William Dembski

Two replies to the insufferable Jim Downard: (1) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/08/the_vampires_heart_a_response.html (2) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/08/anticipatory_erudition_a_respo.html On avoiding design inferences: Before you infer intelligent design, keep in mind that grass-cutting shears share an extremely high similarity with scissors which are used to cut paper. Since a paper stencil was apparently used in the origination of the grass-pattern, it’s likely that a pair of scissors was used to cut the stencil. This makes it plausible to assume that the grass-cutting shears were co-opted from scissors, because both are clearly homologous structures based upon their similarity. Moreover, paper is made of plant material, and grass a plant. This could account for the origin of the stencil itself. Finally, Virginia has metal resources which could account for the Read More ›

. . . from a grain of salt: Dr. Jackson Martin, Director and Professor of the Flagellum Project at the Hoboken Nature Institute, today announced completion of software that successfully demonstrates the evolution of the bacterial flagellum. Critics of evolution have claimed that the flagellum is too complex to evolve using the gradual changes required by natural selection. “The flagellum is very complicated,” said Martin. “Like a motor, it has a rotor, a stator, and complex control mechanisms.” Martin and his students have demonstrated, however, that the complex flagellum can be easily created using the forces of natural selection. “We have not only shown that the flagellum can be evolved, it’s hard not to evolve the flagellum.” In simulation software Read More ›

NATURE ALERT: Volume 442 Number 7104 pp719-846 Revival in Iran p719 Whatever its motivation, Iran’s support for education and science is to be welcomed. 10.1038/442719b Full Text | PDF Whatever its motivation??? How about this motivation: Let’s get really good at science and give our children outstanding educations so that we can destroy the infidel and end western democracy. Iran’s support for education and science is to be welcomed — yeah, right. (For the grammatically challenged, this is two positives equaling a negative.)

You may recall that summer of 2003 Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett proposed a new “happy” designation for themselves as atheists — a term that does for atheism what “gay” does for homosexuality (the comparison is theirs!). They decided on the word “bright.” For Dawkins’s and Dennett’s opeds, where they originally made this proposal, go here: www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bright/bright_index.html. A band of D&D devotees ran with their idea of recasting atheism’s image to form www.the-brights.net. Nonetheless, some D&D supporters thought this was a bit much (see, for instance, Chris Mooney’s piece at CSICOP: www.csicop.org/doubtandabout/brights). All in all, I would say Dawkins’s and Dennett’s proposal of “the brights” never really took off — until now. It appears there is a quasi-secret society inspired Read More ›

Here’s a note from a Cambridge University Press editor to Michael Ruse regarding our co-edited anthology DEBATING DESIGN: FROM DARWIN TO DNA. Note that HB = hardback, PB = paperback. From: SNIP [mailto:SNIP@cambridge.org] Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 3:12 PM To: Michael Ruse Subject: Re: darwinism and its discontents Michael. I’m watching sales of “Debating Design.” It continues to sell well in HB. As soon as sales fall off, we will go into PB. SNIP

Terry Mirll sent me the following predictions and anti-predictions related to materialism.

If naturalistic materialism is true:

1. We are nothing but the sum of our parts. Our bodies are wholly explicable in terms of nature, and there is no aspect of our bodies that cannot be described in purely naturalistic terms, nor any means of describing ourselves other than naturalistic ones. Human beings are simply organic beings and nothing more, composed of organs which are composed of cells which are composed of molecules which are composed of atoms which are composed of sub-atomic particles (and, if string theory is valid, the particles are composed of various strings of energy), and that’s it. We are thus material beings and not spiritual ones. We have no souls. Consciousness is therefore nothing but a curious offshoot of biochemistry, a higher reasoning function of our brains that has arisen from the natural advantage afforded to us by both the size of the human brain and its level of complexity. It is NOT evidence that Man is a creature imago dei, but rather evidence of the power by which natural selection operating in tandem with random genetic mutation can operate.

THEREFORE, I PREDICT that scientists will one day construct a device capable of transporting a human body across vast regions of space–a device comparable to the “teleporter” as portrayed in the “Star Trek” TV series. It will disassemble a living human body at a molecular or sub-molecular level, transport those small bits of living organic material at high speed across great distance, and reassemble them to their original macroscopic configuration, with no ill effects to the body it has transported.

IF, HOWEVER, after several hundred years of scientific advance no such a device will have been formulated, this fact should be taken as an indication that naturalistic materialism is not true. Read More ›

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2006/08/the_double_standard_for_id_and_1.html

[From some colleagues:] It appears that, while co-option is reputed to be a valid evolutionary mechanism, it is illegal when based on federally-funded county equipment. “State homeland security officials have warned Vermillion County to stop using electronic emergency message boards [purchased with a grant from Homeland Security] to advertise fish fries, spaghetti dinners and other events.” So if we can show that these primitive structures that were supposedly co-opted into the flagellar apparatus were the product of a federal granting process, then we can show that evolution is clearly illegal and ought not be taught. But then again, when you are really hungry, spaghetti dinners may qualify as an emergency response. And as for the fish fries, well, if you’re Read More ›

[From a colleague:] The species problem is real, but I think that (a) it is way overblown in importance in the phil. biol. literature as a result of our fixation on metazoans; and (b) it may already have a pretty good answer (Paterson’s “recognition” concept). Briefly, on (b): the idea is just that the “glue” holding species together is the fact that members recognize each other as members, which is a fact about their cognitive systems analyzable in terms of pheromones or whatever. Of course, there is also the fact that recognition has to be correlated with reproductive viability, which raises all the usual design issues. But I don’t see that there are any deep problems here that are not Read More ›

Here’s a recent exchange between me and a well-known journalist: Dear Mr. Dembski: I got your email from [snip]. I’m a science writer who has written for the usual suspects: New York Times (book review, op-ed, magazine, week in review), The Atlantic, Discover, Omni, Wall Street Journal, many others. You can google me, but the NY Times and WSJ block search engines, and that’s where most of my journalistic stuff is. . . . I am not sympathetic to ID or creationism, but I’m thinking of writing a piece–not yet sure for whom–about how silly the neo-Darwinists have become, Dawkins and Dennett come to mind. It seems to me the evolutionists have fielded the wrong team, and despite the recent Read More ›

Scientist Exposes Evolution’s Weaknesses in Politically Incorrect Book About Darwinism and Intelligent Design SEATTLE — “This book is going to upset defenders of Darwin’s theory, because it exposes just how weak the evidence for it is and how irrational their criticisms of intelligent design really are,” says biologist Jonathan Wells author of the controversial new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. The book will be published on August 21st by Regnery as part of their popular series of “Politically Incorrect Guides.” In clear, non-technical language, Wells explains who is fighting whom, the root of the conflict, and the evidence for and against Darwinism and Intelligent Design. He also explains what is ultimately at stake for liberals Read More ›

Kids growing up watching this video are going to find it harder later in life to swallow Darwinian evolution: http://www.kids4truth.com/watchmaker/watch.html

This is a fire rainbow — one of the rarest naturally occurring atmospheric phenomena. The picture was captured this week on the Idaho/Washington border. The event lasted about one hour. Clouds have to be cirrus, at least four miles in the air, with just the right amount of ice crystals; and the sun has to hit the clouds at 58 degrees. It’s the gratuitousness of such beaty that leads me to rebel against materialism.

In her last post, Denyse O’Leary commented on how ID has been very, very good to her: Speaking for myself, I was a completely obscure trade mag hack and textbook editor (though a reliable and accurate one) until I began to wonder whether the whole of the history of life can be explained by natural selection acting on random mutations and whether that Brit toff Darwin was really the greatest man in history. Now, all sorts of people have an opinion about me who aren’t even sure of my age, sex, or nationality. She isn’t the only one. While I was still an expert witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, I attended the deposition of Barbara Forrest, who, after Read More ›

Dear Members of SSE [Society for the Study of Evolution], The Joint Council of SSE, ASN and SSB has recently appointed a committee to deal with the issues of creationism and intelligent design to the teaching and funding of evolutionary biology in the U.S. The goals of the committee are spelled out in a document available at http://www.evolutionsociety.org/download/anti-wedge.pdf, and this message is to let the membership know of the existence of the committee, as well as to ask for suggestions and help from the membership. The committee will work together with the education section of SSE, which is already working in this area, as well as with the nonprofit National Center for Science Education (http://www.ncseweb.org/default.asp) which promotes education about evolution Read More ›