Intelligent Design

At “Animals and abstraction: Reflections on Vincent Torley’s thoughts,” commenter Charles Do cats explore for the sake of exploring (curioisity)? Or are they just reconnoitering for food, danger, shelter, sex, and if so, is that a form of learning? asks. Good questions. My impression is that cats are not generally lifelong learners. They are very curious when young, and learn almost everything they need to know in the first year or two. Once they have learned a way of life, they stick to it. There can be a comical aspect to that. A vet once told me that it is wise to neuter a tomcat as young as he can safely sustain the operation. If one waits a few years Read More ›

It is often claimed that methodological naturalism is a principle which defines the scope of the scientific enterprise. Today’s post is about thirty-one famous scientists throughout history who openly flouted this principle, in their scientific writings, by putting forward arguments for a supernatural Deity. The term “methodological naturalism” is defined variously in the literature. All authorities agree, however, that if you put forward scientific arguments for the existence of a supernatural Deity, then you are violating the principle of methodological naturalism. The 31 scientists whom I’ve listed below all did just that. I’ve supplied copious documentation, to satisfy the inquiries of skeptical readers. My own researches have led me to the conclusion that the principle of methodological naturalism is not Read More ›

From Emily Conover at Science: A puzzling mismatch is plaguing two methods for measuring how fast the universe is expanding. When the discrepancy arose a few years ago, scientists suspected it would fade away, a symptom of measurement errors. But the latest, more precise measurements of the expansion rate — a number known as the Hubble constant — have only deepened the mystery.“There’s nothing obvious in the measurements or analyses that have been done that can easily explain this away, which is why I think we are paying attention,” says theoretical physicist Marc Kamionkowski of Johns Hopkins University. If the mismatch persists, it could reveal the existence of stealthy new subatomic particles or illuminate details of the mysterious dark energy Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: The maneuvers of flying insects are unmatched by even the best pilots, and this might be due to the fact that these critters don’t obey the same aerodynamic laws as airplanes, a team of New York University researchers has found. “We’ve known for quite a while that the aerodynamic theory for airplanes doesn’t work so well in predicting the force of lift for flapping wings,” says Leif Ristroph, an assistant professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences who directed the study. “We found that the drag or wind resistance also behaves very differently, and we put together a new law that could help explain how insects move through the air.” “To double its flight speed, an airplane Read More ›

Well, according to some at the BBC. From Philip Ball: Only a handful of physicists and philosophers have embraced retrocausality. Most consider backwards causality “too high a price to swallow”, says Wharton. But he feels that we only resist this idea because we are not used to seeing it in daily life. “The view that the past does not depend on the future is largely anthropocentric,” says Wharton. “We should take apparent backwards causation more seriously than we usually do. Our intuition has been wrong before, and this time symmetry on quantum scales is a reason to think we could be wrong again.” If time’s arrow is not quite as one-way as it seems, that raises one last question: why Read More ›

During the past two weeks, over at Evolution News and Views, Professor Michael Egnor has been arguing that it is the capacity for abstract thought which distinguishes humans from other animals, and that human language arises from this capacity. While I share Dr. Egnor’s belief in human uniqueness, I have to take issue with his claim that abstraction is what separates man from the beasts. Why the distinction between humans and other animals is real, but hard to express I have written over a dozen articles in the past, arguing that there is a real, qualitative difference between the minds of humans and other animals. As I’ve argued here, there appear to be several traits which are unique to human Read More ›

From American Council on Science and Health, In Dr. Gowlett’s analysis, our ancestors’ first interaction with fire probably came following a lightning storm or other weather event that triggered natural wildfires. These wildfires would cause animals to scatter, making them easy pickings for early humans waiting on the periphery. (Other animals, such as hawks, are known to engage in such behavior.) Additionally, after the fire had subsided, the burnt landscape would have allowed for much easier foraging. Some of the foraged food would have been “cooked” by the wildfire, making it more edible and nutritious than when raw. As a result, one of the direct evolutionary benefits of fire was the ability to derive more energy from food. Powerful, hungry Read More ›

