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Darwinism

ID and the Science of God: Part VI

To test the real difference that theodicy makes to ID, Timaeus posed a thought experiment (see post 33) involving a team of scientists of various religious persuasions who conclude that the malarial cell is a designed entity. However, the scientists’ ability to infer why a deity would have created such a malignant cell is impeded by their religious differences, which have no natural resolution. Moreover, Timaeus wonders, even if after much discussion these differences were somehow resolved into a common theodicy, to what extent would that theodicy have been based on their scientific work or, for that matter, the theodicy would be capable of justifying that work. The implied conclusion of this thought experiment is that theodicy is not a necessary feature of ID’s conceptual framework but a controversial add-on.

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Miller Redefining Design

Originally written by uoflcard. I’d rather not distract from the main point of the other thread: HGT. So I created a separate thread for this topic, duplicating this info.

There is ‘Design’ in Nature, Biologist Argues

It is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read. A biologist says that the ID movement garners attention because it is appealing to believe there is design in nature. “To fight back, scientists need to reclaim the language of ‘design'”, he says. What the article and the biologist don’t explicitly say is basically they completely misuse the word “design”. Listen to his personal definition of design: Read More ›

ID and the Science of God: Part V

In this instalment, I begin to address both Andrew Sibley’s and Timaeus’ (see post 33) questions concerning my interest in reviving a full-blooded (i.e. early modern) sense of theodicy, especially as part of the ID agenda. I will need another post to complete this task because more assumptions about theodicy in its original robust form need to be put on the table. My apologies if this does not seem blog-friendly but hopefully we’ll able to continue discussing in this medium issues that show the essential unity of concern among theologians, philosophers and scientists.

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ID and the Science of God: Part IV

This post originally began as a response to Andrew Sibley but the issues here may resonate with others wanting to reconcile science and religion, coming at it mainly from the religious side. My concern here, as an interested bystander, is that apologetics tends to be much too apologetic. Christianity, in particular, has a much stronger hand to play with regard to the support of science.

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Darwinism and popular culture: Bill Moyers moonlights as a geneticist

Recently, at Uncommon Descent, we discussed Jesse Kilgore, who killed himself after reading Dawkins and Pekka Eric Auvinen, the young Finnish social Darwinist shooter (2007) , to say nothing of Eric Harris at Columbine. While some have pointed to these examples of the harm done by pop Darwinism, I’ve always been cautious. Disturbed people have taken their own or others’ lives for a variety of reasons. Better evidence, it seems to me, is the bad assumptions of people assumed to be intelligent, emotionally normal, and well-meaning. Consider then the case of Bill Moyers of PBS: Read More ›

Discover Magazine standing by Forrest Mims as one of 50 best brains in science

My friend Forrest Mims, called by Discover Magazine one of the 50 best brains in science, has – predictably – been attacked by mediocrities at the mag’s blog, due to his interest in intelligent design, and he has responded:

Returning to Mike’s concern that I advocate Intelligent Design, it is rather ironic that my first visit to Hawaii when the satellite drift was independently confirmed by I83 was to give a keynote talk at a scientific meeting about how I lost “The Amateur Scientist” column at Scientific American when the editor learned I rejected Darwinian macroevolution and abortion. That talk resulted in an annual teaching assignment in Hawaii that has allowed me to continue annual calibrations at the Mauna Loa Observatory since 1992 and to write a 270,000-word book on the amazing history of this world famous atmospheric research station. (The book will be published late in 2009 or in 2010.)
Mike and others who are troubled by Intelligent Design advocates who do serious science and publish in leading scholarly journals (please see my web sites for a list of my publications) need not be so worried, for part of the foundation of modern science was laid by men and women who believed in a designer God.
 

 

For their own part, the editors have decided to stand by Forrest, noting

In our feature, we recognized Mims specifically for his contributions as an amateur scientist, and we stand by that assessment. His work on the Altair 8800 computer, on RadioShack’s home electronics kit, and on The Citizen Scientist newsletter has been undeniably influential. DISCOVER does not in any way endorse the Discovery Institute’s views on “intelligent design.” At the same time, Mims’s association with that group does not invalidate his role as a leading figure in the American amateur science community, any more than James Watson’s dubious speculations about race take away from his groundbreaking research on DNA.

