vjtorley

Rodin’s Thinker. Musee Rodin, Paris. Courtesy of Andrew Horne and Wikipedia. (Part four of a series in response to Zack Kopplin. See here for Part One, here for Part Two, and here for Part Three.) As I argued in my previous post, if you want to call yourself a believer in neo-Darwinian evolution, then you have to believe that it is an all-encompassing theory of living things, just as the atomic theory is an all-encompassing theory of chemistry. You have to believe that the theory of evolution is capable of explaining all of the characteristics of each species of organism. The theory of evolution stands or falls on its claim to be a complete theory. As Theodosius Dobzhansky memorably put Read More ›

The vast majority of people who live in Louisiana hold beliefs about the human mind and about free will which are broadly compatible with those of Darwin’s contemporary, Alfred Russel Wallace (pictured right), but diametrically opposed to those of Charles Darwin (pictured left). However, the National Center for Science Education wants Darwin’s materialistic version of evolution, which denies free will, to be taught in American high schools. Left: A photo of Charles Darwin taken circa 1854. Center: St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans. Right: A photo of Alfred Russel Wallace in 1862. Images courtesy of Messrs. Maull and Fox, Nowhereman86, James Marchant and Wikipedia. (Part three of a series of posts in response to Zack Kopplin. See here for Part one Read More ›

(Part two of a series of posts in response to Zack Kopplin.) The Seven Sages, depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493. Image courtesy of Wikipedia. Zack, in your poker challenge to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann on May 24, 2011, you declared: Congresswoman Bachmann, you claim that Nobel Laureates support creationism. Show me your hand. If you want to be taken seriously by voters while you run for President, back up your claims with facts. Can you match 43 Nobel Laureates, or do you fold? Actually, what Congresswoman Bachmann said was that “There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design.” (Bachmann-Wetterling-Binkowski candidates’ debate. October 7, 2006. Voter’s Choice Candidate Forum, sponsored Read More ›

Left: 2006 World Series Of Poker main event table. Right: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Images courtesy of http://www.lasvegasvegas.com, The United States Congress and Wikipedia. (Part one of a series of posts in response to Zack Kopplin.) Hi, Zack. I’ve been following your very well-organized campaign to repeal the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA). In 2011, at the age of 17, you managed to persuade no less than 43 Nobel Laureate scientists to sign a petition urging that the act be repealed, and your most recent list now has 74 signatures from Nobel Laureate scientists, plus one endorsement by Dr. John Sulston (2002 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine), making an impressive total of 75 Nobel Laureates who have endorsed the Read More ›

Over at Why Evolution is True, Professor Jerry Coyne has written a post entitled, Readers’ photos: a doomed caterpillar about the fate of a beautiful caterpillar being attacked by a parasitic fly that lays eggs on its victim. He quotes from a reader who took photos of the incident during an excursion to Vietnam: As I walked on I felt sorry for the beautiful caterpillar, knowing that it almost certainly was going to die an extremely unpleasant death (slowly being eaten alive by a maggot). Should I have interfered? This moral dilemma occupied me for a while. Nature is wonderful, but full of horrors, most of which go unnoticed. But Professor Coyne does not stop there. He quotes from a Read More ›

Well, it’s official. John Loftus has now departed from Freethoughtblogs, which is now run by P. Z. Myers, but has several atheist contributors. “Why?” you ask. Good question. Well, I’ve decided to let the protagonists speak for themselves. (1) P Z Myers at Freethought Blogs John Loftus has left the building (2) Natalie Reed, a new contributor to Freethoughtblogs whose critical thinking skills were apparently criticized by Loftus Target Audiences And Playing Nice (see also following comments) Thoughts From A Diversity Hire (3) Daniel Fincke, another contributor and a philosopher On the Qualifications of our Alleged “Diversity Hire”, Natalie Reed Not every blog is for everybody 3(a) Comments on Daniel Fincke’s blog by John Loftus and by other viewers criticizing Read More ›

In his recent review (Genome Biology and Evolution, first published online January 24, 2012, doi:10.1093/gbe/evs008) of Professor James A. Shapiro’s new book, Evolution: a view from the 21st century (2011, FT Press: Upper Saddle River, N.J.), Adam S. Wilkins expresses his disagreement with Shapiro’s decidedly un-Darwinian view that natural selection’s importance for evolution has been hugely overstated: My final disagreement with Jim [Shapiro]’s general argument concerns a truly fundamental point, however: the dismissal of natural selection as a shaping force in evolution. Thus, it is stated, at the very start of the book (top of p. 1): “Innovation, not selection, is the critical issue in evolutionary change. Without variation and novelty, selection has nothing to act upon.” While all evolutionists Read More ›

