Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
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Psychology

No-one Knows the Mind of God . . . Except the Committed Atheist

Fair warning to the regular readership. Typically I like to cover intelligent design and evolution-related issues, but I trust I may be permitted a bit of a detour.  There have been a couple of interesting posts recently by Sal, vjtorley and Barry about issues of a more philosophical bent.  vjtorley’s OP, in particular, quoted parts of an essay from Professor Jerry Coyne.  I would like today to share some thoughts on point. With apologies to those not of the Judeo-Christian tradition, my comments will focus in part on the Bible, given that the Bible and the God of the Bible have been the brunt of many new atheist attacks recently, including Coyne’s.  Similar points, no doubt, could be made with Read More ›

Design recognition is possible in part because of finite human memory and limited human information

Why is it that humans can recognize the designs of other humans even for token objects like a system of 500 fair coins? Why does life resemble designs? Answer: designs frequently conform to simple organizing principles rather than explicit patterns. Simple organizing principles are a way to understand large amounts of data with our finite human minds and limited information. Ironically, the fact that humans have finite memory and limited information is one reason humans tend to think and design in terms of organizing principles, and thus design creation and recognition is possible in part because of finite human memory and limited human information. First, it would be helpful to compare and contrast design detection using organizing principles versus design Read More ›

To recognize design is to recognize products of a like-minded process, identifying the real probability in question, Part I

“Take the coins and dice and arrange them in a way that is evidently designed.” That was my instruction to groups of college science students who voluntarily attended my extra-curricular ID classes sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ at James Madison University (even Jason Rosenhouse dropped in a few times). Many of the students were biology and science students hoping to learn truths that are forbidden topics in their regular classes… They would each have two boxes, and each box contained dice and coins. They were instructed to randomly shake one box and then put designs in the other box. While they did their work, I and another volunteer would leave the room or turn our backs. After the students Read More ›

We promise that if you like your psychiatrist, you can keep him …

… just don’t confuse that with getting any better. Here’s a quick summary of the unsolved problems that made psychiatry’s most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V) so controversial that it may be the last. Read More ›

Anti-science?

According to a journal of the scandal-plagued psychology field, there is a “subterranean war on science” going on. Read More ›