Antony Flew - did he really write There IS a God?

In late October, celebrated (former) atheist Antony Flew's long-awaited There IS a God, with Roy Varghese, appeared. It is an elegant little book, as one might expect from a British philosopher. Its sparkling clarity does more than illuminate Antony Flew's change of mind on the subject of God.

Authorship controversy? Well, yes, some argue that Flew didn't really write the book. Fundies are holding him captive in a church basement somewhere.

Oh, come on. If Flew had suddenly, dramatically, turned back to atheism, would the same people suggest that he was senile or that he didn't really write the (later) retraction? Is that truly the atheists' best shot? Then their case is worse than I had realized. As a matter of fact, people who are senile tend to confirm their earlier views more strongly, rather than change them decisively. Change might require intellectual resources they no longer have.

For more, go here.

Alley Oop, if you lie to me one more time ...

Columnist and radio host Frank Pastore has some fun with recent discoveries that considerably complicate our view of human evolution:

First, as reported here on August 9, two alleged ancestors of man, Homo Erectus and Homo Habilis, were found to be living together about 1.5 million years ago (MYA). This is a big deal because Erectus was supposed to have evolved from Habilis before later evolving into Sapiens (us). Think of it as finding out dad and grandpa were actually brothers, not father and son.

Omigolly! B.C., help me outside! I need air ...

Also,

The second discovery, reported here, pushed the hypothetical human-ape split back another 10 million years, to now around 20 MYA. How so? The traditional theory is that man evolved from chimps about 6 MYA, chimps evolved from gorillas about 8 MYA, and gorillas evolved from orangutans about 14 MYA. But, with the discovery of a 10.5 million year old gorilla in Africa, this pushes the human-ape split back to at least 20 MYA.

But between 15-20 MYA, there were dozens of primate species in Africa, and the hominid trail goes completely cold after 7 MYA. It looks like a dead end-or to the true believer, at least a serious detour over uncharted territory.

Bottom line, not only do we find that dad and grandpa were brothers, but now we find out that we were adopted-or created.

Alley Oop, come on. Admit it. You've been LYING to me ...

The real fun, actually, is the combox (1164 comments), many of them seemingly aggrieved that anyone would construe from these discoveries that scientists know little of human origins. I myself can think of no other reasonable conclusion.

Human evolution: It all began in Pasta City, see ...

Human evolution is an interesting puzzle, one that fuels a lot of speculation. In this article by Ewen Callaway in Nature News (doi:10.1038/news070903-21), we learn "that spit might have helped human evolution by enabling our ancestors to harvest more energy from starch than their primate cousins." (September 9, 2007)

It seems that our human genome has many more copies of the gene that makes an enzyme (salivary amylase) that turns starch into digestible sugars. According to a recent study, in societies where people eat lots of starchy food, they have more copies of the gene. Apparently, chimpanzees have only two copies of the gene, but humans have, for example, an average of 5.4 (low starch eaters) to 6.7 (high starch eaters). This shows that we adapt to our food environment, whether its Pasta City or Sproutsville, but then we hear,

Dominy speculates that perhaps the change propelled our ancestors to new heights by fuelling the evolution of large brains more than two million years ago. Alternatively, the new copies may have coincided with the rise of agriculture 150,000 years ago, he says.

Now if we are not sure whether the change happened two million years ago or 150,000 years ago, we might want to be a bit more cautious about its significance for the human brain. In any event, one biologist commented that, starches aside, humans eat a lot more meat than primate apes do, and that one may just as well say eating meat spurred human evolution.

Actually, that would make a lot more sense too. Outwitting a deer (or even a fish) is a bit more trouble than outwitting a beetroot.

(Note: You'd have to pay to read the whole article at Nature.)

Bash them with a crowbar ... or only a baseball bat?

Further to discussion of American media interest in presidential candidates' views on evolution*: In the Tampa Bay Post, John West of the Discovery Institute argues that

Increasingly, self-proclaimed defenders of science have tried to turn "science" into an ideological weapon to attack any questioning by religious believers of the "consensus view" of scientific elites on embryonic stem-cell research, global warming, Darwinian evolution, and similar issues.

A lot of this seems fuelled by anti-religious fervour, contrary to the stereotype that the scientists in question are objective:

The anti-religious fervor of leading scientists was on clear display last year at a conference on science and religion at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. According to one participant quoted by the New York Times, "with a few notable exceptions, the viewpoints at the conference have run the gamut from A to B. Should we bash religion with a crowbar or only with a baseball bat?"

West, author of Darwin Day in America (ISI Books, 2007), also notes that there is no reason to believe that public policy directed by atheists with science degrees would be any better than the current state of affairs. Citing the eugenics disaster of the twentieth century, he notes that "Traditionalist Catholics and evangelicals were among the handful of voices challenging the validity of the eugenics crusade at a time when scientific dissenters were scant."

Today at the Mindful Hack

Research that tells you something you already knew. Givers are happier Do people give because they are happy or are they happy because they give? Actually, it is more likely a feedback loop - it is mutually reinforcing if you keep it up.

