Creationism

Last week, the Ohio House of Representatives passed HB 164, the “Ohio Student Religious Liberties Act of 2019.  The purpose of the bill is to protect the rights of students to religious expressions without penalty in the public school classroom.  Under this bill, a student cannot be given a punative grade for simply expressing their religious views as part of a class assignment.  The bill sounds sensible enough, given the many documented instances of students receiving poor grades on otherwise well written assignments merely because a teacher disagreed with the student’s religious views of the subject.  A key part of the bill says that no school… “shall prohibit a student from engaging in religious expression in the completion of homework, Read More ›

Here’s my new article at Design Disquisitions. Enjoy: In the next two (potentially three) articles I’ll be taking an in-depth look at an excellent paper written by Jeffrey Koperski, a philosopher of science at Saginaw Valley State University. Koperski has written about ID in several publications (1), which I highly recommend, and he takes a balanced and sensible approach to this topic. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t accept ID, but takes a constructively critical stance, so his work is well worth engaging with. As one can tell from the title of the paper, Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Goods Ones(2), Koperski critically analyses two common criticisms of ID, suggesting that they are highly dubious lines of argument. He then Read More ›

Finally, I’ve managed to publish my first blog article! It’s been a rocky start as I had some technical difficulties. Nevertheless, it feels good to get the ball rolling. In this first article, I’ve chosen to take a step back and reflect upon whether or not intelligent design is an important problem to consider in the first place. I outline what I consider to be five strong reasons why this is a matter of great significance.   In the foreword to the intelligent design text, The Design of Life, biochemist William S. Harris notes: The scientific community continues to wrestle with the deep and fundamental questions: Where did the universe come from? How did life originate? How did a coded language (i.e., DNA) Read More ›

One of the main pages on my new blog has a brief account of my journey towards accepting ID. I’ve taken a few different stances on the biological origins question in the past so it’s been a bumpy ride for me. This article is mainly autobiographical, but it gives me a chance to lay my cards on the table so I don’t have assumptions made about me and so readers know roughly where I’m coming from. Here’s a snippet: So, how and why did I become an intelligent design advocate? It’s a long(ish) story… I am, perhaps unsurprisingly, a Christian. I was raised in a Christian home and, with the exception of a period of ephemeral teenage agnosticism, I have Read More ›

Some readers here may be aware of an online debate I’m taking part in with a neo-Darwinist (and friend), Francis Smallwood. Francis blogs at Musings of a Scientific Nature. We are currently discussing the issue of whether intelligent design is just a recent strain of creationism, and whether it is a legitimate scientific theory. What follows is our second round of responses. You can read Francis’ response by following the link at the bottom of this post. Feel free to criticise what I have written, and interact with Francis on his blog. Enjoy! ‘Is Intelligent Design science or ‘creationism in a cheap tuxedo?’ Joshua Gidney-2nd response In my opening remarks I attempted to argue that intelligent design is in no Read More ›

A couple of days ago I posted my opening statement to a formal online debate I’m currently engaged in with Christian neo-Darwinist Francis Smallwood at Musings Of A Scientific Nature. My opening statement can be found here, and his here. What follows are my opening thoughts on the question whether ID is ‘creationism in a cheap tuxedo’, or a valid scientific theory. At the bottom of this post you can find a link to Francis’ first response to me on his blog. Is Intelligent Design science or ‘creationism in a cheap tuxedo?‘ Joshua Gidney-Opening As I have already outlined in my opening statements, intelligent design theory states ‘that there are tell-tale features of living systems and the universe that are Read More ›

A couple of months ago, I agreed to take part in a written debate with a good friend of mine, Francis Smallwood. Francis, like me, is a commited Christian. Unlike me though, he is also a neo-Darwinist. On his blog Musings Of A Scientific Nature he writes on many different scientific issues, although his primary focus is on Darwinism. I encourage UD readers to check his blog out. As an enthusiastic ID proponent, I obviously think his embrace of Darwinian theory is profoundly mistaken, and equally I think his criticisms of ID are weak. However, he is at least willing to engage in debate with people of opposing view points and is not as dismissive as most Darwinists. Our idea Read More ›

In the last year and a bit I’ve done a lot of work in trying to understand and then critique the approach of Dr. Denis Alexander of the Faraday Institute in Cambridge (UK). I know that many readers of UD are familiar with Alexander’s big-selling work, “Creation or Evolution – Do We Have To Choose?”. This book is probably (alongside Francis Collins) the work with the most traction by Darwinists seeking to argue from a Biblical Christian viewpoint. I’ve previously drawn attention to IVP’s “Should Christians Embrace Evolution”. In this post I want instead to draw attention to my own response, “Creation or Evolution – Why We Must Choose”. If you don’t want to read the blurb and just want Read More ›

The Vatican apparently seeks to understand biological evolution, as long as speakers do not address the issue of origins whether advocates of Intelligent Design, Creationists, or Evolutionists. That appears to a priori exclude the foundational issue of causation. It also appears to assume that papers on “biological evolution” do not have any unstated assumptions on mechanisms or causes. It will be interesting to see the papers and results from this conference. See following articles and Dembski’s previous post: The Pope Circling Around ID:
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“Intelligent design” not science: Vatican evolution congress to exclude creationism, intelligent design

Speakers invited to attend a Vatican-sponsored congress on the evolution debate will not include proponents of creationism and intelligent design, organizers said.

The Pontifical Council for Culture, Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana are organizing an international conference in Rome March 3-7 2009 as one of a series of events marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.” Read More ›