Intelligent Design

In the still active discussion thread on failure of compensation arguments, long term maverick ID (and, I think, still YEC-sympathetic) supporter SalC comments: SalC, 570:    . . .  I’ve argued against using information theory type arguments in defense of ID, it adds way too much confusion. Basic probability will do the job, and basic probability is clear and unassailable. The mutliplicities of interest to ID proponents don’t vary with temperature, whereas the multiplicities from a thermodynamic perspective change with temperature. I find that very problematic for invoking 2LOT in defense of ID. Algorithmically controlled metabolisms (such as realized in life) are low multiplicity constructs as a matter of principle. They are high in information content. But why add more jargon Read More ›

From the excellent Nautilus, like we said: But trawling the Internet, I found a strange paradox: While memes were everywhere, serious meme theory was almost nowhere. Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionary biologist who coined the word “meme” in his classic 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, seemed bent on disowning the Internet variety, calling it a “hijacking” of the original term. The peer-reviewed Journal of Memetics folded in 2005. “The term has moved away from its theoretical beginnings, and a lot of people don’t know or care about its theoretical use,” philosopher and meme theorist Daniel Dennett told me. What has happened to the idea of the meme, and what does that evolution reveal about its usefulness as a concept? It Read More ›

To “the Singularity”? Science writer John Horgan interviews Neuroskeptic (Discover) It’s a wonder anyone is asking. Aren’t we still baffled as to what consciousness is? Perceptronium vs. the immateriality and consciousness? We might usefully decide first what we are trying to upload. See also: Why the human mind continue to baffle

Universities entice potential students with all sorts of easy loan packages, hip orientations, and perks like high-tech recreation centers and upscale dorms. On the backside of graduation, such bait-and-switch attention vanishes when it is time to help departing students find jobs. College often turns into a six-year experience. The unemployment rate of college graduates is at near-record levels. Universities have either failed to convinced employers that English or history majors make ideal job candidates, or they have failed to ensure that such bedrock majors can, in fact, speak, write and reason well. The collective debt of college students and graduates is more than $1 trillion. Such loans result from astronomical tuition costs that for decades have spiked more rapidly than Read More ›

From New Scientist: Big money is being spent on initiatives like the European Union’s Human Brain Project. Will people hoping to learn about consciousness be disappointed? Absolutely. From what I hear, some of that project’s neuroscientists are disappointed because it isn’t nearly strong enough in asking cognitive questions. It is asking the basic, materialistic questions – such as which cells connect with what, or which chemicals are diffusing – but these basic questions aren’t the only important ones. More. See also: Why studies of the human mind go nowhere.

Here. John Gilmore talks with William Dembski American mathematician, philosopher, theologian and author on the subject of intelligent design, specifically the concept of specified complexity.

Yeah. Here. You wouldn’t even think the concept still existed, if Darwin were right: The fact is that we don’t “make” anything of our compulsions, or use them to “realize the self”. We have no ability to “realize” our self; all we can do is rationalize what we do and re-brand it as “freedom” so people don’t get scared. So Eagleton’s simply engaging in nonsense when he says stuff like this: Freedom is not a question of being released from the forces that shape us, but a matter of what we make of them. The world, however, is now divided down the middle between off-the-wall libertarians who deny the reality of such forces, and full-blooded determinists such as the US Read More ›

It is always good to go back to basics every once in a while. This piece is a short introduction to Intelligent Design for those reading about it or studying it.
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Newsweek tells us, “aliens are enormous, science suggests,” here: Aliens, if they exist, are likely huge. At least that’s the conclusion of a new paper by cosmologist Fergus Simpson, who has estimated that the average weight of intelligent extraterrestrials would be 650 pounds (300 kilograms) or more. ET would have paled in comparison to these interstellar behemoths. The argument relies on a mathematical model that assumes organisms on other planets obey the same laws of conservation of energy that we see here on Earth—namely, that larger animals need more resources and expend more energy, and thus are less abundant. There are many small ants, for example, but far fewer whales or elephants. Thus, throughout the universe, as is the case Read More ›

In other threads, certain people have claimed that personal experience and testimony are not as valid as other forms of evidence. In fact, some would dismiss thousands of years and the accumulation of perhaps billions of witness/experiencer testimonies because, in their view, personal experience and testimony is not really even evidence at all. The problem with this position is that everything one knows and or believes is gained either through  (1) personal experience (and extrapolation thereof), or (2) testimony (and examination thereof), for the simple fact that if you did not experience X, the only information you can possibly have about X is from the testimony of others. In a courtroom, for example, the entire case depends on testimony, even Read More ›

Here: I’m often asked what I do for a living. My answer, that I am a professor at the University of Kentucky, inevitably prompts a second question: “What do you teach?” Responding to such a question should be easy and invite polite conversation, but I usually brace for a negative reaction. At least half the time the person flinches with disapproval when I answer “evolution,” and often the conversation simply terminates once the “e-word” has been spoken. Occasionally, someone will retort: “But there is no evidence for evolution.” Or insist: “It’s just a theory, so why teach it?” At this point I should walk away, but the educator in me can’t. I generally take the bait, explaining that evolution is Read More ›

We thought that kind of thing only happened to us ID folk. We’re used to it. Any mediocrity can make his name in Tax-Funded Science attacking us. You pay, you enjoy. Or not. You pay anyway. But now this from Discover: A psychiatry journal, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (JNMD), has just published a remarkable attack on another journal, Frontiers in Psychology. Here’s the piece: it’s by the JNMD’s own Statistics Editor. In it, he writes that: To be perfectly candid, the reader needs to be informed that the journal that published the Lakens (2013) article, Frontiers in Psychology, is one of an increasing number of journals that charge exorbitant publication fees in exchange for free open access Read More ›

Is there a new term we could use that would make more sense? John Harnett writes Science has become the new religion. Those who dare challenge the dictates of ‘science’ are often declared crackpots, pseudo-scientists or just plain crazy. If you deny or doubt evolution, or anthropogenic global warming (AGW), now called ‘climate change’, or the effectiveness or safety of certain vaccines, or the universal safety of genetically modified foods, as compared with natural breeding and hybridization practices, you are called nasty names. These might include ‘flat-earther’, particularly if you deny Darwinian evolution. It has come to a point now that to be called a ‘creationist’ is a big negative, like you are a pseudo-scientist, or follower of astrology, or Read More ›

U Chicago Darwin prof: Must be true: Yet while there’s no doubt that we’re changing the planet, the claim that we’re completely changing evolution on the planet does not follow. Let’s take those fish that are evolving to reproduce smaller and younger. This phenomenon has been documented in many species that we eat, but this is just a minuscule fraction of the 30,000 known species of fish. WHAT? Which third rate Darwin high school teacher knew this fact? When the authors examine our own species, the evidence is even less convincing. Recent increases in diagnoses of autism, allergies and obesity are certainly real, but they have no obvious connection with how we’re evolving. … No, but Darwinism is a cultural Read More ›

Against would-be US prez Ted Cruz (who was born in Canada, so that’ll be the next big thing): Here: Virtually all of modern biology and medicine has its basis in evolution. No serious scientist disputes that evolution is by far the best explanation for the species around us, and for a thousand other phenomena that scientists study every day. The debate about the fact of evolution is long over. As a scientist, I find it just embarrassing to have prominent U.S. politicians publicly deny evolution. Aw, get real for once: 1. Virtually all of modern biology has its basis in the cell theory of life and the germ theory of disease. Even a seven-year-old can understand this: The history of Read More ›