When Michael Behe visited the UK, back in November, the Humanist Society of Scotland and the British Center for Science Education wrote up a list of “10 + 1 Questions For Professor Behe” which they subsequently distributed to their ranks of faithful followers. I responded, at the time, fairly thoroughly to the arguments made therein here (to which the BCSE retaliated fairly viciously here).

Since PZ Myers has been invited to visit Glasgow next week (one week from today to be specific), to lecture on the embryological evidence for Darwinism, I took it upon myself to draw up this list of “10 + 1 Questions For Professor Myers”. If you happen to be in the area, and are anticipating attending this event next Monday (which will take place in the Crystal Palace, 36 Jamaica Street, from 7pm), feel free to use the following questions as inspiration for the Q&A session which will follow the talk.

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A fine tuning and multiverse advocate, Martin J. Rees, today won the 2011 Templeton Prize. The astrophysicist with no religion won the Prize originally “for Progress in Religion.”
The 2011 Templeton Prize was announced today.

LONDON, APRIL 6 – Martin J. Rees, a theoretical astrophysicist whose profound insights on the cosmos have provoked vital questions that speak to humanity’s highest hopes and worst fears, has won the 2011 Templeton Prize.
Rees, Master of Trinity College, one of Cambridge University’s top academic posts, and former president of the Royal Society, the highest leadership position within British science, has spent decades investigating the implications of the big bang, the nature of black holes, events during the so-called ‘dark age’ of the early universe, and the mysterious explosions from galaxy centers known as gamma ray bursters. Read More ›

Earlier this year, sociobiologist E. O. “Dear Pastor” Wilson disowned his “inclusive fitness” (kin selection) theory, developed from his study of ants and bees. According to his theory, among life forms that live in groups, many members may give up the chance of reproducing their selfish genes so that the group as a whole is more fit. The problem is that it’s notclear how this situation could arise.

He hadn’t long to wait for a reaction from his colleagues: Read More ›

During the 1990s I had untold opportunities to witness the full exuberance of nature’s rich offerings. My parents’ house on the southwestern edge of Ecuador’s capital Quito was set in a prime location for observing all manner of wildlife. And most memorable of all were the hummingbirds that frequented our garden attracted as they were to the blooming plants that had been strategically potted next to the outside walls of our living room. These veritable masters of flight, the smallest of warm blooded creatures on our planet, arrived with the sole purpose of extracting sweet nectar from the flowers we had laid before them. Their hovering maneuverability was their most striking attribute. Read More ›

Question: should the following statement get a science professor ousted from teaching?

the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a scientific hypothesis. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more momentous hypothesis in all of science.

Richard Dawkins

And for exploring aspects of this most momentous hypothesis in all of science, Dr. Crocker was removed from teaching at George Mason.

As reported by Casey Luskin at www.EvolutionNews.org

there are cases documenting genuine discrimination against scientists who support intelligent design (ID). One of those incidents took place at George Mason University (GMU), where Caroline Crocker was ousted from teaching biology because she challenged to neo-Darwinian evolution and favorably mentioned ID in the classroom. Dr. Crocker later appeared in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, but now many more details about Caroline Crocker’s story are revealed in her new autobiographical book, Free to Think: Why Scientific Integrity Matters.
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The biggest news, in my view, is that there is even a Top Ten. I myself cannot keep up with all the people who want me to look at their intelligent design projects. It’s not that I don’t care, but I am only one little old hack, and there are only so many hours in a day.

It’s been difficult to keep journalists in this area; they tend to get scared off by aggressive Darwinists fronting their tax-funded, establishment line. And every weekend “relationships” news editor has endless time for “evolution” nonsense. But word leaks out. As executive director Dennis Wagner comments,

“I would never have predicted that an atheist [Thomas Nagel] would name a book about intelligent design as one of the top books of 2009, while another atheist [Bradley Monton] would write a book defending intelligent design? This is a sign that open minds in the academic and scientific communities are beginning to take the evidence for intelligent design seriously.”

Mind you, these two above mentioned are intelligent atheists. Nagel, for example, wrote the brilliant paper, “What is it like to be a bat?”, exploring the mystery of animal minds. They restore my faith in human nature; I used to think all atheists were the sort of people who fill my In Box with vitriol – I had good reasons for thinking that, but it is not necessarily true as a consequence …

It’s one thing not to believe in God; quite another to actually believe in the selfish gene, the Big Bazooms theory of human evolution, or how “evolution” explains why people vote for Sarah Palin or Al Gore.

So – ta-DA!! – here is the winner: Read More ›

My grandfather was a prolific arrowhead collector.  He spent countless hours walking back and forth over the plains, hills and creek bottoms of Texas looking for “points,” as he called them, and by the time he passed away his collection ran into the hundreds.  When I was a young boy in the 60’s papa sometimes let me come along with him to look for points, but I did not have the patience required for this game.  Instead of emulating my grandfather’s painstaking and systematic search techniques, I mainly wondered around with my head in the clouds.  From time to time I would snatch up a random rock and run to show it to papa, yelling, “What about this one?”  My efforts invariably yielded the same response.  Papa would glance at the rock and hand it back to me while shaking his head and muttering “shah, shah, shah” under his breath.

