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Intelligent Design

Directions for perpetrating a science hoax

Here, Adam Ruben, – “Experimental Error: Forging a Head” Science (April 22, 2011), reflects on how to construct a science hoax and have free publicity coming out of your ears: Attach the bones of something to the bones of something else. You have just created the missing link between those two species. “It’s amazing!” you can announce. “I’ve discovered the skeleton of the mythical half-chimp, half-sturgeon!” (Do not, however, attach the bones of something to nothing. It’s really not that impressive to declare, “I’ve discovered the skeleton of the mythical half-chimp!” Gross.) – Claim that your unique object has some impressive attribute, such as size, age, or incompatibility with accepted chronology. A 12-foot-tall, 9000-year-old Sony PlayStation, for example. – Make Read More ›

More Signs of Design: Bacteria on the Radio

Wired Science is reporting on a forthcoming paper which has been posted on the pre-print website, ArXiv. The authors propose that chromosomes might act in a manner synonymous with a radio antennae, involving electrons travelling around DNA loops to produce species-specific wavelengths. Read More>>>

Don’t defund SETI, science broadcaster pleads

Bob McDonald, the science guy  at Canada’s government broadcaster, CBC, critiques (April 28, 2011) the spending on the Royal Wedding, contrasting it with the small amount required to keep the recently defunded, 50-year-old Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program going: … Until recently, their efforts had been hampered by the fact that they had to beg for borrowed time on telescopes, when they weren’t being used for other research. But thanks, in part, to the generosity of Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, the Institute finally got its own instrument — an array of 40 telescopes, each six metres in diameter, set in the desert 300 kilometres north of San Francisco. But building a telescope is only the first part of Read More ›

He said it: On the origin of the universe, life, and humanity

Gilbert_Keith_ChestertonFrom best known early twentieth century Catholic writer and apologist [take this, current Pontifical Institute!] G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man (book text here:

Now what is needed for these problems of primitive existence is something more like a primitive spirit. In calling up this vision of the first things, I would ask the reader to make with me a sort of experiment in simplicity. And by simplicity I do not mean stupidity, but rather the sort of clarity that sees things like life rather than words like evolution.For this purpose it would really be better to turn the handle of the Time Machine a little more quickly and see the grass growing and the trees springing up into the sky, if that experiment could contract and concentrate and make vivid the upshot of the whole affair. Read More ›

Just askin’: Why don’t Christian Darwinists read the news?

Red Question Mark Circle Clip Art Why are they

?? fronting Darwinism to Christians “You can have Jesus and Darwin too”, apparently unaware of the fact that many once-virtuous, still faithful evolutionists  are checking out of Darwinism into the great unknown, due to evidence? Why doesn’t the evidence that Darwinian mechanism probably doesn’t work as  advertised mean anything?

= Why do Christians need to be the last people on the planet to believe in and defend the big Darwindunit? Read More ›

He said it: Steve Fuller on theistic evolution and the Darwinian challenge – Francis Collins edition

Warwick U’s Steve Fuller, author of Dissent over Descent (2008):

Our first witness is the poster boy Francis Collins, the born-again Christian who led the US National Institutes of Health’s drive to map the human genome. His recent bestseller, The Language of God, recounts how his bohemian upbringing resulted in a spiritual emptiness that only came to be filled upon reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity as a graduate student in biochemistry. This small fact is telling. Lewis, a colleague of J.R.R. Tolkien at Oxford, is often recommended to open-minded people to ease them into the Christian faith. Read More ›

When Jane Science met Joe Politics, guess which one got corrupted?

At Townhall, Jonah Goldberg analyzes the recent “Cooling on Global Warming”: Why has climate change lost its oomph? Plumer lays out some of the reasons, though he minimizes the damage greens have inflicted on their own credibility thanks to the 2009 Climategate email scandal and wildly overstated predictions. For instance, the United Nations predicted there would be 50 million “climate refugees” by 2010. Notably, the islands of the Caribbean would see massive population losses as denizens fled for their lives. Never happened. (Meanwhile, the UN Environment Program has removed the map of predicted devastation from its website.) Note: Climate change is not, in principle, UD’s “thang” exactly – after all, in a designed universe, humans could indeed futz up the climate Read More ›

From The Nature of Nature – Ethics as illusion put in place by natural selection?

Philosophy corner

In The Nature of Nature , Darwinian philosopher Michael Ruse offers us his take on ethics: “Ethics is an illusion put in place by natural selection to make us good cooperators.” (—Michael Ruse and Edward O. Wilson, 1985), p. 855)

Wilson has since dropped off this vine, so let’s just go with Ruse:

What kind of metaethical justification can one give for the love commandment or a Rawlsian justice-as-fairness? I would argue that ultimately there is no justification that can be given! Read More ›

How to hold a (scientific) revolution in the Middle East – and how not to

In “The Middle East is ripe for a scientific revolution”, (New Scientist 27 April 2011) Ahmed Zewail offers, I see three essential ingredients for progress. First is the building of human resources by promoting literacy, ensuring participation of women in society and improving education. Second, there is a need to reform national constitutions to allow freedom of thought, minimise bureaucracy, reward merit, and create credible- and enforceable- legal codes. Few would argue with that; it’s an essential foundation for intellectual civilization. But many sources question whether the actual state of science in the Western world today, especially in sensitive areas like evolution, provides grounds for hope that intervention will help. Trying to “Islamize” Darwin would hardly produce a happier Middle Read More ›

Why Engineering Science is Critical Concerning an Objective Evaluation of Darwinian Theory

Engineering is often thought of as one of the “lower” sciences. I propose the opposite, that the engineering disciplines are in the category of the most rigorous sciences (such as mathematics), because they expose themselves to empirical and logical invalidation. This is in complete contrast to Darwinian evolutionary “theory,” which is perpetually amorphous, explains everything and nothing at the same time, is impossible to pin down, and is impervious to logic, reason, mathematical scrutiny, or evidence. This is perhaps why an increasing number of us in the engineering community — especially the software-engineering community, since it is now obvious that living systems are fundamentally based on complex software rather than stochastic chemical interactions — find Darwinian explanations to be not Read More ›

Review of Giberson & Collins at Patheos.com

I was invited to review Karl Giberson and Francis Collins’ newest book, THE LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE AND FAITH, at patheos.com. Below are the first few paragraphs as well as a link to the entire review. —————————– BioLogos and Theistic Evolution: Selling the Product “There’s nothing wrong with selling one’s ideas. But it needs to be done honestly, and that’s just what I don’t find in this book.” By William A. Dembski, April 27, 2011 Editor’s Note: The following is the first piece in a four-part conversation between Dr. William Dembski and Dr. Karl Giberson, concerning Giberson and Francis Collins’ new book, The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions. Find more resources and discussion surrounding the book Read More ›

Atheist neuroscientist: Why mechanist accounts of consciousness always fail

No, not what you think: More from Raymond Tallis, this time What neuroscience cannot tell us about ourselves (New Atlantis, Fall 2010), debunking “the tropes of neuromythology.”:

So when we are talking about the brain, we are talking about nothing more than a piece of matter. If we keep this in mind, we will have enough ammunition to demonstrate the necessary failure of neuroscientific accounts of consciousness and conscious behavior. Read More ›

ID Predictions: Foundational principles underlying the predictions proposed by Jonathan M. and others.

PART I: BASIC PREMISES

Many predictions of ID flow from two underlying hypotheses, both of which are open to scientific investigation and refutation. If you miss these, however, other ID predictions may not make sense, since many arise from them in an important way. It is my belief that much of the puzzlement regarding ID predictions results from not being familiar with these two often unspoken premises. Read More ›

ID theory makes progress in Hungary, probably thanks to Hindus

Dane Leif Asmark sends this PowerPoint (static here), which notes the poster campaign, the film, and debates … in most Western countries, not half as much is reported.

Written debate with the Hungarian Skeptic Society- Written rules for the debate, moderation.

– Four exchanges of letters.

-Is ID a reasonable answer to the origin of the living world?”

Living world? Shades of Darwin’s banished co-theorist Wallace and the World of Life.
Sources don’t think most Western counties are doing a tenth of this. Read More ›