Adminstrative

Technical issues. Sorry for inconvenience. – News

This is in regard to: Is Darwinist Jerry Coyne starting to get it about SJW “science”? To Jerry: Your biggest problem is whether either you or your colleagues believe strongly enough that there is such a thing as truth, as opposed to an evolved illusion of your consciousness, that you would band together to fight off the aggrieved tentacles and suckers? It would be dreadful to see you and a few others all alone out there, but that’s what it’s coming down to. Anyway, we didn’t send the guy in the vid, so don’t try sending him back to us. We’re just passing on the info. Back to our regular coverage soon. – News

In case you were looking for older information: ISCID (mostly for the PCID journal, Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design) Telic Thoughts Research Intelligent Design Thanks to the friend who provided the links.

Read the following and then read why it matters to you: From Ed Morrisey at HotAir: The video shows top Planned Parenthood staffers attending meetings of the National Abortion Federation in 2014 and 2015 and it is the latest in a series of over a dozen videos from the organization showing the Planned Parenthood abortion business and others engaging in potentially illegal sale of body parts of aborted babies. The new undercover video shows Planned Parenthood executives and other top abortion advocates making shocking comments about abortions. Several attendees made jokes about eyeballs from aborted babies and other aborted baby body parts “rolling down into their laps.”More. Look, it is probably true. It was true forty years ago but traditional Read More ›

Some time in the next few days. Apologies for past down time and any near-future upgrade-related down time. We will at that time be introducing our security tag, so that posts will begin with the code https, instead of just http Your patience and generosity are always appreciated. Follow UD News at Twitter!

Sir Isaac Newton once said,

“In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.”

The USA’s Founders required the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, including:

make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Yet now we have US Senators coercing government officials of establishing atheistic materialism in public education, by accusing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos of supporting Intelligent Design in schools. Read More ›

From Special Issues in Education, including Research in Science Education. Hat tip: Pos-Darwinista (Just think, one of the biggest Portuguese language blogs is a Brazil-based ID site.)

Long time UD contributor Gil Dodgen has died. From here: A small episode from Gil Dodgen’s life might help you understand the sort of person he was: Picture a homeless kitten, lost and confused in Southern California traffic. A man sees her, stops his car in the middle of the street and rescues her, starting a lifelong companionship. Gil’s life was characterized by excellence in everything he did, combined with a deep sympathy for those around him. Gil was born Dec. 29, 1950, in Moscow, was raised in Pullman and received bachelor’s degrees in music and French and a master’s in French from Washington State University. He met and married his college sweetheart, Janie Gay of Prosser, Wash., who was Read More ›

For reader info, in case it happens when you try to access Uncommon Descent or a  page here: The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has approved the use of HTTP status code 451. The code alerts readers when a page has been blocked for legal reasons or censored. The code number was inspired by Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s novel about censorship. From Fast Company: Code 451 is a big step for transparency, but since it’s optional, it probably won’t be a final solution. As Bray tells The Verge, “It is imaginable that certain legal authorities may wish to avoid transparency, and not only forbid access to certain resources, but also disclosure that the restriction exists.” Others will righteously flaunt the Read More ›

Further to the recent announcement of philosopher of biology Will Provine’s passing, here were many fields to which he contributed. With a colleague, he did a most interesting study of evolutionary biologists, 78% of whom he described as pure naturalist atheists like himself. Some of his many reflections on the true meaning of the Darwinism he espoused: Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate Read More ›

If you have been in the habit of using Twitter to get notice of new UD News posts, please note that the account was falsely reported for spam. Note: This message from UD News could not be reported on Twitter: Service note: Re Twitter: Account falsely reported for spam.http://is.gd/OqeOCb Falsely reported?: If you signed up, you would get UD News posts (now and then MercatorNet, or stuff my friends wrote that I found interesting, usually re freedom of speech). No sales, no rankings manipulations, etc. Just News hitting: Tweet! I guess this is what some people do when they run out of arguments after they run out of rent money. See also: Darwin’s Doubt: Fake Steve Meyer Facebook pages a new Read More ›

Quick question: Has anyone else experienced the following: 1. I write a comment and press the “Post Comment” button. 2. I get a complaint that I haven’t properly filled out the Captcha answer. 3. I go back, double check my Captcha answer, and submit again. 4. Again, it refuses. 5. I triple check and submit again.  Same story. 6. I click out of the window, say, by going back to UD Home (hopefully after remembering to copy my comment to the clipboard), find the thread again, paste in my comment, fill out the Captcha, and — ta-da! — it works fine. I haven’t done a scientific survey, but I’m suspicious it happens when I have had a thread open in Read More ›