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Is intelligent design science? Here’s an answer you didn’t expect from an atheist prof

Bradley Monton, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, offers: So does intelligent design count as science? I maintain that it is a mistake to put too much weight on that question. Larry Laudan got the answer right: If we would stand up and be counted on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like “pseudo-science” and “unscientific” from our vocabulary; they are just hollow phrases which do only emotive work for us. If our goal is to believe truth and avoid falsehood, and if we are rational people who take into account evidence in deciding what to believe, then we need to focus on the question of what evidence there is for and against Read More ›

They said it: Why did two materialist atheists write a book against Darwinism?

“A view that looks to contradict it, either directly or by implication, is ipso facto rejected, however plausible it may otherwise seem.” You might reasonably wonder whether writing a critique of the classical Darwinist programme is worth the effort at this late date. Good friends in ‘wet’ biology tell us that none of them is ‘that kind” of Darwinist any more; no one in structural biology is a bona fide adaptationist. … We are pleased to hear of these realignments, but we doubt that they are typical of biology at large (consider, for example, ongoing research on mathematical models of optimal natural selection). They are certainly not typical of informed opinion in fields that either of us has worked in including Read More ›

What follows from Christian Darwinism?

Andrew Sibley writes*, While there is little doubt about the desire of theistic evolutionists to maintain their commitment to theism, it is pertinent to ask what follows logically from the scientific acceptance of some forms of theistic evolution, especially those that claim that it must be understood within methodological naturalism where all evidence of God’s handiwork is excluded from science by definition.  What follows logically is a silent God and a loud Darwin. *Andrew Sibley, “The Nature and Character of God”, p. 98 , in Should Christians Embrace Evolution?: Biblical and scientific responses, Norman C. Nevin, ed. (Inter-Varsity Press: Nottingham, 2005). Foreword by Wayne Grudem,

They said it: Materialist atheists Jerry Fodor and colleague dismiss Darwinism/evolutionary psychology

… allegiance to Darwinism has become a litmus for deciding who does and who does not hold a ”properly scientific’ world view. ‘You must choose between faith in God and faith in Darwin; and if you want to be a secular humanist, you’d better choose the latter.’ So we’re told. We doubt that those options are exhaustive. But we do want, ever so much, to be secular humanists. In fact, we both claim to be outright, card-carrying, signed-up, dyed-in-the-wool, no-holds-barred atheists. [ … ] Still, this book is mostly a work of criticism; it is mostly about what we think is wrong with Darwinism. The cry of their heart is to follow anyone or anything but Darwinism, for the sake Read More ›

He said it: Atheist prof says there is some evidence for design in nature

  Bradley Monton, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder:Bradley Monton, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder: The theory of intelligent design holds that certain global features of the universe provide evidence for the existence of an intelligent cause, or that certain biologically innate features of living things provide evidence for the doctrine that the features are the result of the intentional actions of an intelligent cause which is not biologically related to the living things, and provide evidence against the doctrine that the features are the result of an undirected process such as natural selection. He adds, This is a doctrine that I endorse, though I realize that not all atheists will Read More ›

Does Good come from God II – Harris vs Lane

The debate: Does Good Come From God II by Sam Harris vs William Lane Harris 7 April 2011 at Notre Dame is now on YouTube.

Part 1 of 9 – Harris vs Craig – Does Good Come From God Read More ›

Christian Darwinism: “Catholic Thing” reviewer loves David Brooks’s “Social Animal” and sees it as the Catholic view of man

When David Brooks’ Man: The Social Animal appeared, it was reviled by people as far apart otherwise as O’Leary and P.Z. Myers, for its Gadarene (and utterly tone deaf) slide into the fever swamps of evolutionary psychology.

These fetid bogs are usually inhabited by the Evolutionary Agony Aunt, the Darwinian brand marketer and the advocates of neurolaw (“your neurons fail, you’re in jail”). However, a review in thinkmag The Catholic Thing (“a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary”) not only heaps praise on the failed materialist novel but grabs it for Roman Catholicism.

