The article I link to below was written by a creationist and published on a creationist website. The abysmal lack of knowledge about molecular biology is exposed in it. I present it for entertainment purposes only… Astonishing DNA complexity demolishes neo-Darwinism by Alex Williams JOURNAL OF CREATION 21(3) 2007
The L.A. Theater Works have been touring the U.S. with a wonderful production of Peter Goodchild’s The Great Tennessee Monkey Monkey Trial. With veteran actors Ed Asner and John Heard as William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, respectively, the play’s script is taken directly from the transcripts of the actual trial, so is not a fictional account of the trial as Inherit the Wind was. My daughter and I had the privilege of seeing yesterday at Notre Dame and it is superb in every way. Asner and Heard are perfect as Bryan and Darrow. There are a few tour dates coming up so if this presentation is coming anywhere near where you are, I highly recommend you make the effort Read More ›
The late Triassic-early Jurassic predates Archaeopteryx, the most primitive bird known, which first appears in the fossil record in the late Jurassic fifty million or more years later. Yet here we have convincing traces of modern shore birds in strata that appears to be very well dated to the late Triassic. The authors point out this connudrum and suggest the strata is wrongly dated. However the dating appears to be, so to speak, rock solid. What’s up with that?
Barbara Forrest responds to David DeWolf in The News Star. Early in the article Forrest puts forth a false dichotomy which undermines all that follows. My emphasis: DeWolf’s portrayal of ID as scientific is falsified by his defining it as involving the “actions of an intelligent agent as the cause of phenomena that natural processes are unlikely to produce.” If phenomena are not naturally caused, they are supernaturally caused. There is no other alternative. Not only are there other alternatives but supernatural isn’t even an antonym for natural. If we go to a thesaurus and look up the word natural we find listed among the antonyms the words technological and artificial. Notably we do not find the word supernatural listed Read More ›
Check out this link: www.charlesdarwin.org.
Andrew Sibley has drawn attention to the recent Theos survey of the UK public’s beliefs in evolution, creationism and intelligent design. Wearing my sociologist’s hat, one overriding conclusion comes through in this survey: It was very poorly designed. Theos should get its money back from the social researchers they hired. Theos wants to give the impression that the public holds confused views about the various positions relating to the origins of life. In fact, Theos is the one confused. Have a look at how the various positions were described and what people thought of them. I’ve collapsed the statistics because I want to focus on the exact wording: Young Earth Creationism is the idea that God created the world sometime Read More ›
Christopher Booker offers his observations on the enthusiasm shown by adherents to Darwin’s theory in the run up to the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth. Booker too has noticed the analogy between devotion to Darwin and organised religion. Charles Darwin zealots have made science a substitute religion Booker firstly points out some unresolved problems with Darwin’s theory that are generally ignored or supressed today. He then compares global warming adherents with the Darwinists and comments that “It becomes increasingly obvious that…the Darwinians…are so convinced by the simplicity of their theory that they are unable to recognise how much they do not know – and …their response has been to become ever more fanatically intolerant of anyone who dares question their Read More ›
David Warren, a stalwart hack of the Ottawa Citizen, derides a recent Economist article, “Untouched by the hand of God: How people in various countries view the theory of evolution” (Feb 5th 2009), which allows us to know,
IT IS 150 years since the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which suggested that all living things are related and that everything is ultimately descended from a single common ancestor. This has troubled many, including Darwin himself, as it subverted ideas of divine intervention. It is not surprising that the countries least accepting of evolution today tend to be the most devout. In the most recent international survey available, only Turkey is less accepting of the theory than America. Iceland and Denmark are Darwin’s most ardent adherents. Indeed America has become only slightly more accepting of Darwin’s theory in recent years. In 2008 14% of people polled by Gallup agreed that “man evolved over millions of years”, up from 9% in 1982.
Well, let’s see: The United States is the world’s science leader, Iceland is on life support, and Denmark? Well, a brave little country if you go by the Mohammed cartoons episode, but these days, they would be better off praying for divine intervention than subverting it. Classically, for Darwin enthusiasts, basic facts mean nothing; only the attitude means something.
Anyway, Warren had pretty much the same reaction, and writes to say about the article: Read More ›
A few days back I reported here that Ben Stein had been uninvited to give the UVM (University of Vermont) commencement address, at which he was also to be given an honorary doctorate. I’m afraid I may have come across as a bit miffed by this seeming unfairness. Well, I’m happy to report that all’s right again with the world in Vermont: Howard Dean tapped for UVM commencement http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9800475&nav=menu183_2 Burlington, Vermont – February 6, 2009 A familiar face will give this year’s commencement speech at the University of Vermont. Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has been chosen. He served six terms as the state’s highest elected official. He then went on to run for president and just stepped down as Read More ›
Barry Arrington notes that FAQ2 addresses the claim that No Real Scientists Take Intelligent Design Seriously
Well, there is a big scandal going on right now in my home province of Ontario, involving accusations of cheating in lotteries. As explained by the inimitable Toronto Star, Read More ›
If you got a bit of birthday money, Ben Wiker’s 10 Books That Screwed Up the World: and 5 Others That Didn’t Help would be a good use of your dimes.
Wiker, senior fellow at St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, is also the author of Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists.
Wiker makes clear that he is not saying that the books he criticizes should be censored, still less that you shouldn’t read them. He encourages us all to read them – critically appreciating the fundamental defects, warps, and wrongness of the ideas. These ideas underlie and help to explain many disorders of popular culture today. Unfortunately, however, they are usually treated with sanctified solemnity in hushed lecture halls, presided over by establishment figures who may be alarmed by criticism.
For example, we often hear people say “If it feels good, do it!”, “Feelings matter way more than facts,” or “He can’t help doing that, it’s his genes/hormones/upbringing/society.” One aspect of fixing the problem is exploring the origin of such ideas and asking people to think critically about them.
It is amazing how many of these key works relate to the intelligent design controversy.
FAQ1 has been revised in response to comments. The floor is now open on FAQ2 2] No Real Scientists Take Intelligent Design Seriously Yes, they do. For simple instance, in telecommunications work, we start by distinguishing the intelligent signal from the naturally occurring noise that tends to garble it. Indeed, simply by reading this web page, you implicitly recognize that a sense-making message is far more likely to be the result of deliberate action, not noise. But, strictly speaking, it is physically possible – though vastly improbable — for this page to be the result of noise garbling and mimicking signals. In short, you are using a simple form of The Explanatory Filter used by Design Theorists to discriminate chance Read More ›
Some of you may find interesting a couple of articles in the latest issue of Spontaneous Generations, a peer-reviewed journal founded and run by graduate students at the Institute for History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Toronto. One article documents the activities of a philosopher of science in the American South who teaches the next generation of teachers who will have to deal with evolution/creation/ID in the classroom. It’s quite a thoughtful piece and well worth a read. The other article is a piece I was asked to write in response but which turned out to be a stand-alone piece that attempts to justify my participation in these matters (since this is a question that arises Read More ›
brainz.org/15-coolest-cases-biomimicry
Andrew Halloway offers his review of David Attenborough’s recent BBC1 prime time documentary ‘Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life’ highlighting the out of date material and poor reasoning. Andrew comments ‘I’m astonished that the BBC still included this [material about the Tree of Life], and what’s more made it the title of the programme, considering that only last month the country’s leading scientific journal, New Scientist, carried a major article called “Why Darwin was wrong about the Tree of Life” (21 January). The article clearly stated that there is “no evidence at all” for the Tree of Life, and this was even backed up by the editorial of the journal, despite the fact that the New Scientist is known Read More ›