
Douglas Axe, author of Undeniable, debates theistic evolutionist and biochemist Keith Fox debate the question at Unbelievable (radio). Fox is Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge.
The comments are fascinating insofar as they reveal the obvious superiority of fully naturalist atheism to “theistic evolution.” If we can see no intelligence behind or within nature, that’s not only because there probably isn’t any but because, as the naturalist is happy to point out, we evolved so as not to be able to understand reality anyway. There is no intelligence in us either. There is only power and he, as it happens, exercises it.
Of course, the naturalist succeeds in persuading his pop science media-driven crowd by ignoring vast masses of evidence for design in nature in favour of speculations: dismissing evident fine-tuning in favor of an evidence-free multiverse, for example.
In the conflict for the soul of science, the theistic evolutionist stands haplessly, waving a banner, on the sidelines: “Yes, God did it but no, there is no evidence. You shouldn’t expect any.”
Or, as an iconoclastic rabbi once put it much more succinctly, God is so great that he need not exist. (Except in our heads – which is precisely the naturalist’s point, right?)
Undeniable at November 28, 2016:
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in Books > Science & Math > Biological Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology
- #3 in Books > Science & Math > Evolution > Organic
- #7 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Theology > Creationism
See also: Michael Denton’s Evolution (Still) a Theory in Crisis a Spectator “Best Book” If one looks at evolution without the cokebottle glasses supplied by Darwinism, one learns so more. But that is just the trouble. A smart whelp may soon know more than the Darwinist prof. One must apply the brakes.
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Just curious. If anyone here has the book, could you let us know how many references to “Creation” or “Creationism”, “Theology”, “Bible” and “Christian” or “Christ” or “Jesus” are in the index?
Interesting – Bill Nye’s “Undeniable” is #4 in Christian Books & Bibles > Theology > Creationism. Weird coincidence with both having the same title on the list at the same time (and opposite viewpoints).
OT:
The BBC quietly rehabilitates catastrophism, but doesn’t notice the hypocrisy.
“Life on Earth has faced a string of accidents, weird situations and outright catastrophes, from sudden ice ages to collisions with asteroids – and it is how life responded to these contingencies that ultimately led to us.”
http://bbc.in/2gBOF7o
awstar @1:
See if this link opens for you:
https://www.amazon.com/Undeniable-Biology-Confirms-Intuition-Designed/dp/0062349589/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480368293&sr=1-1&keywords=undeniable+how+biology+confirms+our+intuition+that+life+is+designed#reader_0062349589
Then click on ‘look inside’ on the left side of the page.
Next select Index
I just listen to the debate and thought Doug did a superb job. I think his penicillin experiment is a benchmark for the design argument.
BC @ 5: Axe’s penicillin experiment is indeed a benchmark for the design argument, as is Behe’s irreducible complexity which is brilliantly defended by Stephen Meyer (the great) in the following link:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....03317.html
“Creation” 0 times
“Creationism” 0 times
“Theology” 0 times
“Bible” 0 times
“Christian” 0 times
“Christ” 0 times
“Jesus” 0 times
However the following words do appear in the index:
“creators” 1 time page 250
“theism” 1 time page 7-8
“Genesis” 1 time page 48
“God” 27 times
accidents and God — page 18,93
anthropic principle and God — page 228-229
atheism and God — page 6-9
children and God — page 19, 185, 232, 242, 251
Dawkins-sponsored ads — page 263-64
design intuition and God — page 253
as divine thinker — page 185, 237
evolution and God — page 233-34
God in scientific literature — page 265-66
inventions coming from mind of God — page 184-185
God as knower who made us — page 185, 235
life and God — page 232
outside world as expression of creative thought — page 242
personal God — page 245, 254-255
God as product of human imagination — page 6
relation to material world — page 239
science and God — page 48, 219
theist belief in God — page 7
Does this make “Undeniable” a “Christian Books & Bibles > Theology > Creationism” book or
would it be more accurate to place it in the Judaism > Theology > Creationism since they started it all with Genesis. And also “Islam > Theology > Creationism” since they also believe in Genesis.
Or should it rather be in the category of “Politics/Social Sciences > Philosophy” instead of “Religion and Spirituality”?
Who decides? And what do they base their decision on?
(Thanks, Dionisio @ 4)
as to the question in the title of the OP:
“Is design in nature undeniable?”
Yes, even leading atheists admit that life ‘appears’ to be designed:
Yet, despite the fact that, according to many leading atheists themselves, life gives the overwhelming ‘appearance’ of having been designed for a purpose, all the purported scientific evidence, that is suppose to demonstrate for the rest of us how this overwhelming appearance of design in life came to be by unguided material processes, turns out, itself, to be ‘illusory’.
Franklin M. Harold, whom I believe is also an atheist, calls Darwinian accounts ‘a variety of wishful speculations’. Specifically he states:
James Shapiro, main founder of the anti neo-Darwinian group “The Third Way”, makes an almost verbatim statement prior to Harold’s statement:
Thus, since many leading atheists themselves are seeing the ‘illusion of design’, (seeing this illusion of design with what they claim to be the ‘illusion of their mind’ I might add 🙂 ), and yet they have no experimental evidence whatsoever that unguided material processes can produce this illusion, then, of course, the design advocate would be well justified in claiming that the design that we are seeing in life is real and is not an illusion.
