scordova

The common belief is that adding disorder to a designed object will destroy the design (like a tornado passing through a city, to paraphrase Hoyle). Now if increasing entropy implies increasing disorder, creationists will often reason that “increasing entropy of an object will tend to destroy its design”. This essay will argue mathematically that this popular notion among creationists is wrong. The correct conception of these matters is far more nuanced and almost the opposite of (but not quite) what many creationists and IDists believe. Here is the more correct view of entropy’s relation to design (be it man-made or otherwise): 1. increasing entropy can increase the capacity for disorder, but it doesn’t necessitate disorder 2. increasing an object’s capacity Read More ›

“The Lord God is subtle, but he is not malicious.” Einstein “I have second thoughts. Maybe God is malicious.” Einstein Can the Intelligent Designer of life create malicious designs? If the flagellum and other parts of bacteria are intelligently designed, it would raise the question whether microbially-based diseases and plagues are intelligently designed. It seems the best inference from the evidence is that even malicious designs are also intelligently designed. How can we resolve the problem of malicious design with intelligent design? There are a number of ways some have come to terms with this. The following list is not exhaustive by any means, just slapped together: 0. there is no intelligent design, so it’s not a problem 1. the Read More ›

There is never ending drama over at Darwinist Ed Brayton’s “Free” Thought Blogs (FTB). We have the example of Greg Laden (affectionately known as Greg bin Laden by some), describing how he intends to terrorize a US Army soldier: Think about that. You f–king sh-t. Now, get forever out of my life. Do not turn back. You do not deserve to even know the people you’ve insulted in that idiotic post you wrote. Don’t ever, ever find yourself in my presence or think you deserve to breath the air that I, and Jen, and Stephanie, and Gret and Ophelia and PZ and the rest of us breath, because you do not. If you do make that apology it better be Read More ›

The existence of bad design, broken design, and cruelty in the world inspires some of the strongest arguments against the Intelligent Design of life and the universe. I consider the “bad design” argument the most formidable of the anti-ID arguments put forward, but in the end it is shallow and flawed. I will attempt to turn the “bad design” argument on its head in this essay. The “bad design” arguments have at least two major themes: 1. An Intelligent Designer like God wouldn’t make designs that are capable of breaking down 2. God (as the Intelligent Designer of Life) doesn’t exist because of all the cruelty and evil in the world To address the first point, consider the synthesis of Read More ›

First man on moon Neil Armstrong dead at 82

Radical feminists are attempting to seize leadership of the New Atheist movement (aka GNU atheist movement). With big fanfare, we hear: Atheism Plus: New New Atheists Let me introduce you to Atheism+, the nascent movement that might be the most exciting thing to hit the world of unbelief since Richard Dawkins ….. there have been suggestions that atheism and scepticism are philosophies disproportionately attractive to men. Indeed, the stereotype of the atheist as white, intellectually overconfident male – as Richard Dawkins – has long been a favourite among religious apologists. …. To remember that not all atheists look like Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is an “A” Atheist. We know what he looks like. So what does an “A+” Athiest look like? Read More ›

Continuing on with the wonderful Dawkins Festival at Uncommon Descent (UD), I would like to mention the Dawkins Spectrum of Theistic Probability. 1.Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung: “I do not believe, I know.” 2.De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. “I don’t know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.” 3.Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. “I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.” 4.Completely impartial. Exactly 50 per cent. “God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.” 5.Leaning towards atheism. Lower than 50 per Read More ›

Many felt disgust with former vice presidential candidate John Edwards for cheating on his terminally ill wife Elizabeth Edwards. In the process of his affair, Edwards fathered a child with his mistress, Rielle Hunter. Rielle is now one of the most hated women in America. But according to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, men having mistresses is not what is immoral, but the rather the notion of monogamy (rooted in our evolved desire for faithfulness) is what is immoral. From Banishing the Green Eyed Monster by Richard Dawkins I want to raise another question that interests me. Why are we so obsessed with monogamous fidelity in the first place? …. The underlying presumption — that a human being has some kind Read More ›

ID proponents have a hard enough time getting their message across without the “help” of creationists like Kent Hovind and Venom Fang X. Not only have Darwinists impeded the advance of ID, but so also have some creationists.

