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The Design of Life

…this book is poised to become the authoritive textbook on the theory of intelligent design.

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Two biologists claim to close a “major gap in Darwin’s theory” of evolution.

(excerpt)

Darwinian evolution is widely advertised to be a fact, as firmly established as the shape of the Earth. Defenders of the theory insist that there is no scientific controversy over it, and people who question or criticize it are typically accused of being ignorant or religiously motivated. Yet every few years a book comes along — written by scientists — claiming to remedy some major flaw in evolutionary theory.
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1. Paul Nelson is such a cool and brilliant guy
2. I’ve never met him before
3. There are lots of extras at the event he is speaking at, such as:
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Accepted July 2006

Physics of Life Reviews

[Update: thanks to Todd for a link to the full paper:]

Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models

[Update: IDers Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, and R.L. Olsen were cited as well!! They wrote the book in 1984 which is considered the beginning of the modern ID movement. Also, critical remarks were made indirectly of Dawkins.]

Self-organization vs. self-ordering events in life-origin models

by David Abel and Jack Trevors

Self-ordering phenomena should not be confused with self-organization. Self-ordering events occur spontaneously according to natural “law propensities and are purely physicodynamic. Crystallization and the spontaneously forming dissipative structures of Prigogine are examples of self-ordering. Self-ordering phenomena involve no decision nodes, no dynamically-inert configurable switches, no logic gates, no steering toward algorithmic success or “computational halting”.
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In preparing a letter to the editor of UVa magazine, I was researching the case of 1996 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Richard Smalley. I was astonished to discover that he delivered an anti-Darwinian speech during a graduation ceremony and apparently received a standing ovation. I also thought it an appropriate time to remember this extraordinary scientist.

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I mentioned earlier my delight that the GMU Provost was willing to put his good name behind Francis Collins book tour: GMU Provost hosts The Language of God.

Well, the talk happened and it was amazing! Francis Collins gave his Christian testimony tonight pretty much along the lines of his book. He recounted his conversion from atheism to the Christian faith. He referred to the Design argument and the creation of the cosmos. The word “Design” kept slipping out of his mouth.

The Sci Phi Show interview with Michael Behe is now available! Check it out!

Here is the link Michael Behe on Sci Phi Show.

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The “modern synthesis” is dead

Allen MacNeill

This echoes exactly the words of Eric Davidson and Stephen J. Gould. Below is the full quote in context:
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The readers at Uncommon Descent are often a good source of feedback for the topics which interest them. To that end, I’d like to address a question asked by one of our readers, David vun Kannon, about the rift between ID and Creationist communities.
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Since Bill posted a little bit about Maciej Giertych in Evolution — No longer inspiring the confidence it once did, I thought I’d take the opportunity to highlight Maciej’s own saga. He details it in his review of Creation Rediscovered, by Gerard J. Keane

Sometime in 1955, when I was taking Honor Moderations in Science (Botany, Chemistry and Geology) at Oxford University, the O. U. Biology Club announced a lecture against the theory of Evolution. The largest auditorium in the Biology Labs was filled to capacity. When the speaker was introduced (I regret I do not remember his name), it turned out he was an octogenarian with a Ph.D. in biology from Cambridge, obtained in the 19th century.

He spoke fervently against the theory of Evolution, defending what was for us an obviously indefensible position. He did not convince anybody with his antique arguments; he did not understand the questions that were fired at him; he rejected science as we knew it. We all had a good laugh hearing this dinosaur. He fought for his convictions against a sophisticated scientific environment, deaf to any opinions inspired by religious beliefs. Today his views are being vindicated by new evidence from natural sciences. May his soul rest in peace.

