Intelligent Design

ID appearing in Doonesbury indicates how far this topic has risen in the public debate. Read More ›

The well-known Colombian journalist Daniel Samper wrote an article about ID for the most important Colombian newspaper a few weeks back. According to Daniel Andrés, the article says the usual things against ID and it’s clear that the journalist has not read anything about it except what other newspapers say. Daniel Andrés responded in his blog here and here. Note that his ID blog has now moved to http://www.probabilista.blogspot.com, where is speaks to the Latin community in general.

The latest edition of Jeffrey Bennett et al’s astronomy textbook The Cosmic Perspective (4th edition) is now out. Sure enough, “intelligent design” is in the index. Indeed, it gets a full page treatment (p. 714). Below is the scan of that page. Does this text provides a fair representation of ID? Hardly. It appears now that ID will indeed be taught in the science curricula of this nation, only ID proponents won’t be doing the teaching. Life is so unfair. Read More ›

As you read the extract below, ask yourself the following: (1) Why does biology hand us technical devices that human design engineers drool over? (2) Why don’t we ever see natural selection or any other unintelligent evolutionary mechanisms produce such systems? (3) Why don’t we have any plausible detailed step-by-step models for how such evolutionary mechanisms could produce such systems? (4) Why in the world should we think that such mechanisms provide the right answer? (5) And why shouldn’t we think that there is real intelligent engineering involved here, way beyond anything we are capable of?

Spring-loaded microbe inspires nanomachines
17 December 2005
Peter Aldhous
New Scientist Magazine issue 2530

The scum-dwelling beast boasts a tiny spring that, for its size, is more powerful than a car engine — bioengineers hope to use similar springs in nanodevices Read More ›

Science 2 December 2005: Vol. 310. no. 5753, p. 1421 DOI: 10.1126/science.310.5753.1421b Founder’s Message Combing through cosmic radiation could reveal a message from the universe’s creator, if it has one, say two physicists. According to theory, anyone could make a universe by squashing a lump of matter violently enough to replicate the big bang. And by tweaking something called the inflaton field, the creator–be it a physicist-hacker or a deity–could put a binary message in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Or so argue Stephen Hsu of the University of Oregon, Eugene, and Anthony Zee of the University of California, Santa Barbara, in a paper at arXiv.org. The message might sit, like cosmic Braille, in the bumps and ripples of Read More ›

Note the following concession at the end of this New Scientist interview: “If, for some unforeseen reason, the landscape turns out to be inconsistent – maybe for mathematical reasons, or because it disagrees with observation – I am pretty sure that physicists will go on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say that if that happens, as things stand now we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature’s fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics. One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID.”

By the way, I cite Susskind in my book No Free Lunch (p. 338): “When Alan Guth first began proposing his inflationary cosmology, Lenny Susskind remarked [to Guth]: ‘You know, the most amazing thing is that they pay us for this.'” Don’t expect this sort of light-hearted incredulity from Susskind anymore. The stakes are now much higher. It’s no longer a matter of theoretical physicists with their heads in the clouds collecting fat paychecks from schools like Stanford and spinning out theories with only the most tenuous connection to empirical data. Now it’s a matter of destroying ID. Read More ›

Here are a two letters seeking fairer treatment for ID from the Brazilian Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS): Read More ›

The Italian website “Progetto Cosmo” ­ is dedicated to Intelligent Design: http://progettocosmo.altervista.org or http://www.intelligentdesign.tk.

Orthodox Jews in S. Florida join debate on evolution vs. intelligent design
By James D. Davis
Religion Editor
December 12, 2005

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-cdesigndec12,0,3441548.story?coll=sfla-news-broward

Evangelical Christians aren’t the only ones making evolution and intelligent design a cause célèbre: Leading Orthodox Jews have the topic in their sights as well — some of them gathering for a three-day conference this week in South Florida. Read More ›

Future of Conservatism: Darwin or Design? by Casey Luskin Posted Dec 12, 2005 http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=10790

In elementary logic, from premises P1: If A, then B and P2: A, one may conclude B. This rule is called modus ponens. Evolutionary logic now has a particular application of this rule which it is attempting to foist on science as a whole. It runs as follows: P1: If a claim or idea seems to support ID, then it needs to be rejected even if previously you thought there were good arguments to support it. P2: The claim or idea seems to support ID. C: Therefore it needs to be rejected regardless of the sound reasons you previously thought supported it. Here’s an example. According to Jack Cohen, Peter Ward has now gone back on his Rare Earth thesis Read More ›

Bruce Chapman, president of Discovery Institute, responds here to Laurie Goodstein’s piece “Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker” (blogged here). Note his point that “none of the critics quoted in your article supported the theory in the past” — Goodstein gave the impression that these critics had once been sympathetic to ID and then had become disillusioned. No, they were never on board.

December 10, 2005
Questioning Evolution
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/opinion/l10design.html?emc=eta1&pagewanted=print

To the Editor:

Contrary to “Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker” (Week in Review, Dec. 4), more scientists than ever support intelligent design and criticize Darwinism. A recent European conference on intelligent design – held in Prague and ignored by The Times – attracted 700 attendees, and featured leading scientists from Britain, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as the United States. Read More ›

Theory of intelligent design making its way into Broward textbooks
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-cbook09dec09,0,6134369,print.story

By Chris Kahn
Education Writer

December 9, 2005

Broward County on Thursday narrowed its choices for high school Biology I textbooks to two finalists, both of which have been under scrutiny by Christian conservatives who want to change the way students learn about the origin of life.

Both have edited passages about evolution theory during the past few years after receiving complaints from the Discovery Institute. The think tank sponsors research on intelligent design, which argues life is so complicated, it must have been fashioned by a higher being. One of the books also has added a short section on creationism.

In the end, Broward teachers will have to decide which book works best based on their individual review of the whole textbooks, which include hundreds of pages of lessons, support materials and suggested activities. Read More ›

Shirley L. Tilghman, Princeton University’s president, happens also to be a molecular biologist. Now she joins the ranks of Cornell’s Hunter Rawlings in attacking ID.

Tilghman criticizes intelligent design
By Matt Davis
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/12/09/news/14090.shtml

In a lecture at Oxford University last week, President Tilghman
pointed out potential clashes among science, politics and religion and
defended Darwinian evolution against the challenges presented by
proponents of intelligent design. Read More ›