Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Farewell to Tom Bethell (1936–2021), one of the earliest modern Darwin skeptics

Laszlo Bencze, writes to say, “I am very saddened to hear of Tom Bethell’s death. Not only was he pivotal in my turning away from Darwinism due to his 1976 Harper’s article which I clipped from the magazine and still have but we also became friends during one of his visits to California." Read More ›

Does evolution help us understand why some species in the same genus are significantly smarter than others?

One could simply say, “Evolving more intelligence helped the animal to survive.” The trouble with that explanation is, many free-roaming life forms would probably survive more readily if they were more intelligent. But they do not develop greater intelligence on that account. There must be more to the story. Read More ›

Fighting back against Big Tech? Take a leaf from Seattle

West: "Unlike most political jurisdictions in the United States, Seattle expressly forbids discrimination on the basis of “political ideology.” Seattle defines political ideology expansively" Big Tech, take heed. Read More ›

W.E.Loennig: Are Birds Living Dinosaurs?

W.E.Loennig’s latest manuscript, “Are Birds Living Dinosaurs?” is, like all his earlier writings, characterized by great attention to scientific detail and willingness to engage with scientific critics (one in particular, in this case). I recommend not only this work, but many of his earlier works, which can be browsed here. I also highly recommend the German TV interview embedded above, which has English subtitles. The youtube English translation above has about 5000 views, the original German interview at the TV station has over 27,000. W.E.Loennig, who spent 25+ years at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, may not be as well-known here in the US as some American ID proponents–possibly because never travels here—but he is Read More ›

Another attack on Karl Popper’s falsification concept

Disparagement of falsification in science has come up quite a bit in recent years, mainly sponsored — we think —by people whose ideas are unfalsifiable in principle and therefore only doubtfully science. Read More ›

Bill Dembski is back

On this ID the Future, intelligent design pioneer William Dembski talks with host Rob Crowther about his return to the intelligent design arena and what he’s been up to during his time away from the front lines of the ID movement. Read More ›

A comet, not an asteroid, killed the dinosaurs, say astrophysicists

At Smithsonian Mag: Siraj and co-author Avi Loeb concluded from their analysis that Jupiter's gravitational field was strong enough to bump many such long-period comets from the Oort cloud off course, bringing them very close to the Sun. Read More ›

Claims for random evolution overlook the fact that life needs software as well as hardware

Richard W. Stevens points out that a bird does not fly just because it has wings; it needs a Explanations of the evolution of flight do not account for that.“flight” program in its brain. Read More ›

Naturalism and Its Alternatives Free Until Wednesday

If you haven’t picked up a copy of Naturalism and Its Alternatives in Scientific Methodologies, now is your chance to do so. The Kindle version has been made free until Wednesday, so, if you’re interested, pick it up now! If you have been curious about the question of methodological naturalism, and wondered what the alternative would be, and what scientific investigation would *look like* under non-naturalism, this book contains papers that explore that question, both generally and within specific disciplines, including disciplines which already employ non-naturalism as a foundation. Click Here

3D chimp and human genomes differ significantly

Some of us remember when we were 99% chimpanzee… But that is so last decade … This type of finding makes more sense. If we were really 99% genetically similar to chimpanzees, the logical deduction is that the genome doesn't tell us much about a life form. Would be nice if it did, right? Read More ›