Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Jonathan Wells remembers Phillip Johnson as a breath of fresh air

Wells is the author of Zombie Science, about out-of-date Darwinian rubbish whacked from one edition of a given publicly funded textbook to another, often claiming the protection of law as if it were some kind of Holy Writ that founds a religious republic. Read More ›

Updating the Second Derivative

In calculus, the Leibniz notation for the second derivative confuses most students. It turns out, rightfully so. The notation for the second derivative turns out to actually be incorrect. Earlier this year, I got a paper published detailing the problem and the corrected notation. In the video below, I introduce the new notation, why the old notation is problematic, how the new notation can be derived straightforwardly, and why it may matter in the future. For those interested, the problems with the notation for the second derivative are well-known, and a kludge exists for working around it known as Faa di Bruno’s formula (a simplified version being known as “the chain rule for the second derivative”). However, this formula does Read More ›

Jeffrey Epstein certainly lies in an unquiet grave…

The trouble is, as Michael Egnor says, “consensus science” meant not denouncing Epstein. If it now means sanctioning regular witch hunts against anyone who knew the guy, we haven’t made any progress toward rational assessment. Or maybe it’s all just their form of fun. Read More ›

Rob Sheldon defends sociologist Steve Fuller against Nathaniel Comfort

Sheldon: Post-modernists, which Comfort seems to identify with, have a valid point about scientism's ideological foundation on MN, but rather than rationally correct the error, as Phillip Johnson spent 29 years doing, they treat it as an ethical lapse justifying their own ideological, irrational behavior. Read More ›

Stephen L. Talbott: “Let’s Not Begin with Natural Selection”

Talbott: I can think of no fundamental question about evolution whose answer is suggested by the advertised formula for natural selection. Everything depends on what the amazingly diverse sorts of organism actually do as they respond to and shape their environments. Read More ›

US Pres Trump presents a posthumous Presidential Citizens Medal to Col Rick Rescorla

Video, here: My regret is that it was not a Congressional Medal of Honour with a joint, simultaneous award of a Victoria Cross (he, being “of Cornish crew”). He earned recognition for gallant courage in battle far above and beyond any call of mere duty. END

Bill Dembski remembers Phil Johnson (1940–2019)

Dembski begins by reminding us of the book, Darwin’s Nemesis (2006), which introduced Johnson as “the leading figure” in the intelligent design movement—which he was. Johnson was perhaps the first person after David Berlinski to just ask, point blank, never mind religion or whatever, why does all this tabloid-level nonsense rule biology? Read More ›

In case you wondered why dark energy is “the biggest unsolved problem in the universe”

Ethan Siegel: Why does empty space have the properties that it does? Why is the zero-point energy of the fabric of the Universe a positive, non-zero value? And why does dark energy have the behavior we observe it to have, rather than any other? Read More ›