Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Netflix goes over the moral cliff (or is it “conspiracism”?) . . .

A pic to ponder, first: In the aftermath of Mr Weinstein, Mr Epstein, Ms Maxwell and others (see here, the MeToo movement and how it helped set up the Kavanaugh hearings accusations), as well as the questions hovering over Prince Andrew of Windsor and others, many have begun to believe there is a lurking network of – promotion of sexual perversities (aka perversion), – sex trafficking (the notorious casting couch is sex trafficking), – grooming and trafficking of minors (there is a reason for age of consent laws),– possibly, networks of blackmail– promotion of pornography and near pornography — often, little more than – prostitution or even rape (Linda Lovelace, if you doubt me) on film or video– tied to Read More ›

At PNAS: Why science needs philosophy

A paper by well-known thinkers like Carlo Rovelli and Elliott Sober offers instances of the way that philosophers can clarify problems for science. Citing Jerry Fodor, it seems like they’ve almost forgotten that Jerry Fodor also wrote What Darwin Got Wrong (2010). Read More ›

A fond remembrance of the 2005 book, “On Bullsh*t”

Gunderman: As discourse moves from television to Twitter, it can be further degraded into mere flamboyance. What matters is no longer speaking the truth but simply attracting and holding attention. Getting it right gives way to getting noticed. Read More ›

At Medium: On the “Impending cancellation of Darwin”

Essentially, Noah Carl is forcing the biology establishment to admit that they can’t impugn Darwin for his racism because he’s their religion. All those other guys can just be trashed. But not Darwin. Not for anything. Read More ›

Flap over use of term “intelligent design” in PNAS paper

It’s possible that what Phillips means by “positive Darwinian selection” is random selection that looks a lot like design. The sin is in actually using words that imply that that IS what it looks like. Just when it looks like they've hammered everything into submission, another bulge appears. Read More ›

Rob Sheldon on origin of life as a “theoretically fertile dead end”

Sheldon: What hinders the field presently is an unstated reliance on materialism and its attendant mechanism, when information is manifestly non-material. What we need to make progress in OoL are matter-free tools for manipulating information: understanding its flow, its gradients, and its concentration. Read More ›

Physicist: The whole universe may be a neural network

Vanchurin: “I see no reason why this process should be confined to a particular length scale and so the claim is that everything that we see around us (e.g. particles, atoms, cells, observers, etc.) is the outcome of natural selection.” It doesn’t take very long for Darwinism to become indistinguishable from magic. Read More ›
Climate History of Earth--Eocene to Present 2020

Climate History–We’re in an Ice Age!

This press release from Phys.Org has an image that is worth, as they say, “a thousand words.” ( See here. ) The color-coded temperature divides on the right-hand side of the chart should not deceive you. Instead, simply move your eyes to the left. You’ll notice that we’re looking at a continuous plot of temperature, for the most part (except for the gap in the Pleistocene Era) and which continues on into the Holocene (present era). So, then, look at how the left side of the chart is characterized: Hothouse, Warmhouse, Coolhouse, and Icehouse. Now notice that our present temperatures fall in the ICEHOUSE portion of this 60 million year history of earth’s temperatures. Shouldn’t this chart alone be enough …

Today is 9-11-01 + 19 years, let us never forget

Let the WTC Cross, found standing amidst the rubble, serve as a testimony of hope and redemption from that day to our own: Video: Memorial service, live streamed 8:40 AM Eastern: As we face our own existential struggle today in the face of a Red Guards colour insurgency that appeals to our pain and shame but only threatens to revert to ideological, oligarchic tyranny . . . a reminder: . . . let us reflect on that cross and the faith once for all delivered unto the saints it symbolises. For, we are again at kairos as a civilisation. END PS: As an aid to reflection, I post a clip from Bernard lewis’ 1990 essay on the roots of Muslim Read More ›