Eyes Rolling

Former Templeton Fellow John Fellow asserts: Why Teleology Isn’t Dead

Conway Morris argues that in the grand scheme, evolution will not be reduced to chance: constraints built into life at the most fundamental level guarantee that life is going to follow the same evolutionary pathways to achieve limbs, respiration, vision, balance, an immune system, indeed all the remarkable features we associate with living things across the great spectrum of life.

Morris begs the question by assuming a stochastic origin of these “constraints built into life”. Read More ›

I am thinking it is time we began a collection of Darwinist fever swamp fallacies found in the wild. (Make sure to get your Malaria shot before going there . . . ) After the now standard “your’e a quote miner” false accusation and the “it’s a Gish galloper” smear of a man not present to defend himself and associated false accusation of wholesale lying, we have been seeing a few choice ones recently. Let’s begin a collection: The Darwinist 1984-style Orwellian doubletalk definition slip-slide trojan horse. I think that about captures it: it’s not what it seems like, and it’s what’s inside the wrapper that counts. often used with false accusations like you’re quote mining or you’re on a Read More ›

Darwinism has been the most prolific progenitor of junk pseudoscience in the history of junk pseudoscience. One might even call Darwinism the universal common ancestor of junk pseudoscience in the last century and a half. (“Junk pseudoscience” is not redundant. Pseudoscience is worthless. Junk pseudoscience is less than worthless, that is, destructive.) Once unsupported Darwinian speculation and storytelling became acceptable within the academy, and was legitimized as “science,” all bets were off. One might write a paper with the title, A Scientific Study In Evolutionary Musicology: How Darwinian Evolution Explains the Origin of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor. This might make for a great Ph.D. thesis for a young musician with a double major in music and evolutionary Read More ›

In this article in the Daily Telegraph (UK), we see some typical philosophical and cultural applications of Darwinism: People are unfaithful to their marriages Therefore, it is natural Therefore, it is right i.e. What is, is what is right. Since we are no more than nature, all that we do is thus natural – and who can object to that? Take away the Darwinian assumptions, and what is the basis of this article? There are none. But does the author ever examine those assumptions? Nope.

No. Good illustration of the “magic” of low rez? Yes.

Here’s a hilarious YouTube that won’t be up very long …. great uniforms too, more’s the pity. See also: Grayling refuses too. YouTube next? Dawkins called coward by fellow atheist, also vid

Lest there be any lingering doubt about how far Darwinians might go in the enforcement of the dogma, it now appears that even beauty pageant contestants are not immune to consequences for failing to toe the Darwinian line. Contestants in this year’s Miss USA pageant are being asked questions about whether evolution should be taught in public schools. Fox News reports:

In on-camera interviews set to be posted on the official Miss USA website, 2011 pageant hopefuls are being asked if they believe evolution should be taught in schools, and if they would ever pose for nude photographs.

[This post will remain at the top of the page until 5:00 pm EST today, June 10. For reader convenience, other coverage continues below. – UD News]

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… invest the money in something really safe, and then get out. Lines from the real world of lots of skill and lots of chance: The vast sums of money shuttled among the accounts of these young professionals — and the shocking aggressiveness and recklessness with which they played — deepened the divide between the young online players and the older guard who earned their millions when poker was still a game played by men sitting around a table. Since the rise of online poker in the early 2000s, every principle of the game, every lesson learned over hundreds of thousands of hours of play, every simple credo uttered in some old Western gambling movie — all those tersely stated, Read More ›

Part of Al Gore’s credibility problem is his blatant conflict of interest, having profitted enormously from pushing AGW. Fortunately, ID proponents can’t say that we’ve lined our coffers pursuing ID. Sure, Barbara Forrest, Eugenie Scott, and Ken Miller constantly proclaim the contrary — from their well-heeled positions, funded largely by public moneys. In any case, this just in regarding our former vice president: A Blizzard Of Lies From Al Gore Posted 03/01/2010 06:41 PM ET Climate Fraud: Al Gore resurfaces in an op-ed to say that nobody’s perfect, everybody makes mistakes and climate change is still real. And he has some oceanfront property in the Himalayas to sell you. If hyperbole and chutzpah had a child, it would be the opening Read More ›

OSLO (AP) — President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his nascent initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and replace unilateral American action with international diplomacy and cooperation. Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise. The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama’s calls for Read More ›

Is this politically correct? Hmmm…

NATURE|Vol 461|17 September 2009 Despite the long odds against success, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has come a long way. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), a research discipline that celebrates the 50th anniversary of its inaugural publication this week (see page 345), has always sat at the edge of mainstream astronomy. This is partly because, no matter how scientifically rigorous its practitioners try to be, SETI can’t escape an association with UFO believers and other such crackpots. But it is also because SETI is arguably not a falsifiable experiment. Read more…

Janna Levin, Columbia astrophysicist, gives us the cutting-edge science on the origin of the universe: there was nothing, really nothing, nothing at all … but the potential to exist. Was it Aristotle who said that nothing admits no predicates? So where did nothing get the potential to exist and then bring the universe into existence? Not to worry. Janna does give us this assurance: “We know that something happened.” Yes, this is science at its best. Let’s not bring God or design into this discussion — we wouldn’t want to be accused of “acting stupidly.” Oh, one more thing, she’s an assistant professor (go here). Want to bet that she doesn’t have problems getting tenure? Compare this to Guillermo Gonzalez Read More ›