William Dembski

SOURCE

Here’s a neat article on front-loading: The Front-loading Fiction Posted by Rob on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 5:49:41 PM SOURCE: The Procrustean — A Blog of Townhall.com In responding to an email about “front-loading” as a Deistic solution to the universe that does not require an interventionist (theist) God, I replied that I have some philosophical problems with the phrase “front-loading”. It is a concession to Deism that doesn’t have to be made. Trying to describe a “front-loaded algorithm” highlights the problem with the philosophical solution. Historically, the argument for front-loading came from Laplacian determinism based on a Newtonian or mechanical universe–if one could control all the initial conditions, then the outcome was predetermined. First quantum mechanics, and then chaos-theory Read More ›

[[Discovery Press Release:]] In Darwin Anniversary Year, New Zogby Poll Reveals Majority Support for Intelligent Design — Doubts about Darwin Continue to Mount Seattle – Just a few months before the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, a newly released Zogby poll shows that the American public overwhelmingly rejects Darwinian theory in favor of intelligent design. When asked if life developed “through an unguided process of random mutations and natural selection,” a standard definition of Darwinism, only 33 percent of respondents said they agreed with the statement. But 52 percent agreed that “the development of life was guided by intelligent design.” “In the Year of Darwin, these figures must represent a terrible disappointment to Darwinian advocates,” commented Read More ›

The suppression of Alan Carlin’s report arguing against anthropogenic global warming serves as a warning to anyone who would facilely contend that science is self-correcting. Science by itself is not self-correcting. It only becomes self-correcting when scientists and outsiders refuse to let dogmatists who pretend to scientific objectivity monopolize the discussion. Science is not about consensus. It is about informed dissent. Indeed, progress in science is only possible through informed consent. Those who suppressed Carlin’s report should read John Stuart Mill, who stressed the need for all sides in a debate to be fairly represented. This applies to the debate over design and Darwinism as well. SOURCE: GO HERE

It’s nice to see people like Pat Buchanan feeling more at ease about going after Darwin. In citing Eugene Windchy’s THE END OF DARWINISM, Buchanan writes: Darwin … lied in “The Origin of Species” about believing in a Creator. By 1859, he was a confirmed agnostic and so admitted in his posthumous autobiography, which was censored by his family. SOURCE: worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=102589

This just in from Walter Bradley, President of the ASA: Dear Friends, I wanted to bring to your attention a unique opportunity this summer. The annual meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation will be held at Baylor University July 31-August 3. The ASA is the world’s largest organization of evangelical Christians who work in science and engineering, and it provides a forum to discuss faith-science questions. The program this year is particularly exciting with a mini-symposium on string theory and the alleged multi-universe and another symposium on origins where theistic evolution and intelligent design will be discussed. Timely issues raised by the human genome and its interpretation by some to imply a non-historical Adam and Eve will be discussed by Read More ›

John Lynch whines that “noted historians”* weren’t properly informed that a documentary for which they were interviewed (The Voyage That Shook the World) would take an anti-Darwinist line. Lynch is outraged: the documentary makers are guilty of “lies” and “deception.” Would a charge of fraud hold up in court? I suspect the documentary makers simply withheld information. Is that wrong? The BBC, for instance, didn’t inform me that a documentary they were making about ID was to be called “A War on Science,” and that I would be portrayed as one of the “bad people” trying to “destroy science.” I was, to be sure, displeased with this outcome, but I recognize that this is the way the game is played. Read More ›

This book is based on THE NATURE OF NATURE conference that Bruce Gordon and I put together at Baylor back in 2000 (for the conference and the Polanyi Center that hosted it, go here). The book is now listed at Amazon. Note that it will be out February 2010 (not 2009 as listed) and will be over 1,000 pages (not 900 as listed). Product Description: The world’s leading authorities in the sciences and humanities—dozens of top scholars, including three Nobel laureates—join a cultural and intellectual battle that leaves no human life untouched. Is the universe self-existent, self-sufficient, and self-organizing, or is it grounded instead in a reality that transcends space, time, matter, and energy? Book Description: The cultural battles now Read More ›

Joseph Campbell died in 1987 but remains influential. In this revealing video, Campbell clarifies why he left the Roman Catholic faith of his youth — EVOLUTION: While many try to reconcile their faith with evolution, many find in evolution reason to leave the faith. Just because there’s no strict contradiction between the two doesn’t mean that the two aren’t in tension. Campbell felt the tension and left the faith. SOURCE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJmNBxbExuA Postscript [added 06.14.09, 7:40AM CST]: It’s interesting to see Campbell disparage the biblical cosmology for being several millennia old and thus out of touch with current cosmologies — myths that impact our lives being myths that are compatible with contemporary cosmologies, according to Campbell. But when I studied ancient Read More ›

At ID_The_Future Casey Luskin interviews Rich Akin from Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity. Dr. Akin shares why he founded this organization for ID-supporting doctors and the misinformation about his organization on Wikipedia. To listen as Dr. Akin explains more about PSSI International, go here.

Access Research Network (ARN) is offering a special on The Phillip Johnson DVD Collection, 10 DVD lectures, interviews and debates produced by ARN over the years at 50% off for the collection: www.arn.org/arnproducts/videos/v070.htm

Check out the following review of Enrique Joven’s THE BOOK OF GOD AND PHYSICS, in which Joven specifically targets Seattle’s Discovery Institute: …The Jesuits aren’t the villains in this clash between God and physics. Joven’s target is the real-life Discovery Institute, an American think-tank that promotes the theory of intelligent design… FOR THE FULL REVIEW, CLICK HERE

Conservation of information as developed in several articles (see the publications page at www.evoinfo.org) by Robert Marks and me has come in for criticism not only conceptually but also terminologically. None of the conceptual criticisms has in our view succeeded. To be sure, more such criticisms are likely to be forthcoming. But as this work increasingly gets into the peer-reviewed literature, it will be harder and harder to dismiss. That leaves the terminological criticism. Some have objected that a conservation law requires that the quantity in question remain unchanged. Take conservation of energy, which states that in an isolated system energy may change forms but total energy remains constant. Some have argued that what we are calling conservation of information Read More ›

My book The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World is due out November 1, 2009, but likely will be available early September. It is my response to the neo-atheism of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, etc. For the introductory material to this book, including the first chapter, go here. For the endorsements, go here. To pre-purchase on Amazon, go here.