Creationism

From the pages of the prestigious scientific journal Nature: A petition to remove references to evolution from high-school textbooks claimed victory last month after the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) revealed that many of the publishers would produce revised editions that exclude examples of the evolution of the horse or of avian ancestor Archaeopteryx. … Even the nation’s leading science institute — the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology — has a creation science display on campus. “The exhibition was set up by scientists who believed in creation science back in 1993,” says Gab-duk Jang, a pastor of the campus church. The institute also has a thriving Research Association for Creation Science, run by professors and students, Read More ›

On May 16, UD News reported on the Ben Carson speech at Emory, raising some significant issues on the tendency of some Darwinists to toss ad hominem rhetorical stink-bombs at those who question the ethical implications of their views. (And yes, I am pointing to the unanswered problem that evolutionary materialism, ever since at least the days of Plato in The Laws Bk X, has never been able to objectively ground OUGHT in a worldview foundational IS that they accept.  And in light of what Hume pointed out with his guillotine argument, if such an objective basis for ought does not lie in the foundation of the worldview, it can never be brought in thereafter. Since we cannot have turtles Read More ›

World-renowned Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson is under fire from several biology professors at Emory University, where he’s scheduled to give the commencement address. They wrote a letter to the school newspaper after learning Carson does not believe in evolution,….. Dr. Ben Carson’s Beliefs On Evolution Stir Controversy At Emory University About 500 Darwinist alumni, students, and faculty from Emory decided to pile on by signing the letter. Carson is the director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, by President George W. Bush in 2008. Hopkins boasts 17 Nobel prizes in medicine/physiology and researchers associated with the university were awarded Nobel prizes Read More ›

I passed by and noticed Gil’s go-to-the heart-of-the-matter comment on the “a picture is worth . . . “ thread: The worst part is that these clowns are destroying public trust in legitimate science. As usual, Gil has gone straight to the key point. When science and science education as well as popular science and science-related journalism are ideologised and made into little more than agenda talking points, sooner or later, science is going to pay the price for the ideologues we can see dressing themselves up in the holy lab coat and demanding genuflection before their favourite myths. (And of course, predictably, they will try to twist the issue about, and accuse those who challenge them of being “anti Read More ›

What on earth does the title of a famous Good Friday Sermon have to do with the ID controversy? (Even, come Easter Sunday morning . . . ) A lot. Sadly. As I was reading and thinking about Dr Torley’s latest amazing UD series and some of UD’s ever so fascinating comments [one of the best features of UD is comments], I was led to look at the Dr Townes story, and related matters. One of the findings is how Dr Townes, a Nobel Prize holder for physics, turns out to be a cosmological design thinker who actually supports intelligent design in an evolutionary framework [i.e. pretty similar to Wallace, co-founder of modern evolutionary theory], but sees ID as anti-evolutionism. Read More ›

Food for thought, here. (U/D: News has a poignant case in point, here.) =========== U/D Nov 9: In tracking responses and access elsewhere I see that the folks over at Anti-Evo have been busy with atmosphere poisoning ad hominems (here, especially the new talking point that I am a liar), sadly, amply documenting the main point of this post. I note for record: It should be clear to any responsible person: (i) that there are NO, ZIP, ZILCH responsible Bible believing Christians who support genocide, INCLUDING Dr Craig — that should not even be a question, (ii) the spreading of a false accusation against any significant number of such will lead to the spreading of a much broader false accusation Read More ›

Science Daily reports “A three-year international research project, directed by two academics at the University of Oxford, finds that humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife.” As my friend added, “This research was quite costly – they could have saved money by reading the Bible!” Link here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm I wonder how the New Atheists will take this research. There are two possible logical spins on it I can see, if you take the research’s conclusions at face value. You could say, “Belief is hard-wired – that’s why it’s so hard to reprogram people to think rationally!” But this avoids the key issue of why it would be hard-wired. That leads to the second possible response: “Belief Read More ›

One of the most common objections to design thought is the idea that it is about the improper injection of the alien  supernatural into the world of science. (That is itself based on a strawman misrepresentation of design thought, as was addressed here a few days ago.)

However, there is an underlying root, a common distortion of the origins of modern science, which Nancy Pearcey rebutted in a  2005 sleeper article as headlined, that deserves a UD post of its own.

Let’s clip the article:

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Yesterday, in the P Z Myers quote-mining and distortion thread, I happened to cite Lewontin’s infamous 1997 remark in his NYRB article, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” on a priori imposition of materialist censorship on origins science, which reads in the crucial part:

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

To my astonishment, I was promptly accused of quote-mining and even academic malpractice, because I omitted the following two sentences, which — strange as it may seem —  some evidently view as justifying the above censoring imposition:

The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

To my mind, instead, these last two sentences are such a sad reflection of bias and ignorance, that their omission is an act of charity to a distinguished professor. Read More ›

“I want Muslims to question creationism, says the physicist and imam who has had death threats for supporting evolution“

Here , New Scientist interviews physicist imam Usama Hasan, who says that belief in evolution is compatible with belief in the Koran (Michael Bond, 19 April 2011):

Recently you retracted your views because of the outrage they caused. Could you explain?My retraction was saying that I misjudged how to go about explaining these things. Sooner or later someone will have to address the issue of evolution – it’s a no-go area, especially with the clerics – but I’m abandoning my attempt to reconcile it with the Koran until things settle down. I am not willing to risk my life over this issue.

A belief supported only by death threats against unbelievers is poorly supported indeed. It amounts to saying: We can’t convince; we just scare.

Christians like to say: “Test everything. Hold onto what is good.”

And precisely therein lies the problem: What are Muslims signing on to when they are told, “believe evolution”? Three things to know – and understand their implications clearly: Read More ›

“What is the difference between Creationism and Intelligent Design” I asked Stephen Meyer in 2009. He answered that what distinguished Creationism from Intelligent Design is that Creationism outlined a chronology whereas ID did not.

I will add my own thoughts on the matter. What I say in this post is my answer to the same question I posed to Dr. Meyer.

As a scholarly discipline Intelligent Design is described elegantly by Bill Dembski:

Intelligent design is the science that studies signs of intelligence.

Bill Dembski
10 Questions

Frankly, I’ve been mortified that so much theological discussion is to conflated with this simple and elegant description of ID! I’m appalled to hear that some claim “the science that studies signs of intelligence” conflicts with theological ideas and is therefore a futile endeavor.

Theology may proceed from the idea that there is intelligent design in the universe, but at its root, Bill’s definition of ID isn’t inherently theological and would fit well with engineering and the forensic sciences. ID is not theological in itself, but it can serve as bridge a between science and theology.

Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology
Bill Dembski

Combining the above two ideas, I came up with:
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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 ›

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.

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