Should we all pack up and go home with such erudite opponents as this?

Watching Intelligent Design – Alexander Nussbaum Free Enquiry April / May 2012 Volume 32, Number 3 (edited exerpts below)

Watches are a product of intelligent design and are often used as an example of such by creationists in their beloved – and deeply misleading – analogy.

Watches are a poor analogue for living systems, as they bear one characteristic that is common in products of intelligent design but absent from the products of biological evolution. Watches tend to be engineered for performance far beyond what is needed in use. Evolved living systems never display this kind of overdesign except, arguably, in certain characteristics used for sexual selection.

Biological evolution makes use of what is already available and generally produces not optimal design, but rather design just good enough to survive. Biological evolution is a master of jerry-building, of making do, and of overlooking design flaws as long as reproduction is achieved before the system dies.

For the human brain, amazing product of evolution though it is — capable of calculus, creating computers, and even of reaching the Moon — is also a deeply flawed belief machine that is unable to shake itself of delusions like creationism.

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The planets do not revolve about the Earth. Nor does the Sun or the stars. But if that is your model, you can force-fit the observations to it. In the case of geocentrism, dozens of bizarre adjustments were required to fit the observations. As the figure illustrates, these adjustments added a great deal more complication to the basic geocentric model. Now the planets were not exactly rotating about Earth, but about some nearby point (which could be adjusted as needed). Furthermore, as the planets circle around the Earth or a nearby point, they also travel in smaller circles, or epicycles. And of course these epicycles can be adjusted as needed. The result is a complicated model of celestial motion with Read More ›

While promoters of the US Army-hosted “Rock Beyond Belief” concert that featured prof Dawkins (of The God Delusion notoriety) and Aiden (the band behind the “Atheist’s anthem” vid that features a vampire clergy image and worse lyrics) projected 5,000 attendees, reports suggest a turnout of about 200 , mostly “civilian[s].” (One guesses, many would be members of the local atheist fraternity.) That’s about a 90 – 95% over-estimate of attendance. According to reports: Fort Bragg’s Rock Beyond Belief passed quietly last Saturday.  While organizers had predicted a crowd of 5,000, Richard Dawkins, the main draw of the event whose “sell out” crowds were the justification for the attendance forecast, ultimately spoke to only “a couple hundred” spectators.  Photos of the Read More ›