On Michael Behe’s new book, Darwin Devolves. Join here. Just a friendly reminder about the webinar I am hosting later today with Joshua Swamidass to discuss Behe’s new book [which Swamidass attacked in Science]. You are welcome to participate anonymously if you want — questions can even be submitted anonymously. We kick off at 3pm […]
theistic evolution
New Pew Survey creates a huge middle on evolution
Actually, it’s not surprising at all. Pure naturalist atheists are not that common once you get off campus and a safe distance from the raging Woke. Most people would rather you think they were creationists (provided you don’t push it too far), which likely accounts for the drop in the second set, when a clear alternative for theists is provided. Some of us think this change in question is long overdue.
Trying to have a discussion when others want a diversion
Douglas Axe talks about a long-running dialogue he has had as a result of his 2016 book, Undeniable , where he can’t seem to get his dialogue partner to focus on what he is saying in his book and not what someone else is saying and what a fourth party is saying about them: But […]
Biologist Wayne Rossiter on non-religious doubts about universal common ancestry
Wayne Rossiter, author of Shadow of Oz: Theistic Evolution and the Absent God, talks about predictable claims from theistic evolution: To catch people up to speed, in a facebook conversation, [Jim] Stump made the statements, “Common ancestry [here he means Universal Common Ancestry] is a multiply confirmed theory that explains the observable data in detail. […]
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
Karsten Pultz reports from Denmark on efforts to suppress the idea of design in nature that are coming from the Danish church. Mr. Pultz is also the author of “Why I have a problem with theistic evolution,”: Intelligent design being suppressed in academia is old news. But in Denmark even a Christian newspaper participates in […]
Moshe Averick: When does a “gap” point beyond conventional science?
Rabbi Moshe Averick, author of The Confused World of Modern Atheism (Mosaica Press, 2016) addresses the “God of the Gaps” – the claim that the intersections between the material and the immaterial in nature are just “gaps” waiting to be filled in (with special reference to the origin of life): The first thing I would bring […]
Why do Catholic intellectuals claim Thomas Aquinas would cozy up to Darwinism?
Especially when it comes to a Darwinian approach to human beings? Man, the universal, does not really exist. According to the late Stanley Jaki, Chesterton* detested Darwinism because “it abolishes forms and all that goes with them, including that deepest kind of ontological form which is the immortal human soul.” And if one does not […]
Must Christians believe in the Big Bang theory?
J. R. Miller offers a reasonable discussion of varieties of Biblical creationism: Maybe you have heard the accusation that biblical creationists are blinded by their ancient theology which forces them to reject the modern “scientific fact” of evolution. But what do people mean by this accusation? What is evolution? Is biblical creation a de facto […]
Does cancer disprove intelligent design? Two views
So thinks theistic evolutionist Joshua Swamidass at Biologos. It turns out that evolutionary theory is indispensable to understanding cancer. The link I offered above leverages evolution for just this purpose. … From this body of work, we can see the evolution of new functions (new information!), neutral theory, and the effectiveness of obtuse metrics like […]
Paper: “Dangerous tendencies” of Catholic theistic evolutionist included support for “racist eugenic practices”
Abstract: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin loved the world, but, theologically and spiritually, he often tried to leave it behind. This essay shows that from the 1920s until his death in 1955, Teilhard de Chardin unequivocally supported racist eugenic practices, praised the possibilities of the Nazi experiments, and looked down upon those who he deemed “imperfect” […]
Danish ID proponent: Why I have a problem with Theistic evolution.
An open letter to William Lane Craig and the proponents of theistic evolution from Karsten Pultz,: author of Exit Evolution, in response to William Lane Craig’s questions around whether Adam and Eve really existed. For 30 years I didn’t believe in a personal God. I was not an outright atheist but was an agnostic leaning […]
A thoughtful cartoonist wonders, who has a problem with evolution?
Closing out our religion coverage for the week, there is an interesting series of cartoons from Jordan Collver at Nautilus, on why people do or don’t “believe in” evolution. Here’s one panel: Some notes: The girl at middle left seems to be a fan of Berra’s Blunder (describing the outcome of alleged unintelligent natural processes […]
Teilhard de Chardin: The “evolution” priest’s legacy included racism and social Darwinism, says theologian
From John P. Slattery at Religion Dispatches: In fact, a movement has been underway to resurrect, as it were, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as a renewed foundation for theological reflection. According to a November report in America magazine, Pope Francis is already considering removing the “warning” attached to Teilhard’s historical writings, and more recently the […]
Theistic evolution: Conjuring up one’s own version of evolution and calling it God’s
Karsten Pultz, author of a book on intelligent design in nature (in Danish) Exit Evolution, writes to comment on this recent exchange at ENST between Doug Axe, ID theorist and author of Undeniable, and Hans Vodder, theistic evolutionist, at ENST : In my [Axe’s] previous response to Hans, I tried to show why all attempts to […]
Theistic evolution: There is no clear definition of the term, says reviewer of a critique
From Nathan Muse at Apologetics 315, a review of Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique, It should be noted that the scientific critiques in this volume are not new. The beauty of this project is distilling them into one volume. Even if some readers will not be completely convinced by the scientific critique […]