Granville Sewell

Materialism — the belief that everything that happens is the result of the action of the basic laws of physics on the basic particles of physics — leads its adherents to some conclusions that most do not really believe but are obliged to assert.  For example, they often claim there is no real free will, that everything we do is determined by the laws of physics.   But if they really believed this, why would they bother trying to convince the rest of us?  Whether or not we will accept their conclusion is completely beyond our control.   Certainly our behavior is influenced, maybe to a large degree, by our heredity and environment but no one would possibly conclude that he has Read More ›

My 2015 book “In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design” includes a couple of chapters dealing with the “compensation” argument (anything can happen in an open system without violating the second law of thermodynamics), a chapter on the big bang, which includes the differential equation modeling the expansion of the universe that shows a singularity in the finite past, a chapter on the fine tuning of the laws of physics, and a chapter on quantum mechanics. The chapter on quantum mechanics shows that not only is human behavior not completely determined by physics, but even the individual particles of physics have a sort of “free will” of their own, even their behavior is not completely predictable, even in Read More ›

At this Evolution News post I discussed the following section from W.E.Loennig’s 1971 MS Thesis. (He would go on to complete a PhD in genetics at the University of Bonn and work for 25 years at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research as a geneticist.) Although every analogy breaks down when extended beyond the main points, I think his story about the Natives who discovered a helicopter is actually useful in thinking about Intelligent Design, because This tribe was sure there was nothing more to the universe than their tribe and land. There actually was more to the universe than they thought. They couldn’t conceive of beings smart enough to build flying machines. Therefore they preferred any far-fetched Read More ›

The whole design debate could not be simpler, and neither side’s viewpoint really requires much scientific expertise to understand: On the one hand, most scientists say, nothing can possibly be beyond the reach of our science, so if we can’t explain where the designer came from, there CAN’T be any design in Nature. (See last segment of video below) On the other hand, even if there “can’t be” any design in Nature, it is absurdly, spectacularly, ridiculously, blindingly obvious that there is.

Here is an interview Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig did recently with Marco Respinti of the Centro Italiano Intelligent Design organization (https://www.ciid.science), in English with Italian subtitles. A couple of quotes from the interview: after describing his PhD thesis work in the first 10 minutes he summarizes “The outcome was in full agreement with one of the more important basic predictions of intelligent design theory: mutations usually do not produce any real new information.” Then “So to accept intelligent design and to be critical of evolutionary arguments and put them to the test can be very fruitful for biology and science in general.” Lönnig also discusses the well-funded attempts at, among other places, his own Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, to Read More ›

At the suggestion of a pastor friend, I have developed a study guide to go along with the video “A Summary of the Evidence for Intelligent Design,” which was highlighted in an article by Brian Miller at Evolution News. The study guide is here. Although there is only one section (4b) that relates ID to the Bible, I think it could serve as a nice introduction to ID for a church discussion group. Notice the video now has Spanish and Polish subtitles.

W.E.Loennig’s latest manuscript, “Are Birds Living Dinosaurs?” is, like all his earlier writings, characterized by great attention to scientific detail and willingness to engage with scientific critics (one in particular, in this case). I recommend not only this work, but many of his earlier works, which can be browsed here. I also highly recommend the German TV interview embedded above, which has English subtitles. The youtube English translation above has about 5000 views, the original German interview at the TV station has over 27,000. W.E.Loennig, who spent 25+ years at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, may not be as well-known here in the US as some American ID proponents–possibly because never travels here—but he is Read More ›

Here are two mathematical problems for you to work on in your spare time, and one problem from biology: Find positive integers x,y, z and n>2, such that xn+yn=zn. Remove two diagonally opposite corner squares from a chess board, and cover the remaining 62 squares with 31 dominoes, each of which covers two adjacent squares. Explain how life could have originated and evolved into intelligent humans, through entirely natural (unintelligent) processes. You can spend a lot of time trying different solutions to mathematical problem #1. After a while you might begin to wonder if it can be done, but don’t give up, there are an infinite number of integers you can try for x,y,z and n. For problem #2, get Read More ›

Science has been so successful explaining other phenomena in terms of purely unintelligent natural forces, why should evolution be so different? That is the primary argument against intelligent design, and it is the reason that Darwinism, an extremely implausible theory which becomes even more implausible with every new biological and biochemical discovery—but the best theory materialists have to offer—is still so popular today. And it is the main subject of a video which was introduced at Evolution News last June, and which has now been translated into three languages. Most non-scientists intuitively understand that explaining how plants and animals, and intelligent, conscious humans, could have arisen from a lifeless, barren planet is a very different and much more difficult problem Read More ›

In the 2010 book interview for the first edition of my Discovery Institute Press book David Klinghoffer asked me, what do you think will be the turning point in the ID-Darwinism debate? I answered (approximately) “the turning point will be when scientists believe they will be considered intellectuals for doubting Darwin rather than for promoting Darwin, and not before.” Ten years later, Intelligent Design has gained some respect but we have certainly not yet arrived at my turning point. If we get there eventually, it will be thanks to our experts like Michael Behe, W.E.Loennig, Doug Axe, and many others, whose knowledge of biology and biochemistry matches that of any Darwinist expert. But if you just want to know whose Read More ›

Based on this Oct 28 post at Evolution News.

Posted at Evolution News Friday: In The Origin of Species (1859, 201), Charles Darwin suggested the following test, among others, for his theory:  If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory for such could not have been produced through natural selection. Now, there are thousands of different plant galls triggered correspondingly by thousands of different insect (and other) species showing, indeed, that “part of the structure of … one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species.” Getting to Know Plant Galls But perhaps I should first answer the question: What is a plant gall?  A gall is a manifestation Read More ›

Above is a picture of three children in 1954. One of them is me, the other two are not. I saw the world from inside one of these children. Darwinists believe they can explain how these children evolved, but how did I end up inside one of them? This is a question that rarely seems to trouble evolutionists. They talk about human evolution as if they were outside observers and never seem to wonder how they got inside one of the animals they are studying. They seem to feel that they just need to explain how the human brain evolved, then there is nothing left to explain. Well, there is a picture of a brain below, if you click on Read More ›

The following is an overview of the evidence for design which I wrote recently for a political journal whose readers have mostly had little exposure to ID arguments. It was rejected. It is a pretty basic summary, nothing here that UD readers have not seen many times, but maybe you may find it useful as an introduction to ID for friends. The real meat is in the videos linked, the text here is just an outline. The idea that natural selection of random variations could explain all the apparent design in the living world might have seemed superficially plausible in 1859, but, in recent years, as scientific research has continually revealed the astonishing dimensions of the complexity of life, especially Read More ›

My final contribution to the ID debate: