, as well as identifying that wiring Read More ›

One of the currently popular objections to the concept of functionally specific complex organisation and associated information (FSCO/I) and its super-set Complex Specified Information (CSI) is that these are unscientific ill-founded, logically circular concepts. The objection is actually goundless but it is easy to lose sight of the true balance on the merits in the midst of the spark, flash and smoke of rhetoric.  Accordingly it is reasonable to set them in the context of general and scientific inductive reasoning, and its factual basis. I therefore recently set out some of that context in summary in VJT’s thread on seeking agreement on CSI, at no 7. Clipping, with adjustments and figures added: _______________ >> It seems to me that there Read More ›

The next time you hear some maroon* tell you that science is an objective, neutral, self-correcting project whose only purpose is to conduct a dispassionate search for truth, show them this chart. 95% of the models are wrong. It would be one thing if 50% came out predicting warmer than actual and 50% came out predicting cooler than actual. But what does it say when over 95% of the models are BOTH  wrong and wrong in predicting warmer than actual?  That was a rhetorical question. Usual liberal response to facts like this: ” Shut up you officious climate denier! And give me your money.” Say what you want about “science.”  The fact remains that science is conducted by scientists, and scientists are Read More ›

This morning I looked up into the sky and saw several hundred geese flying in a formation that appeared to be a single undulating mass. It reminded me of the schools of silver fish I have seen while diving in the Caribbean that also seem to move as a single mass (those who have seen Finding Nemo know what I am talking about). These bird and fish behaviors along with hurricanes are often used by materialists to demonstrate the idea of “emergence.” When the “whole” of a given phenomenon appears to have properties that are more complex than its constituents, the whole is said to be an “emergent property” of the constituents. With that in mind, here is a question: Read More ›

WJM reminds us of a couple of famous design theorists: Darwin and Dawkins. All that follows is WJM. For that matter, even Charles Darwin argued that the existence of a single IC system (though he didn’t use that word) would falsify his evolutionary hypothesis: If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. (I thank Peter S. Williams for researching some of the following points.) . . . Richard Dawkins . . . wrote about “Mount Improbable,” [and] acknowledges that CSI is a good indicator for design? He writes: Of all the unique and, with hindsight equally improbable, positions of the combination Read More ›