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Intelligent Design

Cornell State of the University Address — 90% devoted to ID

This academic year may be pivotal for Cornell University (a school at which I spent half a year doing research on probability theory back in 1986) as its president just spent nearly the whole of his State of the University Address speaking about intelligent design: Read More ›

ID Slammed in Aussie Media

From a contact in Australia:

Last night on TV and today in all newspapers ID was derided as “not science.” See below the transcript of our ABC National Broadcaster’s treatment of ID in the program “Catalyst” last night: www.abc.net.au\cayalyst. It is followed by a specially timed letter for all Australian Newspapers today proclaiming “It’s not Science” Read More ›

Aristotle — Creationist in a Cheap Toga

Aristotle was one of those creationists in a cheap toga who concluded that the abundant design in nature points to an intelligent cause even if that cause isn’t visible. “For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this true,” he wrote in The Physics, a book that the ACLU would argue violates the separation between church and state. . . . Scientists who stood alone used to inspire a little more deference in the left. But Michael Behe is one nonconformist they won’t defend. The silencers of unpopular science once feared ACLU lawyers. Now they retain them. MORE

My Life’s Work Dispatched in a Mere Four Pages

This just in from a friend of mine: “Into The Cool; Energy, Thermodynamics, and Life, by Eric Schneider and Dorion Sagan, devotes several pages to “demolishing” your contributions, pp 319-322. No surprise, given the ludicrous proposals they make about the origin of life, Benard cells explaining physiology, etc. When they stick to expositions from the great names in thermodynamics, especially contributions to open systems, and energy flow, they seem to be OK (I am not expert!).” Can someone send me a pdf scan of those four pages? Thanks.

Will the real testable theory please stand up?

A test nobody wants to take Neither side is interested in trying to prove intelligent design. By MICHELLE STARR Daily Record/Sunday News Thursday, October 20, 2005 HARRISBURG — Intelligent design and evolution proponents agree that a test on bacterial flagellum could show if it was or wasn’t able to evolve, which could provide evidence to support intelligent design. MORE

Evolution Indoctrination Minor at Northwestern University

I reported in September about Northwestern University’s new indoctrination minor in evolutionary theory (go here for my earlier post on this blog). Here is a follow-up article about that new minor. The article notes, “The program will examine evidence for evolution from paleontology, anthropology and biology, according to Teresa Horton, the program’s director. One thing it won’t include is the theory of intelligent design.” Having taught a course at Northwestern in 1992 on evolution and intelligent design (I was a post-doctoral fellow at the time in history and philosophy of science), I’ll be watching this program with interest. Read More ›

Donald Wise’s Pandora’s Box

Donald Wise wants to move beyond the philosophical and religious dimensions of ID to the “unintelligent design” of certain biological systems. But clearly that means we can also focus on the “intelligent design” of biological systems. Let us encourage the scientific community to open that Pandora’s box: Read More ›

Denis Alexander vs. ID

Denis Alexander is one of the more prominent theistic evolutionists in the UK. As with many theistic evolutionists there, he is not at all pleased with ID, regarding it as both bad science and bad theology. Some time back he wrote a brief critical review of my book The Design Revolution . He has since expanded his criticisms in a full-length article here. Some ID-friendly colleagues in the UK tell me that they will respond to this piece, and so, since time is limited, I’ll leave it to them to answer Alexander at length. Yet Alexander’s fundamental misconception in that longer paper is readily seen as well in his earlier, shorter critical review of The Design Revolution. For that review Read More ›

Creationism’s Reluctance to Enter ID’s Big Tent

Critics of ID are quick to label it creationism. It is therefore ironic that creationists are increasingly reluctant to identify themselves as design theorists. Creationists, both of the young-earth and the old-earth variety, tend to think ID doesn’t go far enough and hesitate to embrace ID’s widening circle of allies, a circle that now includes Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, New Agers, and non-dogmatic agnostics. Indeed, creationists are increasingly distancing themselves from ID’s big tent. Read More ›

Flamboyant Theological Quotes

In my book Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, I remark that ID is the logos theology of John’s Gospel in the idiom of information theory and I also refer to Christ as the completion of science. Barbara Forrest and others have gotten a lot of mileage out of these quotes, using them to argue that ID is just religion masquerading as science.

I would like here to indicate why these quotes do not undercut ID’s scientific program. Read More ›

Detroit Free Press on ID

COMMENT: Intelligent design focuses on evidence, fills in origin gaps October 10, 2005 BY BRIAN FAHLING Dover, Pa., finds itself in the national spotlight as the putative successor to Dayton, Tenn., the rural community where the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial played out on the national stage. . . . [For full article go here: http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/efahling10e_20051010.htm.]

Daily Californian on ID

Backing Intelligent Design, Some Try to Oust Darwin
Debate on Campus Mirrors National Controversy Over How to Explain the Origin of Life on Earth

BY Cristina Bautista
Contribution Writer
Monday, October 10, 2005 Read More ›