In 1955, like all in my generation, I was fully convinced that Evolution was an established biological fact. The evidence was primarily paleontological. We were taught how to identify geological strata with the help of fossils, specific for a given epoch. The rocks were dated by the fossils, the fossils by the strata. A lecturer in stratigraphy, when asked during a field trip how the strata were dated, explained that we know the rate of current sedimentation, the depths of strata and thus the age of rocks. In any case, there are new isotopic techniques that confirm all this. This sounded very scientific and convincing.
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December 2, 2005, the day after Eugenie Scott gave a talk Why Scientists Reject ID at GMU under the Provost’s sponsorship, I was providently invited to have tea with the Provost and had the opportunity to give him the pro-ID side of the story before a public gathering of Asian students. I presented a copy of Privileged Planet to him.
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Check out Another Great Intelligent Design Debate On TV this weekend.

(thank you to Denyse O’Leary for finding this and reporting it at ARN)

If one combines Discovery Institute’s list of dissenters from Darwin along with other lists (such as that maintained by ICR), one can create a list about 20 times as large as the Dicovery Institute’s list. Bergman estimates he could easily get 10,000 names. He has in the interim published 3,000 names.

There are many PhD’s whom I wish were on the DI’s list but are only on the ICR list. For example:

Kelly Hollowell, JD, PhD in Molecular Biology
Georgia Purdom, PhD in Molecular Biology

Then there are some indpendents like my favorite scientist, Walter Brown, PhD MIT, who is on no one’s list! He’s the greatest YEC on Earth, and he’s on no one’s list (sniff). These examples underscore the fact there is still a bit of a rift between the Creationist communities and the ID communities, and even competing creationist communities (like Brown’s CFCS and John Morris’ ICR).
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Here is a wonderful internet radio show with a special segment called “outcasts”. Michael Shermer and several Discovery Institute fellows and myself (for the IDEA Center) were interviewed. Michael Shermer and I were given opportunities to offer our opposing viewpoints on ID. Here are links: Salvador Cordova on ID (IDEA Center) vs. Michael Shermer on ID (Skeptic Society) Of note, Discovery Institute Fellows and ID proponents also appeared on other shows: William Lane Craig (Discovery Institute) Wesley J. Smith on Bioethics (Discovery Institute) Alvin Platinga (possibly Michael Behe in the future!) Be sure to visit: http://www.thesciphishow.com/

Access Research Network (ARN) reports: The Case for a Creator DVD Available

It was in a high school science classroom that Lee Strobel became an atheist. A lecture on the Miller-Urey experiment convinced him that the origin of life, and all life for that matter, could be explained by purely naturalistic processes. Only the hard, empirical evidence of science could be trusted — and it appeared to point to a universe created by purely naturalist processes: time, chance, and Darwinian evolution.

Although science led Strobel away from a belief in a Creator, it was science that led him back. The atheistic worldview deeply influenced Strobel’s academic years and early career as an award-winning journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Then, in 1980, his wife’s conversion to Christianity led him on an intensive search for the truth about God and our beginnings. Not surprisingly, it began with science.

The Case for a Creator is the third in a series of top quality, block-buster documentaries on Intelligent Design by Illustra Media that started with Unlocking the Mystery of Life and The Privileged Planet. Based on Strobel’s popular book by the same title, the documentary leads you through one man’s journey to grapple with the scientific evidence regarding one of life’s greatest questions: How did we get here? Along the way he interviews many of the leading scientists and scholars for the intelligent design theory including Stephen C. Meyer, Michael Behe, Jay Richards, Jonathan Wells, Robin Collins, William Lane Craig, Guillermo Gonzalez, and Scott Minnich. The major topic areas of the documentary cover the fossil evidence, cosmology, astronomy, physics, biological machines and biological information. The bonus material includes additional interviews with the scientists, and special units on the origin of life and the machinery of life.

As with previous Illustra Media documentaries, this one is chock full of stunning graphics, amazing animations, and a theater-worthy soundtrack. The focus of this documentary is the scientific and philosophical evidence for design and a theistic worldview, and is suitable for use in public schools, especially when shown to balance the atheistic Darwinian worldview found in many educational scientific documentaries on the topic.

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