Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Year

2019

Do we really need a “plan” for a response to aliens?

If a tenth of the effort were put into cleaning up the corruption around peer review, as for example in: The astonishing rise of junk science, that would be a better use of time than figuring out what to say to the Klingons or Jabba the Hutt when they or theirs finally show up. Read More ›

University of Maryland: Oumuamua was not an alien spacecraft

“Stick with analogs we know, you advise”? Yes, good idea. It used to be the usual approach among scientists. So why was it suddenly suspended? We are still wondering. Or maybe we know but no one wants to discuss it. See Tales of an invented god . Read More ›

At Peaceful Science: An anti-creationist psychiatrist misunderstands evidence for an immaterial mind, says Michael Egnor

In neurosurgeon Michael Egnor’s view, “Here is one way of seeing it” If someone took a sledgehammer to your computer and pulverized it, yet it still worked fairly well, you would conclude that there was something rather strange about the computer that you had not previously considered: I am not arguing that fMRI imaging of patients in PVS measures abstract thought. I am saying that the presence of fMRI activity that correlates with complex thought is a serious problem with the materialist theory of the mind. After all, these PVS patients have massive permanent brain damage and have been medically diagnosed as having no mind at all. Yet many of them do have minds and are capable of thinking quite Read More ›

Is finding extraterrestrial life inevitable and does it prove the existence of God?

Hugh Ross: The discovery of life in another planetary system would indicate another instance of such divine intervention, meaning our universe would contain not just one origin-of-life miracle, but two. Read More ›

Have 99% of All Species Gone Extinct?

Dear readers, It has been far too long since my last post, occasioned by the fact that I have entirely too many irons in the fire. I hope you will forgive this brief “drive-by” post, with a request for some help and information. One of the common refrains that comes up regarding the fossil record, or regarding claims about biodiversity and the evolution of species more generally, is that the vast majority of species that have ever lived on the Earth have gone extinct. This is often phrased as “99% of species that have ever lived have gone extinct” or similar wording. (Occasionally someone will temper the number to 98% or 95% or some other nearby figure, but 99% seems Read More ›

Atheism’s problem of warrant (–> being, Logic and First Principles, No. 23)

Atheism seems to be on the table these days here at UD and a few points need clarification. First up, what is Atheism? The usual dictionaries are consistent: atheism n. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods. [French athéisme, from athée, atheist, from Greek atheos, godless : a-, without; see a-1 + theos, god; see dh?s- in Indo-European roots.] American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. atheism n (Philosophy) rejection of belief in God or gods [C16: from French athéisme, from Greek atheos godless, from a-1 + theos god] Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Read More ›