Denyse O'Leary

He who sups with the devil must bring a long spoon. – proverb An American living in Paris, a secular agnostic Jew, and both a mathematician and a novelist – so why isn’t Berlinski caterwauling about the Visigoths at the gates, who think there is evidence for design in the universe? Well, for one thing, he is way too smart. He is also a relentless foe of fashionable mediocrities. Thought enforcers mutter darkly against him. No doubt there will be a law against him some day, but the bureaucrats will need to make good time. He was born in 1942. Meanwhile, … Well now, what of Berlinski’s Devils?, that is The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions? The book Read More ›

While reading Mike Gene’s The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues, I also had the fun of encountering a letter from Richard Sever, of Cold Spring Harbor lab, to the journal Nature informing its editors that he wishes that his colleagues would “reduce confusion” by using the word “design” more intelligently. (Nature 454, 27 (3 July 2008) | doi:10.1038/454027c; Published online 2 July 2008 Paywall)

That is to say,

Few scientists would dispute that evolution provides a far more satisfactory explanation for the workings of living organisms than does ‘intelligent design’. But a much more subtle ‘design’ movement abounds that can distort how they approach their research.

Sever means that scientists refer to the design of organisms to mean the design of organisms. But everyone knows that organisms are not “really” designed; they only look exactly like they are … and this supposedly confuses people.

My favourite line is “Systems that emerge by selection differ fundamentally from those conceived by design.”

Oh? Amazing! If devout Darwinists like Sever are right, that’s precisely what isn’t true.

The designs produced by the random walk of Darwinian evolution cannot by definition differ from the designs produced by human selfish-gene robots formed by the random walk of Darwinian evolution. Everything is essentially due to Darwinian evolution, right?

Hey, look, on the Darwinist view, if there were a God and he designed things, he too must have evolved by the random walk of Darwinian evolution. So … so what exactly is Sever’s problem?

There shouldn’t really be a semantic problem along the lines that Sever suggests. Unless, of course, it is legal to doubt Darwinism … But surely the appropriate authorities are slowly but surely taking care of all that. So we can delay the introduction of duckspeak a little longer, can’t we, while we smooth out the quacks?

Actually, Sever’s sort of proposal has a  history. While writing The Spiritual Brain (Harper One, 2007), Mario Beauregard and I ran into similar serious proposals to eliminate language that implies that people have consciousness, personality, or ego, for example:

The social, psychological and cognitive sciences remain stuck with prescientific words and concepts. For many of us the word “soul” is as obsolete as “phlogiston,” but scientists still use such imprecise words as “consciousness,” “personality” and “ego,” not to mention “mind.”

Perhaps it is time that, in science at least, “imagination” and “introspection” are remodelled or, preferably, retired. Artists can have fun with them, but the serious business of the world has moved on. (Peter Watson, “Not Written in Stone”, New Scientist (August 29, 2005, quoted at p. 119 TSB )

When people can’t address the reality, they try to banish it from the terminology.  And people who live in a highly bureaucratic environment have real difficulty comprehending people who are insufficiently “cratted”, and thus continue to use real language.

Also, today at Colliding Universes:

Large Hadron Collider: And what if, $3 billion later, they don’t find the God particle? Read More ›

Two nights ago, I finally saw the Expelled film.

I had become almost proprietorial about the widely denounced #5 political documentary.  I had first broken the story of its existence last August. I watched it pitch and roll through accusations of trickery, a threatened lawsuit over plagiarism and a real one over intellectual property, production delays (it was supposed to be released on Darwin’s birthday but was pulled for edit), and, inevitably, street drama.

Security was so tight that – as I learned a couple of weeks ago – not only could I not get a screener, neither could the the screenwriter – fellow Canadian Kevin Miller.

Okay, so there I am, sitting half-frozen in a half-empty theatre in downtown Toronto, and … I had two main reactions: Read More ›

The scientists and researchers employed in my secret basement laboratory are quite an ecclectic bunch. We have staff that wash their hands and brush their teeth after every thought as well as those whose superstitions will not allow them to change their underwear until the completion of their research project. We have committed Christians as well as atheists who should be committed. We have cool, but mostly we have nerd. One biochemist’s 5 year old was visiting and after talking to several researchers said to her dad, “Daddy, these guys make even Todd and Lance seem cool.” Her dad just shook his head and said, “Sweetie, you have never met Todd or Lance, have you?” That little girl has the cutest giggle.

