Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Gunter Bechly dismisses the Darwinian explain-away of the Cambrian fossil record

Paleontologist Gunter Bechly looks at the claim that the Cambrian animals evolved from a long train of ancestors who somehow all just disappeared without a trace and finds it, well, unconvincing: Read More ›

Jonathan McLatchie has a new website

Here: Featuring articles like “The secular vs. sacred distinction: Is it valid? I believe the distinction between the secular and the sacred to be a valid one, although they do to an extent overlap and it is a mistake to draw a sharp dichotomy between the two spheres. Unfortunately, our culture and even the church has been conditioned to view these two spheres as being mutually exclusive. Furthermore, in the United States, which has a constitutionalized separation of church and state, the secular and sacred are routinely pitted against one another in the public square.

A meditation, on Psalm 2

Psalm 2 gives interesting context to the political storms of any given day: Psalm 2: The Reign of the LORD’s Anointed 1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. 5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 6 “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” 7 I will tell of the Read More ›

Rights. Real Things or Soothing Noises?

A friend writes on Facebook: “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and “with liberty and justice for all” still seem like pretty good concepts to build a country around. Lets start living it. Happy 4th everyone! To which I responded that I agree wholeheartedly. But I would add that both of the quotations have context that is essential. Where do the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come from? Men are “endowed by their creator” with those rights. And we are a nation “under God,” with liberty and justice for all. All politics is downstream from culture. Culture is downstream from shared views about fundamental metaphysical ideas. And ideas about the existence of God are the Read More ›

Video on Measuring Active Information in Biology

Early this year BIO-Complexity published a paper of mine titled “Measuring Active Information in Biological Systems” which showed how some ID concepts such as Active Information can be directly applied to biology. Essentially, it seems that in some situations, organisms direct their own mutations/evolution. This has not always been noticed because we don’t have a good measurement for when this happens. Active Information helps to fill that role. Anyway, this is a video I made describing the paper and the thinking behind it. Also, if you need background of why we should think that organisms direct their own mutations in the first place, see this video:

At 1776 + 244, is the American Revolution dead or dying?

The American Revolution was a catalyst that showed that a sustainable modern, representational, Constitutional Republic of significant “we the People” democratic character was feasible. It served as a beacon of hope for the world, nowhere better captured than in key words from the American Declaration of Independence, 244 years ago today: When . . . it becomes necessary for one people . . . to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident [cf Rom 1:18 Read More ›