Intelligent Design

Predictably, in response to my last post materialists (this time Rationaly’s bane and jdk) trotted out this old chestnut: “People have been wrong about morality; therefore moral truth cannot possibly be objective.” *palm forehead*  This canard has been refuted so many times I have lost count.  I will try one more time. RB and jdk, nearly everyone once thought that the sun orbited the earth. Now we know without the slightest doubt that just the opposite is the case.  The earth orbits the sun.  Is the fact that the earth orbits the sun objectively true?  Of course it is. Now, try to follow the logic here. It is not a difficult logical chain, but you people seem to have a Read More ›

In a recent exchange with Seversky I summarized his view of the Holocaust as follows:  “I personally disagree with the slaughter of every single Jew and homosexual, but that is just my view and if someone has a different view I cannot say their view is objectively bad and mine is objectively good. The only thing that matters is who is stronger.”  Sev responded: Essentially right. I don’t believe there are any objective moral standards against which all other moralities can be measured. The moral code that will ultimately prevail will be the one that offers the broadest guarantees and protections to the greatest numbers of people. Extreme exclusivist ideologies or theologies are ultimately doomed in the same way that Read More ›

From Fuz Rana at Poached Egg: Generally speaking, the reaction to my book The Cell’s Design has been positive. But there have been a few reviews that were less than stellar. Perhaps the most critical of all was a review written by microbiologist Frank Steiner for the Reports of the National Center for Science Education. After careful reflection, I have come to conclude that many of the issues Steiner has with The Cell’s Design are unsubstantial and largely unfounded. Nevertheless, one point he raised has some merit. Fortunately, a recent discovery by researchers from Germany about the structure of the enzyme F1-F0-ATPase helps address Steiner’s point—and in doing so, actually strengthens my argument for the intelligent design of biochemical systems. Read More ›

Over at WEIT, Professor Jerry Coyne has put up three interesting posts during the past few days, with questions for his readers relating to free will, the irrationality of belief in Divine revelation, and climate skepticism. I’d like to briefly respond to his questions. Free will In a post titled, Once again with free will: a question for readers (August 16, 2016), Professor Coyne laments the persistence of popular belief in libertarian free will – the view that whenever I make a choice, I could have chosen otherwise, otherwise my choice would not be free. Professor Coyne contrasts this view (which he calls view A) with the hard determinist view (called view B), which he espouses. On this view, the Read More ›

The question of whether methodological naturalism is an idea worth holding onto in science has been one that the ID camp, as a whole, is not unified on. Some think that methodological naturalism is a perfectly valid way to define science, and that ID fits nicely within that scope. Others think that methodological naturalism is just philosophical baggage hitching a free ride and should be discarded.
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From ScienceDaily: “Our study suggests that high-frequency hearing may have preceded the emergence of echolocation,” says Morgan Churchill of New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, New York. Churchill and his colleagues made their discovery in studies of a new fossil whale species (Echovenator sandersi) found in a drainage ditch in South Carolina. The researchers CT scanned the ancient whale’s remarkably complete fossilized ear and compared it to those of two hippos and 23 fossil and living whales. Those analyses uncovered many features found today in dolphins, which can hear at ultrasonic frequencies.More. Paper. (paywall) – Churchill et al. The Origin of High-Frequency Hearing in Whales. Current Biology, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.06.004 File under: It all just suddenly happened for Read More ›

Seversky wrote: The psychopath may decide that he is morally justified in satisfying his appetite for rape and murder but all his potential victims are equally justified in deciding that they don’t want to be actual victims. Given that the potential victims greatly outnumber the psychopaths the will of the majority is likely to prevail. What’s wrong with that? The Nazis may have believed that they were morally justified in believing that the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and mentally disabled were corrupting society and should be exterminated. If they had been asked, those groups would almost certainly have disagreed, as would at least part of the German people. As did much of the rest of the world. The Nazi regime was Read More ›

Seversky set out the following challenge: Draw up two lists, the first being all the scientific and technological advances of the last two hundred years, say, that were based on [1] a naturalistic/materialistic/ physicalist metaphysics, [2] the second being a list of all such advances based on a teleological metaphysics. A simple comparison should reveal which has been the more prolific and productive approach. Interesting test. The answer is on list [1] there would be zero entries. On list [2] there would be all the scientific and technological advances of the last two hundred years. You see, Sev, many people spout materialism. No one actually conducts their lives, from moral choices to scientific research, as if it were true. Because Read More ›

