Books of interest

Peter Woit discusses the question at Physics World (May 2017), considering a new book by Frank Close, Theories of Everything: Ideas in Profile: The great success of the Standard Model has left particle physicists in a difficult position; with not just the Higgs, but all other results from the LHC and other particle-physics experiments so far agreeing perfectly with the theory. This has crushed hopes that something unexpected might be found, which would ultimately indicate a way forward to a better, more complete theory. A major goal of Close’s latest book is to put this situation in historical context, describing earlier “theories of everything” and the theoretical advances that gave new, fundamental insight into the nature of physical reality. A Read More ›

From Brian Miller at Evolution News & Views: In the evolution debate, a key issue is the ability of natural selection to produce complex innovations. In a previous article, I explained based on engineering theories of innovation why the small-scale changes that drive microevolution should not be able to accumulate to generate the large-scale changes required for macroevolution. This observation perfectly corresponds to research in developmental biology and to the pattern of the fossil record. However, the limitations of Darwinian evolution have been demonstrated even more rigorously from the fields of evolutionary computation and mathematics. These theoretical challenges are detailed in a new book out this week, Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. Authors Robert Marks, William Dembski, and Winston Ewert bring Read More ›

Jonathan Wells’s Zombie Science n 2000, biologist Jonathan Wells took the science world by storm with Icons of Evolution, a book showing how biology textbooks routinely promote Darwinism using bogus evidence—icons of evolution like Ernst Haeckel’s faked embryo drawings and peppered moths glued to tree trunks. Critics of the book complained that Wells had merely gathered up a handful of innocent textbook errors and blown them out of proportion. Now, in Zombie Science, Wells asks a simple question: If the icons of evolution were just innocent textbook errors, why do so many of them still persist? Science has enriched our lives and led to countless discoveries. But now, Wells argues, it’s being corrupted. Empirical science is devolving into zombie science, Read More ›

From Blyth Institute: Many volumes have addressed the question of whether or not naturalism is a required part of scientific methodology. However, few, if any, go any further into the many concerns that arise from a rejection of naturalism. If methodological naturalism is rejected, what replaces it? If science is not naturalistic, what defines science? If naturalism is rejected, what is gained and what is lost? How does the practice of science change? What new avenues would be available, and how would they be investigated? This volume is divided into three parts. The first part considers the question of methodological naturalism and its role in the demarcation problem – deciding what is science and what isn’t. The second part discusses Read More ›

Video: [youtube SC9Hx3WpsCk] Blurb at the Amazon page for the book: >>Throughout his distinguished and unconventional career, engineer-turned-molecular-biologist Douglas Axe has been asking the questions that much of the scientific community would rather silence. Now, he presents his conclusions in this brave and pioneering book. Axe argues that the key to understanding our origin is the “design intuition”—the innate belief held by all humans that tasks we would need knowledge to accomplish can only be accomplished by someone who has that knowledge. For the ingenious task of inventing life, this knower can only be God. Starting with the hallowed halls of academic science, Axe dismantles the widespread belief that Darwin’s theory of evolution is indisputably true, showing instead that a Read More ›

From Doug Axe’s Undeniable: Atheists have a pronounced leaning toward scientism, which is the belief that science is the only reliable source of truth. It’s entirely understandable, then, that belief in God might look to them like wishful thinking – as though people of faith have let their hearts overpower their heads. . . . We fully acknowledge that emotion can get in the way of clear thinking, but since we see this as a very general condition of humanity, we would never offer it as a particular weakness of atheism, the way so many atheists offer it as a particular weakness of theism. (P. 7) Axe is director of the Biologic Institute. Note: Pot. Kettle. Scientism is the chief Read More ›

From Kirkus Reviews, on science writer Ed Yong’s new book, I contain multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life: Prepare to meet some weird animals and weirder microbes, as Yong guides us through the animal kingdom to explain how microbes facilitate digestion, reproduction, and other functions integral to the survival of a species. In humans, microbes have been shown to regulate inflammation, an immune response linked to dozens of chronic conditions. In fact, in the absence of symbiotic microbes, life as we know it would quickly collapse—and yet it was only recently that microbes were understood to be more than disease-carrying bugs and more recently still that scientists have begun to understand their potential medicinal power. Read More ›

Michael Flannery, science historian who has specialized in the life of Alfred Russel Wallace, writes to say that: My paper, “Alfred Russel Wallace, Nature’s Prophet: From Natural Selection to Natural Theology,” from the 2nd International Conference on Alfred Russel Wallace held in Kuching (Sarawak), Malaysia, November 7-8, 2013, hasfinally been published in Naturalists, Explorers and Field Scientists in South-East Asia and Australasia, Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation 15, Springer International Publishing, 2016: Alfred Russel Wallace, Nature’s Prophet: From Natural Selection to Natural Theology, Flannery, Michael A., Pages 51-70 More. Wallace was Darwin’s co-theorist on natural selection, was largely forgotten because he thought there is in fact design in nature, which did not sit well with Darwin’s boys (and still doesn’t). Many regard him Read More ›

