2014

The chutzpah Darwinists sometimes bring to the table is often breathtaking. This tactic is based on the old saw about the wife who catches her husband in flagrante delicto with another woman and the following exchange ensues: Wife: “How could you?” Husband: “How could I what?” Wife: “Be in bed with another woman of course!” Husband: “I’m not in bed with another woman.” Wife: “I see her right there.” Husband: “No you don’t.” Wife: “Yes I do” Husband: “Who are you going to believe, me our your lying eyes?” It is not unusual for an exchange with a Darwinist to go like this: Darwinist unambiguously advances proposition X. IDer quotes the Darwinist and demonstrates that proposition X is an error. Read More ›

Sometimes an example of Darwinist Derangement Syndrome (see UD’s glossary) is just too delicious to allow it to languish deep in a comment thread.  Here’s an exchange between Adapa and WJM in the Way Forward thread: First, Adapa claims that science has “conclusively demonstrated” that unguided evolution can produce observed diversity of life: Adapa @99: . . . science has already conclusively demonstrated that the observed natural process of random genetic variations filtered by selection and retaining heritable traits is sufficient to produce the biological life variations we see today . . . @ 587 William J Murray disagrees and says unless a P(T|H) calculation can be made for a naturally occurring biological phenomenon “evolution cannot be vetted as ‘unguided.’” Read More ›

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 ›