In a previous post I demonstrated that no sane person acts as if materialism were true.  It later occurred to me that it is impossible to even speak as if materialism were true. Consider the following statement: “I believe materialism is true.” The statement implicitly affirms the following three things that are true only if monist materialism is false: Subject-object duality. There is a subject (the observer; i.e., the “I” in the statement) who perceives an object (the concept of materialism). Intentionality. A mental state exists that is directed toward some object.  Bags of chemicals do not have beliefs. Self-aware subjectivity as a declared reality. It is absurd to say the illusion of myself foisted on me by the chemicals Read More ›

I don’t want to survive. I want to live! – Captain McCrea Over the past several months, I’ve taken a new position at Truett McConnell University (TMU) as an Associate Professor of Microbiology. 1 I was attracted by what makes it different here. Virginia was a good season, but I sought to focus on closely mentoring students. TMU is unique because of its stances are uncommon in academia for the right reasons and from an Anabaptist heritage. No more non-overlapping magisteria During the 16th century, the state told everyone what to believe. The idea of separation of church and state is supposed to always let (y)our conscience be (y)our guide. Letting your conscience guide you began largely in the 16 Read More ›

Rabbi Moshe Averick, author of Nonsense of a High Order: The Confused World of Modern Atheism:at Algemeiner: If a rational, truth-seeking individual is asked: “How did life begin; naturalistic, unguided forces or Divine Creation?” There are only two possible answers: (a) Divine Creation or (b) I don’t know, the jury is still out; but atheism – a denial of the existence of a Creator of life — is not possible anymore….unless, of course, as I stated in the title of this article, you are prepared to ignore science and scientists. And if so, you might just as well go and play children’s games and with children’s toys, like…..LEGO blocks.More. Can anyone explain why atheists are so angry? They’ve no one Read More ›

Alongside the proton? From ScienceDaily: The deuteron — one of the simplest atomic nuclei, consisting of just one proton and one neutron — is considerably smaller than previously thought, say researchers who measured the proton and found a significantly smaller value than previous research did, using new experimental methods. … The new measurement of the deuteron’s size has now given rise to an analogous mystery. It is possible that this will lead to an adjustment of the Rydberg constant, a fundamental quantity in physics. Another possible explanation is that a physical force as yet unknown is at work. More. See also: What no new particles means for physics? Follow UD News at Twitter!

Here. From Genetics and Epigenetics: The evolution process includes genetic alterations which started with prokaryotes and now continues in humans. A distinct difference between prokaryotic chromosomes and eukaryotic chromosomes involves histones. As evolution progressed, genetic alterations accumulated and a mechanism for gene selection developed. It was as if nature was experimenting to optimally utilize the gene pool without changing individual gene sequences. This mechanism is called epigenetics, as it is above the genome. Curiously, the mechanism of epigenetic regulation in prokaryotes is strikingly different from that in eukaryotes, mainly higher eukaryotes, like mammals. In fact, epigenetics plays a huge role in the conserved process of embryogenesis and human development. Malfunction of epigenetic regulation results in many types of undesirable effects, Read More ›

Yes, according to Rob Sheldon: Woit & Hossenfelder & Wolchover are saying something more profound than they realize. It is not simply, as Wolchover put it, “a diphoton hangover”, or as Hossenfelder put it, “we are completely lost”, nor even as Woit said in his 2013 essay, a “nightmare scenario” in which, “After centuries of great progress, moving towards ever deeper understanding of the universe we live in, we may be entering a new kind of era. Will intellectual progress become just a memory, with an important aspect of human civilization increasingly characterized by an unfamiliar and disturbing stasis?” For Peter, as well as Sabine and Natalie, “progress” is the birthright of humanity, and “stasis” the curse. But imagine for Read More ›

Peter M. Burfeind writes: According to the various social theories—all claiming to be scientific—it is an ironclad law that to be human is to have all your thought and thinking inescapably determined by whatever structures you’re born in. A Cretan can’t stop being a Cretan any more than an apple can stop being pulled to the earth by gravity. At least that’s the pretense of the sociologist (who fantasizes he’s doing science, but that’s another story.) The only escape exists in something transcending the physical nature of the subject, something outside its earthy, physical nature. Thus, if you wished to escape your human-ness, you’d have to be supra- or trans-human. This was the exact position of the Gnostics. A Gnostic Read More ›