William Dembski

Here’s a critique of the mathematics of the design inference from an assistant professor of religious studies. The combination of ignorance and arrogance on the part of this individual is staggering. Compare here with the following: You¹re probably referring to the pseudo-mathematical posturings of William Dembski. Dembski is a fraud whom nobody should take seriously. Here¹s why: Dembski¹s model of ³specified complexity² assumes that when attempting to determine the likelihood of a given pattern coming about randomly, that you have the pattern in mind from the outset. In other words, that evolution is a teleological process. But evolution is NOT teleological. It is not more unlikely, from a mathematical perspective, that, say, an eye should develop from a process of Read More ›

Cardinal Schoenborn suggests that Darwinists are every bit as dogmatic as the Catholic Church has been accused of being. February 8, 2007 Cardinal: Schools Quiet Evolution Debate By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 12:28 a.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) — An influential Roman Catholic cardinal whose comments on evolution are closely followed condemned a court decision Wednesday that barred a Pennsylvania school district from teaching ”intelligent design” in biology class. Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna said in a lecture that restricting debate about Darwin’s theory of evolution amounts to censorship in schools and in the broader public. ”Commonly in the scientific community every inquiry into the scientific weaknesses of the theory is blocked off at the very outset,” Schoenborn said Read More ›

Design errors stemming from slightly incompatible versions of the same computer-aided design program will cost Airbus two years and $6 billion in lost profits (go here). Airbus engineers, working with programs simulating real, tangible objects and physical laws which are nearly perfectly understood cannot manage to model the correct length of wires for its lighting without making small errors that result in catastrophic setbacks. Meanwhile, climatic scientists have nevertheless created absolutely perfect models for the world’s weather patterns extending 100,000 years back and forwards in time (and yet they still can’t tell you if it’s going to rain on the weekend). Likewise, Darwinists have conclusively shown that living creatures, far more complex than the new Airbus plane, are the result Read More ›

Here you go: Irreducible complexity for free by a (carefully programmed) accident: stellaralchemy.com/ice.

This Wednesday, there’ll be an ID symposium at Grove City College:

GROVE CITY, Pa. – The Grove City College Society for Science, Faith and Technology and The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College will host a one-day conference Feb. 7 on “Creatively Seeking a Creation Story: Evolution and Intelligent Design in America.” All lectures will be given in the Sticht Lecture Hall in the Hall of Arts and Letters on campus and are free and open to the public. Read More ›

You tell me who is playing fair: Richard Dawkins: 4 December 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2037496.ece Why have you not engaged in public debate with Alister McGrath, Mary Midgley, Michael Ruse, Keith Ward, or indeed anyone else who would present you with a serious challenge? JAMES RADFORD, By e-mail RD: The producers of my Channel 4 documentary [Root of All Evil?] invited the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi to be interviewed by me. All declined, doubtless for good reasons. I don’t enjoy the debate format, but I once had a public debate with the then Archbishop of York, and The Observer quoted the verdict of one disconsolate clergyman as he left the hall: “That was easy Read More ›

Scott Adams offers some insights on P. Z. Myers, prefacing them as follows: . . . Some people are quite certain that I am misusing my minor celebrity status to confuse the masses and turn them into creationists or pyramid worshipers. Is it intentional, they wonder? Do I really believe the things I write? Or am I simply stupid, as it appears. . . . MORE

Here’s a piece about ID in the UK that came out a few days ago. Note especially the comments after the article. The Ego and the ID Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 30/01/2007 Why I hate this intelligent design story. It’s simply IDiotic, writes Richard Fortey Scientists have found themselves trapped into appearing to be unreasonable in their pursuit of rationality. A snare has been cleverly set by the proponents of Intelligent Design in their quest to prove that Charles Darwin got it wrong. The vast majority of scientists feel nothing but distress that the teaching of Intelligent Design has been promoted in a number of our schools, particularly the faith schools apparently beloved by Tony Blair. Fundamentalists of both Islamic Read More ›

Dr. Terry Tommyrot questions the existence of Richard Dawkins in this brilliant spoof — whoever did Dawkins has him down. Here’s the audio as a wma file: The Dawkins Delusion. [[Click HERE for the transcript.]] [[The inspiration for this came from http://david.dw-perspective.org.uk/does-richard-dawkins-exist.html.]]

