Intelligent Design

Just up at an earlier post at  Uncommon Descent (comments box):

“Since ID is not a religious program, but a scientific one, I fail to see why an ID proponent needs comment what a religious organization does or doesn’t do. Evolution is all about science (or so we’re told), as such its founder clearly held racists views drawn directly from the science. If you have a similar connection between racism and ID, we’re all ears.” – Donald McL

Thank you, Donald! that is precisely my point.

I certainly do not hold myself responsible for everything anyone has ever done in the name of religion, simply because I am a Catholic Christian.

I have also never held any individual Darwinist responsible for everything anyone has done in the name of Darwinism.

But I am – at best – surprised by the lack of interest of science societies in backing away from Darwin’s racism.

It would be EASY to do.

I do not want to quarrel uselessly about this. I am simply asking all members of societies that have made statements supporting Darwin vs. intelligent design to FOLLOW UP with a formal statement *divorcing* Darwin’s racism.

Just divorce Descent of Man now! Just DO it!

Don’t tell me that you individually disagree with it. That means nothing in the current climate.

Now, if the Darwinists do not do it, won’t we know something useful?

I think we will know something very useful indeed.

I will be VERY happy to publicise any upcoming divorces from The Descent of Man!

Darwinist, do you or don’t you divorce this book? Read More ›

I put this in the combox below another post, but decided to put it on the front page, for reasons of social responsibility.

I think that “evolutionary biology” is the basket-weaving course of science – but basket weaving keeps some people from crime and drug addiction, after all – so who am I to say it isn’t worthing?.When are “evolutionary biologists” going to get around to admitting Darwin’s racism and its consequences?

Here is what I wrote to one self-righteous commenter: Read More ›

Darwin has master publicists. He really does.

Coming home on the bus today, I suddenly realized how odd it is that the ol’ Brit toff racist – whose The Descent of Man is an open running sore of racism – is being celebrated everywhere as some kind of liberator.

Well, I guess he is – if you are a racist, and are looking for a “scientific” cover. Read More ›

I am sure glad Mario Lopez posted this “Wired” item under “eyes rolling” Whatever those people are Wiring themselves with, they should stop. Here’s the deal: Let us compare humans to weasels (a pine marten weasel is pictured at right). Humans think about God because we have human mental faculties, period. Weasels do not think about God because they do not have human mental faculties. Humans realize that we will die one day, and wonder what happens after that. (Weasels do not.) Humans think that some of our behaviour is good and some is bad, and we wonder whether the universe is organized in such a way as to promote the good and penalize the bad. (Weasels never think of Read More ›

The Discovery Institute’s Bruce Chapman is reporting that the Templeton Foundation has funded the pro-Darwin conference in Rome. Templeton’s Darwin Conference in Rome 5th March It is interesting to note that in the UK the Templeton Foundation has also funded some very vocal theistic supporters of evolution, including the Faraday Institute headed by Denis Alexander, with $2,000,000 dollars. And the wide ranging Theos / Faraday research project, that wants to ‘rescue Darwin’ by gathering information about the level of acceptance of evolution in UK society, was funded by Templeton. Theos reported back in June 2008 that it is ‘delighted to announce that it has been awarded a major grant by the John Templeton Foundation to undertake a new project on Read More ›

The “Msx1, a feedback activator of Bmp4 expression” with the Osr2 control gene has been discovered to switch between single vs multiple sets of teeth. E.g. distinguishing between humans and sharks. This efficient compact control mechanism appears to fit well within an ID Design paradigm. The serious cleft pallet defects caused by errors further suggest an irreducibly complex system.

What evidence might there be for random mutation and “selection” to form such a complex yet elegant control system so “early” in evolution?