Watson’s speculations about race are certainly distressing and uncalled for, but Discover’s editors are wise to spare themselves much grief by taking the firm stand that they have. Science motors along on facts, so political correctness is not one of the branches of science. Read More ›

ID and the Science of God: Part III

 

I have been reflecting on the critical responses to my posts, which I appreciate. They mostly centre on the very need for ID to include theodicy as part of its intellectual orientation.

 

The intuitive basis for theodicy is pretty harmless: The presence of design implies a designing intelligence. Moreover, in order to make sense of the exact nature of the design, you need to make hypotheses about the designing intelligence. These hypotheses need to be tested and may or may not be confirmed in the course of further inquiry. Historians and archaeologists reason this way all the time. However, the theodicist applies the argument to nature itself.

 

At that point, theodicy binds science and theology together inextricably — with potentially explosive consequences. After all, if you take theodicy seriously, you may find yourself saying, once you learn more about the character of nature’s design, that science disconfirms certain accounts of God – but not others. Scientific and religious beliefs rise and fall together because, in the end, they are all about the same reality.

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ID and the Science of God: Part II

 I will be opening the 2009 series of lectures on ‘Darwin Reconsidered’ at the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture on Tuesday, 20th January, at 5 pm. My topic is ‘Darwin’s Original Sin: The Rejection of Theology’s Claims to Knowledge’. You can find out more about the series here. The talk will deal with the issues of theodicy that I have been raising in this blog.  

In this instalment, I try to make the connection between theodicy and ID tighter, not only to provide some deeper intellectual grounding but also to make quite plain why even religious people have not been rushing to support ID.

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Call for actors in Sydney for Lincoln-Darwin radio play

Some of you may know that last year I staged a play at the annual British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, which brought back Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin – who were both born on 12th February 1809 — to reflect on what has taken place since their time. Denyse O’Leary kindly mentioned the play here. It takes the form of a talk show, with all the show biz that entails. At the end Lincoln and Darwin were asked whether they wished to stay in the present or return to the 19th century. One stays and the other goes – but which does which?   The play’s running time is 80 minutes and it covers a host of issues common Read More ›

The year of Darwin dawns, loud and exceedingly laughable

In case anyone cares, this item generated a dramatic uproar among third- and fourth-rate Darwinist tax burdens because – following a usual practice of file management, I had cross-posted it at the Post-Darwinist. Assuming any reasonable person cares, here it is.

I inserted into that post the following message, which should also do for this post, and justfor the record, really:

Note: This post appears to be exceedingly popular and I want to thank all the generous new donors to my PayPal button. Also, this post has garnered a large amount of attention (assuming site meter stats are accurate) and I am astonished at the number of third- and fourth-rate tax burdens who have written privately, proclaiming their faith in propositions like the Big Bazooms theory of human evolution. No wonder our economy is in the tank, and a thorough housecleaning is needed. I had no idea how bad it all was – but then I have usually had the privilege of working with productive, intelligent, and interesting people. Wow. I have always had the highest respect for my friends and colleagues, but I had no idea how lucky I have been, compared with the current Deleted Items box, mostly from Darwin’s Faithful.)

In “Darwin’s “dangerous idea: Top ten evolution articles,” the inimitable New Scientist advises us,

Scientists continue to respond to the latest attacks from creationists, and at the same time propose profound new ideas about evolution. This year has seen perceptions of the virus change from disease-causing villain to evolutionary hero, and the emergence of a new force of evolution – the absence of natural selection.

In other words, this year has seen the emergence of even more aggressive attempts to just plain make stuff up.

Put another way, everyone except the Darwinists has long since observed “the absence of natural selection.” It’s the presence of natural selection – as a source of new species – that we look for in vain.

A couple of years ago, after I had been following the controversy for several years, I found myself listening to a long lecture by a Darwinist, replete with bafflegab and pretty lame examples. Finally, sensing (correctly) that I was unconvinced, he proclaimed to me, “You just don’t understand how natural selection works, do you?”