For example the creationist Venom Fang X has harmed the ID movement by his less-than-scholarly videos. RationalWiki says of Venom Fang X:

VenomFangX (often shortened to VFX or Venom) is a creationist Internet vlogger who makes YouTube videos mostly about religion, God, Christianity and creationism, particularly young earth creationism. To this date, he holds the highest subscribers amongst Christian channels (even more than the Vatican YouTube channel),

Lamenting the fact Darwinist have a hard time persuading the public, Darwinist Ken Miller once said of himself and his colleagues”WE SUCK“. Curiously, Jerry Coyne said the same thing, “WE SUCK“. Egg surely is now on Ken Miller’s face in light of new scientific developments. But first, what did Miller claim: “Intelligent design cannot explain the presence of a nonfunctional pseudogene, unless it is willing to allow that the designer made serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk and scribbles. Evolution, however, can explain them easily. Pseudogenes are nothing more than chance experiments in gene duplication that have failed, and they persist in the genome as evolutionary remnants of the past history… Ken Read More ›

Famous atheist Sam Harris in Wrestling the Troll describes “unscrupulous people like PZ Myers” who run an “odious blog” as the “shepherd of Internet trolls”. In saying this Harris also managed to say a few things about PZ’s followers. But one of the best descriptions of PZ Myers and the thought control exercised at PZ and Ed Brayton’s “Free” Thought Blogs comes from the atheist Thunderf00t. Thunderf00t outlines PZ’s strange alliance with the Anti-Creationist Pinup Girl Rebecca Watson and the “rational” behavior going on at “Free” Thought Blogs: PS PZ has no shortage of kind words to say of yours truly: Sal Cordova is a slimy little sewer goblin Without hesitation, I can tell you who the most contemptible, repulsive Read More ›

An entire PhD dissertation about the Discovery Institute is being put together by Christine Shellska. Her claim is: I argue that the Discovery Institute has “rebranded” creationism as ID, and that its strategies include attempts to disrupt the translation of evolution into education and the broader public. Discovering the Discovery Institute Some problems with her thesis: 1. “creation science” was the term used in the book Pandas and People and later changed to “intelligent design”. Even presuming purely for the sake of argument the change to from “creation science” to “intelligent design” was for nefarious purposes, that name change cannot be attributed to the Discovery Institute since they weren’t the publisher this work or any other such work (at least Read More ›

Belated congratulations to creationist Dr. Todd Wood for having his paper published in the peer reviewed Journal of Evolutionary Biology!

See: Using creation science to demonstrate evolution

Dr. Jay Wile is a signatory of the Discovery Institute’s Scientific Dissent from Darwinism. Wile is a prolific writer, and I’m surprised I only ran across his blog Proslogion recently. Here is a sample: Early in my high school years, I was a proud atheist…. All that changed when a young lady who I wanted to date (but who didn’t want to date me) suggested that we go to a debate between atheism and Christianity. I didn’t really want to go to the debate, but I did want to spend time with her, so I went. I was shocked to learn that both debaters were scientists. The atheist was a professor of biology, while the Christian was a professor of Read More ›

Or should I say pin-up girl of the anti-creationists? Yes, she posed nude and had her fellow femminist/atheist anti-creationist Skepchicks pose nude as well for a pin-up calendar to raise money for their anti-creationist cause: From Wiki: In 2006, Watson released The Skepchick Calendar, a pin-up calendar featuring pictures of skeptical women for every month. Proceeds provided the attendance fee for several female applicants to attend the James Randi Educational Foundation’s The Amazing Meeting. New calendars have been made in subsequent years, Ironically, this is the same Rebecca Watson who complains that atheist men sexualize women (supposing that atheist men would behave more rationally toward women than religious men). She was the center of ELEVATORGATE where she was “invited for Read More ›