Barry Arrington

I came across this quote from 1906 today: “Each of us was, at the beginning of his existence, a simple globule of protoplasm, surrounded by a membrane, about 1/120 of an inch in diameter, with a firmer nucleus inside it. Ernst Haeckel, Last Words on Evolution (London: A. Owen & Co., 1906). One wonders if the process that culminated in NDE would have ever gotten off the ground if its progenitors had had even a faint notion of how laughably wrong they were about the cell.

Origin of Life theories attempt to account for the transition from prebiotic matter to biotic matter.  Beginning with Darwin’s warm little pond and continuing through the present day, scientists have tried to explain how this intuitively unlikely jump could have been made.  In his wonderful article On the Origins of Life (here), David Berlinski summarizes some of the more important assumptions scientists must make in trying to resolve this weighty question: “First, that the pre-biotic atmosphere was chemically reductive; second, that nature found a way to synthesize cytosine; third, that nature also found a way to synthesize ribose; fourth, that nature found the means to assemble nucleotides into polynucleotides; fifth, that nature discovered a self-replicating molecule; and sixth, that having Read More ›

In Illusion of Knowledge I and II we discussed epistemological categories.  In particular, we analyzed what it means to “know” and whether there is a difference that makes a difference between scientific conclusions supported by “direct” observations and scientific conclusions based upon inference.  We also discussed how certain we have to be about a conclusion before we can say that we “know” it is true.  We used the Standard Model of cosmology (expanding universe, Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy) as the launching point for our discussion. I have always been careful to say that it is not my purpose to disparage the Standard Model.  This is an exercise in epistemology (about which I have something to say), not cosmology Read More ›

Eminent evolutionist Jerry Coyne has a piece in the Times Literary Supplement (here) in which he urges us to turn the penetrating glare of empiricism on all claims (not just the claims of science).  Curiously, in the same article he implies that Darwinism is not only unimpeachably true, but that only by accepting it can we save the planet.  The article is a strange mixture of oil and water, empiricism and dogma.  Coyne begins by discussing Marx, Freud and Darwin, whom, he says, many consider to be the preeminent thinkers of their time.  It is a commonplace that the former two have now been thoroughly debunked, yet it does not seem to occur to Coyne that the same may happen Read More ›

The term “blinders” is tossed about a lot, but some folks may not know what they are.  Blinders are a part of a horse’s or a mule’s tackle.  They are small blocks of leather that fit on the outside of the animal’s eyes to keep it from looking to its side.  Their purpose is to keep the animal looking only to the front so that it will not be startled or distracted by things that would otherwise be in its peripheral vision.  Here is a picture of a horse wearing blinders.   

The purpose of physical blinders leads easily to the metaphor of intellectual blinders.  A person is said to be “wearing blinders” if he is incapable of understanding another person’s point of view. 

A couple of days ago I said that some scientists’ metaphysical commitments make them blind to data that disconfirms their theory.  My comment was met with howls of indignation by commentators who insisted that “science” is pristine, self-correcting and ideology-free.  Nonsense.  Everyone’s perception is colored by their preconceived ideas about the nature of reality (including mine by the way).  Part of the human condition is that, to one degree or another, we all wear blinders.  The solution is not to deny the obvious, but to embrace it.  Only when we admit that we have a blindside, that our perceptions are influenced by our presuppositions, will we be able to keep our minds open enough to perhaps turn our head and see what was previously masked by our blinders. 

Darwinists are not exempt from this phenomenon.  Their views are colored by their metaphysical commitments just like all of the rest of us.  This does mean they are necessarily bad people.  It just means they are people. 

Stephan Jay Gould, bless him, was especially good at recognizing this phenomenon in his fellow evolutionists.  Here are some gems from his writings: 

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In Illusion of Knowledge I, I discussed dark matter and dark energy.  Even though neither has ever been observed (i.e., confirmed by experience), the Standard Model of cosmology posits that 21% of the universe is comprised of the former and a whopping 75% of the universe is comprised of the latter.  I quoted skeptical cosmologist Mike Disney:  “The greatest obstacle to progress in science is the illusion of knowledge, the illusion that we know what’s going on when we really don’t.” 

