Barry Arrington

Consider this comment by Larry Moran: What [johnnyb] (and Meyer) are saying is that if the false Darwinian version of evolution is wrong then Intelligent Design Creationism is correct. You say this even though you know full well that there’s another possibility; namely, that the real, complete, version of evolutionary theory might be correct. I responded For someone who purports to have an understanding of ID solid enough to critique it, you display a remarkable inability to articulate its basic claims. After this exchange I suddenly realized that we on the ID side have a huge advantage over the likes of Moran in at least one respect.  We are not pushing the culturally dominant view, and for that reason we Read More ›

This occurred to me while I was reading Dr. Torley’s latest post. Some Darwinists suggest that at least part of the solution to the mystery of the Cambrian Explosion is expanding the time during which the explosion occurred from ten millions years to 25 million years.  Let’s do some math: Estimated age of the earth:  4.5B years Beginning of Cambrian explosion:  540M years ago Estimated Duration 1:  540M to 550M years ago Estimated Duration 2:  540M to 565M year ago For perspective let’s put this on a 24 hour clock: Formation of the earth to beginning of Cambrian explosion:  12:00.01 AM to 9:07 PM Estimated Duration 1:  9:07 PM to 9:10 PM Estimated Duration 2:  9:07 PM to 9:15 PM Read More ›

Over at FT Stephen Barr discusses the history of science since the 1500’s and gives a brief synopsis of Darwin in which he writes: As with heliocentrism, though, the data was at first inadequate or even misleading. Certain transitional forms were not seen in the fossil record till long after Darwin. Charity compels one to conclude that this is simply an unfortunate turn of phrase.  A literal reading is certainly misleading.

For years I have been bemused by the website called The Skeptical Zone.  Every few months I go over there and peruse the posts.  And I think to myself, if they are so skeptical, why does practically everything they say line up with the received dogmas and conventional wisdom of the early 21st century Western intelligentsia? Do they not know what the word “skeptical” means?  Are they going for ironical? But in a flash of insight today, I finally figured it out.  The key is in the quote from Cromwell at the top of their homepage that serves as the motto for the site: I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken. Read More ›

I invite our readers to review my last post and the exchanges between me and eigenstate (hereafter “E”) in the combox.  I could go through a point-by-point rebuttal of eigenstate’s comments, but it would be pointless, because far from rebutting the central thrust of the post, he did not lay a finger on it.   Here is the central argument of that post:  The immaterial mind exists.  Everyone knows the immaterial mind exists.  Its existence is, indeed, the primordial datum that one simply cannot not know.  Therefore, any denial of the existence of the immaterial mind is not only false; it is incoherent.  Hence, the immaterial mind is not an “explanation” of any sort; it is a datum one must take Read More ›

A. Reciprocating Bill asks a question In a comment to a recent post Reciprocating Bill asked why I believe invoking non-physical mental states “solves the problems of consciousness.” It is an interesting question, but not for the reason Bill intended. It is interesting because it betrays Bill’s fundamental misunderstanding of the argument he purports to be critiquing (I am not picking on Bill in particular; I am merely using his error as a platform to discuss the same error that materialists always make when discussing this issue). In this post I will show how Bill’s misunderstanding stems from his inability to view the world outside of the box of materialist metaphysics in which he has allowed himself to become trapped. Read More ›

My very favorite Steve Martin joke: You can be a millionaire and never pay taxes! You say, “Steve, how can I be a millionaire and never pay taxes?” First, get a million dollars. Now you say, “Steve what do I say to the tax man when he comes to my door and says, ‘You have never paid taxes’?” Two simple words. Two simple words in the English language: “I forgot!” Only slightly less funny are the materialists who say: You can have everything in the universe for absolutely free. All of you science deniers may be saying to yourself, “wait nothing can’t cause something.” Au contraire; it is a scientifically proven fact that you can have everything in the universe Read More ›

