Barry Arrington

DWG: I see: Bill is saying that IF you can demonstrate (and not just assert) that no other process can possibly produce the material observations, then your logic is correct. Stop right there, we are dealing with an empirical situation. No inductive or empirical fact or principle can be established beyond possible contradiction. To demand such a proof for a case where you should know better is selective hyperskepticism, here a form of question-begging. That’s like the rhetorical fast move played by Darwin when he spoke of a like condition. That boils down to demanding a default you have no right to. What inductive evidence can and does support is that there are two observed sources of highly contingent outcomes Read More ›

Here. Ayala gives two objections to design:  (1) The design we see is suboptimal; and (2) the cruelty we see in nature precludes an inference to a good designer. Craig first shows a picture of a dilapidated old East German Trabant, one of the worst cars ever made.  He then shows a picture of a shiny new Mercedes E Class. Then he makes the following argument. 1.  The Trabant is obviously designed. 2.  The Trabant design is obviously sub-optimal. 3.  Therefore, the fact that a design is sub-optimal does not invalidate the design inference. Conclusion:  Known designs exhibit various degrees of optimality.  Therefore, there is simply no reason to restrict design inferences only to maximally optimal designs.  If a structure Read More ›

One of our Darwinist friends’ favorite tactics is to insist that if something cannot be precisely quantified in mathematical terms then there is no warrant for believing it exists at all.  For example, ID proponents might point out that Mount Rushmore exhibits complex specified information (“CSI”).  “How much CSI does Mount Rushmore exhibit?” a Darwinist might ask.  “Oh, you can’t give me a figure?  Then CSI obviously does not exist.” MathGrrl, one of my favorite materialists, put it this way:  “My conclusion is that, without a rigorous mathematical definition and examples of how to calculate [CSI], the metric is literally meaningless.  Without such a definition and examples, it isn’t possible even in principle to associate the term with a real Read More ›

Jerry Coyne has a Ph.D in evolutionary biology from Harvard.  Good for him.  Bad for everyone else, because Coyne wraps his opinions on non-scientific topics in the mantle of his academic credentials.  He seems to think his Ph.D in biology allows him to speak with authority on subjects about which he is clueless.  I caught Coyne at this when he spoke a couple of days ago on a topic about which I know a great deal and he apparently knows nothing – the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School.  In his blog “Why Evolution is True” Coyne writes: In 1999, two students in Columbine, Colorado went on a shooting rampage, killing 13 students and one teacher, and injuring another 24 before Read More ›

Friday afternoon I returned from a meeting to find number one daughter waiting at my office. “What’s up, hon”? “I just needed a daddy hug.” “Anything in particular”? “Yeah, mom and I were at the midnight premier of Batman at the Mills.  But I was thinking.  Mom lives just a few blocks from the Aurora 16.  She changed her plans when I invited her to drive out to see the movie with me.  If I hadn’t done that she would have been there for the shooting.” As I wrapped my arms around my daughter and gave her a daddy hug, I said, “Well, God is looking out for you and her.” But even as the words were leaving my mouth Read More ›

Great art speaks to our soul.  Consider, for example, a song like Jolie Blonde.  In mournful Cajun French the singer wails:   Jolie blonde, regardez donc quoi t’as fait, Tu m’as quitte pour t’en aller, Pour T’en aller avec un autre, oui, que moi, Quel espoir et quel avenir, mais, moi, je vais avoir?   (Pretty blond, look at what you’ve done You left me to go away to go away with another, yes, than me What hope and what future am I going to have?)*   Great art tells the truth, and if we allow him to do so, a great artist can forge a union between his heart and our own as, together, we peer into ourselves.  In this example, even Read More ›

In a prior post lastyearon employs such a classic example of the strawman fallacy that I can’t resist putting it up for all to marvel at. In the course of an attack of ID as disguised theism lastyearon writes:  “Meyers: The origin of the gene can’t be explained by chemistry (i.e. must’ve happened supernaturally).”  Meyers has never said anything like the statement in the parenthetical that is attributed to him.  I defy lastyearon to provide any source for his statement. As I said in the comment thread, when one’s opponents feel they must erect a strawman to attack instead of addressing the arguments one is actually making, that is a sure indicator that they have no response to the actual Read More ›

While I was shaving this morning I was thinking about the materialists who are beginning to question the evolutionary mechanisms proposed by the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis (e.g., Lynn Margulis and James Shapiro). All of a sudden a great irony struck me. No doubt many of my readers have already picked up on this, but I can be slow on the uptake and it was kind of a stunner to me. The irony is this: Even among materialists Neo-Darwinian Evolution is beginning to crumble under the cumulative weight of the many absurdities it requires its adherents to accept. Yet just as the theory is beginning to fall apart among honest materialists, we have the theists at Biologos feverishly trying to prop up Read More ›

The world has been cooling, not warming, for 2,000 years.  Not that the facts will change the minds of the religious zealots pushing global warming hysteria.

Suppose your enemy is trying to frame you for murder.  He does a good job of fabricating evidence, and you are arrested and charges are filed.  Of course you are not guilty, so you refuse all plea offers.  But being innocent does not guaranty you will win at trial, and your “no plea” position is very risky.  Indeed, the stakes could not be higher.  Under the law of your state the only allowable penalty for murder is life in prison without possibility of parole.  Your case goes to trial, and the DA’s entire case against you comes down to the testimony of two witnesses.  Even though you are not guilty, it is clear to everyone that if either of these witnesses Read More ›

The winner is niwrad with this (slightly edited) gem: “A ‘cell’ is a bio-cybernetic chemical automaton able to self-replicate, self-organize, and perform metabolic functions by means of nano-level molecular machines controlled by internal digital software stored in information rich polymers.” Niwrad, has been contacted and when he provides an address his prize will be shipped out. Thank you to all of the participants. UD Editors

Date:  Monday, June 4 Time:  4:00 to 6:00 Mountain Go here http://www.947krks.com/ Then click on “Listen Live”

“We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”  George Orwell

David W. Gibson asks some interesting questions in a comment to johnnyb’s last post.  First, he writes concerning Darwinism:  “How could it ever have come to pass that tens of thousands of the most intelligent humans in the world, after decades of detailed study, could STILL fall victim to the ‘transparently ludicrous’?” Let me answer this question by referring to a couple of similar examples from hisotry. In the second century Ptolemy devised his system of cosmology.  In this system each planet moves along a “deferent” and an “epicycle.”  The planet’s movement along these two paths cause it to move closer to and further away from the earth.  For the system to work, the planets sometimes had to slow down, Read More ›

The post before this one was UD’s 9,000th.  Thank you to all of our readers for your support as we celebrate this milestone.