Intelligent Design

William Dembski was interviewed recently by the Evangelical Philosophical Society, which can be read at their blog, about his new book The End of Christianity, Finding a Good God in an Evil World. This book is the long anticipated refutation of the “new atheists” position, such as that of the Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens vein. But it is also a theodicy worthy of reading in its own right, regardless of the prominence of new or old atheists. Here’s an excerpt of the interview: What’s the main point that you are trying to communicate in this book? What is the “end of Christianity” that you speak of in your title? My book attempts to resolve how the Fall of Adam Read More ›

One of the interesting aspects of Climategate is that the website Climate Audit (www.climateaudit.org) has become a lot more prominent. For instance, here is a excerpt from an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. “This September, Mr. Mann told a New York Times reporter in one of the leaked emails that: “Those such as [Stephen] McIntyre who operate almost entirely outside of this system are not to be trusted.” Mr. McIntyre is a retired Canadian businessman who checks the findings of climate scientists and often publishes the mistakes he finds on his Web site, Climateaudit.org. He holds the rare distinction of having forced Mr. Mann to publish a correction to one of his more famous papers.” (“Rigging a Climate Read More ›

Recently, Bill Dembski noted the Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience, aimed at Christians who take their faith seriously. It points out that the direction of public policy (= what Top People want) in the United States is in stark contrast to the beliefs of most of the people. It has been signed by many key leaders.

In my view, too many Christians in North America spend too much time stomping for Jesus and not enough asking themselves – what should I do about the general direction of public policy, given that I have a vote in my own country and – so far – also the right to learn the truth and to appeal to government?

American citizen: In many places in the world, you would never be so lucky as to have a real chance.

So is Manhattan relevant to ID? Well, like “climategate”, Manhattan helps us see the huge struggle we all face, once we allow facts to matter.

Many people today routinely make a living misrepresenting facts and – in Canada where I live – a surprising number also make a living chipping away at their neighbours’ civil rights in the name of “human rights.” Often, these cases target religious values, so “hate” becomes whatever lifestyle codes or opinions Top People or their proteges don’t like.

Many Americans, apparently anxious to compete, want into the shakedown. Shakedown can be very lucrative on the government tab. In Canada, for example, the “human rights” defendant must pay his own costs, but the plaintiff is funded by government. Also, some legislation is constructed in such a way that it is very, very difficult to be found innocent. One can in fact be a complainant for a living.

None of this current culture is good for honest appraisal of evidence, which is what ID represents. However, the current culture is very good for suppressing evidence, and for demanding that others suppress it too, and thus violate their consciences. Unless, of course, those others are self-righteous authoritarians who actually feel good about all this. In which case, they will feel even better about themselves and indulge their vice even more.

(Recent Canadian cases: Peterborough bishop charged over refusing to have a gay guy living with another gay guy as an altar server; gay bed-and-breakfast owner had to pay shakedown for not wanting a dog in his home because he is allergic to dogs; late nite comic whose jokes were deemed not funny charged under the BC “human rights” Tribunal. Once fulltime busybodies get their nose into government, professing to fight “hate,” there is nothing with which they will not interfere. And then, no surprise, the system is rapidly overtaken by political interests who suppress free speech about topics of vital public interest.)

This much else I know is true: Read More ›

Biology’s sophisticated adaptation machine has now been discovered to be even more sophisticated. In recent years the types of adaptation often claimed to be examples of evolution in action have been found to be driven by complex mechanisms that respond to environmental pressures. It was yet another falsification of evolutionary expectations. Organisms responded far more quickly than neo Darwinism predicted, and this was because the responses were not the result of evolution’s blind variation, but rather of directed mechanisms. Gene regulation and even gene modification mechanisms have been discovered which not only implement helpful adaptations, but they implement adaptations that are heritable.  Read more

| | I knew Jeffrey Shallit as a reasonable computational number theorist at the University of Chicago in the 1980s. When it comes to ID, however, he simply can’t think straight. Repulsed by Thomas Nagel’s high praise of Stephen Meyer’s SIGNATURE IN THE CELL (noted here at UD), Shallit calls Nagel a fool and then cites as evidence Nagel’s acceptance of Meyer’s claims about information: Meyer claims, over and over again, that information can only come from a mind — and that claim is an absolutely essential part of his argument. Nagel, the brilliant philosopher, should see why that is false. Consider making a weather forecast. Meteorologists gather information about the environment to do so: wind speed, direction, temperature, cloud Read More ›

When I posted before to mention IVP’s new anti-Darwin book, I had no idea they’d launched a website: www.shouldchristiansembraceevolution.com It’s very comprehensive, and very impressive. IVP (UK) are obviously taking this particular publication very seriously.

Googling “climategate + Dembski” (as a simple way to retrieve a file from our site that I wanted to link to), I came across this” comment at Open Parachute, which makes excuses for the ‘gates:

Predictably only the most apparently damning emails have been quoted in the media.

Sure, it is pretty predictable that the most damning statements would be quoted, rather than the office pizza order.

After all, suppose some fellow – for whatever reason – doesn’t like me much. He wastes his employer’s time recording his opinions – and his computer gets hacked: So we read:

O’Leary’s taste in clothes is terrible … her writing style stinks … she has a most inappropriate sense of humour … I am going to hire a thug to beat her up … her garden is nothing but a tangle of weeds … I bet she is unemployed right now …

Which of these comments do you think would most interest me? I am afraid I cannot offer a prize for guessing.

