In my previous post I posed two questions for Judge Jones. The answers to the second question are A, B and C. That is, (A) Evolutionary theory incorporates religious premises, (B) Proponents of evolutionary theory are religious people and (C) Evolutionary theory mandates certain types of solutions. Continue reading here.
Why does the universe seem so fine-tuned for the emergence of life – including intelligent life capable of asking that “why” question? Paul Davies of Arizona State University in his new book “Cosmic Jackpot” argues that the cosmos has made itself the way it is, stretching backward in time to the very beginning to focus in on “bio-friendliness.” When asked by Alan Boyle why the universe is bio-friendly? Is it intelligent design, or blind chance, or none of the above? Davies replies: “There are three popular responses; the intelligent-design argument; the idea that if we had a final theory of physics, then all of the undetermined parameters in the laws would be fixed by that theory; and the third is Read More ›
Here are two multiple choice questions, but you must not look at the second question before answering the first. 1. What makes a theory a religious theory? A. The theory incorporates religious premises. B. Proponents of the theory are religious people. C. The theory mandates certain types of solutions. D. The theory allows for all types of solution. Continue reading here.
Some have claimed that swine flu is evidence of evolution. If so, it is not evidence of Darwinian evolution (natural selection acting on random mutation produces intricate structures), which is the money shot in the current government funded system. Flu viruses swap genes, which is easy for them because it’s not even clear that they are life forms (because they don’t do anything other than hijack cells in order to reproduce). Nor do they usually become much different as a result of swapping genes. They are just the viruses they have always been.
Anyway, here is my most recent MercatorNet column on swine flu:
Now that the World Health Organization has declared swine flu (virus H1N1) a pandemic, their first since 1968’s Hong Kong flu, we might consider how it emerged.
But first — Panic Alert: [nonsense avoidance]: People who are not already frail will probably be sick for about 48 hours if they get swine flu. They will not likely die. Symptoms are typical flu symptoms. When visiting anyone in frail health, please observe all sanitary precautions that medical authorities advise, especially if the frail person is in a hospital already. Shouldn’t that tell us something about their state of health?
So let’s not panic. The main message is, in a global society, we cannot have completely different health standards on the same continent. Now let’s talk about two cities — Mexico City and Winnipeg, Canada, where the virus was first identified. Read More ›
This book is based on THE NATURE OF NATURE conference that Bruce Gordon and I put together at Baylor back in 2000 (for the conference and the Polanyi Center that hosted it, go here). The book is now listed at Amazon. Note that it will be out February 2010 (not 2009 as listed) and will be over 1,000 pages (not 900 as listed). Product Description: The world’s leading authorities in the sciences and humanities—dozens of top scholars, including three Nobel laureates—join a cultural and intellectual battle that leaves no human life untouched. Is the universe self-existent, self-sufficient, and self-organizing, or is it grounded instead in a reality that transcends space, time, matter, and energy? Book Description: The cultural battles now Read More ›
In her recent paper, The Non-epistemology of Intelligent Design: Its Implications for Public Policy, evolutionary philosopher Barbara Forrest states that science must be restricted to natural phenomena. In its investigations, science must restrict itself to a naturalistic methodology, where explanations must be strictly naturalistic, dealing with phenomena that are strictly natural. Aside from rare exceptions this is the consensus position of evolutionists. And in typical fashion, Forrest uses this criteria to exclude origins explanations that allow for the supernatural. Only evolutionary explanations, in one form or another, are allowed. Continue reading here.
Steve Meyer’s new book from HarperOne, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, will be in bookstores next week. The book’s companion website, www.signatureinthecell.com, is now live. Check it out.
Are cracks appearing in the Darwinian facade? There appears to be increasing recognition in at least some genomic centres that Darwin needs to be laid quietly to rest as scientific discoveries progress. Professor John Dupre of Egenis for instance writes in the Genomics Network Newsletter – April 2009 – Does Genomics Need Darwin? (p.23) “Whereas until recently it was thought that the vast majority of the genome (>98%) not directly involved in coding for proteins was ‘junk’, perhaps selfish DNA involved in its own project of colonizing the genome, this view is now widely discredited. At least 70% of the genome appears to be transcribed, and it is increasingly suspected that much of this is involved in regulation of genome expression. Especially prominent Read More ›
If you are in Gotham City this weekend you can attend Brian Greene’s and Tracy Day’s World Science Festival. Greene wants the festival to celebrate great scientists in addition to science, as a way of encouraging public interest and generating excitement in the minds of future students. That’s a great idea (one of many from the brain of Brian Greene). But this year’s choice of “great scientist,” evolutionist Edward O. Wilson, may not generate the type of excitement we need. Continue reading here.
Fred Hoyle was an atheist, but also a freethinker who embraced intelligent design. I have just been re-reading his 1983 book, The Intelligent Universe, and I think Hoyle’s viewpoint deserves a more honest consideration than it usually receives. Hoyle was a very famous Cambridge (UK) physicist, astronomer, and cosmologist. He supported the idea of an eternal universe and worked out how it might be possible – a theory called The Steady State. He did not like the idea that the universe had a beginning, a notion he famously deprecated in public using the term “Big Bang”. The name stuck. Eventually, so much evidence accumulated for the Big Bang that Hoyle was left almost alone in holding to the idea of Read More ›
Wouldn’t be any surprise around here. I wonder if my next Uncommon Descent contest should be about why “it ain’t so, even though it looks like it.”
Evolution Deceit, an interesting Turkish creationist book, is good at assembling and clearly explaining the arguments against Darwinism that you can be pretty sure the average lay person will not hear from conventional TV nature programs. It does, however, get some Western intellectual history wrong. This example attracted my attention, of course: Quoting British journalist and broadcaster Malcolm Muggeridge, I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has. – Deceit, p. 164, The End of Christendom (Grand Read More ›
At African Ota Benga – the missed link, I posted a comment I thought I would enlarge on:
In my experience, in order to avoid acknowledging Darwinism’s contributions to racism, typical Darwinists perform a little two-step: Darwin = good non-racist; Haeckel = bad racist.
So we blame the “bad” German [WWII losers] for what every “good” British/North American Darwinist [WWII winners] really thought.
And for all I know, what every actual living Darwinist really thinks today. Read More ›
At ID_The_Future Casey Luskin interviews Rich Akin from Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity. Dr. Akin shares why he founded this organization for ID-supporting doctors and the misinformation about his organization on Wikipedia. To listen as Dr. Akin explains more about PSSI International, go here.