Does religion really poison everything? "Mark Musick of the University of Texas thought, when he started his research on volunteerism worldwide, that education would best predict who volunteers, but he found that attending religious services was the strongest predictor, stronger than either education or income."

Mario Beauregard is a neuroscientist who has been studying the brain for years. His findings are surprising: he believes he has found a neurological reason to believe in the existence of the
soul.

Molecular clock - right twice a day?

2006 and 2007 have been years in which a number of key science papers addressed things we know - that ain't so. One story is the serious challenges to the long contested "molecular clock" theory.

[ ... ]

In the science literature, many adjustments are offered to make the fossil record and molecular data match. Of course, some adjustment is certainly inevitable, but after a while a question arises. One can live with a clock that is routinely ten minutes slow. But if it is variably slow, slower at some times than others, there may come a point when one asks, why consult a clock anyway? Or, more to the point, should this device properly be called a clock?

Read the rest here.

Note: I disabled comments for this post. Until the Comments thing at Design of Life is fixed, go to Uncommon Descent if you want to comment.

My U of T ID course got good reviews!

When I first offered to replace a retired high school teacher, and teach an adult night school course at the University of Toronto on why there is an intelligent design controversy, I had no idea that it would provoke an uproar among people who seemed to know little about it and, in many cases, didn't even live anywhere near Toronto.

Well, it went off okay, and last week I received a kind letter from the co-ordinator, with student reviews enclosed. On the whole it seems positive. I do not credit myself, but rather my excellent and well qualified co-teachers, on whom I relied for the technical parts (what kind of universe do we live in? why is origin of life a problem? how might an information theorist look at evolution?, etc.). I mostly did the historical and media stuff myself, with the excellent assistance of Toronto journalist David Warren for the latter.

One student pointed out that we should have looked more at Richard Dawkins's views (= ultra-Darwinism). I think that student is right. For convenience, I had originally modelled the course on my book, By Design or by Chance? but had inadvertently skipped over the chapter on Richard Dawkins vs. Stephen Jay Gould. If I organize the course again, I will split the third evening into two parts - one half on Darwinism/neo-Darwinism/ultra-Darwinism/Gould's ideas and the other on creationism, which is what my book actually did.

My only complaint is that there seems to be no reliable coffee service in easy reach of our mid-session break. I had promised coffee and donuts for the last session, but was able to provide only the donuts.

Service Note

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?, or my book of essays on faith and science topics, Faith@Science: Why science needs faith in the 21st century (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford, 2001). You can read excerpts as well.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

NEW! Here's my review of Oxford Mathematician John Lennox's God's Undertaker: Has science buried God? - an excellent riposte to the materialist view of the universe.

Intelligent design east: Intelligent design without God

Hollywood weighs in with pro-ID film, to premiere on Darwin’s birthday.

Animations of life inside the cell, indexed, for your convenience.

Anti-God crusade ... no, really! My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

Behe, Mike My review of Mike Behe's Edge of Evolution

Catholic Church A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

Collins, Francis My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God

Columnists weigh in on the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

Darwinism dissent Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin

Encyclopedia of ID topics Evolution in the light of intelligent design - look up intelligent design topics here.

Gilder, George A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

Intelligent design academic publications.

Intelligent design-friendly students should be flunked, according to bio prof Evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Intelligent design controversy My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

Intelligent design controversy timeline An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

Intelligent design and culture My review of sci-fi great Rob Sawyer’s novel, The Calculating God , which addresses the concept of intelligent design.

March of the Penguins A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

Origin of life Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Peer review My backgrounder about peer review issues.

Polls relevant to the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

Stove, David O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment will be accepted if I think they contribute to a discussion. For best results, give your name or some idea who you are and why we should care. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Today at The Mindful Hack

Should churches criticize bestselling atheists?

Alzheimer NOT an immediate mental death sentence

Is your brain full of anachronistic junk?

Ann Coulter on legacy media's obsessions with candidate Huckabee's views on evolution

Ann Coulter, whose wit has savaged many Important People, asks an interesting question: Why do media reports focus on potential Republican presidential candidate Huckabee's doubts about the Darwinian version of the history of life, but not on those of peole who may be suspected of knowing more about it:

The media are transfixed by the fact that Huckabee says he doesn't believe in evolution. Neither do I, for reasons detailed in approximately one-third of my No. 1 New York Times best-selling book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism."

I went on a massive book tour for "Godless" just last year, including a boffo opening interview with Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today," a one-on-one, full-hour interview with Chris Matthews on "Hardball," and various other hostile interviews from the organs of establishmentarian opinion.

But I didn't get a single question from them on the topic of one-third of my book.

If the mainstream media are burning with curiosity about what critics of Darwinism have to say, how about asking me? I can name any number of mathematicians, scientists and authors who have also rejected Darwin's discredited theory and would be happy to rap with them about it.

Ann, you and I both know why. What you would tell them is just what legacy media types DON'T want to hear or broadcast. The story is so much easier to tell if we ignore the fact that the evidence does not support Darwin's mechanism as the main explanation for the evolution of life.