Finding genes that make teeth grow all in a row By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Thursday, February 26, 2009

Ever wonder why sharks get several rows of teeth and people only get one? . . .A single gene appears to be in charge, Read More ›

With all the major evolution done so early, microbe evolution has been retired for a very long time. No wonder we can’t evolve new pathways in the lab! From ScienceDaily New research shows that for microbes, large-scale evolution was completed 2.5 billion years ago. “For microbes, it appears that almost all of their major evolution took place before we have any record of them, way back in the dark mists of prehistory,” said Roger Buick, a University of Washington paleontologist and astrobiologist. All living organisms need nitrogen, a basic component of amino acids and proteins. But for atmospheric nitrogen to be usable, it must be “fixed,” or converted to a biologically useful form. Some microbes turn atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, a Read More ›

Our friends over at www.Marxists.org are perplexed about Hegel’s views on evolution. I am not quite sure where Hegel sits in the Communist Pantheon, but apparently he has some degree of importance. In 1816 Hegel published his Philosophy of Nature (Part 3 of his Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences). Steven Houlgate has written on this book and has posted his critique at Marxists.org. Hegel states the following: “it is a completely empty thought to represent species as developing successively, one after the other, in time…. The land animal did not develop naturally out of the aquatic animal, nor did it fly into the air on leaving the water.” And also “even if the earth was once in a state where it Read More ›

The Theos funded report on attitudes to evolution and creation in UK society has now been published. It gives a confusing picture, although that didn’t stop the Guardian taking one figure out of context to give the spin required by the paper. Guardian news item Theos news item

The report, Faith and Darwin written by Comres not Theos to avoid bias, commented on page 102.

“Despite the decrease of religious practice in the UK and the recent media coverage of issues of science and faith, there is still a core of people who hold to Young Earth Creationism. However, interestingly, the youngest generations and highest educated people show inclinations towards believing in Intelligent Design. Could this be a pointer towards the dominant trend of tomorrow?” Read More ›

A recent poll from England, taken on the eve of Darwin’s 200th birthday celebrations, shows that nearly half of Britons have serious doubts about evolution. And this despite its being the big Year of Darwin and all the hoopla leading up to it and Britain being the home of Darwin and Dawkins and all that. Somehow the message just isn’t getting through.

Here in the United States, a recent Zogby poll indicates a significant increase in the number of people who think the evidence against evolution should be taught. That’s odd considering how often we’ve been told that there is no evidence against evolution and that its as well confirmed as the theory of gravity. Guess that message hasn’t gotten through either. Read More ›

Here’s the story: oudaily.com/news/2009/mar/02/design-debate-draws-crowd-laughs-catlett

This is the transcript of the interview I did with Alex Tsakiris at Skeptiko. It got a bit testy at times. Here’s a snatch on the subject of reincarnation. In the context, I was trying to explain that the fact that some children know what happened to a deceased adult is not necessarily obvious, slam dunk proof of reincarnation: [were these people trying to set me up? Wow!]

Denyse O’ Leary: … there’s probably more than one model that might explain what was happening responsible research is that the mind is not as closely link to the brain as has been formerly thought. So that way, one can move out into an area that’s well-sourced without attracting a whole bunch of [c]ranks because we do need to admit that this sort of research; any sort of research like this and I include that in the Christian community as well as others could attract [c]ranks. So that’s why some of us tend to try to be fairly based on.

Alex Tsakiris: I really have to take issue with that because I think it’s a strategy that folks in the parapsychology and in the other alternative conscious community have tried to do. Have tried to kind of bow to the altar of materialism and say, “No, we just want our little peace over here” and I think it’s a failed strategy. I think the accounts…

Denyse O’Leary: You’re the first person who has ever suggested that I was bowing to anyone like that but you go on.

Hey, the interview was a lot of fun, actually, and I hope you enjoy it.

(Note: I switched “pranks” in the quoted transcript above to [c]ranks. “Cranks” is what I said, and what I meant. Some of the rest of the transcript could do with editing for sentence flow and grammar, but I am not getting involved with that …

I am in no way responsible for the obviously bad transcript. Despite all my – widely attested – other faults, I speak perfect English. I probably could not make a significant grammar error if I tried. I would correct myself in mid-sentence.

