Intelligent Design

This time on ID the Future, Casey Luskin — changing things up a little — sits down to talk with videogame artist Dennis DeMercer about his recent work on the Nintendo DS version of the forthcoming game Spore. Working with Amaze Entertainment, DeMercer was responsible for animating 3-D creatures ranging from single-celled organisms to advanced intergalactic civilizations in a game that centers around players evolving creatures from one species into another in order to climb the evolutionary ladder.

But is this highly anticipated game as much an example of the cultural pervasiveness of Darwinian evolution as it seems? Ironically, no. Luskin and DeMercer discuss their discovery that, despite the obviously evolutionary theme, Spore’s game-play actually hinges on intelligent design theory, because success depends entirely on the ability of the player — i.e. intelligent agent — to fashion a creature ready to take on the growing challenges of its environment.

Win the popular culture and you’ve won everything. See, they can’t really Expell DeMercer.

Also, just up at The Mindful Hack

Neural Buddhists, Christians, and the Mud that failed Read More ›

Bill Dembski wanted to know, re the multiverse (many worlds) theory: here:

Do many worlds present a business opportunity? Would it be possible, for a modest fee, for people to have worlds named after them? Are worlds, like genes, patentable?

A physicist friend figures that it’s better – or worse – than that. It might work for business but it would whack science cold because

Discovering the laws of our universe matters no more than noting the random tosses of dice. It certainly does not bring us closer to the heart of things. Think of any logically possible theory, and it probably holds true somewhere. Technology still makes sense in a multiverse, of course, but science as a pursuit of truth certainly loses some of its shine.

By the way, hat tip to Paul Glenn, commenter of the week, for noting in a comment to this post that there is no controversy over Darwinian evolution in North America in the same sense as there are no homosexuals in Iran.

Just up at Colliding Universes Read More ›

Every single intelligent design opponent I have encountered eventually starts mumbling about the sinister “Big Tent” of ID.

Big Tent = what you rent when you are entertaining 1800 of your closest friends in a shattering rainstorm

The argument goes something like this: If the ID guys were sincere in thinking that the universe and life forms show evidence of intelligent design, they would trim their numbers by driving out all those who think that:

– NASA’s dating methods are wrong

– The Bible is a source of useful information

– ID may not necessarily be correct (though Darwinists are obviously the downscale detritus of a bygone materialist age)

– global warming is caused mainly by the heat generated by hysteria over the issue

“Get rid of them all, and then – and only then – we will take you seriously … ” promises the establishment pay wallah.

Yeah really.

The problem is, of course, that once you know that Darwinism isn’t true, you don’t immediately know what is true. You just know where not to look for answers.

(And whether Americans are better off with the risks of al Gore or of al Quaeda is, in my opinion, moot.)

But one thing the ID guys sure won’t need if they take the pay wallah’s advice is … a big tent.

Also: Yes, another new blog. I have further enraged a number of people (who don’t have enough to do) by starting a new blog: Welcome to Colliding Universes. Read More ›

Any effort to give precise gradations of quantification to CSI is doomed to failure.  It reminds me of certain economists’ effort to quantify “utility” through a measurement called a “util.”  See here.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the concepts are very much the same.  We can all agree that the concept of “utility maximization” is very important and represents a real phenomenon.  But while we can say of utility there is a lot, there is a little, or there is none at all, there is no way to measure it precisely.  The “util” is useful as a hypothetical measure of relative utility, but it has no value as an “actual” unit of measurement, such as inches, pounds, meters, or grams.

Read More ›

The Ian Ramsey Centre, Oxford A couple of weeks ago, I reported on the program for the upcoming Ian Ramsey Centre conference, “God, Nature, and Design” to be held July 10-13, 2008 at St. Anne’s College, Oxford University. An updated list of contributed papers has been posted. The list is noteworthy both for the range of topics considered, and the variety of home institutions of the authors. Should be a lively meeting.

Suppose you come across this tree: You know nothing else about the tree other than what you can infer from a visual inspection. Multiple Choice: A.  The tree probably obtained this shape through chance. B.  The tree probably obtained this shape through mechanical necessity. C.  The tree probably obtained this shape through a combination of chance and mechanical necessity. D.  The tree probably obtained this shape as the result of the purposeful efforts of an intelligent agent. E.  Other. Select your answer and give supporting reasons.

First straw flies past: The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is playing the “religion” card, of course:

… the statement noted, more than 11,000 Christian leaders in the United States have signed a letter affirming that evolution does not conflict with religious faith. The United Church of Christ recently sent out a pastoral letter expressing a similar position. Evolution “is based on a diverse and robust body of physical evidence, from fossilized bones to radiometric measurements of the ages of the Earth’s rocks,” the statement says. But the movie, by conveying misinformation about science and researchers, seeks to force religious viewpoints into science class …

AAAS’s PR people think that today’s serious Christians are stupid. That we haven’t seen the film, don’t know that the key issue it raises is intellectual integrity, and don’t even know that their tame clergy are, for the most part, the phantoms of a discredited liberalism – haunting churches awaiting rapture into condos.

Second straw: If AAAS is the large event, here’s a small one: A reader wrote me last night wanting to know what I thought of the fact that Expelled had flopped at the box office.