The following is section 2.3 of my new book  Christianity for Doubters. As the title indicates, much of this book is explicitly theological, but the first two chapters are about intelligent design. In the preface, I wrote “Of course, you do not have to believe anything in chapters 3-6 of this book or anything in the Bible to believe in intelligent design…. In fact, some intelligent design advocates are uncomfortable with a book that combines chapters on intelligent design with explicitly Christian chapters, because it might encourage those who claim that ID proponents do not understand the difference between science and religion. Most of us do understand the difference, we are just interested in both. And so are ID critics.” Read More ›

Scientists have examined the ability of the human eye to detect single photons. It turns out that they can. Previously it was thought that the eye could detect as few as five to seven, but the present study shows that they human eye is capable of detecting a single photon: this is really a remarkable feat. Here’s what one of the authors had to say: “If you imagine this, it is remarkable: a photon, the smallest physical entity with quantum properties of which light consists, is interacting with a biological system consisting of billions of cells, all in a warm and wet environment,” says Vaziri. “The response that the photon generates survives all the way to the level of our Read More ›

From Salvo: An entertaining but revealing development in science culture in recent years has been the intentionally nonsensical academic paper. Earlier this year, political scientist Peter Dreier admitted at Prospect that his abstract for a panel of six years ago, “On the Absence of Absences,” was “academic drivel”: I tried, as best I could within the limits of my own vocabulary, to write something that had many big words but which made no sense whatsoever. I not only wanted to see if I could fool the panel organizers and get my paper accepted. . . . Well, not only was it accepted, but he was also invited to join fellow academics in Tokyo at the annual international conference of the Read More ›

At “New Scientist peddles Darwinism even now. Weeds grow,” we learned, The work of Charles Darwin showed, irrefutably, that humans are just another animal occupying a small branch on a vast tree of life. No divine spark is needed to explain our existence and traits. bornagain77 writes, Perhaps by irrefutable proof’ he means the fact that Darwinian evolution is impervious to falsification by empirical evidence since it has no demarcation criteria based in mathematics to make it scientific? With no demarcation criteria you simply can’t straight out refute Darwinian evolution by empirical observation! i.e. it is irrefutable! Yes. And in sociologist Steve Fuller‘s memorable phrase, Darwinism is beginning to collapse into the mess that floored astrology. It is principally a Read More ›

Can anyone believe this? From John van Wyhe at New Scientist: Evolution is the most revolutionary concept in the history of science. Nothing else has more radically changed our understanding of the natural world and ourselves. Nothing? The work of Charles Darwin showed, irrefutably, that humans are just another animal occupying a small branch on a vast tree of life. No divine spark is needed to explain our existence and traits.More. That’s so obviously untrue it is just ridiculous. Yet New Scientist wants us to pay to read more. Why? If we wanted religious Darwinism, we could get it at BioLogos for free. The real action, to the extent that it can get going in a world fumbled by New Read More ›

From Ethan Siegel at Forbes: The first test was performed first, and came back negative. The second test was next, and also came back negative. By time the third test was performed, with both landers in situ, the prospects were pretty grim, but the data was taken anyway. To the surprise of almost everyone, both Viking 1 and 2 detected metabolized, radioactive carbon-14 as part of the carbon dioxide emitted. They even took their samples from different locations: one from soil in direct sunlight, the other from soil found under a rock. In both samples, the carbon dioxide emission was immediate and sustained after the first injection. To great excitement and fanfare, the team led by Gilbert Levin thought they Read More ›

We have been talking a bit about Rope Kojonen this last week, with his presentation at the AM-Nat conference and his recent paper on methodological naturalism in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. Now he has a new book out covering a philosophical perspective on the Intelligent Design debate.
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From BBC: Quantum processes may occur not quite so far from our ordinary world as we once thought. Quite the opposite: they might be at work behind some very familiar processes, from the photosynthesis that powers plants – and ultimately feeds us all – to the familiar sight of birds on their seasonal migrations. Quantum physics might even play a role in our sense of smell. In fact, quantum effects could be something that nature has recruited into its battery of tools to make life work better, and to make our bodies into smoother machines. It’s even possible that we can do more with help from the strange quantum world than we could without it. More. What? “Nature has recruited Read More ›