Barry Arrington

What do I mean by reality? I mean that which has existence apart from any idea any mind may have of it, and which would exist if there were no mind anywhere to entertain a thought of it. That which is real has being in itself. It does not depend upon the observer for its validity. I am aware that there are those who love to poke fun at the plain man’s idea of reality. They are the idealists who spin endless proofs that nothing is real outside of the mind. They are the relativists who like to show that there are no fixed points in the universe from which we can measure anything. They smile down upon us from Read More ›

Last night the media erupted with news that Osama Bin Laden has been tracked down and killed by American forces. President Obama went on national television and proclaimed that Bin Laden is dead. I believe him. Why should I believe Obama? Because no one in their right mind would declare to be true that which can easily be proven false. Think about it. Radical islamists have an obvious interest in disproving the president’s claims, both to make Obama look like a fool and to encourage their followers. They have no interest in allowing the world to believe the Americans have won a major victory in the war on terror. Therefore, simple logic dictates that Obama would not make the claim Read More ›

In my last post I asked Mathgrrl the following direct and unambiguous question: “OK Mathgrrl. I will put it to you: Was Orgel’s concept of specified complexity coherent or meaningful?” I then made the following prediction as to her response: “My prediction: More dancing, evasion and obfuscation.” My prediction was confirmed. Mathgrrl placed two comments on the thread to that post and she did not even address the question posed. Mathgrrl is unwilling to engage in a good faith debate on these pages. Case closed.

In my last post I demonstrated that Leslie Orgel coined the phrase “specified complexity.” Then I demonstrated that William Dembski uses the phrase in an identical sense. This placed Mathgrrl on the horns of a dilemma. She can stick with her assertion that the concept of “specified complexity” is meaningless, but if she does that she has to admit that materialist hero Orgel was employing a meaningless concept. Or she can admit that Orgel’s concept of “specified complexity” is meaningful, but if she does that she has to admit that ID proponent Dembski’s use of the concept is legitimate. What is a good materialist to do? Dance, evade and obfuscate of course! Now Mathgrrl writes: “I have said nothing about Read More ›

Newsflash: ID proponent William Dembski did not coin the term “specified complexity.” That term was coined by celebrated evolutionary materialist Leslie Orgel to describe the criteria by which living organisms are distinguished from non-living matter. In a previous post I challenged mathgirl to show us why “specified complexity” as used by one of the most famous evolutionary materialists in history is a meaningless concept. In her response she concedes that Orgel’s use of the term is valid, but that when Dembski is using the term he is referring to a different concept. Progress! Mathgirl finally concedes that the term “specified complexity,” at least as used by Orgel, is a meaningful concept. Sadly, mathgirl has deluded herself into believing that Orgel Read More ›

Mathgirl wrote in a comment to my last post:  “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 world referent.” Let’s examine that.  GEM brings to our attention two materialists who embraced the concept, Orgel [1973] and Wicken [1979]. Orgel: . . . In brief, living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers Read More ›

ID opponents sometimes attempt to dismiss ID theory as an “argument from ignorance.”  Their assertion goes something like this: 1.  ID consists of nothing more than the claim that undirected material forces are insufficient to account for either the irreducible complexity (IC) or the functionally specific complex information (FSCI) found in living things.  2.  This purely negative assertion is an invalid argument from ignorance.  As a matter of logic, they say, it is false to state that our present ignorance concerning how undirected material forces can account for either the IC or the FSCI found in living things (i.e., our “absence of evidence”), means no such evidence exists.  In other words, our present ignorance of a material cause of IC Read More ›

Note: This post’s date stamp has been advanced, to continue a vital discussion. Newer posts follow MathGrrl’s below.

Bornagain77 writes (in jest I believe):  “MathGrrl posting a thread??? [here.] Is this Uncommon Descent???”

BA’s comment reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad when I was about 13.  I was blessed with a dad who from an early age engaged with me on theological issues.  One of the issues we debated was the “once saved always saved issue” (Calvin’s “perseverance of the saints”).  My dad believes in the doctrine, and one day I decided to be a little provocative and told him I had become an Armenian (the camp that believes a Christian can “fall from grace”).  I expected him to get upset and power down on me and try to push me into recanting that statement.