What was the difference between my random rocks and the points my grandfather was looking for?  The rocks he rejected and the rocks he collected were all rocks, so what made the “points” special?  Just this.  In my grandfather’s judgment each rock he added to his collection was different from the thousands upon thousands of rocks he rejected because it bore complex marks that conformed to a specified pattern.  In short, like every other archeologist who has ever separated artifacts from natural objects, he made a design inference.  Read More ›

1997 will forever remain in my memory as the year that I had the opportunity to fly out to Galapagos and see the fauna of these magnificent islands for myself. My parents had been living in Ecuador for some years prior and I had made it my duty to go out to visit them on a regular basis. This year however was different. Working as the British cultural attaché in Ecuador, my father had been called to the Galapagos on business and had several meetings arranged at the Darwin Station.

I was intensely excited about what lay ahead not only because I had read so much about the wonders of the Galapagos wildlife but also because I was eager to visit one of the ‘pinnacles’ of Darwin’s evolutionary thesis. I had frequently been told about the impressive Frigate birds with their puffed out red chests, the almost motionless marine iguanas that bask in the sun, the curious boobies with their characteristic blue feet, and the giant tortoises that are now housed at the Darwin station itself. Read More ›

PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne both commented on the Numbers-Nelson Bloggingheads exchange. Some comments on their comments:

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Last evening I posted the following, and within a short period of time the Darwinbots descended upon it, challenging my expertise in two highly sophisticated areas of computational science, AI and FEA, fields in which I have the goods to demonstrate that I know what I am talking about. One commenter even asserted that the physics involved in an LS-DYNA simulation cannot be represented with mathematical precision. Yes they can. And it works.

At this point I decided that I have nothing further to offer. If some people cannot recognize that the information-processing systems encoded in biological systems defy naturalistic explanation and suggest a design inference, I cannot help them, and they are free to continue to pursue a phantom.

Farewell, and best wishes to all.

Gil
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Each year about 100 million Monarch butterflies from Canada and northeastern United States make their journey to the Mexican Sierra Madre mountains in an astonishing two-month long migration (Ref 1).  They fly 2500 miles to a remote area that is only 60 square miles in size (Ref 1).  No one fully understands what triggers this mass movement of Lepidopterans.  But there is no getting away from the fact that this is a phenomenon that, as one review summed up, “staggers the mind”, especially when one considers that these butterflies are freshly-hatched (Ref 1).  In short, Monarch migrants are always “on their maiden voyage” (Ref 2).  The location they fly to is home to a forest of broad-trunked trees that effectively Read More ›

(A synopsis of a play in three acts)

If we go by the recent Michael Reiss drama, Brit Darwin fans seem to be going round the bend on hockey skates …

Act One: Well-meaning Brit clergyman wants kids to know “Darwin loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life … “

On September 11, 2008 Michael Reiss, a biologist, ordained minister in the Church of England, professor of science education at the Institute for Education, and director of science education employed by the Royal Society, wass quoted in an article in the Guardian by James Randerson as telling attendees at the British Association Festival of Science that, 

Creationism and intelligent design should be taught in school science lessons, …

The Rev Prof Michael Reiss, director of education at the Royal Society, said that excluding alternatives to scientific explanations for the origin of life and the universe from science lessons was counterproductive and would alienate some children from science altogether.

[ … ]

Reiss said he used to be an “evangelist” for evolution in the classroom, but that the approach had backfired. “I realised that simply banging on about evolution and natural selection didn’t lead some pupils to change their minds at all. Now I would be more content simply for them to understand it as one way of understanding the universe,” he said.

(Here’s the audio.)

So Reiss was definitely thumping the tub for Darwin. Let no one doubt this. In fact, he made tiresomely clear that he is totally sold on “evolution”, and anyone who doubts has “worldview” problems:

Just because something lacks scientific support doesn’t seem to me a sufficient reason to omit it from a science lesson. When I was taught physics at school, and taught it extremely well in my view, what I remember finding so exciting was that we could discuss almost anything providing we were prepared to defend our thinking in a way that admitted objective evidence and logical argument.

So when teaching evolution, there is much to be said for allowing students to raise any doubts they have (hardly a revolutionary idea in science teaching) and doing one’s best to have a genuine discussion. The word ‘genuine’ doesn’t mean that creationism or intelligent design deserve equal time.

[ … ]

Creationism can profitably be seen not as a simple misconception that careful science teaching can correct. Rather, a student who believes in creationism has a non-scientific way of seeing the world, and one very rarely changes one’s world view as a result of a 50-minute lesson, however well taught.

So Reiss had apparently decided, from experience, that it is better to listen first, and encourage people to talk before offering a solution. That, of course, is standard modern practice in any kind of evangelism, whether for Darwin, drugs, Christianity, jihadism, or animal rights terrorism. For whatever reason, most people, offered a choice of

1. Think my way,

or

2. Go to hell,

– provided that no firearms are pointed directly at them – tend to respond, “Excuse me while I go check the weather news on the temperature down in hell. Back soon, … uh, honest!”

So, as Reiss made clear, he was earnest about looking for a way to convert the non-materialist sinners to random, purposeless Darwinian evolution.

Ah, but in the most faithful hearts, a seed of doubt may be nourished … Read More ›

Second Baptist in Houston (www.second.org) is a terrific church with a huge membership. My good friend Ben Young is a pastor there and runs two contemporary services at two different campuses Sunday mornings. I was there on Sunday, July 27th at those two services, with Ben and I having a conversation in front of the congregation and then fielding questions. The church is high-tech, so in addition to questions from the microphones, we were also taking text messages from people’s cell phones. Below are all the questions received (about 250 total). Such text message questions give people a fair degree of anonymity. It’s interesting what people ask when they feel less self-conscious: Read More ›