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Design inference

Scan a pumpkin, see a beautiful world of design

In case you missed it, Hallowe'en started out as the Eve of All Saints Day (November 1). The kids running down the street dressed as ghouls, the piles of tooth-rotting candy and the toilet paper in the trees... that all came later. Thank you for listening. Read More ›

Preprint paper by Nobel Prize winner on mind-like processes underlying the order in nature

Josephson: David Bohm suggested that some kind of implicate order underlies the manifest order observed in physical systems, while others have suggested that some kind of mind-like process underlies this order. In the following a more explicit picture is proposed, based on the existence of parallels between spontaneously fluctuating equilibrium states and life processes. Read More ›

New vid from the John 10:10 Project: God is in the details

From the blurb: "In this fascinating video, superb microscopic photography reveals some of the hidden wonders that enable butterflies to thrive on earth, while filling our eyes with unforgettable evidence of intelligent design in the living world." Read More ›

Design inference: AI, ID, and detecting deceit

The next iterations of science fraud will employ machine learning trained on enough of the internet to avoid obvious goofs. We will need better, more sophisticated methods. Read More ›

New Video Presentation on YouTube: Intelligent Design & Scientific Conservatism

I have recently posted a new video on my Intelligent Design YouTube channel. In this video I discuss several areas in the philosophy of science and modern evolutionary biology, and their relationship to ID. These thoughts were prompted initially by an interesting paper by philosopher of science Jeffrey Koperski ‘Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design, and Two Good Ones’. Koperski thinks that one good way to critique ID is to point out that it violates principles like ‘scientific conservatism’. Because there are several potential naturalistic mechanisms on the table, even if orthodox neo-Darwinism fails, ID is an unnecessary proposal. To turn to design explanations would be to adjust our theories too drastically. I argue against this claim, concluding that Read More ›

Rob Sheldon on the secret to design detection

Sheldon: Why should I be able to understand the universe? What characteristics do the designer and I share? Love of math? Love of order? Love of intricacy? When I feel like the designer is someone I could meet at an icebreaker and have a great conversation with, that's when I know I'm on the right track. Read More ›

Building a Yacht — design in action

Here, we see a sped up time-lapsed snapshot succession view of the design and construction of a fibreglass vs a wooden yacht: Here is another: Now, let’s scale down to a canoe: We thus see illustrated how . . . design is intelligently directed configuration which makes advantageous, and ideally skilled and artistic, use of forces and materials in nature, economically, to achieve desired ends. Now, let us follow Paley in his second step, in Ch 2 of his argument. Suppose, that, in the course of its voyaging we were to notice that a particular yacht — having in it various stored plans, algorithms, assembler position- arm- effector devices, jigs, frames and devices etc, were to somehow construct another yacht Read More ›

Why a mechanic infers design. Karsten Pultz explains

Pultz: Empirical evidence (from the world of engineering) supports the assumption that complex functional systems like motors do not arise via random changes to already existing systems. Empirical evidence, even from biology itself, also supports the common knowledge that random changes to functional systems disturb, disrupt, or destroy function. Read More ›

Ten (or so) Pro-Intelligent Design Books You Should Read

On the Design Disquisitions YouTube channel, I’ve posted a new video where I recommend several books of interest, specifically pro-ID literature. Most of the suggestions may be familiar to you, but hopefully there are a few that you’ve not read before. I also give a brief summary of the content of each book. I don’t claim that the books mentioned are necessarily the best, but I think anyone who wants to join the discussion needs to be familiar with some of these. Let me know what you would add to the list! Ten (or so) Pro-Intelligent Design Books You Should Read

At Mind Matters News: Abduction: A thinking skill you can do but computers can’t

Fahsing point outs that criminal investigations are generally abductive rather than deductive. “Try to eliminate as many explanations or lines of inquiry as you can. Just like in science, theories can be truly tested only through falsification.” Read More ›

Eric Holloway: Is GMO detection an application of ID theorist William Dembski’s explanatory filter?

Holloway: Have you ever heard people say that intelligent design (ID) theory has never been applied to biology? They are wrong! In fact, it is applied frequently in the very important field of detecting genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Read More ›