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Biology

Slate.com in a Dither Over non-Repeal of LSEA

Slate.com is all upset that repeal of the Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008 was was rejected yet again in a 3-2 vote in the State Senate. 19 year old Rice University Student Zack Kopplin has been leading the charge to get this “outrage” done away with once and for all, with help from the usual suspects. What’s interesting to note is the reason that one Senator, Elbert Guillory, D-Obelousas, who essentially cast the deciding vote, gave for his vote against repeal. Sen. Elbert Guillory, D-Opelousas, said he had reservations with repealing the act after a spiritual healer correctly diagnosed a specific medical ailment he had. He said he thought repealing the act could “lock the door on being able Read More ›

Why on Earth would a layman accept Darwinistic claims?

First, by “Darwinistic” I mean “atheistic-materialist neo-Darwinist”, which includes the view that even the origin of life can be explained by reference to chance and natural law. As Alan Fox points out, many of those here are “laymen” when it comes to evolutionary biology.  Most of us are not specifically schooled or trained in that arena – by “us”, I mean anyone who is interested in the debate about Darwinian evolution vs ID-inclusive evolution.  I, like many, have informed myself to a moderate degree about Darwinistic claims and the ID argument, but I’m certainly not a professional scientist, nor a philosopher with any formal academic training. IMO, a reasonable layman would be highly skeptical of claims that matter, chance & Read More ›

Debating Darwin and Design: A Dialogue Between Two Christians

A couple of months ago, I agreed to take part in a written debate with a good friend of mine, Francis Smallwood. Francis, like me, is a commited Christian. Unlike me though, he is also a neo-Darwinist. On his blog Musings Of A Scientific Nature he writes on many different scientific issues, although his primary focus is on Darwinism. I encourage UD readers to check his blog out. As an enthusiastic ID proponent, I obviously think his embrace of Darwinian theory is profoundly mistaken, and equally I think his criticisms of ID are weak. However, he is at least willing to engage in debate with people of opposing view points and is not as dismissive as most Darwinists. Our idea Read More ›

James Barham at Best Schools ‘fesses up III: Biology (like the social sciences) is guilty of massive and systematic equivocation

"Biologists are constantly basing nearly all their work on an unspoken assumption of the “usefulness” or “efficiency” or “rationality” or “intelligence” of biological systems, even if they would strenuously deny the fact. " Read More ›

ID Foundations, 15(a): A Testable ID Hypothesis — Front-Loading, part A (a guest-post by Genomicus)

(Series on Front-loading continues, here) As we continue the ID Foundations series, it will be necessary to reflect on a fairly wide range of topics, more than any one person can cover. So, when the opportunity came up to put Front-Loading on the table from a knowledgeable advocate of it, Genomicus, I asked him if he would be so kind as to submit  such a post. He graciously agreed, and so, please find the below for our initial reflections; with parts B and C (and maybe, more? please, please, sir . . . 😆 ) to follow shortly, DV: ____________________ >> Critics of intelligent design (ID) often argue that ID does not offer any testable biological hypotheses. Indeed, often times Read More ›