Update note: If anyone has gained the impression from Ann Coulter's comments that she is a Huckabee supporter, read "Huckelujah" and reconsider. Note: If you do read it and are offended, please don't write back and tell me how awful Ann Coulter is. Just take my word for it then. She is NOT a Huckabee supporter.

What's wrong with science education today?

Some friends and I were discussing what is wrong with science education today. One person asked, "I wonder whether anybody else gets tired of the continually repeated suggestion that intelligent design (or even young earth creationism is the factor that's going to hold the US back in science education and achievement?"

My friend is an American, so I offered him some suggestions as to how to respond: In addressing such claims, I think you must insist that people explain what they are talking about. Here is what I usually say, when confronted with similar claims:

1. Quit crying wolf. The United States has been a world leader in science since at least World War II and there is no good evidence that that is changing significantly. Of course, there is always some evidence supporting any given trend claim, which is why the half century picture is so important. Fifty years ago, people were saying that the United States was falling behind in science. Yeah? Tell it to the Mars Rover.

2. Quit comparing apples and oranges. Many countries do not have a No Child Left Behind Act, let alone great concern about gender equity or minority disadvantage. Some countries have few resources and put all the ones they do have into the high performers. But they are not a useful comparison because the United States would easily outstrip them in their own area of expertise (producing geniuses) if it did the same thing. Check out the math genius school at Princeton in the film, A Beautiful Mind, for example ....

For reasonable and useful comparisons, compare - say - a prosperous U.S. state like New York with a prosperous contiguous Canadian province like Ontario. Absent cherry-picking, I wonder how big a difference one will find.*

*It might be quite easy to find inner city schools in New York City that perform worse than similar inner city schools in Toronto (Canada's largest city and the capital of Ontario) . But New York is much larger than Toronto so there may be room for more statistical anomalies. The significant question is, do average New York State students receive a significantly poorer education than average Ontario students, and if so, what might be the real-world reasons?

3. Quit engaging in fact-free discourse. Does young earth creationism (YEC) actually result in poorer individual scores on standardized tests? Less knowledge of Darwin's theory? I suspect that one reason Darwin activists in your area are not making an issue of test results - but rather sticking to generalities and suppositions - is that the results may show the exact opposite of what the activist wants the public to believe. If so, it is probably due to the fact that the YEC student may actually be expected to learn what he is supposed to dissent from. The worst aspect of propaganda masquerading as education is that it kills the desire for knowledge. All you need to know is what they want you to parrot back, and - because you MUST parrot whatever they tell you back without question or dissent - the exact nature of the foolishness in which you are being indoctrinated is unimportant.

Actually, that's not even the main problem, in my view. What's wrong with science education today is what's wrong with all education today: Feeling good has replaced doing well. And fixing that would require the replacement of much of the current education establishment, which takes time. People who are looking to blame this or that social group - as a group - in the meantime are opportunist agitators who should, in my opinion, be ignored.

David Warren: "Darwinism blocks our view of the past, as well as the present and future"

My friend Toronto-based journalist David Warren on why teachng Darwinism alone in schools is a bad idea:

On that term "evolutionary biology" -- it is important, for more than antiquarian reasons, to understand that evolutionary biology has roots deeper than Darwin, going down all the way to the Greeks. "Darwinism" blocks our view of the past, as well as the present & future. And I say, more than antiquarian, for again & again we find some insight in an older source that
has been overlooked & is ripe for reappraisal.

On my opposition to teaching "Darwinism" (as opposed to strictly empirical evolutionary biology) in schools - & may I add, on my insistence that history of science be taught broadly & openly, & not narrowly & ideologically -- let me add, that it is no small thing. Children have no
equipment to test the claims of their teachers until they have acquired the equipment, & few are genuinely sceptical by disposition. (I myself was sceptical from a very early age, & thus the bane of smooth-talking gliberal teachers, but I was also obviously some kind of freak.)

You cripple a child's potential for artistic, philosophical, & spiritual growth, by ramming a desiccated, politically-correct materialism down his throat from an early age. It is an attack on his very sense of wonder, & thus on his capacity for science, too. This is a seriously wrong thing to
do.

Who actually believes in science?

In an interesting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things, asks "Will the secular left soon attack the religious right for being pro-science?". He is referring to the recent advance that eliminated the need for human embryonic stem cells in research. He observes,

I have long suspected that science, in the context of the editorial page of the New York Times, was simply a stalking-horse for something else. In fact, for two something-elses: a chance to discredit America's religious believers, and an opportunity to put yet another hedge around the legalization of abortion. After all, if our very health depends on the death of embryos, and we live in a culture that routinely destroys early human life in the laboratory, no grounds could exist for objecting to abortion.

But just about everything that the editorialists fanatically maintained was counterfactual:

Shake loose from the narrative of antiscience fundamentalists and pro-science liberals, however, and a different story starts to be visible. Abortion skewed the political discussion of all this, pinning the left to a defense of science it doesn't actually hold. The more natural line is agitation against Frankenfoods and all genetic modification, particularly given the environmentalism to which the campaign against global warming is tying the left.

