Intelligent Design

Yes, this is the same Chris Mooney who attacks ID and has written THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE: Chris Mooney ’99 recently spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Campus Freethought Alliance (CFA). Mooney, who is copresident and a founding member of the Yale College Society for Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics, addressed the issue of discrimination against those who don’t believe in God. Mooney interned with the CFA over the summer, where he helped draft the organization’s “Bill of Rights for Unbelievers.” Source: http://www.yale.edu/opa/ybc/campusnotes.html.

Are we talking religious fundamentalists or Darwinian fundamentalists? The Fundamentalist Attack on Science: A Problem That Won’t Just Disappear Morris, Stephen (2006) The Fundamentalist Attack on Science: A Problem That Won’t Just Disappear. In [PSA 2006] Philosophy of Science Assoc. 20th Biennial Mtg (Vancouver): PSA 2006 Contributed Papers. Full text available as: http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002954/01/IDPSA.doc.

The operations of a higher level cannot be accounted for by the laws governing its particulars forming the lower level. You cannot derive a vocabulary from phonetics; you cannot derive the grammar of a language from its vocabulary; a correct use of grammar does not account for good style; and a good style does not provide the content of a piece of prose. . . . it is impossible to represent the organizing principles of a higher level by the laws governing its isolated particulars. — Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, Read More ›

Thanks to Prof. Davison and Joseph for stirring the embers left from the conflagration generated a year ago with the publication of my two essays in The Scientist, and for calling my attention to the renewed discussion.   I invite the new participants to do what, thus far, none of the earlier critics have yet done, to set forth a published paper containing experimental results, in which there is a clear heuristic connection to Darwinian Principles that served to guide that experimental work to its goal.   Conclusions from my earlier writing:   Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology. This becomes especially clear when we compare it with a Read More ›

We at Uncommon Descent have in the past talked about NAS scientist Philip Skell’s observation that evolutionary biology contributes little if anything to experimental biology. Just recently Professor Skell placed a phone call to Professor John A. Davison and they had a long conversation the details of which were not disclosed to me. John invited Philip to participate here at Uncommon Descent and I’d like to take this opportunity to say that all of us here would like to echo John’s invitation. Professor Skell, if you’re reading this, we’d love to hear from you.

To read Professor Skell’s article and response in The Scientist read on… Read More ›

Isn’t it interesting what they’re finding out these days? This is just in from PhysOrg.com.

Many researchers who create these models shun the computer metaphor,” O’Reilly said. “My work comes out of a tradition that says people’s brains are nothing like computers, and now all of a sudden as we look at them, in fact, in a certain respect they are like computers.”

Digital computers operate by turning electrical signals into binary “on and off states” and flexibly manipulating these states by using switches. O’Reilly found the same operating principles in the brain.

Read More ›

An evolutionary biologist in the audience at the University of Toronto ID meet last Saturday wrote a most interesting post to the Post-Darwinist, saying, among other  things, I was the person who objected to your use of the term “Darwinist.” The word is loaded with all kinds of implications. To those of us who work on evolution it means a person who believes in natural selection as the most important thing in evolutionary biology. This would include people like Richard Dawkins and others who are often referred to as Ultra-Darwinians. Many of us are not Darwinists in that sense and we would never refer to ourselves as “Darwinists” unless we were specificially referring to our acceptance of Darwin’s theory of natural Read More ›

Scientist says: Science is the discovery of how things in the natural world work. Engineering is the practical application of scientific discovery. Engineer says: Engineering is the practical application of scientific discovery. Scientific discovery is simply reverse engineering. So you see, it’s really all engineering. You either take something that already exists and reverse engineer it (that’s science) or you take the knowledge gained from reverse engineering and create something that doesn’t already exist with it.

