Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 18, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Genetics, Intelligent Design
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Jerry Coyne jumps into the Dawkins eugenics row

Denyse O'Leary
February 18, 2020
Culture, Genetics, Intelligent Design
Contrary to Coyne's and Dawkin's claims, dog breeding is DEvolution for dogs. It usually works that way, as Michael Behe points out in Darwin Devolves. Dogs are bred by humans at the expense of their genetic health. Read More ›
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 17, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
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Richard Dawkins says eugenics works because he assumes we are just like animals

Denyse O'Leary
February 17, 2020
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
At one fell swoop, Dawkins exposes another frequent weakness of naturalist atheism: direct conflict with facts. Eugenics does not work for humans. Unlike animals, we make personal choices, which could be based on reason and free will or on the apparent lack thereof. And those choices confound the ambitions of others. Read More ›
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 16, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Religion, Science, theism
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At upcoming CSS conference: “Does anyone come to Christian faith by a rational process?”

Denyse O'Leary
February 16, 2020
Intelligent Design, Religion, Science, theism
For example, Günter Bechly: “Altogether, I suggest that the cumulative evidence against materialism and for theism is simply overwhelming. I became a Christian theist not in spite of being a scientist but because of it.” Read More ›
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 16, 2020
Categorized
Biology, Culture, Intelligent Design
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Jerry Coyne takes a stand: Sex is binary

Denyse O'Leary
February 16, 2020
Biology, Culture, Intelligent Design
Jerry may well be brought down by this. Increasingly, “wokeness” rather than correct factual description, will confer academic esteem in science—thanks principally due to the progressivism (that Jerry has always supported) taking hold. Read More ›
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 16, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Intelligent Design, Science
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At National Review: There is no “Party of Science”

Denyse O'Leary
February 16, 2020
Culture, Intelligent Design, Science
Now that James mentions it, the war on math and the war on science both got started at universities and the Sokal hoaxes are perpetrated on academic journals, not popular media outlets. It’s a good question whether, today, being the “party of science” is even likely to be a selling point. Read More ›
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 16, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design
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Evolution Weekend downplays Darwin, morphs into climate concern, muffles racism issue

Denyse O'Leary
February 16, 2020
Culture, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design
Remember, anyone can be a racist if all he must say is: My ancestors were gods, yours were gobs of clay. Absent evidence, he might prevail by force of arms and entrench his view. Darwinism led to racial theories with the trappings of science. That matters and it has never been dealt with honestly because dealing with it honestly endangers the basic ideas of Darwinism. Read More ›
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 15, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science
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Was Sagan wrong about “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence”? UPDATED!

Denyse O'Leary
February 15, 2020
Culture, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science
Deming: Claims that are merely novel or those which violate human consensus are not properly characterized as extraordinary. Science does not contemplate two types of evidence. The misuse of ECREE to suppress innovation and maintain orthodoxy should be avoided as it must inevitably retard the scientific goal of establishing reliable knowledge. Read More ›
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 15, 2020
Categorized
Books of interest, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design
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Reformers of evolutionary biology publish book of essays, exploring views, disagreements

Denyse O'Leary
February 15, 2020
Books of interest, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design
It’s encouraging that the reformers are allowed to disagree on some matters. That makes biology seem more like a discipline and less like a fanatical religion. Which brings us to the “more traditionalist camp in evolutionary biology” (the heirs of Darwin). It would be remarkable indeed if, as reviewer Svensson hopes, they could acknowledge disagreements candidly. Wouldn’t they end up having to try to get each others’ publishers to reject journal articles and cancel book contracts? Read More ›
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post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 14, 2020
Categorized
Evolution
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A bee from 100 million years ago

Denyse O'Leary
February 14, 2020
Evolution
Just another bee, generally, but possibly thrown off course by parasites, it seems to have landed in resin. You’d almost think time didn’t happen the way they say. In terms of how much it changes. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 13, 2020
Categorized
Cell biology, Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
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Here’s a question that new ambigram viruses raise

Denyse O'Leary
February 13, 2020
Cell biology, Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
“Not a random boo-boo on evolution’s part”? If the field of biology had not organized itself around Darwinian evolution (insert preferred terminology for the same sort of thing here) in the mid-twentieth century, would anyone think that up just now to account for all this? Read More ›
Type
post
Date
February 13, 2020
Categorized
Astronomy, Cosmology, Sci-Tech watch
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Betelgeuse dims, astrophysicists speculate

kairosfocus
February 13, 2020
Astronomy, Cosmology, Sci-Tech watch

Since about October 2019, Betelgeuse (the bright reddish star at Orion’s shoulder in the brightest constellation in the sky that is about 600 – 700 ly distant from us) has begun a sharp dimming that has now gone beyond what has been seen in modern observations. As of the end of January, it was down about 2.5 1.4 in apparent magnitude (corrected from the added graph). Here is its “portrait” — it is one of the few stars we have seen as a disk: ADDED: a plot of apparent magnitude: Discussion at WUWT suggests that by about Feb 21 we should see an uptick if this is something that is near-normal. Odds are, we don’t have a long enough instrumented Read More ›