An interesting thesis, and one with parallels in the intelligent design controversy. For example, there is overwhelming evidence for actual design in the universe (the usual term is fine tuning), which means that it would be strange indeed if life forms showed no evidence of design. Yet, you would never guess any of this if you listen only to the hysterics of editorialists and do not consider the evidence.

New blog: "A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable".

Tying up some loose ends here, I note that retired physiologist John A. Davison, a non-Darwinian biologist and sponsor of the prescribed evolutionary hypothesis, has started a blog on that, and on the perils of climate change as well. Davison, who contributes frequently to Internet debates on these subjects, had a paper on his prescribed evolutionary hypothesis published in Rivista di Biologia, which is available at his site.

Pos-Darwinista aims for 100000 site visitors by Christmas

I sort of consider Pos-Darwinista, a Portuguese-language ID news blog which Brazilian Enézio E. de Almeida Filho offers, a godchild, because its name recalls this blog's name, the Post-Darwinist. (See the blogroll at the right, "Never a Dull Moment ...")

Enezio also like to call his blog, Desafiando a Nomenklatura científica (Defying the Scientific Nomenclatura). He writes to say that for Christmas he would like to pass the 100 000 visitors mark.

As of December 16, he had 93,477 visitors. If you know any Portuguese or know someone who does, perhaps you can help him out by visiting ...

Today at the Design of Life blog

Interview with Guillermo Gonzalez, the "Privileged Planet" astronomer who was recently denied tenure at Iowa State University:

"Now if you talk about evidence of design in physics or cosmology, you are put under the category of intelligent design, and you are immediately labeled a fundamentalist or worse." - Guillermo Gonzalez

Also: Gonzalez on intelligent design: Both falsified AND unfalsifiable, right?

If you don't think that makes sense, keep it to yourself! - the Darwinbots are probably watching you.

On a good day, they could knock us over with a feather, or with laughter ...

Note: If you want to post a comment at the DoL blog: A technical problem has prevented me from approving comments. Regular tech support is currently on vacation. So am I, technically, for a few days, though I will try to post anyway. My favourite tech support person has promised to write a page for the site on how to post comments, and I hope that service in the new year will meet every reasonable person's expectations.

Today at the Mindful Hack

Can people simply decide to die?

It used to be all my mom's fault, but now it's all my brain's fault?

Change your mind, change your brain seminar at Colorado Free University in Denver

Jewish community life takes root again in Germany

One thing about Darwinists - they are consistent. They really do NOT believe in information

Bill Dembski has drawn my attention to the Darwinists who vote up negative reviews of Design of Life, his textbook supplement with Jonathan Wells, on whose behalf I blog at Design of Life blog:

The Design of Life has 13 five-star reviews and 4 one-star reviews. None of the one-star reviews give evidence of the reviewer having read the book. Yet the three reviews placed front and center by Amazon are the one-star reviews and none of the five-star reviews appear there. That's because the Darwinists keep voting up the negative reviews and voting down the positive reviews. Please go to the link right now, look at the reviews, and vote on them (toward the bottom of a review are "yes" and "no" buttons for whether a review was helpful).

These naysayers may not be people who have read the book. Any more than the Darwinbots who assailed the showing of The Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian can be presumed to have seen the film. (Had they done so, they would have known that the film was not "anti-evolution", as a New York Times reporter had incorrectly reported)

The Darwinbot's duty is not to see or hear or know, but merely to stupidly protest.

That makes sense. In the final assault of Darwinism against mind-based civilization, the Darwinists are revealing that they do not think that they have minds. Their selfish genes have brought them to the point where they mindlessly yay-hoo against books they have never read and never intend to read, as well as films they have never seen and never intend to see.

I am NOT recommending that anyone who has not read The Design of Life should attempt to do battle with Darwinbots who have not read it either. Why add to the number of stupid wars that infest the planet?

But if you think that the information service that Bill Dembski has provided at Uncommon Descent for years - out of his own resources - is worthwhile, go to Amazon and vote up the reviews that sound like the person has actually read the book. Vote the others down.

Like intelligent design? Hate it? No matter. This is a blow for civilization. Everyone who things they have a mind will be better off.

New Design of Life blog promises exciting coverage of intelligent design issues

The blog for the Design of Life textbook supplement went live this morning (I'm the lead blogger).

The first three posts:

1. Welcome to the Design of Life blog!

Excerpt: " Here at this blog you will see the evidence run through a filter that accepts the possibility of purpose and design. That means that sometimes you will see the same evidence but without the just-so stories that rescue Darwinism. You will see lots of evidence you wouldn't otherwise know about. In no case will you see the kind of thing you hear increasingly from popular (and sometimes tax-supported) media. For example, here are some things we WON'T tell you: 1. What Pleistocene man "would have done". For example, he "would have had several mates in order to spread his selfish genes." Actually, I don't know what Pleistocene man would have done. Do you? Did he? When we don't know that something actually happened, we won't tell you that it did. We certainly won't tell you that it "would have happened" in order to promote some otherwise useless or failed Darwinist theory."

