Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

FYI-FTR: The answer given to attempts to undermine moral government (and to those that — even worse — suggest that Christians must become/are vigilantes)

A new accusatory talking point being used by one particular frequent objector, is that I am ducking answering what he imagines I cannot answer. This arose in connexion with his drearily raising yet again an obsessive theme that would drag threads into the sewer. Having taken time to deal with such in one thread, I refused. I took time to deal with the focal topic (currently at top of UD’s recent active threads) then I took time to answer objections as above. For corrective record, I now headline, and as the relevant thread is still open, discussion will be entertained there. First, 419 in the atheism warrant challenge thread, July 17 2019 at 11:54 am on blog timestamp: [KF, 419:] Read More ›

Mathematicians challenge Darwinian evolution

"Has Darwinism really failed? Peter Robinson discusses it with David Berlinski, David Gelernter, and Stephen Meyer, who have raised doubts about Darwin’s theory in their two books and essay, respectively The Deniable Darwin, Darwin’s Doubt, and “Giving Up Darwin” (published in the Claremont Review of Books). " When this stuff is happening, Darwinism is on the outs culturally. Read More ›

Why the science spin snowball can’t stop

The bigger problem is overlooked. The basic philosophy of the people doing the science spins the story for them. We live in the age of the space detritus that was supposed to be an extraterrestrial lightsail and the conscious plants. And the talking apes. Oh yes, and the multiverse Read More ›

“Why is there something, instead of nothing?” (–> being Logic & First Principles, 24)

Heidegger famously posed this question, giving it redoubled force as a first question on critical analysis of worldviews: To philosophize is to ask “Why are there essents rather than nothing?” Really to ask this question signifies: a daring attempt to fathom this unfathomable question by disclosing what it summons us to ask, to push our questioning to the very end. Where such an attempt occurs there is philosophy. [ M. Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, Yale University Press, New Haven and London (1959), pp. 7-8.] Let’s explore, first pausing to see Prof Dawkins (dean of the notoriously unphilosophical new atheists) making needlessly heavy weather of the matter: Clearly, the pivot of the matter is — again — logic of being: Read More ›

Michael Egnor: Why abstract thoughts cannot arise from material things

Abstract thought is qualitatively different from concrete thought. To understand this, consider a chiliagon. A chiliagon is a closed regular polygon with 1000 sides. It is very simple to understand abstractly. However, it cannot be imagined concretely Read More ›

The Code 1202 glitch during the LM descent to the Moon

Why did the LM’s “mini” computer throw a restart glitch during the descent? Eyles — who wrote the code — tells the story: We are here discussing the LM’s mini computer, which used IC’s to effect an unprecedented small size (and “only” 70 lbs, in a box Eyles describes as 1 ft x 2 ft x 6 inches): Spoiler alert: a switch had been bumped, a radar overloaded the tiny 36,000 word memory and reset was triggered. Armstrong took over manual pilot and rode over a crater that was headlined at the time as an emergency leading to a blood pressure and heart rate surge. A successful landing was effected (I recall, listening after church as my late Dad tuned Read More ›

Would bypassing the Moon, going to Mars first, help with origin of life?

If there apparently isn’t and never has been life on Mars, why should we assume it exists elsewhere? If there is/has been life on Mars and it looks like it came from Earth, well, that’s a game-changer in itself. If it doesn't look like it came from Earth, that opens up whole new, *non-speculative* vistas. Read More ›