Reviewer George J. Marlin offers Thomas Aquinas (complete with halo) to provide support for the descent, and offers

Although Brooks surveys the latest research on the human mind, he doesn’t teach Catholics anything all that new. What he does is confirm a lot of what generations of undergraduates were once taught about the human person at Catholic universities in their Thomistic philosophical psychology and ethics courses (it would be interesting to know how much this is still the case).

[ … ]

Brooks basically agrees that we have an intuitive moral sense and effectively explains how people can be taught to control irascible passions. It’s good that a columnist for The Times has surveyed recent scientific studies and reached that conclusion. But it’s best to recognize that his solid work, which some see as opening previously unexplored territory, is really a clearing of the way for a return to some of the oldest traditional truths.

Here’s a curious fact about Christian Darwinists: Read More ›

Proponent of multiverses and “our universe as possible simulation” wins this year’s Templeton Prize

Martin Rees Proponent of the multiverse and the universe as simulation wins this year’s Templeton Prize
The Prize has been awarded to Martin Rees. As Daniel Cressey tells it in Nature (6 April 2011),

Controversial ‘spirituality’ award goes to a scientist for fourth year in a row.

Martin Rees, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, UK, and former head of the Royal Society in London, today received the 2011 prize, worth £1 million (US$1.62 million), which rewards “a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension”.

The prize and the foundation have both attracted attacks from high-profile atheist scientists, who accuse them of attempting to insert religion needlessly into science. Rees says that he has no problem with accepting the prize, and he refuses to be drawn on the controversy, saying, “I have no comment on the views other people have.”

 

He also says he has no religious beliefs but sometimes attends Church of England services.

In 2004 Rees speculated controversially that we are living in a giant computer simulation: Read More ›

Still sane, are you? Hey, meet a friend you maybe never knew you had: Pulitzer novelist Marilynne Robinson

First, it’s okay to doubt the received ape-ology nostrums. No, really. It is.

Re that:  Memo to Templeton’s Rod Dreher: It is still okay to doubt received nostrums. And it had better be.

Tom Bethell, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (Regnery Publishing), wrote to introduce us to the “other side” of Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Marilynne Robinson (for Gilead, 2005), who recently took the occasion of her four Yale Terry Lectures to attack the evolutionary biologists who talk as if science were atheism writ large.

But let Bethell tell it: Read More ›

Richard Dawkins Interview

Dawkins book The Greatest Show on Earth has now been published in German, and as such is being interviewed by a German publication. The conversation centers mostly on why Dawkins thinks that believing the world and universe to be designed is unhelpful:

It is an attempt to disabuse people, especially in America, but also in other parts of the world, who have become influenced by fundamentalist religion into thinking that life can be and should be explained as all designed. I regard that as a lazy and unhelpful explanation as well as an untrue one.

As if people who think it’s designed just stop there with regards to describing the world and the universe with the philosophy called science. Ignore that fact that the history of the world has had folks investigating nature that believed and still believe it’s designed. This is one of Dawkins’ favorite arguments, and no one ever says it’s akin to saying that since we know that songs are composed by intelligence no one else will ever try to figure them out and learn to play them. Or since books are written no one will employ textual criticism and determine something along the lines of why it was written the way it was. As if anything thought to be designed is immediately uninteresting. I suppose that rules out an effort at understanding his book by the same logic. A designed book, that says that don’t look at things as designed if they are to have any merit, is an odd thing.

