Science

In “The limits of knowledge: Things we’ll never understand” (New Scientist 09 May 2011), Michael Brooks offers to explain “From the machinery of life to the fate of the cosmos, what can’t science explain?”

We live in an age in which science enjoys remarkable success. We have mapped out a grand scheme of how the physical universe works on scales from quarks to galactic clusters, and of the living world from the molecular machinery of cells to the biosphere. There are gaps, of course, but many of them are narrowing. The scientific endeavour has proved remarkably fruitful, especially when you consider that our brains evolved for survival on the African savannah, not to ponder life, the universe and everything. So, having come this far, is there any stopping us?The answer has to be yes: there are limits to science. There are some things we can never know for sure because of the fundamental constraints of the physical world. Then there are the problems that we will probably never solve because of the way our brains work. And there may be equivalents to Rees’s observation about chimps and quantum mechanics – concepts that will forever lie beyond our ken.

So now we come up against the ultimate failure of materialism. Read More ›

Steve Fuller, that sociologist who writes about ID as if getting things right mattered, has a new book coming out: In this challenging and provocative book, Steve Fuller contends that our continuing faith in science in the face of its actual history is best understood as the secular residue of a religiously inspired belief in divine providence. Our faith in science is the promise of a life as it shall be, as science will make it one day. Just as men once put their faith in God’s activity in the world, so we now travel to a land promised by science. In Science, Fuller suggests that the two destinations might be the same one.  [ … ] Science, argues Fuller, Read More ›

In “Scientists Think Spirituality Is Congruent With Scientific Discovery, Religion Is Not” Medical News Today (06 May 2011), we
learn,

More than 20 percent of atheist scientists are spiritual, according to new research from Rice University. Though the general public marries spirituality and religion, the study found that spirituality is a separate idea – one that more closely aligns with scientific discovery – for “spiritual atheist” scientists.

[ … ]

For example, these scientists see both science and spirituality as “meaning-making without faith” and as an individual quest for meaning that can never be final. According to the research, they find spirituality congruent with science and separate from religion, because of that quest; where spirituality is open to a scientific journey, religion requires buying into an absolute “absence of empirical evidence.”

This story encapsulates the cleverest riff that materialist atheists have ever constructed to deny the reality of the mind and substitute the notion that apes r’ us: Getting everyone to accept that  “faith is based on buying into an absolute ‘absence of empirical evidence.’” Countless Christian academics play house with materialist atheists, constructing “existential” theories about faith that gut the traditional “show me a sign” demand for evidence.

For years, I laboured as co-author of a book that fruitfully assumed the exact opposite. We found that: Read More ›

Agnostic Warwick U sociologist Steve Fuller asks some questions in Dissent from Descent,

Modern evolutionary theory, as we have seen in these pages, is subject to vagaries of interpretation just as fundamental as those that ultimately floored astrology. Here is a list:

1. Is the overall process of evolution directed or undirected- Lamarckian or Darwinian? If we deliver a mixed verdict, then when and where does the directed yield to the undirected? Read More ›

WORLD GETTING CRAZIER, HE SAYS. IN A FEW HUNDRED YEARS THE WHOLE EARTH WILL BE OUT OF ITS MIND London Aug.1. The vision of a mad world and an era of lunacy was prophesied by Dr Forbes Winslow yesterday while expressing his dissent from the statement made at the Eugenics Congress by Dr Mott that increase in lunacy is more apparent than real. Dr. Winslow said: “There will be more lunatics in the world than sane people three hundred years hence. This prophecy is based on the present rate of the growth of lunacy revealed by recent returns. We are rapidly approaching a mad world. In every part othe world civilization is advancing and so insanity is bound to advance. Read More ›

                      Now it may be argued that Darwin’s hostility to Christianity is beside the point. Shouldn’t a scientific theory be judged on its own merits, rather than on the motives and psychology of its progenitor? Yes, of course – if the theory is truly scientific and confirmed by empiricl observation. Isaac newton was as strange as they come; as John Maynard Keynes pointed out., Newton’s private philosophical notebooks make one think of an ancient Babylonian magician. Bit Newton’s scientific theories were rigorously formulated. They can be tested ands shown to be true for most of material reality. But anideology dressed up as a science is a different matter. Theories like Read More ›