2. The Big Bang of flowers - an abominable mystery? Or an opportunity to really understand?

Can scientists shed light on Charles Darwin's "abominable mystery" - the Big Bang of early plant evolution? Flowering plants evolved quite quickly into five groups, according to scientists at the University of Florida and the University of Texas at Austin (ScienceDaily, November 27, 2007) ...

3. The "Copernican" myth, and other science myths - the undead still walk!

The myth that Copernicus's model of the universe "dethroned" humans is a vampire that refuses to die. In Physics Today, Mano Singham tries yet again! to drive a nail through the monster's heart. Singham writes (December 2007, page 48) about the promoters of the myth ...

New at The Mindful Hack

Golden Compass off course?

Ignorant journalists and evangelical voters: Fast forward to election year

New theory of brain function not in conflict with reality

The soul: Folk views vs. philosophical reflections

Robots that can feel? Really? No, notreally

Can anyone, even God, be both impossible and improbable at the same time?

Mindfulness-based wellness program at Avila University (Kansas City, Missouri)

Hey, brighten my day! A pupil of the great Sir John Eccles writes re The Spiritual Brain

What would happen to science if Darwin ceased to be God?

Recently, I received and published this comment on this post about Oxford mathematician John Lennox's book, God's Undertaker, from "curwen":

As an historian, with some background in the cultural and social history of Darwinism, I'm interested in how philosophy effects scientific practice. In my search for current material on the subject, I ran across this post, and became interested in your blog.

I am interested in your opinion on this: in what ways would scientific practice change if materialism, as a philosophy of science, was eventually replaced by design? In other words, would research and experiment be structured differently? Would standards of evidence change? Does Lennox comment on this? I apologize if this is something you've already dealt with at length, so even if you responded with relevant posts that would be helpful.

I told curwen that it is an excellent question, and I'd answer it.

I am also going to ask around and post other answers.*

My area of interest is the popular culture that grows up around science (not surprising given my background as a journalist, author, and blogger), so here are my thoughts on that:

1. First, let me summarize my approach to the question: If you already know that, scroll down to 2.

Prior to the rise of materialist (as opposed to non-materialist) atheism, most scientists thought that the universe and life forms show evidence of design. A majority probably thinks so today. How materialist atheism became a default position at universities in spite of the evidence is a story in itself, a story that needn't detain us here.

In spite of the evidence? Yes, indeed. With any luck, my next book will explore the considerable effort to explain away the fine tuning of the universe and get rid of people who add to the growing stockpile of information about it.

And if the universe, why not life? There is something comical about the amiable Francis Collins insisting that the universe shows evidence of design but life somehow doesn't. But Collins is not, after all, a deep thinker.

Put simply, materialist atheists are the only people who cannot live with a designed universe, and they currently dominate science faculties (not necessarily scientists at large). Their materialist views are formed without any reliance on evidence because the evidence is actually against them.

The increasingly persecutory way they follow up on their views is explained by a simple fact: Materialist atheism cannot admit of any exceptions - it is a monistic creed, and a single exception would destroy it. It's universe must be bottom up, not top down.

Darwinism is important primarily as materialism's creation story. It is force fed to children in tax-supported schools as "science." It is also constantly reinforced in the pop science media as explaining everything from why you cheat on your squeeze to why your kid likes ice cream better than raw broccoli.

Given what we now know about (1) the life inside the cell, (2) the small amount of time in which life got started, shortly after the planet cooled, and (3) the pace at which Darwinian evolution actually works, belief in Darwinism is belief in magic.

Faced with design or magic, I would go with design, but I am not a materialist.

Incidentally, I don't think design is an apologetic for Christianity, it is only an apologetic against materialist atheism. Anyone other than a materialist atheist (Christian, Moonie, Wiccan, Hare Krishna, Taoist, deist ...) can point to design as support for his or her view. Even a non-materialist atheist can point to design! It's public domain.

And, as I said above, design is so obviously true that materialist atheists increasingly resort to witch hunts to deal with people who add to the evidence for design.

2. If the hold of the materialist atheists is broken, we will see evidence restored to its rightful place as the hallmark of science. Instead of hearing empty rhetoric like "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution", we will hear "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evidence." How will this affect research? Well, for one thing, people will be able to follow the evidence without fear of losing their positions. That will - necessarily - lead to the discovery that many materialist truisms are poorly supported. Honest discussions will be possible again. I reasonably believe that advances in knowledge will result.

Note: George Hunter's Science's Blind Spot meticulously records the decline of the importance of evidence in science, as opposed to ideology. See also Evolution in the light of intelligent design for a list of at least some topics on which reasonable discussion can become possible.

3. Another key change I expect is this: Promissory materialism will cease to be obligatory mental furniture - the monstrous overstuffed sofa that lurks in the picture window of the minds of most educated people today.