Perhaps the most unusual character in our lab is Alfred the Atheist, one of our physicists. He’s a Landscaper of the String Theory clan. Alfred is always spewing equations about which no one else has a clue. Nobody is ever sure if he really knows what he is talking about. Our only evidence on these matters occurs when he does calculations on his super computer. Often after a result is obtained, his computer smacks itself on its monitor with its own mouse and exclaims, “Boo-yah! My hard drive just had an orgasm!” Then it has a smoke.

Alfred has long been determined to calculate and describe the nature of other universes in the Landscape. (Some say that he hasn’t changed underwear in 3 years; others claim he goes ‘commando.’) He declares that he wants to prove beyond all question that God doesn’t exist. His computer now has a 2 pack-a-day habit.

I can only get over this fit of envy by writing another book.

Hey, I have been a book editor most of my adult life. I know books. I know them well.

The excellent Burris, pictured above, maybe don’t.

Yes, book writing is indeed a dying art, and I’ll die with it – but … not yet.

I will write one more book. Meanwhile, enjoy Steve Burri’s spoof, and don’t blame me if you are one Offended bunny … I, as it happens, do NOT care … *

Also, just up at Colliding Universes:

Universe arranged like nautilus shell on a large scale? (Well, would you prefer it had been arranged like a losing hand in poker?) Read More ›

Paul Gillin, a veteran technology journalist and formerly editor-in-chief of ComputerWorld, thinks that legacy mainstream media (MSM) are toast.

Sure, lots of people think so, and yet another techhead’s view wouldn’t matter – except that I keep hearing the same thing from journalists who hoped it wasn’t true, and used to say it wasn’t. From Gilpin:

Why now? People have been wrongly forecasting the death of newspapers for years. Why is this time different?

The first decade of the consumer Internet was very different from that which we’re now entering. Web 1.0 was the display Internet. It was a decade when organizations put their brochures online and users got comfortable with the idea of a global network. Search tools were rudimentary, Web content was difficult to create and interactivity was limited.

Yes, Paul! And even worse, Yapster the Terrier was more likely to have a Web page than his master’s business was. Yawn. Not much of a threat to established media, that. But …

That’s all changed. It’s now easy for individuals to create Web content. Computing power, storage and bandwidth costs are declining rapidly. The open-source software movement has dropped the price of software to near zero. Search engines have become a more effective marketing channel than e-mail. Google AdSense and affiliate marketing networks can generate income for Web site operators, even at low traffic levels. Today, a small group of people with a few thousand dollars and a good idea can build a self-sustaining Web franchise in a matter of months. You couldn’t have done that five years ago.

Layered on top of that is a demographic shift that is about to move a large new group of Web-savvy consumers into the economic mainstream. This new generation simply doesn’t have the loyalty to established media that their parents do. And they don’t read newspapers at all.

Don’t read newspapers? No, and for good reason. At my local convenience store, the guy flogging subscriptions to the Globe & Mail couldn’t even give away a pile of free papers. For one thing, now that Toronto makes us pay for recycling by the size of the bin, who wants a big pile of newsprint?

I’m more skeptical of Gilpin’s claim that the “new journalism” doesn’t need to be accurate because industrious armies of readers will correct stories, and that’s okay. Okay for whom? For people who don’t need accurate information?

If I need to know the expected overnight temperature in Toronto tonight, I’ll go with the Weather Network’s Internet forecast, right or wrong – because one thing that hasn’t changed is that there are only 24 hours in a day and I can only invest a tiny amount of time in finding out – and I don’t need one hundred commenters’ opinions on the subject. In general, a system that cannot distinguish between informed and uninformed opinion will likely be replaced by one that can. But we shall see.

Now, how will this affect the ID controversy? Well, let’s see: Darwin’s mob will lose the considerable advantage they gained from the formula pro-Darwin stories generated by the legacy MSM. They will, however, still have the advantage that so many of them are supported by the taxpayer, and they may gravitate increasingly toward political action to silence dissent.