Some people took the point of my post to be a criticism of big bang cosmology.  That was not my purpose.  As I said before, I have absolutely no qualifications to judge the merits of the Standard Model.  But I do know a thing or two about epistemology – the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of knowledge and knowing.    Read More ›

In the response to a recent post a commenter asks what “homologous” means and whether similarity is the same as homology.  In this post I will give a brief (and hopefully plain language) overview of “homology” and the related concept of “homoplasy.”

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I just watched a fascinating show on the National Geographic Channel about dark matter and dark energy. 

Here is a quick synopsis:  The standard theory of gravity predicts that the further an object is away from a massive object, the smaller the gravitational effect the massive object will have on the object.  In the solar system this means that the distant planets will orbit the sun much more slowly then the closer planets, and sure enough empirical observations confirm the theory.

Problem 1:  In the 1970’s it was observed that the theory does not work at the level of galaxies.  The stars and gas at the outer edge of galaxies orbit at the same rate as the ones closer in. 

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Denyse’s post below (What did Hitler believe about evolution?) quoted Edward Oakes, a writer of great erudition for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect.  Although Oakes frequently sends me scrambling for my dictionary, I look forward to reading his articles and book reviews in First Things and his posts on First Things’ blog.  Because I respect Oakes and am in general agreement with his writings and his worldview, I am puzzled and troubled by his blithe acceptance of evolution and his vehement opposition to ID. 

For those interested in my response to Fr. Oakes’ views on whether ID proponents confuse finality and design and primary and secondary causation, read on.

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For those who are interested in what Professor Behe actually said in Dover (instead of the distortions of his testimony in Judge Jones’ opinion), click on “more.”  [Thank you to tribune7 for sussing this out].

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As I write this there have been 80 comments to my posts about the evidence issues implicated by the plaintiffs’ literature bluff at the Dover trial.  Our friends at Panda’s Thumb have also opened a thread to discuss my posts see (here) and also (here).  For those interested in my response to PT, read on.

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Denyse, I would be interested in how you would grade Mr. Than’s article (see a couple of posts down)  if it were a project in a journalism class you were teaching.  I am not a journalist, but from my lay perspective he gets points off for: 1.  Value laden language.  Depending on one’s perspective, “near the bottom” could just as easily be “near the top” for independence of thought, and “low ranking” could be “high ranking” for a wholesome skeptical scientific attitude. 2.  Stating opinions as facts.  His wholesale adoption of ID’s opponent’s characterization of ID as factual statements, instead of statements of their opinion, is a mistake. On the positive side, he at least gave someone with an ID point Read More ›

So reports Ker Than a Staff Writer for Space.com and LiveScience.com.  You can get the whole story here:  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,207858,00.html. 

Mr. Than reports that a new study compares attitudes toward evolution in 34 countries.  The US ranks “near the bottom” when it comes to public acceptance of evolution.  Other findings:

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Thank you very much to Bob OH for pointing me to a transcript of the Behe literature bluff at the Dover trial.  I have read the transcript in detail, and I now believe the Dover defendants’ lawyers should have made objections that they did not make.  Here are quotes from the Behe examination followed by the objections that should have been made (in bold):
 

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I was going to post this in Gil’s “Literature Bluffing” thread, but it got too long, so I am putting it in this post.

Let me preface this comment by stating that I have not reviewed the transcript of the Dover trial in detail, and I am basing what I am about to say on the information in the thread to Gil’s post.  The defendants’ lawyers in Dover may indeed have done a poor job overall.  I have no opinion on the matter, but on the specific topic discussed in Gil’s post, I think they are getting a bum rap.

Here is the issue.  Several of the commentators wondered, “Why didn’t the defendants’ lawyers object when the plaintiffs’ lawyers placed a stack of books and articles in front of Behe and asked ‘have you read these articles that refute your testimony about irreducible complexity?’”  In other words, they want to know why the defendants’ lawyers did not object to the literature bluff coming into evidence, and some suggested the lawyers were negligent for failing to make this objection.

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