Elizabeth Liddle has announced her departure from UD. If you miss her comments here, it is not because she has been banned. It is because she got caught in flagrante delicto, and this time she was unable to obfuscate her way out of it. I will elucidate. In comment 2 to this post, I alluded to Liddle’s tendency to make diametrically opposing claims as the inclination strikes her. Specifically, I said: Elizabeth Liddle also has problems keeping track of the sewage she spills into the UD combox, sometimes contradicting herself in the same thread: EXHIBIT A: EL @ comment 10 of prior post: But he [i.e., Meyer] is no palaeontologist, and apparently doesn’t see that as a problem. It is Read More ›

DDD # 18 is a particularly contemptible form of ad hominem, which Mark Frank and Elizabeth Liddle do us the service of demonstrating in the combox to this post. In the post Dr. Torley refers to Darwin’s Doubt by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, which explains many of the shortcomings of various Darwinian narratives. Frank and Liddle tag team for a DDD #18: Mark Frank: [Meyer] explains perceived weaknesses in his understanding of evolutionary theory but gives no reason why design is a better alternative. Liddle: Exactly. His understanding of evolutionary theory is weak, and actual evolutionary theory is a better alternative. Follow this link and take a look at what scientists who actually know what they are talking about have Read More ›

A friend posts this picture on Facebook with the caption “Oops.” My reply: Don’t be so closed-minded. You act as if there is a Platonic form of “Cheese Danish.” We live in a post-modern world, and you need to adjust your thinking to the times. “Cheese Danish” is merely a social construct, and you are obviously trying to impose your preferred Cheese Danish narrative based on your privileged Northern European, Caucasian, heteronormative, patriarchal, male views as a means of imposing the existing power structure over the Starbucks staffer who has bravely broken the shackles of historical Cheese Danish normative oppression.

Koonin: “We don’t know evolution is true.” I like Eugene Koonin. As we have pointed out many times on these pages, he is refreshingly candid about the utter bankruptcy of the “chance dunnit” origin of life hypothesis. To be sure, he has a Loony Tunes answer for that difficulty (the multiverse dunnit). That’s OK. We can argue about that another day. At least he admits the truth in regard to the key question — if we are talking about the probablistic resources available on this planet in the last four billion years, “chance dunnit” is a non-starter. Thanks to UD News, we now know that Koonin is equally candid about the sheer idiocy of assertions like this: The statement that Read More ›

In a recent post I asked the following question. I have a question for non-ID proponents only and it is very simple: Is there even one tenet of modern evolutionary theory that is universally agreed upon by the proponents of modern evolutionary theory? Then I waited for the answers to come in. I was not disappointed, and I would like to express a hearty “thank you” to the proponents of modern evolutionary theory who participated in the exercise. I have gone through the comments, and the proponents have nominated the following list as tenets on which all proponents of modern evolutionary theory agree: 1. Common descent 2. Modern organisms descend from very ancient ones. 3. The differences among related lineages Read More ›

And yet, will we ever come to an end of discussion and talk if we think we must always reply to replies? For replies come from those who either cannot understand what is said to them, or are so stubborn and contentious that they refuse to give in even if they do understand. Augustine of Hippo, City of God

For some years now I have argued that when it comes to explaining the existence of consciousness (subjective self-awareness), materialists have nothing interesting to say, that their so-called explanation amounts to nothing more than “poof! It happened.” See here, here and here. I was gratified to learn in a recent exchange that Elizabeth Liddle agrees with me at least at a certain level. In various places in that exchange she wrote: Certainly an emergent property must be explained in terms of the system; and clearly an explanation must be “systematic” in the sense of specifying a cascade of mechanisms. . . . “[Emergent” is] simply a word to denote the idea that when a whole has properties of a whole Read More ›

The following is a guest post be nkendall: One of the striking things about our experience as conscious, thinking humans is how constant our sense of self–our identity–is. Never in my life has there been any suspension or change of my conscious sense of who I am other than during sleep. Throughout our lives our brains change considerably. A myriad of new synaptic connections are formed especially in the early years. Yet one’s identity is immutable. Aside from these ongoing modifications of the brain, there are catastrophic changes as well. Those who have experienced surgery under general anesthesia or suffered cardiac arrest have had their brains shut down and consciousness suspended even if only briefly. Near death experiences represent a Read More ›