I will never forget his response.  He said, “OK.”  Read More ›

In response to Dr. Torley’s post here, commenter Graham asks:  “Can we now drop the pretense and just declare UD/ID to be religious”?  Well Graham, let’s think about that.  ID theory posits that some observations are best explained as the result of the acts of an intelligent agent.  The theory does not posit any particular agent and the agent need not be a deity.  It could, for example, be the aliens Dawkins speculated about in his interview with Ben Stein.  To be sure, many ID proponents believe the intelligent agent is God.  But that is a possible implication of the theory, not part of the theory itself. Neo-Darwinian evolution (NDE) posits that unguided material forces are sufficient to produce all Read More ›

Let us set aside all of the other problems with the much touted Miller–Urey experiment (e.g., the “atmosphere” assumed in the experiment bears absolutely no resemblance to the early earth’s atmosphere).  Indeed, let us go a step further and assume that scientists can develop a mix of chemicals that in fact accurately reproduces early earth conditions in every particular.  And finally let us assume they can zap that mix of chemicals with electricity and produce organic compounds. So what? The paradigm under which Miller-Urey (and similar experiments) was performed is hopelessly stuck in a quaint nineteenth century view of the cell.  Our ancestors believed the cell was, in the words of Ernst Haeckel, a “simple globule of protoplasm.” Today we Read More ›

In response to my last post, markf wrote:  It is a possibility that we are under a total delusion about scientific evidence. But key difference between religious evidence and scientific evidence is that our scientific evidence is grounded in repeatable observations that engage with reality all the time in very concrete way. To which bornagain77 aptly replied:  Yet ironically, belief in an orderly universe, where the transcendent laws of physics are non-variant, is a Theistic belief, and in fact atheists fight tooth and nail trying to show that there is no such inherent transcendent order in the universe. Thus you have in fact falsely assumed a primary theistic belief into your atheistic argument for an orderly universe when you stated,,, Read More ›

Theist:  You say there is no God.  Evolutionary Materialist [EM]:  Yes. Theist:  Yet belief in God among many (if not most) humans persists. EM:  I cannot deny that. Theist:  How do you explain that? EM:  Religious belief is an evolutionary adaption.  Theist:  But you say religious belief is false. EM:  That’s correct.  Theist:  Let me get this straight.  According to you, religious belief has at least two characterizes:  (1) it is false; and (2) evolution selected for it.  EM [looking a little pale now, because he’s just figured out where this is going]:  Correct.   Theist:  You believe the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis [NDS] is true. EM:  Of course.  Theist:  How do you know your belief in NDS is not another false belief Read More ›

Here is a pdf of that famous article.

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has an official position on the nature of “science” here. For the reasons set forth below, ID proponents should have no problem with the NSTA conceptualization. The NSTA position emphasizes the following characteristics of science: Scientific knowledge is simultaneously reliable and tentative. Having confidence in scientific knowledge is reasonable while realizing that such knowledge may be abandoned or modified in light of new evidence or reconceptualization of prior evidence and knowledge. Although no single universal step-by-step scientific method captures the complexity of doing science, a number of shared values and perspectives characterize a scientific approach to understanding nature. Among these are a demand for naturalistic explanations supported by empirical evidence that are, at least Read More ›

I commend to our readers David Bentley Hart’s article, A Philosopher in the Twilight, in the February 2011 First Things.  Dr. Hart muses over Martin Heidegger’s late philosophy, especially his views regarding the connection between the Western intellectual tradition and nihilism.  I admire and respect Dr. Hart greatly.  His new articles is, as usual, full of thought provoking insights displaying his all-too-rare combination of deep learning, wisdom and the ability to write engaging prose.  The following passage from the article is puzzling to me though: It simply cannot be denied that the horrors of the last century were both conceptually and historically inseparable from some of the deepest principles of modernity’s founding ideologies. The ‘final solution’ was a kind of Read More ›