Intelligent Design

(Photo of a gnu or wildebeest in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania. Courtesy of Muhammad Mahdi Karim and Wikipedia.) Do sapient beings deserve respect, simply because they are sapient? An affirmative answer to this question seems reasonable, but it also imperils the Gnu Atheist project of basing morality on our shared capacity for empathy. My short parable about two machines illustrates why. Let’s call them Machine 1 and Machine 2. Since this post is a parable written for atheists, I shall assume for argument’s sake that machines are in principle capable of thinking and feeling. Machine 1 is like HAL9000, in the movie 2001. It has a fully human psyche, which is capable of the entire gamut of human emotions. It Read More ›

To the modern student Aristotle’s physics and cosmology are likely to seem bizarre. His final causes, geocentrism, and sublunar and superlunar realms seem to have no correspondence with reality. But Aristotelianism makes more sense when one understands the historical context of ancient Greek thought. In fact Aristotle’s physics and cosmology describe and explain what we observe in nature. This is attested to by the fact that it was well accepted and influential for a millenium and a half. Eventually, however, as scientific understanding progressed, the Aristotelian explanations became increasingly strained. Aristotelianism became more of a tautology, as whatever was observed was described according to the ancient system. Fire, for example, had the quality of dryness and heat. But is this Read More ›

From here: EVENT DESCRIPTION In October 2011, William Lane Craig, arguably the world’s leading Christian academic apologist, will once again visit the UK for a series of lectures and debates. Following his highly successful Reasonable Faith Tour in 2007, Bill will again present the case for the truth of the Christian faith, responding both to Stephen Hawking’s recent book The Grand Design as well as to Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, which will then have just seen its 5 year publication anniversary. Richard Dawkins has thus far declined a debate, but the door is open to him defending his book The God Delusion on 25th October 2011 at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE The details of the tour are Read More ›

In a recent political debate presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann raised the topic of vaccines. She accused Rick Perry, governor of Texas, of abusing his authority when he imposed vaccine mandates. What does this have to do with Charles Darwin? Darwin was also concerned about vaccines. But the so-called Father of Modern Biology had a different sort of concern. Darwin worried that vaccines preserved the lives of those who otherwise would have succumbed. “Thus,” warned the Sage of Kent, “the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind.” And that, he ominously concluded:  Read more

I have returned from the annual non-NASA Astrobiology conference, which I attended this year and delivered two papers. After my NASA colleague’s long-delayed paper on the discovery of microfossils in carbonaceous chondrites (meteorites that are widely believed to be extinct comet fragments) was accidentally published in March when Fox News broke the paper embargo that led to 40 million web hits, I had fond hopes that this would be the conference that broke the ice about ET. In fact, my first paper was entitled “More Evidence for Liquid Water on Comets” which recorded the mounting evidence that indeed, comets are natural bio-transporters for moving biology all over the cosmos–sorta like Arthur C. Clarke‘s novel “Rendezvous with Rama“. Curiously, NASA has Read More ›

ID theorists have long urged that the case for design is both a positive and scientific argument, based on standard principles of abductive scientific reasoning. Key to the detectability of design are particular characteristics that intelligent agents often leave behind as hallmarks of their activity. We know that intelligent causes are the only category of explanation with the ability to visualize, and ultimately actualize, a complex and functionally specified end goal. Hence, presented with a complex and functionally integrated system in nature, we can infer that some measure of conscious or rational deliberation was employed in its development. Click here to continue reading>>>

One of the amazing things about evolution, aside from spontaneously creating everything, is its creation of conscious automata which in turn figured out that they, and everything else, had evolved. As Duke’s Alex Rosenberg informs New York Times blog readers:  Read more

I wonder – aiming a science book at children entitled The Magic of Reality might be seen as encouraging them to think of the practice in the same way they might read a fairy story, or watch Fantasia or the fictional Harry Potter for that matter. I have not read this new book yet, but online accounts suggest it is well illustrated and aimed at giving children an understanding of how scientists ‘know what’s really true.’ A shame it doesn’t teach children to think in terms of formal logic and philosophy and give them the skills to engage science critically by asking questions about prior foundational commitments; or more simply, giving children skills in scientific hermeneutics, or an understanding of the place of paradigms Read More ›

There’s an article in Discover Magazine about how gamers have been able to solve a problem in HIV research in only three weeks (!) that had remained outside of researcher’s powerful computer tools for years. This, until now, unsolvable problem gets solved because: They used a wide range of strategies, they could pick the best places to begin, and they were better at long-term planning. Human intuition trumped mechanical number-crunching. Oh,my! Teleology raises its ugly head! But, now, let’s hear it for Intelligent Design. Here’s what intelligent agents were able to do within the search space of possible solutions: . . . until now, scientists have only been able to discern the structure of the two halves together. They have Read More ›

Here is my first GoAnimate clip:     

re•li•gion [ri-lij-uhn], noun: A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the world, especially when considered as the creation of a god or gods.  Read more