One thing about predicting the future is that it is riskier than predicting the past.

Also: Just up at the Post-Darwinist

Jailed Canuck media mogul Conrad (Tubby) Black endorses ID-friendly Jindal for McCain’s veep. Go Tubs! Read More ›

I am currently transcribing Canadian civil rights lawyer and journalist Ezra Levant‘s talk at a lunch at the Canadian Bar Association offices. In Canada’s increasingly illiberal regime, Levant has been charged with “hate crime” for publishing the Danish “Mohammed” cartoons.

Among the innovations he addresses is “pre-crime” – first introduced in Tom Cruise’s Minority Report, and fundamental, I suspect, to the materialist justice systems that will govern us if it is really true that Darwin loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives. It means that you can only plead guilty once you are charged.

You cannot fail to be guilty because the crime you are accused of has not yet occurred but the system says it must occur.

In Canada, it is the law now. Here is how the law works, in Ezra’s words:

It is illegal to publish anything that is

“likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt. So [Canadian commentator Mark] Steyn is charged with this and I am charged with it.”

Let’s go through that for a second, as lawyers, and look at the words.

likely to expose That’s future tense.

Not “that you did expose them” but likely

I loved Tom Cruise’s movie, Minority Report where he played a police officer in the future where they had psychics thinking that crimes would happen. Just before the crime happened, the police swooped in and arrested the guy and said, “You were gonna kill him but we stopped ya! You’re charged with a pre-crime.”

With a pre-crime … Well, how do you plead when you are charged with a pre-crime?

[ … ]

And so when I was charged under Alberta’s Section 3, … I pled guilty.

Just think of the many applications for pre-crime in your neck of the woods.

For more, go here.

Also, just up at Mindful Hack:

Real Buddhism scholar to “neural Buddhists”: The Buddha does not infinitely morph and would never drop two grand for “meditation gear” Read More ›

I have been invited to an advance screening of Expelled in Canada (the widely denounced #5 political documentary about the attempts to silence the intelligent design guys) on Thursday, June 26, at 7:00pm at The Varsity Theatre – 55 Bloor St. West in Toronto.

The film opens the following Friday June 27 (or Saturday June 28) at the Cineplex Odeon.

(People who know me may recall that I have sent numerous pointed communications to the Expelled team because they would not send me a DVD. But at Write! Canada [where I received a standing ovation – see “Intellectual freedom: Survival is design not chance”] I ran into, of all people, the screenwriter Kevin Miller. A fellow Canadian, he assured me that he couldn’t get a DVD either. Just shows you. The Expelled team better serve really good hors d’oeuvres at the advance screener. )

But now I wonder who will picket or try to crash? You know, I would love to sweep into the show, fanned by energetically waving picket signs. It beats paparazzi cold and makes up for not having a snow white ermine or designer gown.

Picket? Try to crash? There was a big hoo-haw over the screening at the Mall of the Americas when “raving atheist” biologist PZ Myers got ejected by line producer Mark Mathis.) Perhaps I will recognize some prominent Toronto figures strutting importantly on the sidewalk. I shall make a note to ask if the catering staff might be permitted to offer them animal crackers, OJ, and milk.

Picketers please note: There is a wide sidewalk, and plenty of coffee shops near the Varsity. The restrooms in the Cumberland Terrace are usually pretty clean too.

Also, be reassured, picketers! The government-funded Nanny Monster is always right, and she says that neither the universe nor life forms show evidence of design, despite the evidence. And in our random universe, the biggest Monster should rule, and that is She. Read More ›

Observing the ongoing collapse of civil liberties in Canada, Bill asked me,

As I recall, Judge Jones in his ruling used the word “disparage” in relation to Darwin and his theory, attempting to put pressure on those who might want to disparage Darwin in the public school context. How soon before it is illegal to disparage Darwin in the U.S.?

Re “disparage” as a cue word, Bill was thinking, of course, of a recent punishment handed out by the Alberta “human rights” commission – one of fourteen shadow tribunals – to a Christian pastor, who had spoken out against the gay lifestyle (more below).

The rapid advance of fascism with a “human” face in Canada only became common knowledge in the United States recently, when popular columnist Mark Steyn was dragged before the BC tribunal.

