William Dembski

As someone who actually has been censored and had his academic freedom violated (go here), I find it more than a little ironic that the evolution diehards at talk.origins and the Panda’s Thumb continually moan about my “censoring” them at this blog. When I was hired at Baylor University, that academic appointment came with certain privileges and rights which, in my case, were indeed violated. When it comes to this blog, on the other hand, I pay the bills and have no obligation to anyone. The issue is not “censorship” but “freedom of association.” The Internet is a big place and you are free to whine on it, only not here.

I was discussing with a colleague the recent media frenzy over ID, not just nationally (e.g., back to back NYTimes front page stories of it) but internationally. The question is whether this interest represents something substantial — a real sea change — or merely a flash in the pan. It seems that something substantial is indeed happening. Read More ›

Here is a pdf copy of an article favorable to ID published Sept. 1, 2005 in Italy: www.uncommondescent.com/documentation/Avvenire_1sep05.pdf. Regardless of how good or bad your Italian is, you’ll get the gist by tracking the names of ID proponents discussed in the article.

A rabbi and a scientist were traveling together on an airplane. Each brought with them a grandson. The rabbi’s grandson came every few minutes to check on his grandfather’s welfare and inquire as to his needs, while the scientists’ grandson sat in back watching the movie, never once coming forward. The scientist asked the rabbi why his grandson was so profoundly respectful, whereas the scientists’ grandson had forgotten that his grandfather was even alive. The rabbi replied, “In our tradition, God gave the Torah to Moses at Sinai, and the closer you are to that great moment of revelation and truth, the more respect you deserve. Hence, my grandson accords me respect. But as an evolutionist, you believe that mankind Read More ›

In 1906 a devastating earthquake hit San Francisco. The mayor at that time was one E.E. Schmitz. Mayor Schmitz issued the following proclamation:

According to Hector Avalos: “It’s becoming increasingly clear to some of us that Iowa State University is being marketed as an intelligent design research center.” So, on the one hand, Eugenie Scott et al. tell ID theorists and researchers to get busy, do the work and get it through the peer-review process. But now we learn that the very idea of a ID research, much less an ID research center, is out-of-bounds. Heads I win, tails you lose. Read More ›

The anti-ID community is congratulating itself for yet another brilliant coup. Case in point, the Spaghetti Monster: The challenge mounted against us is supposed to be momentous. Indeed, how can we design theorists rule out ridiculous designers like the Spaghetti Monster? And if we can’t do that, then how can anyone take ID seriously? Case closed. I’m reminded of Steven Weinberg at the Nature of Nature conference in April 2000 dismissing all religious and theological discussions of God as the study of “fairies.” Take that Augustine and Aquinas, you nincompoops! What we see here is a case of mass delusion in which a dysfunctional community of smug, cossetted intellectuals tell themselves exactly what they want to hear and then commend Read More ›

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16417002%255E30417,00.html

Harold Morowitz is the lead author in a disappointing article in the latest Chronicle of Higher Education: go here. I say disappointing because Morowitz spent three days at a seminar on ID that I organized at Calvin College back in summer of 2000. In other words, he should know better. Take the following remark in reference to Mike Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity: “Intelligent-design argument contains a hidden assumption: that all parts of a complex structure must have had the same function throughout the history of the development of the organism.” Behe explicitly repudiates this assumption (see Darwin’s Black Box, p. 96).

Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne today have provided still further lessons in evolutionary logic (for a primer on evolutionary logic, go here). Their article in the Guardian titled “One Side Can Be Wrong” at least gets one thing right (though the irony is lost on them), namely, that their side is indeed wrong. Read More ›

In The Design Revolution, I characterized theory change as follows: Read More ›

Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, Caroline Crocker. Is there a pattern? Go here. Note especially this story about Gonzalez: go here.

John Patterson is one of the Iowa State faculty currently opposing ID and Guillermo Gonzalez (go here). Patterson, an avowed atheist, has a history of censoring ideas inconsistent with his atheism. As one of my colleagues reports: Read More ›