The ‘POINT OF VIEW’ article on p. B20 of the 19Jan07 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education is entitled, “Why Can’t We Discuss Intelligent Design?” The author is J. Scott Turner, Associate Professor of Biology at SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry. The by-line states, “His latest book, The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges From Life Itself, was published by Harvard University Press this month.” (Go here for the Amazon.com listing.) Turner’s thesis is that academics should stop trying to silence those who broach the subject of intelligent design, but rather be willing to discuss what Turner feels is “a wrongheaded idea.” His reasoning is straightforward: calling intelligent design “the latest eruption of a longstanding strain of anti-Darwinist Read More ›

Australian ID critic Robyn Williams recently interviewed Melbourne neuroscientist John Reid, who is also a self-proclaimed expert in overpopulation and how to deal with it. Eric Pianka was the talk of this blog last year for recommending Ebola as the instrument of choice for reducing the world’s population by 90 percent (use UD’s search feature on his name). It seems that Eric and John need to pool their talents. In case you haven’t met, Eric, meet John; John, meet Eric. There, I’ve done my good deed for the day.

For a taste of where John Reid is going, consider:

[H]umanity has been all too compliant with the Biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The precepts of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam represent the quintessential perversion of the human mind. They must be abandoned and the notion of the sanctity of human life must be subjugated to the greater sanctity of all life on Earth.

Here is the full transcript: Read More ›

The big publishers of scientific journals are, not surprisingly, concerned about how open access to information on the internet is cutting into their profits. Apparently they are now hiring PR people to try to keep their market share, and the PR people are counseling that the very concept of open access needs to be undermined. With regard to our issues, who do you think stands to benefit more from such an anti-open-access campaign, the Darwinists whose propaganda engines are entrenched in the big publishing houses, or the ID proponents who are systematically excluded? Here is an indicator of where things appear to be going (I would like to see some independent confirmation): … [A] strategy for the publishers provides some Read More ›

Rubbish like this should steel us to work doubly hard to put these people out of business.

Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism & Intelligent Design
Cambridge House Press, Inc. (release date 02.28.07)
By Barrett Brown, Jon P. Alston

Book Description

What is creationism? Is it science, theology, both, neither? Who’s behind it? What does it mean for Western Civilization? And why should you give a damn in the first place? National Lampoon veteran Barrett Brown and Professor of Sociology Jon P. Alston, Ph.D, answer these questions — and perhaps one or two others — in a superbly unorthodox, serenely offensive and splendidly hilarious look at the forces behind the most talked-about pseudo-theory in modern history.

In Flock of Dodos, the reader will discover ominous parallels between Billy Joel’s greaser anthem Uptown Girl and chief intelligent design proponent William Dembski, the wholly non-Christian origins of the United States, the goofy history of the creation science movement, secrets of a happy marriage to anti-feminist icon Phylis Schafly,stunning evidence that William Jennings Bryan might not have been all that bright, the the three interesting things that occurred in 2004, and the true nature of the millennia-old Conspiracy of Nonsense that threatens the very fiber of Western Civilization. Read More ›

This year’s Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum pits Alister McGrath against Daniel Dennett (last year’s pitted me against Michael Ruse): The Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum in Faith and Culture is a pilot program of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The Forum is designed to provide a venue in which a respected evangelical scholar and a respected non-evangelical scholar dialogue on critical issues in philosophy, science, religion, and/or culture from their differing perspectives. This year’s forum will feature Alister McGrath of Oxford University and Daniel Dennett of Tufts University in dialogue on the future of atheism. SOURCE: www.greer-heard.com

Increasinginly I find that those with doctorates in the natural and engineering sciences are asking, “What can I do to help in the fight against Darwinism?” For some this will involve research bearing directly on Darwinian theory. But there is also another way to help. Many in the media and the public still do not know that there is scientific dissent from Darwinism. They have no idea that MANY scientists are skeptical of neo-Darwinian theory. So one way you can help is to put your head on the chopping block and voice your skepticism of Darwinism (if you do, trust me, Darwin’s dogmatic defenders will try to chop off your head). This is why Discovery Institute created their statement “A Read More ›