I like the following quote as to just how overwhelming the ‘appearance’ of design is in life:
Some people may think that claiming atheists have ‘lost their mind’ is too strong of a term for Theists to use, yet, atheists themselves agree that they have no mind:
Thus, given the premises of Atheistic Materialism, people become illusions. Illusion who claim they are seeing merely an illusion of design in life.
And why in blue blazes should anyone trust what illusions having illusions have to say about what is real and what is not real?
The truth of the matter is that atheists are living in deep denial of the ‘appearance of design’ that they themselves admit they are seeing.
Moreover, since seeing design is ‘intuitive’ for humans, I hold that the design intuition is a reflection of the fact that we are made in the image of God.
And although the purported evidence for human evolution is far more illusory than most people realize,,,
And although the purported evidence for human evolution is far more illusory than most people realize, it is interesting to note exactly where leading Darwinists themselves admit that they have no clue how evolution could have produced a particular trait in humans.
Tom Wolfe was so taken aback by this confession of leading Darwinists that he wrote a book on the subject. Wolfe provided a précis of his argument:
That humans should master the planet due his unique ability to communicate information is completely contrary to the ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking that undergirds Darwinian thought. i.e. Although humans are fairly defenseless creatures in the wild compared to other creatures, such as lions, bears, and sharks, etc.., nonetheless, humans have, completely contrary to Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking, managed to become masters of the planet, not by brute force, but simply by our unique ability to communicate information and, more specifically, infuse information into material substrates in order to create, i.e. intelligently design, objects that are extremely useful for our defense, basic survival in procuring food, furtherance of our knowledge, and also for our pleasure.
And although the ‘top-down’ infusion of information into material substrates, that allowed humans to become ‘masters of the planet’, was rather crude to begin with, (i.e. spears, arrows, and plows etc..), this top down infusion of information into material substrates has become much more impressive over the last half century or so.
Specifically, the ‘top-down’ infusion of mathematical and/or logical information into material substrates lies at the very basis of many, if not all, of man’s most stunning, almost miraculous, technological advances in recent decades.
Here are a couple of articles which clearly get this ‘top-down’ infusion of information point across:
And here is one by George Ellis
What is more interesting still about the fact that humans have a unique ability to understand and create information, and have come to dominate the world through the ‘top-down’ infusion of information into material substrates, is the fact that, due to advances in science, both the universe and life itself, are now found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis.
Renowned physicist John Wheeler stated “in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe”.
In the following article, Anton Zeilinger, a leading expert in quantum mechanics, stated that ‘it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows.’
In the following video at the 48:24 mark Zeilinger states that “It is operationally impossible to separate Reality and Information” and he goes on to note at the 49:45 mark the Theological significance of “In the Beginning was the Word” John 1:1
Vlatko Vedral, who is a Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and is also a recognized leader in the field of quantum mechanics, states,
Moreover, besides being foundational to physical reality, information is also found to be ‘infused’ into biological life.
It is hard to imagine a more convincing proof that we are made ‘in the image of God’, than finding both the universe and life itself are ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information, and, moreover, have come to ‘master the planet’ precisely because of our ability infuse information into material substrates.
Perhaps a more convincing evidence that we are made in the image of God could be if God Himself became a man, defeated death on a cross, and then rose from the dead to prove that He was indeed God.
But who has ever heard of such overwhelming evidence as that?
Verses and Music:
Of related note to Shroud of Turin video:
BA
Thank you for finding and posting that!
The OP asks this silly question:
design in nature? design? are you joking?
what design? Did you lose your minds?
There’s not such a thing in nature!
Are you serious?
OK, let’s get serious now:
This obsession with ‘design’ that y’all ID folks have is really concerning. Can’t you see the real picture? Have you seen a psychologist recently? Y’all may need counseling.
Your site has very little -if any at all- references to the real scientific research papers being published by the tons out there. Are you afraid of what they say? Well, if that’s the case then your fear is well justified, because those papers show that your silly ‘design’ ideas are just illusions. There’s not such a thing! Do you get it?
What will it take to persuade y’all that ‘design’ is just a figment in your poor imaginations?
You folks need to get real, and realize that science is moving on, advancing fast, and making discoveries that pretty soon will make all your ‘gods of the gaps’ or ‘designers’ or whatever you call them totally irrelevant and nonsense.
Y’all should stop fantasizing and get your feet on the ground. Look at the numerous biology research papers and see that your ideas are getting discredited with every new serious paper being published.
Here’s an interesting biology research paper that was published exactly a year ago and shows that y’all ID folks are wrong. You keep seeing this “functional specified complex information” nonsense everywhere like ghosts that nobody else sees. You may need to change your prescription glasses?
As you can see in the following 1-year-old paper, science got almost all figured out. A few minor issues are being clarified, but mostly everything is pretty much described and understood. Actually, the few remaining questions have been probably answered by now, considering that this paper has been out a whole year. And there’s nothing about ‘design’ in the whole paper. Nothing! OK?
Hey, get a live! Chill out!
🙂
Here’s a paper that got published exactly a year ago December 1, 2015.
🙂