Selective Hyperskepticism

Over the past day or so, following a News post, the self referential incoherences of evolutionary materialism have been coming under the microscope here at UD. In the course of such, the indefatigable (but often “misunderestimated”) BA77 has again struck gold. As in per famed eccentric and insightful mystic, William Blake, Tiger, tiger, burning bright . . . And, how could we honour BA77 without a vid? So . . [youtube uuiusIIOqY4] (While we are at it, Eye of the Tiger, vid + lyrics.) Well worth headlining: _______________ BA77: >>I like the nuance that Dr. Pearcey draws out. It is not only that, under materialistic premises, our perceptions may be false, it is also that, under materialistic premises, free will, Read More ›

CHartsil has now earned UD objector poster-child status, regarding a talking point he used to try to divert a News thread: If ID is science, then put it through the scientific method. You don’t just get to say it’s a valid alternative when evolution has been put through the wringer and ID proponents have failed to produce so much as a single mechanism of design. Let’s take this in steps of thought: >> If ID is science, then put it through the scientific method.>> 1 –> This raises the issue as to what science properly understood is, and what its methods are. As there has been a recent agenda to redefine science as applied materialism dressed up in a lab coat, Read More ›

Here: [youtube -bYAQ-ZZtEU] And while one may have reservations or quibbles about particular cases, the overall point is well taken. In her article on a “top ten” list of astro-turfers, she comments, soberingly: What’s most successful when it appears to be something it’s not? Astroturf. As in fake grassroots. The many ways that corporations, special interests and political interests of all stripes exploit media and the Internet to perpetuate astroturf is ever-expanding. Surreptitious astroturf methods are now more important to these interests than traditional lobbying of Congress. There’s an entire PR industry built around it in Washington . . . . Astroturfers often disguise themselves and publish blogs, write letters to the editor, produce ads, start non-profits, establish Facebook and Read More ›

NB: RDM paper, here In the current VJT discussion thread on What Evidence is, RD Miksa asks a telling question (slightly adjusted for readability) of naturalistic hyperskeptics: RDM, 25:  . . . the ironic thing to note in terms of comments from the anti-super-naturalist side is how they fail to realize that their very own arguments undermine their own naturalistic position. Indeed, note their use of the poorly-formulated but often used mantra “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Note how this mantra is used to claim–in the context of this discussion–how it is apparently more rational to believe that hundreds of witnesses hallucinated or colluded or lied rather than believe that a man levitated. But the problem is, such an argument Read More ›

In the How is ID Different thread, we can see a very significant exchange well worth headlining as it lays out what is at stake: MF, 28:  . . . Why is my prior for a Christian God effectively zero? Because I see zero evidence for it. What is the probability of something existing for which there is no evidence? I would say that it is effectively zero given the infinite range of things that might exist but for which there is no evidence. By effectively zero I mean that rationally it should be discounted as a possibility and that it is lower than any number you can give – although it is conceivable so I am reluctant to say Read More ›

In a recent UD post, our Newsdesk predicted: “Increasingly, logic will be seen as a covert form of theism.” This was actually fulfilled two and a half years ago, in a combox exchange at the shadow-site, TSZ. I commented on UD President BA’s post on the prediction, and wish to headline that, feeding in some multimedia elements: ________________ >>BA & News: Actually, the prediction has already happened, note this from a TSZ combox for a post there that was trying to dismiss first principles of right reason, 2 1/2 years ago: Flint on February 21, 2012 at 2:37 am said: aleta, I don’t think I quite understand what you are saying with some of the rest of your post. However, Read More ›

Sometimes, an objector to design theory brings to the table a key remark that inadvertently focuses the debate back on the core basics. In his comment at 339 in the ongoing nature/detection of intelligence thread here at UD, longtime objector RDFish does so in these initial remarks: Intelligent Design Theory 1) No current theory of evolutionary biology can account for the complex form and function of living organisms. 2) This sort of complex form and function (let’s call it “CSI”) is, in our experience, produced only by human beings. 3) ID argues that the best explanation (let’s call it the “Designer”) for biological complexity can therefore be inferred to be similar to human beings in that both human beings and Read More ›