And suddenly, the penny dropped. What he meant was that I just don’t believe in magic. I can’t make myself believe in magic; I haven’t been able to since I was a child. And I was no longer going to give the matter any attention. What I really wanted to know then and now is  – how magic became so important a principle in science? And I think I know of at least one reason.

Looking over New Scientist’s top ten evolution articles, I am struck by how paltry it all looks, how inadequate to the matter to be explained. I can’t believe that they are still fronting the peppered moth, for example, but they are, and under the windy title, “reclaiming the peppered moth for science.” (= In order to qualify as “science,” the moth must be reinstated as the notorious “peppered myth.”)

Who ever doubted that dark coloured moths might have a selective advantage over their light coloured kin in a polluted environment? The key problem, of course, was that, as Judith Hooper showed in Of Moths and Men, experimenter Kettlewell interfered with the moths’ normal behaviour during his research. So, while the legend blossomed in textbooks and popular science presentations, the very minor fact of a change in population frequencies between the two variants that Kettlewell was attempting to demonstrate may never actually have occurred. And if it did occur, it was soon reversed by widespread industrial cleanup. In other words, to the extent that natural selection does occur, it is apparently easily reversed.

The fact that so many people have put so much energy into defending the peppered myth merely shows how important the popular science myth of “evolution” is to their world view. Following the story, I learned far more about them than about moths.

So now, as to why the magic of Darwinism is so important to some people: Read More ›

Book Review: Slaughter of the Dissidents

I just got through reading Slaughter of the Dissidents, and I must say, it is fantastic. I was a little skeptical at first, simply because the title of the book was so extreme. After reading it, I still think that the title is extreme (there are real slaughters of people happening in different parts of the world), but I can see why it was chosen – the extent to which Darwin skeptics are being persecuted in academic environments is simply astonishing.
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A high school biology textbook in use in 1917 said this: …

Read it and try to guess which one: Promise you won’t cheat by Googling this quote. Or if you do, fine, but don’t post an answer that makes it sound like you had figured out the origin using brain power or historical knowledge or such. I’ll find you out eventually, because you won’t be anywhere near that smart later, when Google can’t help you: Improvement of Man. – If the stock of domesticated animals can be improved, it is not unfair to ask if the health and vigor of future generations of men and women on th earth might not be improved by applying to them the laws of selection. Eugenics. – When people marry there are certain things that Read More ›

A New Year’s Resolution: Keep Intelligent Design Intelligent

This is not the post I originally expected to make. But in light of the comments both here and on other blogs, I will start with a New Year’s resolution: Keep Intelligent Design Intelligent.     ‘Intelligent design’ is presumably something more than a long-winded way of saying ‘design’. The phrase implies that the design displays signs of intelligence, which in turn means that the nature of the intelligence can be inferred, however fallibly, from the nature of the design. For example, William Paley’s accounts of the design features of life draw conclusions about the divine modus operandi. (I invoke Paley not because I like his version of ID – I don’t — but because both sides of the debate Read More ›

A Resolution for Darwin Year

I have accepted an invitation to comment regularly on Uncommon Descent for the Darwin Anniversary 2009 (200 years for Darwin himself and 150 years for Origin of Species). My plan is to draw attention to some ideas, arguments, articles and books relating to the ongoing ID-evolution debate. I’ll also say something about when and where I will be speaking about these matters in the coming year.   In particular, my comments will focus on two general lines of thought that have also been featured in two books I have written relating to the debate over the past couple of years. Science vs. Religion? Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution and Dissent over Descent: Intelligent Design’s Challenge to Darwinism Darwinism Read More ›

The (non)Heuristic Value of Evolution

Theodosius Dobzhansky once famously said that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”   Except, of course, when biology doesn’t need to even consider evolution, which for practicle purposes is most of the time. 

Today, I had the privilege to have lunch with a research scientist who works in the area of bio-pharmaceuticals for a pharmaceutical company.  He told me about their research with proteins and genes that enable them to develop products that alleviate or cure a wide range of diseases at the cellular level.  Of great value to the research they do was the Human Genome Project because it made available the entire database to whoever needed it.  That information enabled them to move several projects forward.

He knew from our conversation that I had been involved in the Intelligent Design/Evolution debate, so I asked him

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