As a result, people who insist that

- computers are going to become conscious - soon!
- apes can write autobiographies with appropriate training
- the mind is a user illusion
- there must be aliens out there because otherwise we would be special (and we "know" we're not special)
- there is a "God spot" in the brain which explains religious convictions and experiences
- there is no free will and you are controlled by your selfish genes

will slowly cease to be treated as authorities by popular media, as they presently are. They will come to be seen for what they in fact are: Materialist cranks flogging up ideas that do not withstand scrutiny or evidence - people whose positions are largely maintained by the organized ridicule or persecution of the holders of better supported alternative positions.

4. Some unproductive projects will probably be simply abandoned. For example, origin of life research is presently handicapped by the fact that such research MEANS research on how life came about by chance. Virtually everyone I have read in the field stoutly defends the view that that is what OoL research means - and the only thing it can ever mean. They would actually regard any other conclusion as a failure - even though, as Design of Life demonstrates, their efforts have gone nowhere and come up with nothing for the better part of a century. Unable to consider the possibility that life didn't come about that way, they battle each other over theories that are probably all incorrect. I suspect that human evolution research suffers from the same problem: Researchers search for a hairy, half-conscious proto-human who may never have existed at all. But he must exist according to materialist theory, and therefore he does. And in the present state of science, materialist theory trumps honest examination of the evidence.

5. Last and best, science may be separated from religion, to the benefit of both. Much that is called "science" in the popular media is simply the metaphysics of materialist atheism, using science as stage props. We will no longer endure experts who claim to know things like "the cave man was unfaithful to his mate so he could spread his selfish genes" Oh, was he now? That expert knows what cave men did in the same way that a witch doctor knows when my ancestors are displeased with me and a local fundamentalist knows exactly what God wants me to do.

When general acceptance of the religious view that drives any form of non-evidence-based knowledge declines, it ceases to be considered knowledge. Atheistic materialism is long overdue for that.

Well, Curwen, that's my stab at it. Now I will go look for other views*:

*For this project, I am only interested in hearing from people who think that design is a legitimate inference. If you think otherwise, go to the Thumb and hold forth as you wish.

Oxford mathematician John Lennox's God's Undertaker an excellent review of the design controversy

Here's my review of Oxford Mathematician John Lennox's God's Undertaker: Has science buried God? - a highly recommended riposte to the materialist view of the universe.

Service note

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?, or my book of essays on faith and science topics, Faith@Science: Why science needs faith in the 21st century (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford, 2001). You can read excerpts as well.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

NEW! Here's my review of Oxford Mathematician John Lennox's God's Undertaker: Has science buried God? - an excellent riposte to the materialist view of the universe.

Intelligent design east: Intelligent design without God

Hollywood weighs in with pro-ID film, to premiere on Darwin’s birthday.

Animations of life inside the cell, indexed, for your convenience.

Anti-God crusade ... no, really! My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

Behe, Mike My review of Mike Behe's Edge of Evolution

Catholic Church A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

Collins, Francis My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God

Columnists weigh in on the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

Darwinism dissent Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin

Encyclopedia of ID topics Evolution in the light of intelligent design - look up intelligent design topics here.

Gilder, George A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

Intelligent design academic publications.

Intelligent design-friendly students should be flunked, according to bio prof Evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Intelligent design controversy My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

Intelligent design controversy timeline An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

Intelligent design and culture My review of sci-fi great Rob Sawyer’s novel, The Calculating God , which addresses the concept of intelligent design.

March of the Penguins A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

Origin of life Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Peer review My backgrounder about peer review issues.

Polls relevant to the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

Stove, David O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment will be accepted if I think they contribute to a discussion. For best results, give your name or some idea who you are and why we should care. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Controversial Catholic Cardinal writes on evolution and purpose

Christoph, Cardinal Schoenborn, the highranking cleric who created a flap by pointing out that the Catholic Church does not in fact support purposeless evolution, has now written a book, Chance or Purpose?: Creation, Evolution and a Rational Faith (Ignatius Press):

It is endorsed both by Michael Behe and Owen Gingerich:

Michael Behe, Author, Darwin's Black Box:
"Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn's 2005 essay in the New York Times, which seemingly condemned Darwin's scientific theory of evolution, ignited a firestorm of controversy. Yet the hasty responses did not look deeply enough into the Cardinal's words. Rather than the science of Darwin, it is the philosophical claims made in its name that the prelate upbraided. Science cannot speak of ultimate purpose, and scientists who do so are outside of their authority. In Chance or Purpose? the Cardinal shows that the data of biology, when properly examined by reason and philosophy, strongly point to a purposeful world."

Owen Gingerich, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and History of Science, Harvard University. Author of "God's Universe":
"Cardinal Schoenborn writes with masterful simplicity on profound theological issues. I, as a scientist and Christian outside the Catholic tradition, welcome his wisdom. He argues effectively that there are multiple approaches to reality, and he states clearly that while intelligent design is worthy of human reflection, from a scientific perspective the evolutionary model is the true story."