To bring you up to date swiftly on Canada’s tribunals, I will simply quote Rich Lowry’s “Mark Steyn: Enemy of the State” summary this morning:

The country is dotted with human-rights commissions. At first, they typically heard discrimination suits against businesses. But since that didn’t create much work, the commissions branched out into policing “hate” speech. Initially, they targeted neo-Nazis; then religious figures for their condemnations of homosexuality; and now Maclean’s and Steyn.

The new rallying cry is, “If I hate what you say, I’ll accuse you of hate.” The Canadian Islamic Council got the Human Rights Tribunal in British Columbia and the national Canadian Human Rights Commission (where proceedings are still pending) to agree to hear its complaint. It had to like its odds.

The national commission has never found anyone innocent in 31 years. It is set up for classic Alice-in-Wonderland “verdict first, trial later” justice. Canada’s Human Rights Act defines hate speech as speech “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.” The language is so capacious and vague that to be accused is tantamount to being found guilty.

And the remedies can be bizarre, as in this Alberta decision, “the most revolting order I have ever seen in Canada”, according to civil rights lawyer Ezra Levant. Read More ›

In evaluating whether or not Barack Obama, now pretty much confirmed as the US Democratic candidate for president, is indeed a “Messiah in our midst?”, commentator Jonah Goldberg comments:

Obama’s apostles are hard to dismiss. Oprah simply calls him “The One,” because “we need politicians who know how to be the truth.” (Jesus says in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth …”) Oprah goes on to say Obama will help us “evolve to a higher plane,” which would put Obama in the role of our Intelligent Designer.

Intelligent Designer? Hold that thought. And hold your fork, Duke, there’s pie:

According to the New York Times, Obama’s volunteers are taught to eschew discussions of the issues and instead “testify” about how they “came to Obama.”

For many, he’s no retro-redeemer, but a 21st century savior, a Matrix-messiah and Neo for our modern-day Nineveh. Self-help guru Deepak Chopra dubs Obama “a quantum leap in American consciousness,” while prominent “leadership coach” Eve Konstantine assures us that, “He’s our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence.”

Obama willing, I will never be stuck next to these people on a plane.

Well, speaking for myself, Jonah, if I were stuck next to them on a plane, I would burst out singing, “If I had the wings of a … private jet!”

Yes indeed, a private jet, just like some American politicians*, who can insulate themselves from their goofy supporters, even if the rest of the travelling public can’t.

Goldberg warns that the Obamans will never leave you or forsake you as a mere one-celled, unquelled amoeba:

Those of you who thought we had a Second Amendment to keep government from fixing your soul are so 20th century. Evolve already.

Anyway, what I find fascinating is how the terminology of the debate finds its way into popular culture. Note especially: “Attention: Burgeoning post-Darwinists: Should we all sign up and get a tax number at this point?”

(*Disclaimer: Yes, yes, I am sure that the Republican contender has wingnut supporters too, but Do. Not. Ever. Mail. Me. Their. Literature.  I. Believe. You. Already. Yet.)

Meanwhile, just up at Overwhelming Evidence Read More ›

From Mike Gene’s book, The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues: Sometime around 1860, Asa Gray, a professor of botany from Harvard, apparently asked Darwin what it would take to convince him of design. Darwin replied: “Your question what would convince me of design is a poser. If I saw an angel come down to teach us good, and I was convinced from others seeing him that I was not mad, I should believe in design. If I could be convinced thoroughly that life and mind was in an unknown way a function of other imponderable force, I should be convinced. If man was made of brass or iron and no way connected with any other organism which had ever Read More ›

His attempt to tiptoe is better known as his book, Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007). Tiptoeing won’t work, actually. The ID guys don’t really care what he says because Darwinism and materialism are toast so burnt that even a miracle couldn’t revive them, not that any miracle worker would bother, of course. But the Darwinists/materialists are accustomed to demanding total surrender from everyone for no particular reason, and I guess it becomes a habit or something. Anyway: Introduction Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn’s Chance or Purpose? Flickering light on the ID controversy at best Part One: Is the proposed distinction between evolution and “evolutionism” legitimate in today’s environment? (Of course not.) Part Two: Read More ›

Well, Expelled, now back up and running legally, I guess, is still #5 in documentaries, and has grossed as of May. 29, 2008, $7,614,754. In theory, it can now be shown in Canada. There is much local punditry of the worthless “don’t see it!” variety – which is interesting in view of the show trial of commentator Mark Steyn currently in progress in Vancouver.