Over at his blog, Professor Edward Feser has been writing a multi-part critique of Professor Alex Rosenberg’s bestselling book, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions. Rosenberg is an unabashed defender of scientism, an all-out reductionist who doesn’t believe in a “self”, doesn’t believe we have thoughts that are genuinely about anything, and doesn’t believe in free will or morality. Instead, he advocates what he calls “nice nihilism.” In the last line of his book, Rosenberg advises his readers to “Take a Prozac or your favorite serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and keep taking them till they kick in.” Edward Feser has done an excellent job of demolishing Rosenberg’s arguments, and if readers want to peruse his posts from start Read More ›

Professor John C. Walton is a scientist who holds not one but two doctorates. He is a Research Professor of Chemistry at St. Andrews University, and he is a Chartered Chemist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In a recent talk for the Edinburgh Creation Group entitled, The Origin of Life, given on September 21, 2010, Professor Walton outlined his reasons for believing that the first living cell was the product of Intelligent Design. I would like to invite readers who genuinely believe in pursuing truth for truth’s sake to spend 56 minutes of their valuable time watching this video. To those who ask, “Why bother?” Read More ›

I have just been watching a video compilation by Dr Jonathan T. Pararajasingham, a British neurosurgeon, entitled, 30 Renowned Writers Speaking about God, posted by Professor Jerry Coyne over at Why Evolution is True. The video features a pretty impressive array of writers – including Arthur C. Clarke, Nadine Gordimer, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Miller, Gore Vidal, Douglas Adams, Germaine Greer, Martin Amis, Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Harold Pinter and (of course) the recently deceased Christopher Hitchens – who are either atheists or agnostics. These are people who craft words for a living and who know how to argue a case, so I was expecting to hear at least one really good argument for atheism. Suffice it to say Read More ›

In a recent thread which has attracted a lot of lively comment, Dr. Elizabeth Liddle (a highly respected critic of Intelligent Design who surely needs no introduction here) mounted a vigorous defense of methodological naturalism (“MN”). She began by developing her view of the way science works, in a post on the thread: [T]he idea that any scientific theory stops science is completely false. Science never stops, and a successfully supported hypothesis is a trigger for more research, not less. In a subsequent post, Dr. Liddle then proceeded to explain why her view of science necessitates the adoption of methodological naturalism: Yes, rejection of “MN” is religious, for a very simple reason. It is not possible to investigate a non-material Read More ›

Professor Chris Hogue is a Canadian biochemist/bioinformatician who works on protein folding (among other things) at the National University of Singapore. Professor Hogue has recently started a new series on complexity and evolution on his Website. It turns out that Hogue is highly critical of the Intelligent Design movement. But what makes his criticisms especially interesting for ID theorists is that they focus on the process of human design itself, which Hogue argues is indistinguishable from an incremental process of evolution. In his first post on complexity and evolution, Professor Hogue begins with a short summary of his professional background: As a mid-career scientist I spend my time teaching, building software, and researching topics on molecular assembly and evolution. My Read More ›

Did the cosmos have a beginning? The Big Bang theory seems to suggest it did, but in recent decades, cosmologists have concocted elaborate theories – for example, an eternally inflating universe or a cyclic universe – which claim to avoid the need for a beginning of the cosmos. Now it appears that the universe really had a beginning after all, even if it wasn’t necessarily the Big Bang. At a meeting of scientists – titled “State of the Universe” – convened last week at Cambridge University to honor Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday, cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston presented evidence that the universe is not eternal after all, leaving scientists at a loss to explain how the cosmos Read More ›

Eric MacDonald, a former Church of England clergyman who is now an atheist, knows that prayer doesn’t make sick people better. Dr. John Polkinghorne, KBE, FRS, a former physics professor at Cambridge who is also an Anglican priest and theologian, who recently wrote Questions of Truth: Responses to Questions about God, Science and Belief (Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), in collaboration with Nicholas Beale, FRSA, believes that at times, prayer “may” result in “remarkable physical recovery,” although often it does not (see the “Science of Prayer” video here). Whom should we believe? In yesterday’s post, which was entitled, Is this the Dumbest Ever “Refutation” of the Fine-Tuning Argument?, I exposed the silly fallacies in atheist philosopher Anthony Grayling’s criticisms of Read More ›

Yesterday, I happened to come across a highly critical review (New Humanist, Volume 124, Issue 2, March/April 2009) by the British philosopher Professor Anthony Grayling of a book titled, Questions of Truth: Responses to Questions about God, Science and Belief (Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), co-authored by physicist Dr. John Polkinghorne, KBE, FRS, a former physics professor at Cambridge who is also an Anglican priest and theologian, and his long-standing collaborator, Nicholas Beale, FRSA. The book has a foreword written by Professor Antony Hewish, FRS (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1974) and it was also endorsed by William D. Phillips (Nobel Laureate, Physics, 1997), but that did not stop Professor Grayling from dismissing the book as a “weak, casuistical and tendentious pamphlet.” Read More ›