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Intelligent Design

Time Magazine: Science is Close to Demonstrating Morality is a Function of Brain Activity

From the December 3 issue of Time:  “Morality and empathy are writ deep in our genes.  Alas, so are savagery and bloodlust.  Science is now learning what makes us both noble and terrible.” “The deeper that science drills into the substrata of behavior, the harder it becomes to preserve the vanity that we are unique among earth’s creatures.” “Sociobiology has been criticized as one of the most reductive of sciences, ascribing the behavior of all living things — humans included — as nothing more than an effort to get as many genes as possible into the next generation.  The idea makes sense . . .” “The brain activity that most closely tracked the hypothetical crimes . . . occurred in the Read More ›

The Sri Aurobindo International Center in India

The Sri Aurobindo International Center of Education, in Pondicherry, India, has recently launched a new on-line journal Anti-Matters , which naturally has a strong Eastern flavor, but is solidly anti-materialist and anti-Darwinist; it provides further evidence that ID, at least the rejection of Darwinism, is not a uniquely American Christian phenomenon. The editor, Ulrich Mohrhoff is a German physicist with apparently a strong quantum mechanics background. This issue has an article discussing my A Second Look at the Second Law essay, which I believe the editor found from a link here at UD.

Taking Science on Faith

SCIENCE, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. The problem is that science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way, that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin. The very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships. Until science comes up with a Read More ›

Cyclic microevolution with cyclic weather

Posted by DLH at , PBS Nova Discussion on Judgment Day, The Design of Life, Nov. 13, 2007 It appears that the predictive essence of (micro) evolution is summarized in the principles we learned in kinder garden. Namely: The Grand Old Duke of York The grand old Duke of York, He had ten thousand men. He marched them up to the top of the hill And he marched them down again. And when they were up, they were up; And when they were down, they were down. But when they were only halfway up, They were neither up nor down! Now applying this to Darwin’s Finches: The Grand Old El Nino The grand old El Nino He drove ten thousand Read More ›

Baylor Lariat asks for vote on intelligent design

If you go to the campus rag today, at the top you’ll find the following poll on which you can vote:

What do you think?

How should Baylor approach intelligent design research?
Encourage it
Discourage it
Prohibit it
Support it

Update 8:38 am est Saturday November 17: 

How should Baylor approach intelligent design research?

 How should Baylor approach intelligent design research?
print
 Encourage it 
1001
 Discourage it 
236
 Support it 
70
 Prohibit it 
41
  
1
  
1
  
1

Original story follows:

At 11:16 am EST, these were the results:

Encourage it 42
Discourage it 22
Prohibit it 6
Support it 4

Total votes: 74

The article accompanies a rambling story – more about Dembski, Marks, and the Baylor admin than they probably know themselves.
Read More ›

Phillip Johnson on the recent PBS Nova program on the Dover Trial – partial transcript

A friend was kind enough to provide a transcript of a podcast of Phillip Johnson talking about the recent PBS Nova episode on the Dover Trial. The interviewer is Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute. Here are points I thought particularly salient: Johnson: … What’s going on here is a process of soothing. The scientific establishment has decided that the way to get a reluctant American public to put aside their doubts and believe what they’re being told in the mass media, and in the textbooks, and in the museums about evolution is absolutely true is to reassure them that it doesn’t threaten [their] religion. Then after they have been talked into accepting the theory, then the types like Richard Read More ›

PBS Airs False “Facts” in its “Inherit the Wind” Version of the Kitzmiller Trial

From Evolution News and Views: More than 50 years ago two playwrights penned a fictionalized account of the 1920s Scopes Trial called “Inherit the Wind” that is now universally regarded by historians as inaccurate propaganda. Last night PBS aired its “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design” documentary, which similarly promotes propaganda about the 2005 Kitzmiller trial and intelligent design (ID). Most of the misinformation in “Judgment Day” was corrected by ID proponents long ago. To help readers sift the fact from the fiction, here are links to articles rebutting some of PBS’s most blatant misrepresentations:

Tania Lombrozo and the Puzzle of Design Inferences

Go here for a striking illusion, i.e., to see what happens when these pictures are turned right side up. That’s Tania in the pictures, btw. OK, so I had titled this entry “Tania Lombrozo, I Love You,” but that was more than a tad over the top (and anyway my heart belongs to this woman forever). Nevertheless I cannot help but feel a surge of intellectual affection — philia — at learning that someone is trying to understand the puzzle of when and why humans infer intelligent design, or more generally, default to teleological modes of explanation, whether correctly or not. (It’s that last bit that should be very useful to design theorists; see below.) Tania Lombrozo is an assistant Read More ›

Jumping Genes the Key to Evolution?

Here’s a link to a PhysOrg.com article talking about ERV’s (“jumping genes” per Barbara McClintock) and the newly discoverd role they seem to have played in primate evolution. Here’s a quote from the link: “Now it appears that another level of evolution occurs that is not driven by point mutations. Instead, retroviruses insert DNA sequences and rearrange the genome, which leads to changes in gene regulation and expression.” Excuse me if I’m wrong, but this, it seems to me, is the kind of thing that would be helpful to discuss here at UD.

On Moral Progress In A Materialist World

A commenter in my last post gave a very nice summary of the current state of thinking about moral progress among matrialists.  Obviously, by definition, materialists cannot point to a transcendent moral code by which to measure moral progress.  Indeed, it is difficult for them to account for moral progress at all because if materialism is correct, the “is” in a society defines the “ought.”  The commenter took a stab at it nevertheless and came up with this:  In terms of progress: I would say that progress is measured by the increase or decrease of the sphere of human recognition. We today recognize the humanity of African-Americans — a recognition that was denied to their ancestors. It is the contrast between Read More ›

Veritatis Splendor or Veritatis Peccator?

Recently I posted “Darwin at Columbine,” in which I pointed out that Eric Harris, a great fan of Charles Darwin, believed he had evolved to a higher plane of existence and that his killing of his “inferior” classmates was the work of natural selection.  I hoped to spark a debate about whether Harris’ understanding of Darwinism is an aberration with no relation to the theory, or a logical (if perhaps misguided) extension of the theory.   The debate that ensued discussed this topic at a high level and I wish to congratulate the commenters on both sides for their insights into the issue and the general civility of the discussion. I wish to respond, however, to one commenter who suggested that by pointing out the connection between Read More ›

Reading Level Comparison

Thanks to one of our commenters for pointing out this website that calculates the reading level of blogs.  Just for fun I inserted UD and it came back “High School,” which means that the general discussion at this blog is at a high school level.  I then inserted Pandas Thumb and it came back “Elementary School.” Make of this what you will.