The above division of opinion suggests that the Cardinal is steering his way through a minefield. The book's sales are respectable.

Incidentally, I wonder what Gingerich means by "the evolutionary model is the true story"? What evolutionary model in particular? That is, does he agree with Dawkins that evolution is without purpose or with John Paul II (and Schoenborn) that it has purpose?

Intelligent design gives great deal of trouble to philosopher Mary Midgley

Over at Access Research Network, British physicist David Tyler comments on British philosopher Mary Midgley's recent worry over intelligent design:

At the end of her essay, Midgley writes: "Unless something like this can be done, it seems to me that ID is going to give us a great deal of trouble." She asks for people to seek out better ways of interacting on these issues. As a first step, I would advise that we recognise that there is a real struggle concerning the the nature of science. It is not the tired old battle of 'science versus religion'. The new concern is whether science is open to truth, wherever it leads or whether science should insist that every effect must have a natural cause. The contrast today is between the integration of all knowledge and the perpetual compartmentalisation of cognitive activity. ID is not the troubler of science! That dubious honour belongs to the advocates of philosophical materialism who have usurped science as a tool to further their own agendas.

Midgley seems to have bought into the guff first popularized by Stephen Jay Gould that science and religion are "non-overlapping magisteria" (= non-overlapping spheres of influence, acronym NOMA). But it takes no very great amount of digging to discover that in reality is it materialism and spirituality that are the "non-overlapping magisteria". And spirituality is always expected to surrender to materialism whatever materialism claims, no matter how ridiculous the materialist's assertions are. It is a shame that a woman who has been a good philosopher would fall on this all-too-familiar asses' bridge for faith-and-science bores. But maybe she'll get the picture later.

Cosmology: The universe is a cosmic computer?

Yes, the universe looks fixed, but that doesn't mean that a god fixed it, says cosmologist Paul Davies, in a Guardian article, so titled.

Noting that

Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist.

he dismisses both intelligent design and the idea that there are zillions of flopped universes:

The multiverse theory certainly cuts the ground from beneath intelligent design, but it falls short of a complete explanation of existence. For a start, there has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and allocate bylaws to them. This process demands its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.

Yes, and that's only for a start. With any luck, my next co-authored book will address the many other problems as well.

So what does Davies propose?

I propose instead that the laws are more like computer software: programs being run on the great cosmic computer. They emerge with the universe at the big bang and are inherent in it, not stamped on it from without like a maker's mark.

Over at Faith, Beer, and Other Things That Interest Geoff, Geoff Robinson makes the point that

Davies wants to go down the pantheistic route, as far as I can tell.

[ ... ]
Pantheism makes all of nature God. So how can pantheism give you a valid observer/non-observer distinction? I don't see how it can. Atheism and pantheism are very similar if not the same. One says nature is all there is (by and large). The other just labels everything as "god."

I am not sure that Robinson is entirely correct here, because pantheism allows for the existence of minds whereas modern materialism essentially does not, as Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard and I discuss in The Spiritual Brain, and that is a crucial distinction.

In any event, pantheism is an old tradition, largely rejected in the West for a number of reasons, including, I believe, the one that Robinson cites (observed-observer distinction).

Hence, I find Davies' willingness to revisit it most interesting. It just shows what a conceptual mess materialism has become!

Today at the Mindful Hack

Change your mind, change your brain - Smithsonian conference - but what to do when my mind keeps instructing my brain: Want donut! ... ?

Atheists on the new shrill atheism. Apparently, not as good a vintage as the old. I hear this all over now.

Pope blames world's worst woes on atheism. Also blames stupid religion.

College students more intersted in spirituality than previously thought. Binge drinking advocates completely freaked by this

Visual art as old as human consciousness?

Meditation catching on at universities

Also: Coffee Break: How died the dinosaur?

Darwinists in real time - a reflection

Since the revelations from Monday's press conference in Iowa regarding the true reason for Guillermo Gonzalez's tenure denial, I have been studying the comments of Darwinists, to this and this post. The comments intrigue me for a reason I will explain in a moment.

Some commenters are no longer with us, but they were not the ones that intrigued me.*

I've already covered Maya at 8, 10, and 12 here, arguing a case against Gonzalez, even though the substance of the story is that we now KNOW that her assertions have nothing to do with the real reason he was denied tenure.

Oh, and at 15, she asserts, "The concern is not about Gonzalez’s politics or religion but about his ability to serve as a science educator."

So ... a man can write a textbook in astronomy, as Gonzalez has done, but cannot serve as a science educator? What definition of "science" is being used here, and what is its relevance to reality?

And getawitness, at 18, then compares astronomy to Near East Studies, of all things. NES is notorious for suspicion of severe compromise due to financing from Middle Eastern interests! I won't permit a long, useless combox thread on whether or not those accusations are true; it's the comparison itself that raises an eyebrow.

Just when I thought I had heard everything, ...

For the rest, go here.

Note: I have disabled comments for this post. Comment at Uncommon Descent, where the rest of the post is housed.