Readers may recall cosmologist Sean Carroll and his new book The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself. At Science, science philosopher Barry Loewer reviews it, noting Sean Carroll’s “poetic naturalism” tries to make naturalism palatable to the rest of us. However, the reviewer points out that there are unanswered questions. The last few paragraphs ask some questions that many of us would want to ask Carroll. For example: “Another challenge is understanding how thought, consciousness, and free will fit into physical theory. [. . .] But poetic naturalism should not be satisfied until it can include an account of how these elements emerge from fundamental physics or, if such an account is not forthcoming, Read More ›

By Erkki Vesa Rope Kojonen  Here: The controversy over Intelligent Design (ID) has now continued for over two decades, with no signs of ending. For its defenders, ID is revolutionary new science, and its opposition is merely ideological. For its critics, ID is both bad science and bad theology. But the polemical nature of the debate makes it difficult to understand the nature of the arguments on all sides. A balanced and deep analysis of a controversial debate, this volume argues that beliefs about the purposiveness or non-purposiveness of nature should not be based merely on science. Rather, the philosophical and theological nature of such questions should be openly acknowledged. More. Free first pages. See also: New ID book from HarperCollins: Undeniable: Read More ›

It Takes Ganas: Jaime Escalante’s secret to inspired learning Great teachers are typically unknown beyond the immediate circle of their students, colleagues, and families. That was not the case with Jaime Escalante. Escalante taught calculus with outstanding success at Garfield High, in a tough Hispanic neighborhood of East Lost Angeles. Escalante’s success was portrayed in the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, for which Edward James Olmos, who played Escalante, received an Oscar nomination. At its height, Escalante’s program at Garfield saw 85 students pass the Advanced Placement calculus test, more than at any but a handful of high schools across the nation. Most people these days, if they remember Escalante, immediately think of Stand and Deliver. That film ended on Read More ›

From HarperCollins, Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed (July 12) Throughout his distinguished and unconventional career, engineer-turned-molecular-biologist Douglas Axe has been asking the questions that much of the scientific community would rather silence. Now, he presents his conclusions in this brave and pioneering book. Axe argues that the key to understanding our origin is the “design intuition”—the innate belief held by all humans that tasks we would need knowledge to accomplish can only be accomplished by someone who has that knowledge. For the ingenious task of inventing life, this knower can only be God. Starting with the hallowed halls of academic science, Axe dismantles the widespread belief that Darwin’s theory of evolution is indisputably true, showing Read More ›

From Heather Zeiger at GoodReads, a review of Richard Weikart’s The Death of Humanity: The second chapter considers man as an animal, which includes Darwin’s influence. Weikart does not demonize Darwin, but instead introduces the reader to several characters who used Darwin’s theory to justify their own agendas, including those that wanted to call people of other races “less evolved” and people with certain neurological and mental disabilities “atavistic.” This leads into the third chapter which addresses how biological determinism contributes to dehumanization and our culture of death. Importantly, the characters in this chapter assume that man lacks free will and is really a product of his genes. In making this assumption, they again reduce man to chemistry. Out of Read More ›

Richard Weikart, author of From Darwin to Hitler and Hitler’s Ethic. has a new book out, The Death of Humanity. Here’s some info from Evolution News & Views: Although Weikart points out the many sources at work in diminishing the centrality humanity in our social and moral relations, one that recurs is Darwinism. This is for good reason. Darwin himself expressed the two foundational sources of the attack on anthropocentrism, an assault that unfortunately “is becoming mainstream in our ‘culture of death’” (4). First is the notion that regard for our special mental attributes is little more than self-centered arrogance. The second, related to the first, is that human beings are really not unique and are, in fact, just another Read More ›

With your coffee … what to make of this comment by “Charley Horse” on Michael Denton’s Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis (2016), comment appended to his review, Cashing in on the Oogity Boogity: Clother….you are not one of those militant Muslims that Denton’s fellow propagandists at the Discovery Institute kowtow to are you? For the record….the DI isn’t the only young earth creationist organization in the USA that has given aid and comfort to the militant Muslims…especially in Turkey. Les often quotes from one militant Muslim…..Adnan Oktar, also known as Harun Yahya. Wow. If Charley Horse has genuine information about “militants,” why doesn’t he go to the police? This is a long way from agnostic Denton or anything he can Read More ›