The article on voles reminds me of an ongoing and more general mystery. How are instincts encoded in DNA? It’s a given that a bird egg contains all sorts of instructions about how to go about building nests, flying, preening, perching, predator avoidance, song, what to eat and how to find it, what not to eat, and etcetera. I’ve raised many birds from eggs and very young hatchlings and without exception they all appear to be conceived with a built-in operating and maintenance manual for their bodies that distinguishes them from other bird species and are identical with others of their own species. They do this with no exposure whatsoever to other members of their species and indeed without exposure Read More ›

Commenter DK asks:

What is the official ID position on junk DNA? Has anyone proposed that it might be a mechanism to cause wholesale change in other parts of the DNA?

I thought this subject might be good for its own discusson thread so here it is. I don’t believe ID has any more “official” position on it than NDE does. It is largely regions of DNA with no known function and that isn’t to say it has no function at all. IDists tend to say there is a lot of function waiting to be discovered in it under the rubric that design is less wasteful than chance processes. The NDE position tends more toward much of it being detritus of an evolution driven by chance processes. Read More ›

I do not usually bother with anonymous posts at the Post-Darwinist, but some strike me as interesting. Take this one on ID-friendly law prof Frank Beckwith’s tenure case: Beckwith is not a law professor. He does not have the requisite education to be a law professor. He has no juris doctorate. Therefore, he can only teach at the undergraduate level. And even then, he can only teach the “philosophy of law.” Not law itself. Now, at the time, I wondered why the hoo-haw a person so knowledgeable about the state of law teaching should wish to send me an anonymous post. But people who detract from the reputation of others – particularly those others who may be their superiors in Read More ›

I’d left the conference early on Friday night. The house was packed out and the U organizer worried about the Fire Marshal’s opinion of people sitting on the stair grades, so I ceded my seat.

(So much for “ID is dead …” Not in Toronto, anyway.)

Thus I missed the presentation by emeritus chemist Dr. David Humphreys, in support of the view that the molecules of life give evidence of purposeful design. I bet they do. I also missed the presentation by astronomer Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe.

When I got back early Saturday morning, there was a distinct buzz because Ross had “witnessed” during his presentation. Read More ›

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060918202123.htm

Applying techniques derived from classical and quantum physics calculations may radically reduce the time it takes to simulate the way that proteins fold.
Read More ›

I seem to have a talent for raising the ire and indignation of anti-ID folks. Check out the number of comments here (126 comments at this writing). This is a good sign for ID, because it’s obvious that my posts strike sensitive nerves. Defending the indefensible is a difficult task that requires a great deal of passion. But wait, there’s more, at no additional charge! Check out this article. Random mutation and natural selection really is miraculous. It not only explains the intricacies of the machinery of the cell, it explains the intricacies of the bat’s echolocation system and its integration with the bat’s flight-control system. Examples like this reveal why Darwinian fundamentalists are in a state of panic. They Read More ›

It is my personal opinion that rising biology enrollments parallel ID’s popularity. I personally believe interest in ID encourages study of biology and conversely developments in biology have continued to fuel interest in ID. However, it would be pre-mature at this time to assert this as a quantitative argument. I can only offer it as a personal and qualitative opinion, but considering the modern ID movement’s beginning was in 1984, I will let the reader simply consider the numbers I provide below and draw their own conclusions.

Nevertheless, I think people like Brian Alters (see Brian Alters Drivel) can not rigorously demonstrate the opposite claim, namely, that interest in ID somehow diminishes interest in science, particularly biology. I would actually argue Darwinist behavior is tarnishing biology and making the field have the appearance of being disreputable and unattractive. It would be better for the world of science to drop its promotion of Darwinism.

Something to consider statistically from the National Academy of Sciences of the USA:
National Academy of Sciences Press

Overall, the number of freshman biology majors increased from about 50,000 in the early 1980s to over 73,000 in 2000.2 In terms of actual bachelor’s degrees awarded in the biological sciences, there was a decrease from about 47,000 in 1980 to 37,000 in 1989 and then a relatively sharp rise to over 67,000 in 1998. This was followed by a slight decline to about 65,000 in 2000.

Read More ›