Since frontloading is becoming a hotter topic in ID circles, I thought I would repost a video covering, in just 5 minutes, a short explanation of what is being proposed, and some of the evidences for it. There are minimalist and maximalist views of frontloading, but I think all of them share a fascination with what we are finding out about mutations today.
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One of my favorite parts of ID is the fact that it is creating good tools for biologists to use. ID is often misconceived as a conclusion about whether or not X was designed. Instead, ID presupposes only the *possibility* that something was designed, and that intelligent agents are not mechanistic. In accordance with this, several metrics have been developed. The first metric that I am aware of is CSI. The method for measuring CSI was originally developed by Dembski in The Design Inference. The main problem for CSI is in the difficulty of actually taking the measurements it requires. The second metric (well, metric probably isn’t quite the right word, it’s a qualitative measure) is Irreducible Complexity as described Read More ›
I don’t know how long this has been available (I have looked before, but was unable to find it), but I just noticed that Douglas Robertson’s “Algorithmic information theory, free will, and the Turing test” is available online. This paper has been highly influential in ID circles, as can be attested by its citation list. The main thrust of the paper is that, solely on the basis of mathematics, any mathematical physical theory is incapable of producing consciousness as we know it. The reason for this is that mathematics are incapable of producing mathematical axioms. Therefore, a mathematical physical theory is incapable of producing the mathematical axioms on which it is based. The paper is a fantastic read, and anyone Read More ›
I thought I’d remind you all of the conference this summer on Engineering and Metaphysics. The idea for the conference came from two directions. One is the question of, if humans are more than mere physics, how does that affect engineering decisions? The other is the question, what insights do the practice of engineering give to the larger questions of reality?
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For those attending next year’s Engineering and Metaphysics conference, this is the last week for the early bird discount. For those interested, the Engineering and Metaphysics conference brings together how the larger pictures of humanity and reality affect engineering decisions. For those in the ID movement, this might include some aspects of applied Intelligent Design. For more details and registration information, see the conference website: http://www.eandm2012.com/
I thought some of you might be interested in a conference that is happening next year – Engineering and Metaphysics. The goal is to bring together a number of people from a variety of disciplines to discuss the larger nature of reality, and how that applies to engineering practice. The goal is to be along the same lines as the Nature of Nature conference, but focused on engineering applications. Walter Bradley, author of The Mystery of Life’s Origin, will be the plenary speaker for the conference. The website for the conference is here. There is also a call for abstracts for the conference, so if this is a subject area you have an interest in, please submit an abstract! I Read More ›
There seems to be a lot of chatter on the news and the Internet about the candidates’ beliefs about origins. While many in the media are using this as a test of scientific savvy (and a way to discredit people they don’t like), I think there are deeper reasons why the question of origins is important to an election.
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Taxonomy is a truly fascinating subject. It used to bore me, but precisely because I was too close to it. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight, can we go play video games now? It never occurred to me how amazing these patterns that surround us actually are. They are with us so often, they can easily fade into the background.
Interestingly, as argued in a fascinating book, Naming Nature, putting the world into a natural order is actually an intrinsic part of being human.
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Education is one of the things that nearly every American agrees is important. I am one of those people. I do everything in my power to give my children every educational opportunity. I was well-pleased with my education choices when, today in my child’s 3rd-grade class, the teacher turned on some music, and half of the children were excited because it was Beethoven, and they each spontaneously told which Beethoven piece was their favorite.
However, to educate properly, the primary principle that you must operate with is this – education needs to be sensitive to the nature of humans. If your educational philosophy or your political philosophy of education fails to take into account the nature of humans and how they learn, the final result will be that you spend a whole lot of money, and no one gets educated. That’ pretty much sums up where we are headed.
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I think that a lot of Darwinists are confused as to why the public has a lot to say about origins issues. After all, the public doesn’t tend to have a lot to say about computer science topics, physics topics, or mathematics topics. The average person on the street probably doesn’t have a strong opinion on whether or not hypercomputing is a real possibility or the true nature of gravity. But they probably do have an opinion on Darwinism. This has left a great many academics puzzled.
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I’m on vacation so I haven’t had time to watch this, but I thought it looked interesting enough to share. Apparently, this year there was a debate on whether or not a theory of everything is possible. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYeN66CSQhg
While many people today think that “purpose” is an ill-founded biological category, most people aren’t aware of its historical significance in the history of biology. The “doctrine of creation” has been a formalized version of the idea of purpose in biology, and is at least in name still adhered to by theistic evolutionists (hence why they are now calling themselves “evolutionary creationists”). In the case of the evolutionary creationists, their use of the doctrine of creation is primarily a post-hoc mode of storytelling. However, historically, the doctrine of creation has been foundational to the making of modern biology. It is difficult to see, given its historical pedigree, why all-of-a-sudden trying to use the idea of purpose within biology is somehow Read More ›
The metanarrative that pervades materialism goes something like this: science (especially physics), as it grows, will continue to replace more and more spiritual ideas, until all we are left with are physical ideas. Unfortunately for the materialists, the history of science instead shows that physics itself only grows as it embraces spiritual ideas and incorporates them into our knowledge of reality.
Thought you all might be interested in this video on whether or not mutations are random. It covers both why we originally thought mutations were random plus more current information which shows that the random mutation idea is not the whole picture.