Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Topic

Laszlo Bencze

Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 21, 2022
Categorized
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
Tagged
, , , , , ,

A friend reminds us of what philosopher Michael Polanyi had to say about Darwinian evolution

Denyse O'Leary
March 21, 2022
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
Doesn’t seem like Oxford liked him much for that. And then there’s what Gertrude Himmelfarb had to say at the same time… Hey, a walk through history when it is fun and instructive. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 22, 2021
Categorized
Information, Intelligent Design
Tagged
, , , ,

Laszlo Bencze offers a thought experiment on whether a random mistake can create information

Denyse O'Leary
November 22, 2021
Information, Intelligent Design
Bencze: Even in this rare case of a random mistake seemingly creating information (Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, The Man-Moth), the ability of an intelligent agent to notice and respond was critically important. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 19, 2021
Categorized
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, , , , ,

Laszlo Bencze responds to the view that evil is the absence of good

Denyse O'Leary
October 19, 2021
Intelligent Design
Bencze: I have found that all people, even diehard progressives,agree that there are some things that are prohibited. They might balk at homophobia. Surely that can’t be permitted? ... So, if not all things are permitted, then, logically speaking, god must exist. In this way the existence of evil points to god. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 18, 2021
Categorized
Culture, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design
Tagged
, , , ,

Laszlo Bencze: Just another gratuitous use of the word “evolution” in the WSJ

Denyse O'Leary
September 18, 2021
Culture, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design
Bencze: Did the arterial network sprout long before the giraffe's long neck evolved? Sadly evolution can’t look ahead to provide things that will be useful in the future, so no go. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 3, 2021
Categorized
Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Philosophy
Tagged
, ,

Philosopher: Darwinism vs. evidence was always a sore point

Denyse O'Leary
September 3, 2021
Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Philosophy
Laszlo Bencze: As Gertrude Himmelfarb (who did more than any other critic to unmask Darwin’s rhetorical evasions) noted, Darwin’s technique here and elsewhere was “to assume that by acknowledging the difficulty, he had somehow exorcized it,” coming up with a faux confession aimed at propitiating critical dissent. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
May 26, 2021
Categorized
Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Philosophy
Tagged
, ,

Are there really any “primitive” animals?

Denyse O'Leary
May 26, 2021
Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Philosophy
Our philosopher and photographer friend Laszlo Bencze proposes a cultural reason why Darwinism sounds believable. He points out that Charles Darwin lived in an era of continuous mechanical improvements. Did that shape his — and others’ — optimism about things that “just sort of happen” in nature? Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 12, 2021
Categorized
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, language, Media
Tagged
,

Darwinism as useless padding for news media prose

Denyse O'Leary
April 12, 2021
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, language, Media
Bencze: the "evolutionary hack" is ... "the task of safely raising the next generation." That is certainly an odd way of referring to parenting but, by alluding to evolution, the tone of the review rises to a more exalted scientific level thus confirming that reviewer Emily is no mere mommy but sort of a scientist herself. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 17, 2021
Categorized
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
Tagged
, , ,

Farewell to Tom Bethell (1936–2021), one of the earliest modern Darwin skeptics

Denyse O'Leary
February 17, 2021
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
Laszlo Bencze, writes to say, “I am very saddened to hear of Tom Bethell’s death. Not only was he pivotal in my turning away from Darwinism due to his 1976 Harper’s article which I clipped from the magazine and still have but we also became friends during one of his visits to California." Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 9, 2020
Categorized
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
Tagged
, , ,

Laszlo Bencze: Karl Popper never really retracted his doubt of Darwin

Denyse O'Leary
November 9, 2020
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
Bencze: Furthermore [in his recantation], he writes that natural selection is “a most successful metaphysical research program.” Wait a minute. Wasn’t that what he was to apologize for? So within his recantation he is reaffirming his original point of view, the very one that got him in trouble. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
September 9, 2020
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science
Tagged
, ,

Laszlo Bencze on the claim that falsifiability in science is a “myth”

Denyse O'Leary
September 9, 2020
Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science
Bencze: Multiverse theory has no falsifiers. It excludes nothing. No potential fact of existence can falsify it. By contrast Relativity has plenty of falsifiers: Something exceeding the speed of light,… Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 29, 2019
Categorized
Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Philosophy, Science
Tagged
,

The key to falsifiability of not evidence but observability

Denyse O'Leary
April 29, 2019
Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Philosophy, Science
Laszlo Bencze: The multiverse theory is irrefutable because alternate universes are, by definition, forever inaccessible. (If they were accessible through some very difficult convoluted route, they would still be part of our universe.) Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
October 28, 2018
Categorized
Darwinism, Design inference, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion
Tagged
, , ,

J.P. Moreland on Darwinism and “reverse intelligent design”

Denyse O'Leary
October 28, 2018
Darwinism, Design inference, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion

Our philosopher-photographer friend Laszlo Bencze sends us some thoughts on J. P. Moreland’s recent book, Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology: – (O’Leary for News) I just finished my reading of this book and I think it’s an excellent analysis of the issues which undergird evolution, namely that science and only science can provide knowledge about the world. This view, known as “scientism” relegates both philosophy and theology to the realm of personal opinion where both may be safely ignored. Of course, as Moreland points out, this position is self-refuting because all statements about the power and purpose of science are necessarily philosophical statements: The irony is that strong scientism is a philosophical statement, expressing an Read More ›