There is a new book coming out in November Should Christians Embrace Evolution? published by IVP edited by Norman C Nevin From Amazon.co.uk From Amazon.com I picked this link up from Pandas Thumb it may be a bit out of date – about Norman Nevin “Professor Norman Nevin: Norman C. Nevin is Professor of Medical Genetics, Queen’s University of Belfast and Head of the Northern Regional Genetics Service. He has held the positions of secretary, vice-president and president of the UK Clinical Genetics Society as well as serving on various national and international committees notably the Human Genetics Advisory Commission. He is a member of the European Concerted Action for congenital abnormalities. Professor Nevin was a founder member of the Read More ›
For the original online McWhorter-Behe discussion, go here. Thanks to one of my research assistants for making the transcript. Here’s the video in lower res as it appeared online after Bloggingheads removed it:
MCWHORTER: Well, Michael Behe I am so glad to meet you, and umm thank you for agreeing to do this. This is one of the rare times when I have actually initiated a bloggingheads pairing, and it’s because I just read your book The Edge of Evolution from 2007, and I found it absolutely shattering. I mean this is a very important book. And yet I sense from, umm, the reputation or the reception of your book from 10+ years ago Darwin’s Black Box that it may be hard to get a lot of people to understand why the book is so important. So I just wanted to go back and forth with you for a little while to get a sense of what your intent with this book was and ask you a few questions and just allow this book to have the wide airing that it deserves. So umm thank you.
BEHE: Yeah sure, sounds great to me. It’s nice to be with you, I’ve never been on a bloggingheads before, so uh, it should be fun.
MCWHORTER: Yeah it’s umm, I umm, I want to start with this, umm, and this is what motivates me. Darwin is great; I’ve always been really interested in evolution. Usually on bloggingheads I talk about race issues. But, however, actually, in my actual daily life I’m interested much more in certain other things, such as I’m a massive dinosaur fan and things like that, and evolution has always fascinated me but I’ve always seen a certain kink in the whole natural selection argument. And I’ve always asked people this basic question, it’s about skunks. Read More ›
Our friend and colleague Atom tha Immortal has finished up the WEASEL GUI at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab (go here for the GUI). It implements every conceivable interpretation of Dawkins’s WEASEL program as outlined in THE BLIND WATCHMAKER. Thanks Atom for all your hard work!
For decades China’s “one child” policy has been the centerpiece of its population control efforts. Millions of young girls have been killed in their mothers’ wombs as an indirect consequence of this policy for a very simple reason: If parents can only have one child, the majority prefer that child to be a boy. Therefore, when many parents find out their unborn child is a girl they have her killed. China has sown the wind. Now it is time to reap the whirlwind. This story is about the large and growing gender gap in China. The Chinese have killed a large slice of an entire generation of women, and as a result in a few years 30 million men are Read More ›
Editor’s note: I post frequently on the ethical implications of materialism. There is a reason for that. I have dealt personally with the deadly consequences of the materialist worldview taken to its logical end . Below is a post that first appeared on these pages on November 9, 2007: In a recent post Denyse O’Leary linked to a news story coverning Pekka Eric Auvinen, the Finnish student who killed eight in a shooting spree at his school. Apparently Auvinen was an ardent Darwinist who considered himself to be an instrument of natural selection. He wrote: “I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgaces of human race and failures of natural selection.” One of O’Leary’s interlocutors more Read More ›
Here are the facts concerning the Roman Polanski case: Polanski gave a Quaalude to a 13 year-old child; instructed her to get naked and enter a Jacuzzi; refused to take her home when she asked; performed oral sex on her as she asked him to stop; raped her (no, not the “statutory” kind, the “forcible” kind); and sodomized her. In a plea bargain Polanski pled to unlawful sex with a minor. As is common knowledge, Polanski has his defenders because he has made some terrific movies. For example, critic Tom Shales says: “There is, apparently, more to this crime than it would seem, and it may sound like a hollow defense, but in Hollywood I am not sure a 13-year-old Read More ›
Wesley J. Smith has written an interesting article about assisted suicide at The Weekly Standard called “Abandoning the Most Vulnerable.” The article is about the true story of Myrna Lebov who committed suicide at the age of 52 in her Manhattan apartment with the aid of her husband George Delury. According to Smith, Lebov had been suffering with progressive multiple sclerosis. The fallout:
Delury became an instant celebrity. He was acclaimed as a dedicated husband willing to risk jail to help his beloved wife achieve her desired end. The assisted-suicide movement set up a defense fund and renewed calls for legalization. Delury made numerous television appearances and was invited to speak to a convention of the American Psychiatric Association. He signed a deal for a book, later published under the title But What If She Wants to Die? Delury soon copped a plea to attempted manslaughter and served a few months in jail.
