Intelligent Design

I reported here that, since 2005, the Veritas Forum seems to have gone exclusively theistic evolutionist. I’ve been reliably informed that this is not so. Names of people who have done Veritas events since 2005 include: Michael Behe Alvin Plantinga Fritz Schaefer Walter Bradley Guillermo Gonzalez Jay Richards Scott Minnich Fazale Rana

In 1831 Charles Darwin boarded the HMS Beagle to gather biological information from around the world. It was a wonderful opportunity for the young naturalist, and Darwin saw many fascinating wonders. The voyage is best known for its stop at the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. There Darwin observed finches, mockingbirds and tortoises that varied distinctly from island to island. Some finches lived in coastal areas on the ground, others lived in forest trees, yet another lived in bushes. And the diet of these varieties varied considerably. One of the species ate buds and fruit, another prickly pear, others ate seeds and others were insectivores. And one of the insectivores even used a twig to fish out insects Read More ›

Fascinating new research suggests that the mere sight of a sick person can trigger an immune response. When test subjects viewed photos showing symptoms of infectious disease, their immune systems responded more aggressively compared to test subjects who viewed other types of photos (including photos of people bearing firearms). It is the first hard evidence that visual cues alone can influence the immune system. Evolutionists have no difficulty explaining this new finding, but that may not be a good sign for Darwin’s theory.  Read more

First, I would like to thank Michael Sullivan for taking the time and trouble to comment on my post, In Praise of Subtlety, after successfully defending his dissertation. I look forward to reading future articles by Dr. Sullivan on issues relating to teleology and design.

I would also like to thank Sullivan for his courtesy and his honesty. He admits that he has not read any ID books, and because he has no preconceived ideas as to how the first life-forms might have originated, he generously acknowledges that the first living cell might have been assembled, one piece at a time. For my part, I would entirely agree with him when he writes that the answer to the question of how the first cell originated is an empirical one.

I’d just like to make a few numbered comments on various issues raised by Sullivan in his posts, Nature, Artifacts and Machines 1, Nature, Artifacts and Machines 2 and ”Intelligent Design” and Scotism.

1. The perils of Aristotelian science Read More ›

DNA damage repair is a fascinating topic in cell biology. Fascinating because the cell’s repair mechanisms are so incredible. What’s more the mechanisms are coordinated in a sophisticated control network. As one researcher put it, “it’s almost as if cells have something akin to a computer program that becomes activated by DNA damage, and that program enables the cells to respond very quickly.”  Read more

One of the smaller mysteries of life is that it is built out of asymmetric building blocks. The amino acids that are chained together to make proteins are asymmetric, as are the sugars that are chained together to make starch, cellulose, and other useful polysaccharides. The standard way to show this, is by making a solution of the specific molecule, shining polarized light through it, and demonstrating that the “plane of polarization” has rotated. Those that rotate the light counter-clockwise are “left-handed” and those that rotate it clockwise are “right-handed”. Using the letters “l” for left, and “d” for right, we now can label the mirror-image molecules with their appropriate chirality. (The amino acids are labelled L or D not Read More ›

The Smithy, a Web site devoted to the life, times, and thought of the Subtle Doctor, the Blessed John Duns Scotus, has recently weighed in on the ID controversy, with three recent posts by Michael Sullivan in response to my post, In Praise of Subtlety. Before I continue, I would like to congratulate Michael Sullivan for successfully defending his dissertation on Friday, April 23.

Reading Michael Sullivan’s latest blog posts, I realized that I had not been precise enough in my definitions of what a living thing is, and of what an artifact is. It would be a terrible thing if we ended up talking past each other in what promises to be an interesting philosophical exchange, so I shall do my best to prevent that happening.

The views I present below are my own, and I take full responsibility for them. In formulating them, I have endeavored to marry the best insights of Aristotle’s philosophy and modern science.

What is a living thing?

Specifically, I claim that: Read More ›

Evolutionists have complained bitterly that some states are requiring biology classes to present evolution from a theory-neutral perspective–that is, the evidence should be presented without first presenting evolution as true. And evolutionists have mounted an offensive against such efforts.  Read more

Recently Stephen Hawking finished a video series with the Discovery Channel which, in his paralyzed state, took him 3 years to finish. According to the news releases, he insisted on rewriting large sections of the script. One wonders how long it took a man who communicates to his computer through eye-blinks to write a new script. But however long it took, we are now blessed with yet another “science for the common man” video. My college-aged children all have a “Great American Video” waiting for them to make. When I was in school, everyone wanted to be the “Great American Garage Band”. And as far as I can tell, the previous generation all had a “Great American Novel” that was Read More ›

When yeast cells face environmental stress, such as exposure to hydrogen peroxide, their internal operations can begin to malfunction. For example, a particular protein misfolds and no longer functions as well. This hardly seems surprising, but as usual there is more to the story. It seems that the misfolded protein normally helps to terminate the synthesis of new proteins. But when it is misfolded, some of the newly formed proteins end up a bit longer, with more information added. And the added information is not just random garbage–it helps the cells adjust to the environmental stress which brought about the change in the first place.  Read more

The influence of evolutionary thought reaches far beyond science. Consider, for example, the histories we are given of how the theory of evolution arose. Charles Darwin and co-founder Alfred Wallace were deeply influenced by non scientific considerations and these influences have, to a certain extent, been explored. Janet Browne, Peter Bowler, Michael Ruse, Keith Thomson, Neal Gillespie, Adrian Desmond and James Moore are but a few of those who have elucidated the cultural, political and other non scientific forces that influenced Darwin and Wallace. As Bowler explains, historians are now far more concerned about the social environment within which scientific knowledge was generated, and far more willing to admit that the development of science is not the inevitable triumph of Read More ›

Think you receive too much email? Charles Darwin and his friend Joseph Hooker exchanged over 1,400 messages (they called them letters back then). In all Darwin exchanged over 15,000 letters with his list (er, correspondents). Here’s one from January 11, 1844 in which Darwin raised the specter of his new idea:  Read more

In the dense tropical rainforest of Borneo live species unknown to science. One new find is Ibycus rachelae, a slug that, like the mythological Cupid, shoots its mate with an arrow of love. The dart injects an amorous hormone into its reluctant partner to liven things up.  Read more

You might not know the guy in the picture above. John Duns Scotus, O.F.M, was one of the greatest theologians of the Middle Ages. A penetrating thinker of unsurpassed ingenuity, he was nicknamed the Subtle Doctor. Later on in this post, I’ll argue that in one particular respect, his philosophy is particularly ID-friendly – even more so than that of St. Thomas Aquinas. (By the way, my post on Aquinas, ID and evolution will be coming out next week.)

Duns Scotus, as he is generally known, appreciated arguments with many twists and turns, and I think he would have enjoyed reading Professor William Dembski’s recent post, Does ID presuppose a mechanistic view of nature? . But after reading his response to Dembski’s post, I get the strong impression that Professor Edward Feser does not appreciate subtle arguments. Fair enough. We all have our own personal strengths. Professor Feser is a formidable fighter, a brilliant metaphysician and a very profound thinker. If subtlety is not his cup of tea, then I shall undertake to rephrase Professor Dembski’s argument in a way that makes it crystal clear that ID’s argument for a Designer poses no threat whatever to Aristotelian and Thomistic arguments for the existence of God. By the way, this will be my last UD post in response to Professor Feser, as I think that prolonging the argument further would not be helpful. I shall do my best to make him reconsider his opposition to ID, in this post. Wish me luck!

All right. Now let’s get down to tin tacks.

What exactly does Professor Dembski mean by a “mechanistic” view of nature? Read More ›