Read More ›

God yes or no?: Live Webcast of debate tonight between William Lane Craig and Lawrence Krauss

Here: Wednesday, March 30, 20117:00 PM EST William Lane Craig versus Lawrence Krauss Topic: Is There Evidence for God? http://www.thegreatdebatencsu.com/ https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=192530664101598 The organizers say, due to limited seating, watch, don’t go. Write here and tell us what you think Also: Thursday, April 7, 2011 7:00 PM EST William Lane Craig versus Sam Harris Topic: Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural? https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=133604053378987 (the website for the event is forthcoming and the link to it will be placed on this Facebook page)

Puff ball interviews file: In Germany Richard Dawkins is considered a “scientist”

Here, der Spiegel gives Richard Dawkins the floor (03/02/2011), as his book, The Greatest Show on Earth is published in German:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Has religion not been very successful in an evolutionary sense?Dawkins: The thought that human societies gained strength from religious memes in their competition with others is true to a certain extent. But it is more like an ecological struggle: It reminds me of the replacement of the red by the gray squirrel in Britain. That is not a natural selection process at all, it is an ecological succession. So when a tribe has a war-like god, when the young men are brought up with the thought that their destiny is to go out and fight as warriors and that a martyr’s death brings you straight to heaven, you see a set of powerful, mutually reinforcing memes at work. If the rival tribe has a peaceful god who believes in turning the other cheek, that might not prevail.

– “Interview with Scientist Richard Dawkins: ‘Religion? Reality Has a Grander Magic of its Own'”

It’s hard to tell exactly what Dawkins is trying to say here, but curiously, “a peaceful god who believes in turning the other cheek” was exactly what the early Christians preached and they went from being a persecuted people in the Roman empire to running the show in the course of about two and a half centuries. But your mileage may vary.

We also learn, Read More ›

Scenes snapped from the pageant of life: Cancer-plagued Christopher Hitchens turns to … a Christian doctor, and you’ll never guess …

My friend, Five Feet of Fury and aptly so named, comments on a recent turn of events in Christopher Hitchens’ struggle with cancer (March 26th, 2011):

It never frickin’ fails: ‘Atheist Christopher Hitchens turns to evangelical Christian doctor in his fight against cancer’Oh yeah, we’re all so stupid and backward. Yep. Retards. Totally.

Atheists all come crying to us, one way or the other, eventually.  Read More ›

Soul Time: Well, it must be, because we are hearing from the New Humanists again

(Who were the old Humanists, by the way? Anyone know?)

In “Natural history of the soul”, Caspar Melville profiles “the man who thinks that spirituality is essential to consciousness, and science can tell us why.”

That would be Nicholas Humphrey, an evolutionary psychologist and author of Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness who

claims to have solved two fairly large intellectual conundrums. One is something of a technical matter, about which you may have thought little or not at all, unless you happen to be a philosopher. This is the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness. The problem is how an entity which is apparently immaterial like the human consciousness – it exists, but you can’t locate it, much less measure it – can have arisen from something purely physical, like the arrangement of cells that make up the human body. The second problem Humphrey claims he has solved is a rather more everyday one, about which you may well have puzzled yourself. This is the problem of the soul. Does it exist? What sort of a thing might it be? Does everyone have one, even atheists? (Volume 126 Issue 2 March/April 2011)

I’ve often wondered why just anyone who claims to have solved two hard problems in one book is accorded a lot of acceptance and respect. But credulity could have something to do with it.

Anyway, we buzzes of neurons learn, Read More ›

A Question of Evidence

Our good friend and fellow UD commentator Denyse O’Leary recently wrote about John Farrel’s recent musings on Forbes on what evidence for God might look like…or least what sort of evidence might make him sit up and take notice. Here I want to go a step further than Denyse did, and look at this question of evidence a bit more in depth.

Of course, the question of what might constitute evidence for the existence of God is nothing new in the never ending atheism/theism debate. The more outspoken atheists such as those of the so-called “new” atheist variety (i.e. Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Dennett et.al.) make quite a fuss about saying that there is no evidence for any sort of God or gods at all. Indeed, Dawkins now well-known diatribe against theism, The God Delusion, is a tour de force of proclaiming the lack of any sort of scientific evidence for the existence of God. Hence anyone still clinging to such a belief is doing so sans evidence and is thus suffering a ‘delusion’. But is that really the case? Read More ›