The unspeakables who would protect Canadians from anything that might upset or offend us are doing very nicely indeed with our “human rights” commissions. The picketers are carrying blank picket signs, of course. My comments are here. 

Here are some links from The Post-Darwinist on the Ono judgment: “Oh no, Ono! Judge rules, the film about the ID guys can still be shown”

Also, just up at Colliding Universes (and at The Mindful Hack, below):

Newton: Does every genius need a tincture of crackpot?

But then maybe the entire universe is just a wave function?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the Big Fix with the Sure Thing? Read More ›

Christian commentator Dinesh D’Souza has recently been arguing that the real problem with Darwinism in the classroom is that it is used to promote atheism. Today,

I noticed he had an interesting item in TotheSource, which is not yet archived, talking about Darwin’s own agnosticism-bordering-on-atheism. I have elsewhere pointed out that Darwinism has always been sold primarily as the creation story of atheism.

And with good reason. If we survey the patterns in the actual history of life from the Ediacaran period to the present, given what we know today, it is most unlikely that we would credit Darwin’s theory of natural selection acting on random mutations with explaining how most of it happened.
.
That is why I was somewhat impatient with D’Souza’s contention that we need only prevent people from using Darwinism as a tool of atheism and everything will be fine. (See “Earth to planet D’Souza.”*)

The reality is that right now, scientists seem to be trying to dump Darwin’s theory as a theory of everything in biology, yet the secular chants of praise for Darwin have increased in volume in the popular media – competing with a flood tide of nonsense from evolutionary psychologists, flogging to journals material that, if only it were well written and a little more plausible, might have morphed into saleable “Clan of the Cave Bear” fiction. For that sort of thing, Darwin’s theory is far more essential than it is for biology.

Just up at Design of Life blog

Fossil fish find reveals that live birth is ancient, not modern. Live-bearing fish is from 380 million years ago. Read More ›

According to a press release from National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI):

Bethesda, Md., Wed., May 28, 2008 — Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced his intention to step down on August 1 to explore writing projects and other professional opportunities.

Dr. Collins, 58, a physician-geneticist, has served as NHGRI’s director since April 1993. He led the Human Genome Project (HGP) to its successful conclusion in 2003, and subsequently initiated and managed a wide range of projects that built upon the foundation laid by the sequencing of the human genome.

Collins is widely known as a Christian scientist, and the author of the popular book The Language of God, advancing the view that Darwinian evolution can account for the development of life (though possibly not its origin). He draws the line at altruism in human beings, though evolutionary psychologists have aggressively staked that too, along with every manifestation of religion, as their territory.

 According to the Institute,

Dr. Collins explained that his decision to step down as leader of NHGRI came after much personal deliberation. “My decision was driven by a desire for an interval of time dedicated to writing, reflection and exploration of other professional opportunities in the public or private sectors,” he said. “The demands and responsibilities of directing an NIH institute do not allow the time commitment necessary for this. In addition, I may need greater latitude than my current position allows to pursue other potential positions of service without encountering any possible conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived.”

It well be interesting to see whether Collins pursues his interest in accommodating Christianity and Darwinism, and if so, how.

Also, just up at Colliding Universes:

Coffee Break question: Why are the space aliens always supposed to have superior technology?

Exoplanets: Will intelligence be common or rare? Read More ›

An early ID book (possibly the earliest), The Mystery of Life’s Origin by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, and Roger Olson (1984), with a foreword by Dean Kenyon, has been out of print for a while, I am told. But a .pdf can be downloaded here for now.

Information theory is a special branch of mathematics that has developed a way to measure information. In brief, the information content of a structure is the minimum number of instructions required to describe or specify it,  whether that structure is a rock or a rocket ship, a pile of leaves or a living organism. The more complex a structure is, the more instructions are needed to describe it. —Charles Thaxton, biochemist

Meanwhile ….

Study: Sun not special, therefore alien life should be common?

Does time’s one-way street prove that other universes exist? Read More ›