Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 16, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism
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Is Jerry Coyne undercutting his own argument against free will?

Denyse O'Leary
November 16, 2020
Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism
Michael Egnor: “Except for action of any quantum events”? I challenge Coyne: What in nature isn’t the action of quantum events? Certainly, every event in the brain is quantum in nature—every brain state, every action potential, every secretion of a neurotransmitter, every bit of protein synthesis or ion flow—is the consequence of quantum events. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 15, 2020
Categorized
Atheism, Intelligent Design, theism
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National rollout of John Lennox’s Against the Tide movie expanded to 3 nights

Denyse O'Leary
November 15, 2020
Atheism, Intelligent Design, theism
Blurb: Against the Tide is a travelogue, an examination of modern science, an excursion into history, an autobiography, and more. But at heart, it is the story of one man’s daring stand against the tide of contemporary atheism and its drive to relegate belief in God to society’s catalogue of dead ideas. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 15, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism
Tagged
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A debate at Scientific American: Can a pill change your mind about basic issues in life?

Denyse O'Leary
November 15, 2020
Culture, Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism
Readers who remain skeptical that hallucinogens can change our values may wonder how religious and political values— so often rooted in decades of history, family history, and personal experience—could really be overturned by a mere trip. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 14, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion, Science
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Jonathan McLatchie: What about Carl Sagan’s claim about “extraordinary evidence?”

Denyse O'Leary
November 14, 2020
Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion, Science
McLatchie: The problem with the word “extraordinary” here is that it is rarely clearly defined. The mantra that I would adopt instead is that all claims require sufficient evidence. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 14, 2020
Categorized
Cell biology, Intelligent Design
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Cells ordered to commit suicide don’t necessarily die

Denyse O'Leary
November 14, 2020
Cell biology, Intelligent Design
Isn’t that remarkable? The phenomenon that enables cells to avoid committing suicide when “ordered” to do so (apoptosis) is so old that it goes back to the common ancestor of flies and mice. How much time was there for such a complex system to evolve purely randomly, as in a Darwinian scheme? Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 14, 2020
Categorized
Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design
Tagged
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Transcension hypothesis: The aliens live at the nanoscale and are too small for us to see

Denyse O'Leary
November 14, 2020
Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design
Recall that shrinking or growing can both be seen as forms of travel. While the Transcension hypothesis has the extraterrestrials traveling away from us by shrinking, it is also possible to travel away by growing rapidly. Some religious writers, like C.S. Lewis, picture Hell as a very tiny place. Those who escape it simply grow far beyond its scale. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 13, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Darwinism, Racism
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An academic discovers the “dark side” of Darwinism

Denyse O'Leary
November 13, 2020
Culture, Darwinism, Racism
Austin Anderson: Now I understand why I’ve never been asked in a biology class to read the original text of Darwin’s theories: Our contemporary reverence for Darwin’s gentlemanliness and the pure scientific brilliance of his theories is an overly optimistic illusion that shatters upon a closer look at his publications. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 13, 2020
Categorized
Biology, Intelligent Design, Mind
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A return of purpose to biology?

Denyse O'Leary
November 13, 2020
Biology, Intelligent Design, Mind
He turns out to be looking for a “bottom up” theory of agency—that is, a materialist one. And he admits that there is no such theory but he offers “a sketch of what a solution might look like.” One suspects that materialists will be offering such sketches centuries from now. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 12, 2020
Categorized
Darwinism, speciation
Tagged
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At New Scientist: Questioning the idea of species

Denyse O'Leary
November 12, 2020
Darwinism, speciation
It's good news that they are thinking this way. If we’re going to vote money and legislation for environmental protection, we do need useful working classifications. Why waste time, money and energy “saving” a “species” that doesn’t really exist as a separate entity when some whole ecologies are critically endangered? And it doesn't matter how we choose to classify the "species" within them. At least these are more constructive discussions to be involved in than attacking or defending Darwinism. Read More ›