[I was incredibly impressed by the testimony of PasserBy11 in the thread Are dinosaurs the real reason young Christians in college desert their faith. He had the opposite journey that I had in some respects. I have to say however I can so relate to the effect of bad behavior in the Church and the friendship and warm welcome that some can receive in atheist and agnostic circles relative to the judgmental and presumptuous abuse some parishioners subjected me to when I struggled with my questions. (When I say atheists and agnostics, I’m not referring to the internet variety like PZ Myers, that’s almost a whole nother species. These were people I know personally.) Some may argue, “Sal why are Read More ›

My previous post, An exchange with an ID skeptic seems to have kicked off a firestorm of criticism. So many readers of this post have rebuked me with the question, “Why didn’t you argue [XYZ], when you were debating Dr. McGrath?” that I feel obliged to respond. My goals, in engaging with Dr. McGrath First of all, my dialogue with Dr. McGrath was an exchange of views, as I clearly stated in my opening paragraph. It was not a debate, and it was never intended to be such. Consequently, questions about who won are entirely beside the point. I wasn’t aiming for a “knock-out blow.” Dr. McGrath did a very good job of defending his viewpoint; and for that, I Read More ›

For a number of years, many of us at UD have made the argument that evolutionary theory, in practice, is of almost no help whatsoever in getting at the secrets of biology. I’ve taken the position personally that it actually hurts, and that it is not a matter of indifference to the study of biology whether evolution is employed or not. ID is the way to go.

In this study reported on at Phys.Org, scientists looked at a particular portion of “non-coding” RNA in the zebra fish and found that it actually does code for a protein (which they call “Toddler”), and which turns out to be almost essential in the proper development of the embryo. Cutting out the sequence for “Toddler” results in improper development of, or the entire loss of, a heart, and subsequent death because the embryo fails to enter the gastrula stage of early embryonic development. Read More ›

What is the probability of a structure like the bacterial flagellum evolving under Darwinian processes? This is the question on which the entire debate over Darwinian evolution turns. If the bacterial flagellum’s evolution is absurdly improbable, than Darwinism is false. On the other hand, if the flagellum is reasonably probable than Darwinism looks like a perfectly plausible explanation for life. Dembski’s development of specified complexity depends on having established that the probability of structures like the bacterial flagellum is absurdly low under Darwinian mechanisms. Specified complexity provides the justification for rejecting Darwinian evolution on the basis of the absurdly low probability. It does nothing to help establish the low probability. Anyone arguing the Darwinian evolution has a low probability of Read More ›

Recently I posted a reply on Uncommon Descent, to a post by Dr. James F. McGrath, an Associate Professor of Religion at Butler University, criticizing Intelligent Design. Dr. McGrath and I then continued to exchange views over on his post. I hope he will not mind if I reprint our online correspondence on this post at Uncommon Descent, where readers can view it at their leisure. I would also like to personally thank Dr. McGrath for his courtesy, professionalism and kindness, in taking so much of his time to respond to my queries. First, a little bit of background information. In his original post, Dr. McGrath had posed the following dilemma to Intelligent Design proponents: Either God can create a Read More ›