Barry Arrington

As we have been discussing, in 2006 Francis Collins said that Darwinism predicts (in the sense of retrodiction) that mutations located in “junk DNA” will accumulate steadily over time. A couple of years ago I said that Darwinist predictions (again, in the sense of retrodiction) about junk DNA turned out to be wrong, while ID Proponents predictions (this time in the actual sense of making an assertion about future findings) turned out to be true. It is good to know that even Collins admits this:  Earlier this year he confessed that his use of the term “junk DNA” was wrong, even hubristic.  At the 33rd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco on January 13, 2015 he said: I Read More ›

[It] is now obvious that the root is we are dealing with a domineering parasitical ideology in the course of destroying its host; through its inherent undermining of responsible rational freedom, the foundation of a sound life of the mind. Immediately, science, science education, the media and policy are being eaten out from within. KF Indeed.  The immediate context of KF’s observation is the seeming inability of the Darwinists to understand plain English over the past few days.  Allow me to establish some context.  In a post over at his Sandwalk blog Larry Moran quoted me when I wrote: For years Darwinists touted “junk DNA” as not just any evidence but powerful, practically irrefutable evidence for the Darwinian hypothesis. ID Read More ›

As we have seen, Larry Moran channeled Ace Ventura when he falsely claimed I do not understand Darwinism and then, when challenged to back up his claim, came up with exactly bupkis. In the course of demonstrating his own incompetence, Larry gave us this gem of revisionist history: But, as most Sandwalk readers know, nobody predicted junk DNA, certainly not Darwinists. Junk DNA confers no fitness advantage on the individual. It’s certainly detrimental at some level because it uses up resources for no benefit. If Darwinists were presented with the possibility of junk DNA back in 1970 then they would almost certainly have rejected it because it doesn’t make sense in a strictly Darwinian world. In fact, most supporters of Neo-Darwinsm Read More ›

Here: In a remarkably embarrassing moment for the American Psychological Association, on Sunday night the group retracted the marquee study in the latest issue of its journal,Psychological Services.      

See the story here. There is a name for using government coercion to suppress minority speech:  Fascism.  Whatever side of the climate issue you are on, alarm klaxons should be going off in your head, and shivers of dread should be running up and down your spine.  If that is not happening, you are either a fascist yourself and agree with the New York AG or you are not paying attention.

This will be my last post on this subject.  To remind our readers: 1.  I said I understand Darwinian. 2.  Larry Moran said that I do not. 3.  I challenged Larry to back up his claim.  He could have done that by, for example, pointing to a statement I made about Darwinism that is false. 4.  Larry put up two posts in response to my challenge. 5.  In the first post he quibbled about the term “Darwinism.”  Though in the end he admitted I have made it clear I am using the term as shorthand for Neo-Darwinism.  Larry’s Grade: F 6.  In the second post he said I erred when I wrote that Darwinists in the past said Darwinism predicts Read More ›

Larry Moran is desperate.  He said I do not understand Darwinism.  I called him out and challenged him to demonstrate his claim.  He has now put up two posts in response, and they both fail miserably. In the first post he flails about over the term “Darwinism” and says I mistakenly equate that term with “Neo-Darwinism” and the “Modern Synthesis.”  As evidence of my confusion he points to the UD glossary.  But that very glossary entry states that on this site we use the term “Darwinism” as shorthand for Neo-Darwinism or the modern synthesis, and then goes on to define those terms. Note that Larry does not say UD’s definition of Neo-Darwinism or the modern synthesis is wrong.*  He says Read More ›

Over at Sandwalk Larry Moran writes: Turn off your irony meters. Really … I’m not kidding. They will never survive if you leave them on and follow the link to this post by Barry Arrington onUncommon Descent. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! You Should Know the Basics of a Theory Before You Attack It The answer, of course, is “nothing.” Having studied Darwinism for over 20 years, I can tell you what it posits. Therefore, when I attack it, I am attacking the actual thing, not some distortion of the thing that exists nowhere but my own mind.     OK, Larry.  I assume you mean to say that I do not understand the basics of Darwinism.  I challenge Read More ›

The commenter who goes by the name Carpathian has been posting on this site for a long time.  Yet today he writes: Since the ID designer pre-dates life, he cannot be alive . . . *Sigh*  Carpathian, why does it seem to satisfy you so much to erect a distorted caricature of the ID position and knock it down?  If you are so certain you are correct and that ID is wrong, why don’t you attack what ID actually posits? I believe the Darwinian account of origins is wrong.  But what have I accomplished if I spout off some nonsense that Darwinism does not actually posit, refute it, and then say, “thus I have proven Darwinism wrong”? The answer, of Read More ›

Here. It’s probably best to get the bad news out of the way first. The so-called scientific method is a myth. That is not to say that scientists don’t do things that can be described and are unique to their fields of study. But to squeeze a diverse set of practices that span cultural anthropology, paleobotany, and theoretical physics into a handful of steps is an inevitable distortion and, to be blunt, displays a serious poverty of imagination. Easy to grasp, pocket-guide versions of the scientific method usually reduce to critical thinking, checking facts, or letting “nature speak for itself,” none of which is really all that uniquely scientific. If typical formulations were accurate, the only location true science would Read More ›

Assume the following facts for the sake of a thought experiment: There are two competing explanations for a particular phenomenon, which we shall call “Explanation A” and “Explanation B.” Explanation A indubitably qualifies as a scientific explanation. Just as indubitably Explanation B does not qualify as a scientific explanation. Explanation A is false and Explanation B is true. Would our materialist friends prefer Explanation A or Explanation B?

Today I ran across one of my favorite Francis Schaeffer aphorisms: “Truth demands confrontation” I was thinking about this later today when I read that Caitlyn Jenner has been proclaimed “woman of the year” by Glamour magazine. Now Bruce Jenner can certainly change his name to Caitlyn Jenner.  But he cannot change himself into a woman.  He can no more be woman of the year than my left shoe can. Well, that’s just narrow minded and bigoted, Barry.  Nope.  If you say 2+2=5,203, you have erred.  And when I say “Nope, it’s 4,” I am confronting your error with the truth, but I am not being narrow minded and bigoted.  No matter how much you sincerely wish that 2+2 equaled 5,203, Read More ›

We’ve all heard the old saw about lies, damn lies and statistics.  It seems the aphorism holds when the statistics are charted.  Here is the only chart you will ever need when discussing global warming: See here for an explanation.

Over the last several days I’ve been watching StephenB thrash RDFish in this post. Several times SB has asked Fish this question: Is a murderer a different kind of cause than accidental death or is it not? Now obviously Fish is in a pickle, between the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis so to speak.  If he says that a murderer is in the same category of causation as accidental death, he will look like an idiot, because everyone knows they are not.  But if he says they are in different categories, then SB has him right where he wants him, because the next, obvious, question will be: what makes them different?  And the answer to that question is also obvious; death Read More ›

In this story.   Here is the headline: Probe in college slayings peers into Web rants and possible religious rage Here is the lede: The gunman who cut a deadly path through a college campus appeared armed for an extended siege, a report said Friday, as investigators probed deeper into suspicions the shooter may have been driven by religious rage Later in the story we learn that no one believes the shooter was motivated by religious rage.  Rather, he was motivated by anti-religious rage and singled out Christians for death.  MSN’s writers and editors are shameless, utterly shameless.