My first post on UD, a mere 6 weeks ago, covered some basic principles about information. Specifically, I addressed the misunderstandings of those who deny that there is anything special about the information contained in, say, DNA, as opposed to a pile of rocks or Saturn’s rings.  We had a very productive discussion, with a number of issues explored.  (Incidentally, I used the word “contain” as a shorthand way of expressing what Mung suggested we call “sequences of symbols” that “represent information.”  I’m fine with that longer formulation, as we are saying the same thing substantively.  Any nuance there isn’t germane to the point of today’s brief post.) As we were winding up the thread, Mung asked if I had any sources of people who espoused Read More ›

Good day, my name is JoeG and I would like to get something out in the open and hopefully have it become fully understood by everyone. For decades I have been debating against evolutionism and for decades I have been told that my position is “anti-evolution.” I found that strange because my position allows for a change in allele frequency over time, i.e. evolution. It also allows for natural selection, ie evolution. Speciation is OK too, i.e. evolution. Offspring are different from their parents meaning my position also allows for descent with modification, i.e. evolution. The whole point of my opponents seems to be a strawman: they want to be able to “refute” my position by showing that allele frequencies Read More ›

I am thinking it is time we began a collection of Darwinist fever swamp fallacies found in the wild. (Make sure to get your Malaria shot before going there . . . ) After the now standard “your’e a quote miner” false accusation and the “it’s a Gish galloper” smear of a man not present to defend himself and associated false accusation of wholesale lying, we have been seeing a few choice ones recently. Let’s begin a collection: The Darwinist 1984-style Orwellian doubletalk definition slip-slide trojan horse. I think that about captures it: it’s not what it seems like, and it’s what’s inside the wrapper that counts. often used with false accusations like you’re quote mining or you’re on a Read More ›

It seems that one of the pivotal issues in reasoned thinking about design-related questions — and in general —  is the question of self-evident first, certain truths that can serve as a plumb-line for testing other truth claims, and indeed for rationality. (Where, the laws of identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle are foremost among such first principles. And where also, some ID objectors profess to be “frightened” that some of us dare to hold that there are moral truths that are self evident.) Where also of course, self-evident does not merely mean perceived as obvious to oneself, which could indeed be a manifestation of a delusion. Nay, a self evident truth [SET] is best summarised as one known to be Read More ›

Some things you can’t make up in a novel, they would be too implausible to be salable. But reality itself has no such constraints. As onlookers know, over the past several days — cf. here and here, we have been back to the issue of KeithS and his fellow evolutionary materialists (and their fellow travellers and enablers) and their struggles with first principles of right reason, starting with say seeing a bright red ball on a table and noticing the obvious about such a situation: StephenB has been making a basic argument to KS that it is worth highlighting again (NB: KS is busily pretending that this does not exist and/or has no cogency): SB, 491 in the Meanningless world Read More ›

For the past several weeks, there has been an exchange that developed in the eduction vs persuasion thread (put up May 9th by AndyJones), on first principles of right reason and related matters.  Commenter RDF . . .   has championed some popular talking points in today’s intellectual culture. We can therefore pick up from a citation and comment by Vivid, at 619 in the thread (June 12th), for record and possible further discussion. Accordingly, I clip comment 742 from the thread (overnight) and headline it: _____________ >>. . . let us remind ourselves of the context for the just above exchanges, by going back to Vivid at 619: [RDF/AIG:] And once again I must remind you that you are mistaken. Read More ›

This my third installment of a discussion I began here and continued here on the validity of the claim that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, or what I call the EC-EE claim. In the first installment we looked at the EC-EE claim itself and asked whether the EC-EE claim is an example of an EC-EE claim that failed to live up to its own standard. In the second installment, we looked at what exactly are the extraordinary claims being made by ID that so require such extraordinary evidence, or is it Darwinian evolution that is really making the extraordinary claim and so far has failed the EC-EE test? In this third post I want to look at the evidentiary side Read More ›