William Dembski

Larry Moran has been getting some play on this blog, so I’ll throw in my two cents. I met Larry in 2002, when he attended a lecture I gave at U of Toronto and confidently explained to me and the audience how indirect Darwinian pathways explain the evolution of the flagellum from the type three secretory system. To this day it amazes me that people find so bogus an argument a slam dunk for evolutionary theory. Try explaining to an engineer that the origin of the laptop computer is the product of trial and error tinkering from a cathode ray tube. If anything, this analogy fails to capture the full measure of self-delusion that evolutionary theory has become. Below is Read More ›

Scroll down to “Darwin vs. Design”: http://www.premier.org.uk/engine.cfm?i=749&bhcp=1.

Anyone who writes “Is your Earth still flat?” is trading on an anti-Christian myth promoted by late-nineteenth century Darwinists. Although many of you probably already know this, it’s worth repeating periodically. Below is the text of a handout distributed at the 2002 Ohio School Board Debate between Kenneth Miller, Lawrence Krauss, Stephen Meyer and Jonathan Wells. THE FLAT EARTH MYTH “The earth isn’t flat – end of story.” So says Case Western Reserve University physicist Lawrence Krauss, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “We don’t have to have classes or be sensitive to the issues of those who believe that, because they’re wrong.” Defenders of Darwinian evolution sometimes compare their critics to believers in a flat earth. According to the Read More ›

Tom Schneider, “Mr. Information Theory” for the pro-Darwin side, criticized Lee Spetner (author of Not a Chance) for a probability calculation characterizing evolutionary processes. Here is a reply by Spetner that I’m posting with his permission: Someone just brought to my attention the website http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/AND-multiplication-error.html which criticizes a probability calculation I made. . . . Schneider is mistaken. He evidently did not take the trouble to understand what I was calculating. My calculation is correct. The probability 1/300,000 is the probability that a particular mutation will occur in a population and will survive to take over that population. If that mutation occurred it would have to have had a positive selective value to take over the population. If that occurred, Read More ›

Check out the following Danish ID website: www.intelligentdesign.dk. The organizer of this site is also helping to start a Danish Society for Intelligent Design. ID has gotten much media coverage in Denmark over the last year and interest in the topic there is growing.

Touchstone now has Jonathan Witt’s review of Francis Collins’ The Language of God in their online archive: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=19-08-032-f.

Mustafa Akyol is some one you should know. Check out his blog, where he describes this latest development in Turkey: http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2006/10/turkish_minister_supports_intelligent_design.php.

It’s hard to find a Darwinist more extreme than P. Z. Myers (though they do exist). Darwinian extremists like Myers are the reason these people are so hard to parody (see http://cedros.globat.com/~thebrites.org/index.htm, The Brites, which has temporarily closed its doors). Have a look at Myers’s most recent escapades: http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MikeSAdams/2006/10/30/philippians_413. I want to encourage discussion not so much of Myers’s escapades as Mike Adams’s handling of a very hostile situation (exacerbated above all by Myers, who then, apparently, wussed out). I especially want to encourage someone to upload the video and provide a link here.

How much play do you think ID is going to get in Harvard’s new origin of life initiative: President Bush recently said intelligent design should be discussed in schools, along with evolution. Like intelligent design, the Harvard project begins with awe at the nature of life, and with an admission that, almost 150 years after Charles Darwin outlined his theory of evolution in the Origin of Species, scientists cannot explain how the process began. Now, encouraged by a confluence of scientific advances — such as the discovery of water on Mars and an increased understanding of the chemistry of early Earth — the Harvard scientists hope to help change that. ”We start with a mutual acknowledgment of the profound complexity Read More ›

I seem to recall that Stephen Jay Gould, when pressed about his views on evolution before his death, remarked that he was a “Darwinian” or “Darwinist.” Can someone provide me with the exact quote as well as with the exact reference? (The context: I’m writing about punctuated equilibrium being at best a slight variant of Darwinism and that even Gould realized this.) Thanks. –Bill Dembski

Earlier a link to the mp3 audio file of the Quinn v. Dawkins radio debate was posted on this blog. The following link has the transcript. Quinn provides an object lesson in how to take apart village atheists. http://catholiceducation.org/articles/science/sc0086.htm

The Dawkins rampage against religion raises the question why religion in the first place? On strict evolutionary grounds, isn’t religion an adaptation that offers humans survival and reproductive advantages? It’s is not at all clear that atheism offers similar benefits (how many Dawkins-style village atheists were there among our hunter-gatherer ancestors?). Consider, for instance, the following piece by Chuck Colson on the negative sloping demographic trends in Russia. Or does Dawkins also want to target not just religious believers but overpopulation? Perhaps he should make common cause with Eric Pianka, whose fondest dream for the human race is that 90 percent be wiped out by Ebola virus (see here). A Sterile Worldview Vanishing Russia By Chuck Colson Wednesday, October 25, Read More ›

Interesting article in WIRED on the unholy trinity Dawkins-Dennett-Harris. Their atheist extremism may be selling books but is it winning converts? . . . The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it’s evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there’s no excuse for shirking. Three writers have sounded this call to arms. They are Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. A few months ago, I set out to talk with them. I wanted to find out what it would mean to enlist in the war against faith. . . MORE: Read More ›

Blogger David Anderson, who has a first-class degree in Mathematics from Oxford University, is putting a bit of pressure on the British Centre for Science Education, quite successfully, it seems. He has uncovered good evidence that they have been less than forthright in the course of some recent parliamentary lobbying: http://bcse-revealed.blogspot.com

In reading the following, keep in mind that evolutionists who put out this drivel are themselves evolutionary dead ends, destined for the dustbin of history: Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge. The human race would peak in the year 3000, he said – before a decline due to dependence on technology. People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added. The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the “underclass” humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures. MORE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6057734.stm