However, the story is more sordid than Delury’s public persona revealed. It turns out that he kept a diary, in which he explained what a burden Lebov was to him, and how he encouraged her to die only to free himself from the responsibility of caring for her. Excerpts:
Anika Smith has noted at Evolution News and Views that Richard Dawkins, author of the recently published book The Greatest Show On Earth, refuses to debate Stephen C. Meyer, author of the recent book The Signature in the Cell.
Dr. Meyer challenged Dawkins to a debate when he saw that their speaking tours would cross paths this fall in Seattle and New York. Dawkins declined through his publicists, saying he does not debate “creationists.”
“Dawkins’ response is disingenuous,” said Meyer. “Creationists believe the earth is 10,000 years old and use the Bible as the basis for their views on the origins of life. I don’t think the earth is 10,000 years old and my case for intelligent design is based on scientific evidence.”
According to Discovery Institute, where Dr. Meyer directs the Center for Science & Culture, the debate challenge is a standing invitation for any time and place that is mutually agreeable to both participants.
In his article on human evolution Graeme Finlay states that duplicated DNA segments prove evolution. Finlay’s proof is straightforward. These duplications of DNA segments arise randomly and yet identical duplications are found in cousin species, such as humans and chimpanzees. Finlay uses as his example opsin genes which produce proteins that are light sensitive. Different opsin genes produce proteins that are sensitive to different colors of light. The proteins are found in the hundreds of millions of photocells in our retina and they allow us to sense the different colors of light that we see. By combining the signals from these different photocells, our brain can assemble a full color image. Read more
Jeff Shallit charges Jonathan Wells with incompetence for claiming that duplicating a gene does not increase the available genetic information. To justify this charge, Shallit notes that a symbol string X has strictly less Kolmogorov information than the symbol string XX. Shallit, as a computational number theorist, seems stuck on a single definition of information. Fine, Kolmogorov’s theory implies that duplication leads to a (slight) increase in information. But there are lots and lots of other definitions of information out there. There’s Fisher information. There’s Shannon information. There’s Jack Szostak’s functional information. Information, when quantified, typically takes the form of a complexity measure. Seth Lloyd has catalogued numerous different types of complexity measures used by mathematicians, engineers, and scientists. Here Read More ›
On this episode of ID the Future, Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman asks David Berlinski how to address the problem of dissent in science. The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions is now available in paperback from Basic Books. Visit the website at www.devilsdelusion.com for more information and continuing updates from Dr. Berlinski. Click here to listen.
Review Of The Seventh Chapter Of Signature In The Cell by Stephen Meyer
ISBN: 9780061894206; ISBN10: 0061894206; Imprint: HarperOne
The distinction between historical and experimental science is one that extends back over the centuries and at its core seems easy to grasp. Whereas historical science has as its focus events that have defined the history both of our planet and larger cosmos, experimental science has its eye on the current operation of nature.
The 19th century philosopher William Whewell coined the term ‘palaetiological sciences’ to describe those fields of science, such as geology and paleontology, that have a historical perspective (1). Whewell’s broad application of the term shone through in his two great works, his History of the Inductive Sciences and his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1). Immanuel Kant used a similar distinction contrasting those sciences that describe “relationships and changes over time” with those that deal with the “empirical study and classification of objects…at present” (2). Read More ›
Were one to design the encoded DNA “blueprint” of life, would not one incorporate ways to preserve that “blueprint”? The Nobel prize in medicine has just been awarded for discovery of features that look amazingly like design to preserve chromosomes. See:
Three U.S. researchers were awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on how chromosomes are protected against degradation, the Nobel Foundation reported Monday. Read More ›
Its been fascinating to read the discussion started by Barry Arrington that seems to expose some critical holes in the moral thinking of materialism. The discussion seems to range from justifying the existence of pornography to denigrating religious organizations that proselytize as they offer help and assistance to those in need. And, as Barry pointed out, the discussion is 41 posts in (actually as of now 53 posts), and still no materialist has condemned the views of the poster called Seversky on moral grounds. Perhaps having to decide between helping women in poverty by buying pornography or by funding a religious charity is too morally complex a choice for clarity for a materialist, so I want to offer an alternative. Read More ›
This opportunity is dedicated to Darwinists/evolutionists or any ID denier who sincerely desire to become convinced IDer but failed the target until today. It is a great opportunity that unfortunately Darwin could not get at his times (you will understand why at the end). Read More ›