William Dembski

[From a paper by one of my students:] According to Darwin’s theory, humans are separated from the animals only by a matter of degrees, not by categories. This is the working presupposition behind the evolutionary ethics of James Rachels. Thus, there can be no fundamental difference between “evil” committed by rhesus monkeys and that committed by the Great Apes –- Homo sapiens. This is where the reductio meets the ad absurdum. To argue that crimes committed by animals and those committed by humans are equivalent does not comport with reality and it does not jive with our experience. While we do have pet cemeteries, we do not have pet penitentiaries. No one incarcerates a Mantis religiosa for the copulatory consumption Read More ›

Bruce Chapman, president of Discovery Institute, responds here to Laurie Goodstein’s piece “Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker” (blogged here). Note his point that “none of the critics quoted in your article supported the theory in the past” — Goodstein gave the impression that these critics had once been sympathetic to ID and then had become disillusioned. No, they were never on board.

December 10, 2005
Questioning Evolution
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/opinion/l10design.html?emc=eta1&pagewanted=print

To the Editor:

Contrary to “Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker” (Week in Review, Dec. 4), more scientists than ever support intelligent design and criticize Darwinism. A recent European conference on intelligent design – held in Prague and ignored by The Times – attracted 700 attendees, and featured leading scientists from Britain, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as the United States. Read More ›

Simon Conway Morris is scheduled to do the 2006-07 Gifford Lectures on the topic “What organic evolution tells us about our place in the universe, not least in terms of religious perspectives and natural theology “: http://www.hss.ed.ac.uk/Admin/Gifford/

Theory of intelligent design making its way into Broward textbooks
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-cbook09dec09,0,6134369,print.story

By Chris Kahn
Education Writer

December 9, 2005

Broward County on Thursday narrowed its choices for high school Biology I textbooks to two finalists, both of which have been under scrutiny by Christian conservatives who want to change the way students learn about the origin of life.

Both have edited passages about evolution theory during the past few years after receiving complaints from the Discovery Institute. The think tank sponsors research on intelligent design, which argues life is so complicated, it must have been fashioned by a higher being. One of the books also has added a short section on creationism.

In the end, Broward teachers will have to decide which book works best based on their individual review of the whole textbooks, which include hundreds of pages of lessons, support materials and suggested activities.

Read More ›

When reading the following, remember that string theory is taught and discussed in physics courses. Also ask yourself whether Gross’s criticisms apply to evolutionary theory — is it “missing something absolutely fundamental”?

Nobel laureate admits string theory is in trouble
10 December 2005
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18825293.700.html

“WE DON’T know what we are talking about.” That was Nobel laureate David Gross at the 23rd Solvay Conference in Physics in Brussels, Belgium, during his concluding remarks on Saturday. He was referring to string theory – the attempt to unify the otherwise incompatible theories of relativity and quantum mechanics to provide a theory of everything. Read More ›

[From an engineering colleague:] “This paper gives a nice historical perspective on the development of the theory of noise, from its origins with Brownian motion. It also has some amusing quotes from prominent scientists of the last century denying the existence of atoms with a certainty that can only be matched by today’s Darwinists denying any challenges to evolution.” The history of noise Leon Cohen City Univ. of New York (USA) SPIE Digital Library ABSTRACT: “Noise” had a glorious birth. While there were rumblings before 1905, it was Einstein’s explanation of Brownian motion that started the field. His motivation was not the mere explanation of the erratic movement of pollen, but much bigger: that noise could establish the existence of Read More ›

Shirley L. Tilghman, Princeton University’s president, happens also to be a molecular biologist. Now she joins the ranks of Cornell’s Hunter Rawlings in attacking ID.

Tilghman criticizes intelligent design
By Matt Davis
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/12/09/news/14090.shtml

In a lecture at Oxford University last week, President Tilghman
pointed out potential clashes among science, politics and religion and
defended Darwinian evolution against the challenges presented by
proponents of intelligent design. Read More ›

Controversy expected at intelligent design debate
By: Eddith Sevilla / Contributing Writer
Issue date: 12/8/05 Section: News
Article Tools: Page 1 of 1

http://www.beaconnewspaper.com/ID_controversy

The floor may get heated when an evangelical Christian and an Orthodox Jew debate intelligent design at the Sixth Miami International Conference on Torah and Science, to be held at the Kovens Conference Center at the Biscayne Bay Campus beginning Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. and continuing through Dec. 15.

William A. Dembski, a professor of science and theology at Southern Theological Seminary and considered the most eloquent advocate of intelligent design, along with Orthodox Jewish thinkers including Rabbi Moshe D. Tendler, a noted ethicist and biology professor at Yeshiva University in New York, Herman Branover of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar of The Shul in Surfside and Eduardo Zeigler, professor of biology at UCLA will discuss, “How Should We Teach the Origin and Diversity of Species?” Read More ›

[From a colleague:] The problem is that methodological naturalism prevents us from detecting a “hate” crime, since “hate” is an immaterial property had by agents that can only be inferred from behavior, speech, etc. Other minds cannot be observed, just inferred by analogy, like the traditional argument from design. Because it is always possible that what appears to be “hate” may very well be the result of non-agent causes that merely manifest themselves in a way that appear to be agent caused, attributing “hate” to a cluster of cells we call a “human being” is just “hate-monger of the gaps.” It is an argument from ignorance because we have not yet discovered the non-agent causes that made the hate come Read More ›

Twenty years ago: Darwinian biology teacher challenges students with “overwhelming evidence” for evolution, and students who believe in creation/design are left feeling confused and intimidated. The present day: Darwinian biology teacher is forced to expend a lot of energy finding plausible answers to all the challenges that ID-informed students are levying against evolution.

[From a philosopher colleague:]

I am visiting Harvard, and I was reading the conservative student
paper here, and came across an interesting quote from from Richard
Wrangham, a biologist, on the gaps in science that Intelligent Design
theorists point to: “Given that everything we know about science
gives us confidence that these details either have already or will
shortly be provided, this is both an unhelpful and an improbable claim.”

Nevermind the Intelligent Design context specifically. What I am
interested in is whether there can be a good reason for a naturalist
(and this guy may not be one, though his being a biologist, alas, makes
it more likely than not given the stats) to believe of an unsolved
scientific problem that a solution will eventually be found
(“shortly” or not). The argument seems to be an induction: We have
solved so many prior scientific problems that we have a reasonable
confidence that we will solve this one. Read More ›

Go here for audio-on-demand and here for podcast. For the wave file of the debate, go here: http://www.audiomartini.com/Shermer_Dembski.wma

HOW THE DEBATE OVER DARWIN HASN’T EVOLVED by Gertrude Himmelfarb The New Republic Online Post date: 12.03.05, Issue date: 12.12.05 . . . Many Victorian clerics found it possible to reconcile not only evolution but natural selection as well with religion, while many secularists had reservations not about evolution but about natural selection. John Stuart Mill, for example, was impressed by the “knowledge and ingenuity” that Darwin brought to bear upon his thesis, but finally decided (as late as 1870) that it “is still and will probably long remain problematical.” Moreover, he added, even if it were proved, it would not be inconsistent with creation. He himself, he said, on the state of the evidence, believed in “creation by intelligence.” Read More ›

. . . What did they say, exactly? I guess it was something like, “This mild assault is payback for your famously controversial opinions against us fundamentalist Christians, Mirecki. Don’t let us catch you south of Lawrence again.” Or maybe not. But I am forced to guess, because Mirecki won’t tell what the men said to him. . . . MORE

Earlier today I blogged on Kristof’s piece yesterday in the NYTimes. Here’s another perspective: http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/12/feb94/cultures.htm