Also just up at The Mindful Hack: Read More ›

A friend sends me this item from Urban Dictionary:

Chuck Johnson

Verb: related to Godwin’s law and Godwinism’s. To ‘Chuck Johnson’s’ is to label a person, group or philosophy with the reductio ad Hitlerum* tag as means to close down debate.

Chuck: transitive verb, meaning to a: toss , throw, Noun: Short for Charles

Johnson: refers to the owner of the news aggregating, formally conservative, anti jihad site and now anti-creationism pro Darwin website Little Green Footballs. Which has become synonymous with personality cults, blogtatorship and calling previous colleagues and acquaintances of long and respected standing fascists, Nazis, Racists or ID’er (derogatory term for a belief in creationism. For simply having web links or opinions on their own personal web pages which he/CJ disapproves of.

I must confess, I don’t really understand little green footballs at all.

I did not start covering the intelligent design controversy because I was especially right wing, had a hidden agenda, or was in anyone’s pay, but because the legacy mainstream media was doing such a lousy job that any well-informed freelancer with a blog could do better.

I do, however, remember the weird moment when “Chuck” (?) decided that the scientists who think that the universe shows evidence of design were somehow allied with Islamic fascists. I commented on that here.

The reality is quite otherwise. Muslims who want to grow in their faith while divorcing the politics of extremism are attracted to intelligent design precisely because it demonstrates that the universe is both God-guided and rational. However, that is entirely independent of conspirazoid claims about the Discovery Institute in Seattle.

A Muslim friend reminds me, at times, that traditional Muslim families in his neighbourhood love “Little House on the Prairie” reruns, but do not admire “Sex in the City.”  Well, I share their tastes. And anyone who wants to make a conspiracy out of that can go right ahead.

By the way, if you want to know what’s going on in Canada’s political culture, your first stop should be Deborah Gyapong’s blog. Gyapong, a reporter at the Parliamentary Press Gallery, knows the score.

[*reduction ad Hitlerum = Tell the world that your opponent in some discussion would have endorsed Hitler and the Holocaust. It is an excellent way to seriously complicate and throw confusion into a discussion about, say, which firm should get the contract for fixing potholes on paved highways, come spring, or whether a doofus dressed up as an erect penis should be lecturing about sex at a girls’ high school. People used to say “He’s the Devil’s man!” Now they say “He’s Hitler’s man!” It amounts to the same thing, really. It is not, in itself, an argument.]

Also at the Post-Darwinist: Read More ›

Each year about 100 million Monarch butterflies from Canada and northeastern United States make their journey to the Mexican Sierra Madre mountains in an astonishing two-month long migration (Ref 1).  They fly 2500 miles to a remote area that is only 60 square miles in size (Ref 1).  No one fully understands what triggers this mass movement of Lepidopterans.  But there is no getting away from the fact that this is a phenomenon that, as one review summed up, “staggers the mind”, especially when one considers that these butterflies are freshly-hatched (Ref 1).  In short, Monarch migrants are always “on their maiden voyage” (Ref 2).  The location they fly to is home to a forest of broad-trunked trees that effectively Read More ›

Over on Panda’s Thumb Arthur Hunt protests Phil Skell’s essay in Forbes where Skell describes the theory of evolution as not being useful to modern experimental biology. Hunt goes on to give an example in how it is useful. But Hunt plays the old bait and switch game. Every honest person with some knowledge of ID knows that ID doesn’t dispute common descent as the reason why all living things are deeply related. ID disputes the notion that chance and necessity alone produced all the living things and the differences between them. I don’t think anyone (including Phil Skell) will argue that knowing all living things are deeply related is not a sometimes valuable guiding heuristic to experimental biology. So Read More ›