Intelligent Design

Since Bill posted a little bit about Maciej Giertych in Evolution — No longer inspiring the confidence it once did, I thought I’d take the opportunity to highlight Maciej’s own saga. He details it in his review of Creation Rediscovered, by Gerard J. Keane

Sometime in 1955, when I was taking Honor Moderations in Science (Botany, Chemistry and Geology) at Oxford University, the O. U. Biology Club announced a lecture against the theory of Evolution. The largest auditorium in the Biology Labs was filled to capacity. When the speaker was introduced (I regret I do not remember his name), it turned out he was an octogenarian with a Ph.D. in biology from Cambridge, obtained in the 19th century.

He spoke fervently against the theory of Evolution, defending what was for us an obviously indefensible position. He did not convince anybody with his antique arguments; he did not understand the questions that were fired at him; he rejected science as we knew it. We all had a good laugh hearing this dinosaur. He fought for his convictions against a sophisticated scientific environment, deaf to any opinions inspired by religious beliefs. Today his views are being vindicated by new evidence from natural sciences. May his soul rest in peace.

In 1955, like all in my generation, I was fully convinced that Evolution was an established biological fact. The evidence was primarily paleontological. We were taught how to identify geological strata with the help of fossils, specific for a given epoch. The rocks were dated by the fossils, the fossils by the strata. A lecturer in stratigraphy, when asked during a field trip how the strata were dated, explained that we know the rate of current sedimentation, the depths of strata and thus the age of rocks. In any case, there are new isotopic techniques that confirm all this. This sounded very scientific and convincing.
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I just received this press release. I want to encourage conversation here about its accuracy and significance. PRESS RELEASE Wednesday, October 11th was an historic day in the life of the European Parliament. Polish member of the European Parliament, Maciej Giertych, retired head of the Genetics Department of the Polish Academy of Science, and father of Polish Deputy Prime Minister, Roman Giertych, introduced a public seminar on the General Theory of Evolution to fellow MEP’s. Professor Giertych questioned the value of teaching a continually falsified hypothesis – macroevolution – to students throughout Europe, as well as pointing out its lack of usefulness in regard to scientific endeavour. Professor Giertych introduced the subject by relating how his children had returned home Read More ›

Read the following and ask yourself which side in the ID vs. Darwinism debate exhibits the groupthink syndrome: The groupthink syndrome: Review of the major symptoms Source: http://www.swans.com/library/art9/xxx099.html In order to test generalization about the conditions that increase the chances of groupthink, we must operationalize the concept of groupthink by describing the symptoms to which it refers. Eight main symptoms run through the case studies of historic fiascoes. Each symptom can be identified by a variety of indicators, derived from historical records, observer’s accounts of conversations, and participants’ memoirs. The eight symptoms of groupthink are: 1. an illusion of invulnerability, shared by most or all the members, which creates excessive optimism and encourages taking extreme risks; 2. collective efforts to Read More ›

Mike S. Adams, a prof who boldly attacks the stifling sanctimony that overwhelms our culture, writes, In the famous 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial, Clarence Darrow stated: “For God’s sake, let the children have their minds kept open – close no doors to their knowledge; shut no door from them. Make a distinction between theology and science. Let them have both. Let them be taught. Let them both live.” Have you ever met a 21st Century liberal who believes that both evolution and creation should be taught in schools? Or do they say “Let them have only one”? Of course they say today, let them have only one – only ours. Many contemporaries who think of themselves as liberals are not Read More ›

On October 12, Jonathan Wells spoke opposite Skeptic magazine editor Michael Shermer at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC. Shermer was promoting his new book, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, and Wells was promoting his book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.

Shermer appears to be a favorite of the Cato Institute. In his book he writes (on p. 138): “Evolution [by which he means a blind materialistic form of it] provides a scientific foundation for the core values shared by most Christians and conservatives, and by accepting — and embracing — the theory of evolution, Christians and conservatives strengthen their religion, their politics, and science itself.”

At this event, Shermer spoke first, then Wells followed. Wells’s prepared remarks are given below. Shermer and Wells then answered questions from the audience. The event was filmed by C-Span Book Channel, and is scheduled to air on TV next weekend, October 21-22. Read More ›

December 2, 2005, the day after Eugenie Scott gave a talk Why Scientists Reject ID at GMU under the Provost’s sponsorship, I was providently invited to have tea with the Provost and had the opportunity to give him the pro-ID side of the story before a public gathering of Asian students. I presented a copy of Privileged Planet to him.
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Check out Another Great Intelligent Design Debate On TV this weekend.

(thank you to Denyse O’Leary for finding this and reporting it at ARN)

If one combines Discovery Institute’s list of dissenters from Darwin along with other lists (such as that maintained by ICR), one can create a list about 20 times as large as the Dicovery Institute’s list. Bergman estimates he could easily get 10,000 names. He has in the interim published 3,000 names.

There are many PhD’s whom I wish were on the DI’s list but are only on the ICR list. For example:

Kelly Hollowell, JD, PhD in Molecular Biology
Georgia Purdom, PhD in Molecular Biology

Then there are some indpendents like my favorite scientist, Walter Brown, PhD MIT, who is on no one’s list! He’s the greatest YEC on Earth, and he’s on no one’s list (sniff). These examples underscore the fact there is still a bit of a rift between the Creationist communities and the ID communities, and even competing creationist communities (like Brown’s CFCS and John Morris’ ICR).
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Check out this great looking website (if only the content matched in quality): http://richarddawkins.net. Anybody who is willing and able to upgrade the look, feel, and functionality of this site (Uncommon Descent) to match that of the Dawkins site will receive three of my books autographed. What a deal. Think it over.