Open Parachute whiffles on:

While I think some of the language in the emails is disappointing I don’t think it is surprising for informal private communications.

Well, that depends on who you are, I guess. How about this one:

“The two MMs [Canadian skeptics Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.”

Wow, the open society on display.

Re Freedom of Information Act:

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The more we learn the more it appears that almost everything of any significance in living systems is irreducibly complex. Multiple systems must almost always be simultaneously modified to proceed to the next island of function. Every software engineer knows this, and living things are fundamentally based on software.

Evolution in the fossil record is consistently characterized by major discontinuities — as my thesis about IC being a virtually universal rule at all levels, from the cell to human cognition and language, would suggest — and the discontinuity between humans and all other living things is the most profound of all. Morphological similarities are utterly swamped by the profound differences exhibited by human language, math, art, engineering, ethics, and much more.
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The Times is reporting that the happy, smiling children on an atheist ad campaign are in fact from a Christian, evangelical family. An interesting irony perhaps. Children who front Richard Dawkins’ atheist ads are evangelicals The ad calls for children to be brought up without having religious labels placed upon them by their parents. Of course while the humanists don’t want parents to instill their values within their own children, they really want children to turn into humanists without any religious belief – why else would they fund these adverts? It is an interesting question what right parents have to instill their beliefs upon their children (I would suggest it is in fact a duty to bring children up to Read More ›

There’s an interesting article about the prevalence of atheist college groups, and their slow but rising numbers, here. The article focuses on Iowa State University’s resident atheist group, the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society, and how they go about conducting themselves.

At Iowa State, most of the club’s roughly 30 members are “former” somethings, mostly Christians. Many stress that their lives are guided not by anti-religiousness, but belief in science, logic and reason.

“The goal,” said Andrew Severin, a post-doctoral researcher in bioinformatics, “should be to obtain inner peace for yourself and do random acts of kindness for strangers.”

Severin calls himself a “spiritual atheist.” He doesn’t believe in God or the supernatural but thinks experiences like meditation or brushes with nature can produce biochemical reactions that feel spiritual.

When the ISU club began in 1999, it was mostly a discussion group. But it soon became clear that young people who leave organized religion miss something: a sense of community. So the group added movie and board-game nights and, more recently, twice-monthly Sunday brunches to the calendar.

This passes for logic and reason? How can something feel spiritual is there is no such thing as spirit? What basis of comparison is used if spirituality is an illusion? What is being maintained, by materialists such as this, is that biochemical reactions cause illusory feelings. But if biochemical reactions cause these feelings, then they also cause all other feelings, and there would be no getting outside of the explanation of biochemical reactions causing all feelings. So why trust biochemical reactions in other feelings like love or happiness? None of them need have any basis in reality.

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Go here.

Steve Meyer’s SIGNATURE IN THE CELL continues to garner the praise it deserves. This from Thomas Nagel in The Times Literary Supplement: Stephen C. Meyer’s Signature in the Cell: DNA and the evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperCollins) is a detailed account of the problem of how life came into existence from lifeless matter – something that had to happen before the process of biological evolution could begin. The controversy over Intelligent Design has so far focused mainly on whether the evolution of life since its beginnings can be explained entirely by natural selection and other non-purposive causes. Meyer takes up the prior question of how the immensely complex and exquisitely functional chemical structure of DNA, which cannot be explained by Read More ›

About 150 Christian leaders were the original signatories of the recent manifesto asserting the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and liberty of conscience — the Manhattan Declaration. At the time of this writing, over a 100,000 have signed it (including me). I encourage readers of UD to read the document and sign it if it reflects your views on God and culture.

Of the 150 original signers, I know about 25 personally. Interestingly, the original signers seem overwhelmingly pro-ID. That raises the question why no notable theistic evolutionists are signers (e.g., Francis Collins). To be sure, signers such as Tim Keller and Dinesh D’Souza have indicated an openness to evolutionary theory. But I’m not finding any among the signers who are adamantly committed to theistic evolution, seeing it as the only way to be both scientifically and theologically responsible.

Perhaps I’m missing something here. If so, I’m happy to be disabused. But is it possible that ID is friendlier to classic Christian teaching on the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and liberty of conscience than theistic evolution? It not, I’d like to see the names of theistic evolutionists who are also signers of the Manhattan Declaration.

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Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience
November 20, 2009

The following is the text of the Manhattan Declaration signed by 149 pro-life and Catholic and evangelical and Orthodox Christian leaders. LifeNews.com supports the pro-life aims of the resolution.

http://manhattandeclaration.org

Preamble

Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.

While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.

After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines. Read More ›

Science can be wrong about some things and still make great discoveries and inventions. One can believe the earth is flat or that electrons are nothing more than tiny billiard balls and still make progress. The history of science is a fascinating story of erroneous theories and beliefs intertwined with remarkable progress. And even today’s life science research journals are full of asinine statements, arising from a belief in evolution, mingled with perfectly good scientific research. Most scientists can distinguish between the hard data gathered in the laboratory and the obligatory evolutionary framework into which the data are forced and presented. You focus on the former in order to make progress and tolerate the latter in order to get funded. Read More ›

We all know that our planet is awash with wonderful and beautiful life forms, none more so than we find in our oceans. This photo essay from the Fox News Website provides a glimpse into the strange world of creatures that inhabit the deepest parts of the seas. Truly remarkable. Here is but one example — the blind lobster: