Science

Evolutionists continue to be much exercised about evolution being treated as “merely a theory,” arguing that to identify it as such is as disreputable as treating gravity or the second law as “merely a theory.” But consider, as a close colleague recently reminded me: The late Ernst Mayr, a Harvard professor called “the Dean of American Evolutionists ” wrote in his 1976 book Evolution and the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays: “When I lectured in the mid-1950’s to a small audience in Copenhagen, the great physicist Niels Bohr stated in the discussion that he could not conceive how accidental mutations could account for the immense diversity of the organic world and its remarkable adaptations. As far as he was concerned, Read More ›

La Mirada, Calif. — Ben Stein, known for his lead role in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and his Comedy Central show Win Ben Stein’s Money, believes in liberty and truth. In recognition of this, Biola University’s masters in science and religion program will present him with the 2008 Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth on March 27, a month before the release of his major controversial motion picture, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. In his new movie Expelled, Stein wonders whether humans were designed by an intelligent being or whether we were simply the result of an ancient natural accident. In his search for an answer, he discovers an elitist scientific establishment that punishes the scientific proponents Read More ›

In this Denyse O’Leary UD thread I included a quote from David Berlinski’s infamous The Incorrigible Dr. Berlinski video interview.

I thought UD readers might enjoy some of his other comments on various science and Dawinism topics.

On science as a self-critical enterprise:

The idea that science is a uniquely self-critical institution is of course preposterous. Scientists are no more self-critical than anyone else. They hate to be criticized… Look, these people are only human, they hate criticism — me too. The idea that scientists are absolutely eager to be beaten up is one of the myths put out by scientists, and it works splendidly so they can avoid criticism.

We’re asking for standards of behavior that would be wonderful to expect but that no serious man does expect. A hundred years of fraudulent drawings suggesting embryological affinities that don’t exist — that’s just what I would expect if biologists were struggling to maintain a position of power in a secular democratic society. Let’s be reasonable… the popular myth of science as a uniquely self-critical institution, and scientists as men who would rather be consumed at the stake rather than fudge their data, is okay for a PBS special, but that’s not the real world; that’s not what’s taking place…

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This sort of behavior from Dawkins cannot withstand the light of day. “Sheldrake Exposes Dawkins as Fundamentalist Pseudoskeptic” In a commentary on his website, biologist Rupert Sheldrake recounts his experience in — almost — appearing in The Enemies of Reason, a British documentary written by well-known biologist and public advocate for atheism Richard Dawkins. He describes how he was recruited to appear in the documentary with promises that there would be an opportunity for scientific discussion. But when he tried to engage in such a discussion, both Dawkins and they director made it clear that they were not interested in discussing evidence. The TV programme was intended to debunk, not give a fair view of the scientific evidence: “Richard seemed Read More ›

NASA, the NY Times and most intelligent human beings apparently believe that it is possible to communicate across space – i.e., to detect signals that can be distinguished from natural causes and “noise”, which give evidence of other intelligent beings! e.g., Beatles songs vs quasar pulses and lightning pulses. ——————– NASA Says, ‘Hello, Universe. Meet the Beatles.’ By Patrick J. Lyons NY Times February 1, 2008, 4:47 pm . . . NASA will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first space mission — the launch of the Explorer 1 satellite — by using the system of huge antennas that usually listen for inbound signals from space to send one outbound instead: the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe,” which as Read More ›

  Former President Theodore Roosevelt, a man known for his typically frank-spoken style (a trait no doubt imbued from his Dutch Reformed roots) and who knew bad science as readily as he knew bad theology when he saw it, made bare the malignant social cancers of the modern age.  As the nation goes to select a new chief executive we should all look for the candor and insightfulness of the 26th President as shown below . . . __________ “There is superstition in science quite as much as there is superstition in theology, and it is all the more dangerous because those suffering from it are profoundly convinced that they are freeing themselves from all superstition.  No grotesque repulsiveness of medieval superstition, even as it survived into nineteenth-century Spain Read More ›

DEBATE: Atheism vs. Theism and The Scientific Evidence of Intelligent Design Sunday, January 27th at 4pm PST, Stanford University WHAT: Stanford University will play host to a debate entitled Atheism vs. Theism & the Scientific Evidence for Intelligent Design. This debate is being organized by student groups at Stanford: IDEA Club at Stanford,The Stanford Review and Vox Clara: A Journal of Christian Thought at Stanford. WHO: Chirstopher Hitchens vs. Jay Richards Christopher Hitchens — Contributing editor to Vanity Fair; visiting professor, New School in New York; author of God is Not Great. VS. Jay W. Richards — Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute; co-author, with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, of The Privileged Planet: How Our Place Read More ›

Greg Bear has been writing hard sci-fi novels in recent years where the plot revolves around recent biotech discoveries. “Darwin’s Radio” received high acclaim even in Nature Magazine for the depth of knowledge of genetics, endogenous retroviruses, and human evolution that Bear displayed in the fictional work. In my opinion “Vitals” is of the same caliber. This biotech thriller revolves around the concept that intelligent bacterial networks have been mankind’s unseen, unknown overlords since time immemorial. In fact I, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, have written on UD about the notion that humanity’s purpose is to discover habitable earth-like planets and design vehicles that can deliver single-celled life to them. In other words we are the means by which bacteria can survive the Read More ›

This year should be an exciting one for ID. It sounds like Expelled, The Movie will have very wide distribution in major theaters all across the nation in April. One sad aspect of the Darwinian propaganda machine is that, once it is exposed to the general public for what it is (materialistic philosophy pretending to be science, and even in opposition to the evidence of modern scientific discoveries about the severe limits of the Darwinian mechanism that is presumed to explain everything in biology), the public may lose trust in legitimate science. This state of affairs is extraordinarily ironic. The claim is that denial of Darwinian orthodoxy will destroy science, but perhaps attempts to defend the indefensible claims of Darwinists Read More ›

Making Space for Time – Physicists meet to puzzle out why time flows one way. Scott Dodd. Scientific American, January 2008 p 26,27,28.   This article cites physicists invoking multiverses to explain high order in the early cosmos – and that less order would have prevented universes from surviving or evolving to support intelligent life. This sounds like evidence for Intelligent Design – and efforts to explain it away. This calls for brilliant astrophysicists and mathematicians to address this controversial evidence from an ID perspective. Note particularly: ————— “The cosmic microwave background radiation, a remnant of the big bang, shows that 380,000 years after its birth, the universe was filled with hot gas, all evenly distributed and highly ordered. Eventually Read More ›

How do science skeptics and those introducing paradigm shifts get their papers published in the face of politically correct coercion by a dogmatic majority and lemming press? Persistence, and banding together may help. Following is a fascinating report by the US Senate that may result in a critical mass begin to form against the politically correct band wagon of man-made global warming. Perhaps we can begin to have a serious scientific debate on this issue based on evidence. What can ID learn from these developments? ————————————————————— U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 Senate Report Debunks “Consensus” “Complete U.S. Senate Report Now Available: (LINK) Complete Report without Introduction: (LINK) INTRODUCTION: Over 400 prominent Read More ›

As you read this article from the Washington Post, ask yourself how far such research would get without enzymes and a host of other materials “borrowed” from existing life-forms. “From scratch” properly should mean “made only with chemicals available in a realistic prebiotic environment.” That’s not what we’re dealing with here. And even if we were getting back to chemicals available in a realistic prebiotic environment, could the same be said for the investigator inteference of Craig Venter and his colleagues? Wouldn’t it be safer to say that they are acting as intelligent designers and not as mere accelerators of existing blind evolutionary processes? Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms By Rick Weiss | Washington Post Read More ›

Larry Moran’s presentation in a comment in Granville Sewell’s UD post, I found not particularly persuasive, for the following reasons. I’m not interested in definitions of science; I’m interested in how stuff actually works. I’m perfectly amenable to being convinced that the complexity, information content, and machinery of living systems can be explained by stochastic processes filtered by natural selection, and I would not even demand hard evidence, just some rigorous argumentation based on the following:
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Friday Five: William A. Dembski by Devon Williams, associate editor, CitizenLink.org ‘Are there patterns in biological systems that would point us to intelligence?’ Leading scientist and mathematician William A. Dembski has devoted years to researching intelligent design. He is a research professor in philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and has been featured on the front page of The New York Times. He has appeared on numerous radio and television broadcasts, including Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and ABC’s Nightline. Dembski talked to CitizenLink about his latest book, The Design of Life — which he co-authored with Jonathan Wells. 1. What is intelligent design? The study of patterns in nature that are best explained by intelligence. But the focus is Read More ›

Chris Comer’s firing was briefly discussed on this blog here. Today the Dallas Morning News had a front page (above the fold) about her case (go here). Below is the offending email that got her fired. As you read it, keep in mind that The Center for Inquiry is a virulently atheistic organization (see here for a conference they did in November). In reading the email below, ask yourself: What if someone in the same position as Chris Comer forwarded an email about a forthcoming talk by Ken Ham at a “fundamentalist church” in which he would recommend teaching creationism in public schools?