Here is a wonderful internet radio show with a special segment called “outcasts”. Michael Shermer and several Discovery Institute fellows and myself (for the IDEA Center) were interviewed. Michael Shermer and I were given opportunities to offer our opposing viewpoints on ID. Here are links: Salvador Cordova on ID (IDEA Center) vs. Michael Shermer on ID (Skeptic Society) Of note, Discovery Institute Fellows and ID proponents also appeared on other shows: William Lane Craig (Discovery Institute) Wesley J. Smith on Bioethics (Discovery Institute) Alvin Platinga (possibly Michael Behe in the future!) Be sure to visit: http://www.thesciphishow.com/

Re the dustup about Celeste Biever pretending to be Maria from Cornell while investigating IDEA clubs:

Now, I hope I am not opening a big can of worms here but I naturally approach it from the perspective of a journalist of nearly 35 years pounding beats….

I don’t think it wrong in principle for a reporter to go undercover.

A lot depends on two things: whether the public interest is at stake and whether key information could be obtained otherwise.

(I am assuming, of course, that no laws are broken, no one is thoughtlessly harmed, and no private business that should remain private is heedlessly exposed.)

At the Discovery Institute’s blog, John West quotes from the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists:

Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public.

which helpfully highlights the issue. Incidentally, the original adds “Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story” – another important consideration. Readers have a right to know how the information was obtained.

Undercover media investigations have often served the public interest by exposing rackets, corruptions, shoddy practices, and deceptions, in situations where it was really true that the information could not be obtained in any other way.

So here is where the issue gets tricky, in my view: Celeste Biever’s editors may very well honestly believe that Read More ›

Access Research Network (ARN) reports: The Case for a Creator DVD Available

It was in a high school science classroom that Lee Strobel became an atheist. A lecture on the Miller-Urey experiment convinced him that the origin of life, and all life for that matter, could be explained by purely naturalistic processes. Only the hard, empirical evidence of science could be trusted—and it appeared to point to a universe created by purely naturalist processes: time, chance, and Darwinian evolution.

Although science led Strobel away from a belief in a Creator, it was science that led him back. The atheistic worldview deeply influenced Strobel’s academic years and early career as an award-winning journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Then, in 1980, his wife’s conversion to Christianity led him on an intensive search for the truth about God and our beginnings. Not surprisingly, it began with science.

The Case for a Creator is the third in a series of top quality, block-buster documentaries on Intelligent Design by Illustra Media that started with Unlocking the Mystery of Life and The Privileged Planet. Based on Strobel’s popular book by the same title, the documentary leads you through one man’s journey to grapple with the scientific evidence regarding one of life’s greatest questions: How did we get here? Along the way he interviews many of the leading scientists and scholars for the intelligent design theory including Stephen C. Meyer, Michael Behe, Jay Richards, Jonathan Wells, Robin Collins, William Lane Craig, Guillermo Gonzalez, and Scott Minnich. The major topic areas of the documentary cover the fossil evidence, cosmology, astronomy, physics, biological machines and biological information. The bonus material includes additional interviews with the scientists, and special units on the origin of life and the machinery of life.

As with previous Illustra Media documentaries, this one is chock full of stunning graphics, amazing animations, and a theater-worthy soundtrack. The focus of this documentary is the scientific and philosophical evidence for design and a theistic worldview, and is suitable for use in public schools, especially when shown to balance the atheistic Darwinian worldview found in many educational scientific documentaries on the topic.

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Reporter Celeste Biever of New Scientist was caught apparently telling lies in an attempt to infiltrate the Cornell IDEA club according to club president Hannah Maxson. In the IDEA club’s letter of protest to Biever’s employer, Maxson wrote:

it appears that your reporter acted unethically and lied to us about her identity and falsely claimed she was a Cornell student in an unnecessary ruse to obtain information from us

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In his 2003 paper, “How far are we from a quantum theory of gravity?” especially p. 49. Lee Smolin invokes the no free lunch theorem to argue that in searching for the minimum of a complicated but unknown potential there is no chance of doing better than a random search unless the search algorithm has built into it some very definite information about the function itself. The paper is widely available online (e.g., http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0303/0303185.pdf). There’s not much difference here between Smolin’s argument against string theory and ID arguments against natural selection. I have yet to read the new books by Woit and Smolin, but I’m told it is astonishing how closely the controversies over string theory reflect the controversies of Read More ›

A news brief in Scientific American (subscriber only, no link) alerted me to the following article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060601091313.htm Summarized: Core sediments retrieved by three icebreakers recently analyzed reveal the following: -North Pole’s temperature 55 million years ago: 23C/73F (today it is -20C/-4F) -Concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 55mya was 2000 ppm (today it is 380 ppm) -Global average temperature 55mya under above conditions was 5C/9F degrees C higher than today (in Sciam News Brief only, Science Daily says tropics remained liveable). Obviously, the earth recovered, if it was even “harmed”. I post this because so-called global warming is blamed on human activities by the worst kind of consensus pseudoscience (Darwinian evolution is consensus pseudoscience as well) and is projected Read More ›