Much surprised, I wrote back, pointing out, Read More ›

The NCSE is up to its usual spin of the issues at their ExpelledExposed website. One of their targets is Caroline Crocker. Crocker and others respond in this video: ID Rockumentary

In this essay Richard Dawkins proposes the following:

In fact, natural selection is the very opposite of a chance process, and it is the only ultimate explanation we know for complex, improbable things… We need a better explanation [than design by space aliens], such as evolution by natural selection or an equally workable account of the painstaking R&D that must underlie complex, statistically improbable things.

An equally workable account? An “ultimate explanation”? R&D? R&D is research and development. R&D is design. The logic and terminology of design is inescapable, even by those who deny that design exists.

Richard Dawkins is certainly not a stupid person, but I find it amazing that he cannot see the obvious problem here. Natural selection is not random, but it does not create anything; it only throws stuff out.

The F-35 fighter aircraft (for which our company is designing a new pilot ejection parachute), did not come about by throwing out the Wright Flyer biplane, and then throwing out the Piper Cub, and then throwing out the F-16. The impotence of natural selection as a creative force is transparently and logically evident.
Read More ›

In “The Neural Buddhists” (New York Times, May 13, 2008), David Brooks (yes, he of the BoBos, the bohemian bourgeois*) references Tom Wolfe’s dramatic 1996 article “Sorry, but your soul just died,”

.. in which he captured the militant materialism of some modern scientists.To these self-confident researchers, the idea that the spirit might exist apart from the body is just ridiculous. Instead, everything arises from atoms. Genes shape temperament. Brain chemicals shape behavior. Assemblies of neurons create consciousness. Free will is an illusion. Human beings are “hard-wired” to do this or that. Religion is an accident.

In this materialist view, people perceive God’s existence because their brains have evolved to confabulate belief systems.

Uh huh.

Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard and I took it all to pieces in The Spiritual Brain. There was no basis whatever from the new neuroscience for that view – on the contrary, the new neuroscience was killing it!

Brooks, author of BoBos in Paradise, acknowledges, Read More ›

Flagella-like Propulsion for Microrobots Using a Nanocoil and a Rotating Electromagnetic Field Bell, D.J.   Leutenegger, S.   Hammar, K.M.   Dong, L.X.   Nelson, B.J.   Inst. of Robotics & Intelligent Syst., ETH Zurich Abstract A propulsion system similar in size and motion to the helical bacterial flagella motor is presented. The system consists of a magnetic nanocoil as a propeller (27 nm thick ribbon, 3 mun in diameter, 30-40 mum long) driven by an arrangement of macro coils. The macro coils generate a rotating field that induces rotational motion in the nanocoil. Viscous forces during rotation result in a net axial propulsion force on the nanocoil. Modeling of fluid mechanics and magnetics was used to estimate the requirements for such a system. The Read More ›

What difference would a real live ET make to your faith (whatever it is?) Ted Peters, a researcher in the field of science and religion and author of SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND ETHICS (Ashgate 2003), is conducting a survey. The central question is this: Would contact with extraterrestrial intelligent life affect religion on earth? Would you be wiling to participate? The questionnaire is very brief and would take only 5 minutes to fill out. Although we will tabulate the data anonymously and will take every step to maintain confidentiality, please note we cannot guarantee full confidentiality when receiving email responses. Thank you. Ted Peters, Principle Investigator, is professor of systematic theology at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, the Graduate Union, and the Read More ›

Recently, Mark Bergin of World Magazine tried a novel approach to the Baylor tenure controversy:

Employing Google’s scholar-specific search engine, which limits results to academic journals, WORLD performed controlled searches for the names of each of this year’s 30 tenure candidates. In general, those faculty members receiving tenure have published with greater frequency since arriving at Baylor in 2002. And specific comparisons between individuals in particular fields reveal similar disparities.

However, Bergin is reluctant to simply leave the matter there – advisedly in my view.

A focus on publications alone tells against long term research that might turn up more substantial findings. Colleagues and department heads might be more aware of valuable longer projects.

And, as Frank Tipler has pointed out, many papers are cited by nobody at all, which implies that the authors published so as not to perish. Publications that nobody cites should not be equivalent to publications cited by several other research studies.

Considerations like these could be part of the reason why the faculty senate is unhappy that President Lilley overruled so many of their decisions.

Now, whether Lilley’s program for improving the university is a bad idea or whether he just hasn’t convinced enough people that it is a good idea, I don’t know. But an army without soldiers isn’t going anywhere. And that is what he has, now that the faculty senate has voted against him.

Reporter Bergin is not convinced that there is an anti-Christian purge afoot, as Bill has thought. Read More ›

Richard Pearcey traces how a Darwinian worldview leads to “delegated fascism”. These are critical issues in debating the societal CONSEQUENCES of Evolution vs Intelligent Design, (as distinct from the scientific origin theories themselves.) ———————————

Abortofascism and Free-Market Homicide

By Rick Pearcey, Pro-Existance, May 12, 2008
In a column titled “Atheism and Child Murder,” Dinesh D’Souza comments on his recent debate with Princeton ethicist and atheist Peter Singer:

Some of Singer’s critics call him a Nazi and compare his proposals to Hitler’s schemes for eliminating the unwanted, the unfit and the disabled. But as I note in the debate, Singer is no Hitler. He doesn’t want state-sponsored killings. Rather, he wants the decision to kill to be made by you and me. Instead of government-conducted genocide, Singer favors free-market homicide. Read More ›

From Darwin and design: historical essay: “The only distinct meaning of the word ‘natural’ is stated , fixed or settled ; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e. to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once.”  second edition of Origin of species (1860) Read More…