Here, Adam Ruben, – “Experimental Error: Forging a Head” Science (April 22, 2011), reflects on how to construct a science hoax and have free publicity coming out of your ears: Attach the bones of something to the bones of something else. You have just created the missing link between those two species. “It’s amazing!” you can announce. “I’ve discovered the skeleton of the mythical half-chimp, half-sturgeon!” (Do not, however, attach the bones of something to nothing. It’s really not that impressive to declare, “I’ve discovered the skeleton of the mythical half-chimp!” Gross.) – Claim that your unique object has some impressive attribute, such as size, age, or incompatibility with accepted chronology. A 12-foot-tall, 9000-year-old Sony PlayStation, for example. – Make Read More ›

Shimon Malin explains, Nature Loves to Hide (Oxford University Press, p. 6), why you don’t need science for that: One role of science is to explain phenomena, anf an explanation is different from “economy of thought.” Consider the example of tides. People made accurate tables of the times of high and low tides in many locations, but the phenomenon of tides was not understood until Newton came along and explained it as the joint effect of the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon on the waters of the oceans. This discovery did not make it possible to calculate the times of high and low tides in specific locations. These depended on many complicated factors such as the contours Read More ›

In “The Middle East is ripe for a scientific revolution”, (New Scientist 27 April 2011) Ahmed Zewail offers, I see three essential ingredients for progress. First is the building of human resources by promoting literacy, ensuring participation of women in society and improving education. Second, there is a need to reform national constitutions to allow freedom of thought, minimise bureaucracy, reward merit, and create credible- and enforceable- legal codes. Few would argue with that; it’s an essential foundation for intellectual civilization. But many sources question whether the actual state of science in the Western world today, especially in sensitive areas like evolution, provides grounds for hope that intervention will help. Trying to “Islamize” Darwin would hardly produce a happier Middle Read More ›

In “Why science is the source of all progress,” (New Scientist, 26 April 2011), Oxford quantum computation expert David Deutsch explains, Solutions always reveal new problems. So one must also always seek a better hard-to-vary explanation. That, at its heart, is the scientific method. As Richard Feynman remarked: “Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves.” Because it is prior to experimental testing, the practice of requiring good explanations can drive objective progress even in non-scientific fields. This is exactly what happened in the Enlightenment. Although the pioneers of that era did not put it that way, it was, and remains, the spirit of the age. It is the source of all progress. – (Registration Read More ›

I was invited to review Karl Giberson and Francis Collins’ newest book, THE LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE AND FAITH, at patheos.com. Below are the first few paragraphs as well as a link to the entire review. —————————– BioLogos and Theistic Evolution: Selling the Product “There’s nothing wrong with selling one’s ideas. But it needs to be done honestly, and that’s just what I don’t find in this book.” By William A. Dembski, April 27, 2011 Editor’s Note: The following is the first piece in a four-part conversation between Dr. William Dembski and Dr. Karl Giberson, concerning Giberson and Francis Collins’ new book, The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions. Find more resources and discussion surrounding the book Read More ›

PART I: BASIC PREMISES

Many predictions of ID flow from two underlying hypotheses, both of which are open to scientific investigation and refutation. If you miss these, however, other ID predictions may not make sense, since many arise from them in an important way. It is my belief that much of the puzzlement regarding ID predictions results from not being familiar with these two often unspoken premises. Read More ›

Always used to attack any traditional assumption, never used to attack nonsense, no matter how scofffable, talked in Darwin’s name.

Western Michigan University philosopher Tim McGrew offers some thoughts on evidence, forthcoming in an anthology from Routledge: Read More ›

Bradley Monton, author of Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design (Broadview Press, 2009), asks, After much seeking, you finally reach the oracle. You’ve come equipped with a long list of questions, but when the Oracle sees you, she says: “Look, I’m busy, I only have time to answer one question. I know you’ve been thinking about intelligent design, and I’m glad you understand the doctrine now; Monton has given the right definition. I’ll give you two options. Do you want to know whether intelligent design in science, or do you want to know whether intelligent design is true?” (P. 75) Well?

At National Public Radio, Marcelo Gleiser asks (April 6, 2011), “Can Scientists Overreach?”.Glieser, a theoretical physicist, offers an appreciation of Marilynne Robinson’s Yale lectures, offering: For science to advance it needs to fail. The truths of today will not be the truths of tomorrow. For example, … Lord Kelvin remarked in 1900 that there were just “two little dark clouds” floating around Newton’s classical “law of gravity” physics. They were Michelson and Morley’s measurements of the velocity of light and the puzzling phenomenon of blackbody radiation. Kelvin was quite sure that these troublesome little clouds would shortly be blown away. Yet modern physics advances—relativity and quantum mechanics—derive from these two little dark clouds, not from the theory to which they Read More ›