Gonzalez tenure case: University admin's credibility in shreds as truth emerges

Well, the jig is up now, re the Guillermo Gonzalez case. I've just seen the whack of documents Discovery Institute is releasing. [Note link at bottom for updates. Also go here for reflections on the amazing revelations in the case.]

1. It appears that the decision had been made to turn Gonzalez down for tenure before he had actually applied for it, and the reason was his advocacy of intelligent design.

Read this story in the Des Moines Register last week by Lisa Rossi

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy said in June that Gonzalez's advocacy of the "intelligent design" concept was not a factor in the decision to turn down his request for tenure.

Geoffroy said he focused his review on Gonzalez's overall record of scientific accomplishment as an assistant professor at ISU.

and then this one, to get some idea what I mean:

The disclosure of the e-mails is contrary to what ISU officials emphasized after Gonzalez, an assistant professor in physics and astronomy, learned that his university colleagues had voted to deny his bid for tenure.

[ ... ]

In response to a question about why the influence of intelligent design in the physics and astronomy tenure decisions was not acknowledged publicly by the university earlier, McCarroll said, "I can't speak for every one of those individuals" who voted on Gonzalez's tenure.

2. The alleged tenure review was in fact a fishing expedition whose purpose was to find any grounds at all for denying tenure to a man who emerges clearly an outstanding scientist (in flat contradiction to some of President Geoffroy's other claims), and far more so than the colleagues who were doing the fishing. For example, the fact that some of his widely cited papers were cited less often than others was grounds for a focus on the less widely cited ones. The fact that he published a textbook was dinged as an unwise use of his time.
Much of the most damaging stuff won't make it to Gonzalez's Regents' appeal on a technicality, but it's now going to be out there for all to see.
Anyway, brava! to journalist Lisa Rossi for exposing the vast credibility gap between what President Geoffroy was claiming to the media and the facts of the case. When oh when will administrators learn, do NOT tell stretchers to the media. Even journalists who support you get mad if they think you are lying.

Go here for updates.

Giant cold spot evidence of parallel universes - or materialist hype?

A recent Softpedia article announces,

In August this year, astronomers studying the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation or CMB, a 'remnant' of the Big Bang, discovered a texture of a giant cold spot in the universe, completely empty of any normal matter or dark matter and even any kind of radiation. In order to explain how such a void might have formed in the middle of our universe, physicists and cosmologists developed a theory in which the giant void might be evidence of another universe developing in the one we are part of.

Hot pa-TOOT!

Well, not really. The LAST graff of the story reads,

The large void is positioned in the northern hemisphere of the sky related to the Earth. Scientists predicted that eventually another large cold spot will be found somewhere in the southern hemisphere. However the claims made by the Mersini-Houghton team are mostly speculative, but nevertheless interesting, until further experiments are made to validate or reject their theory.

Speculative but interesting? Hmmm. That is the way I would describe claims I have heard for ghosts, fairies, and leprechauns. All by people who swear on their grandmothers’ graves, too.

Hey, I never say that the alternative universes are not happening - but I WILL say this: The entire story is in perfect conformity to the unwritten rule of the pop science media: Any speculation, no matter how hasty or ridiculous, can be advanced if it promotes a materialist view (a zillion universes happen randomly).

But information that promotes a non-materialist view - like the definite evidence for the fine tuning of the universe - is treated with deep suspicion - no matter how well grounded.

Note that, inverting the usual news writing formula - where you put the most important stuff first, the fact that the ideas are “mostly speculative” - is saved for the very last sentence.

Well, if they can’t make it, they fake it, I guess.

University of Toronto intelligent design course wrap-up

A while back, there was a minor flap about the course I was teaching in why there is an intelligent design controversy, which wrapped up Tuesday evening (November 27, 2007) with a most interesting presentation by journalist and columnist David Warren, who writes twice a week for the Ottawa Citizen.

The things that I found most significant about the course:

- the calibre of the students. Beforehand, I really worried that students would grouse about hard topics. But they were wonderful! Their facial expressions implied that they were prepared to tackle serious propositions about origin of the universe, of life, of information, etc. What a joy!

My unrealized fears: Six week sentence in Hell - arguing with someone who expects guest lecturers at the peak of their professional careers to explain stuff he should have learned in Grade Six science or demonstrate why it is not true that green alien worms control our lives.

- the calibre of the guest lecturers. I came away with a renewed respect for people like Robb Mann, Don Wallar, Kirk Durston, and David Warren, who helped students understand the depth and magnitude of the things we understand, the things we only partially understand, and the things we do not yet understand about our universe. A clear warning against grasping at too easy solutions to our puzzling universe.

Anyone can shout: Darwin explains it! Fundamentalism explains it! I’m glad that I did not have to deal with fanatics while acting as the course’s lead instructor. Fanatics have their salons where, one would hope, they can splinter their tea tables in peace, and far, far from 100 Carr Hall.

Also, one interesting item recurred now and again - and I was glad because I learned a lot from it:

Some students doubted that we can conceive of design without a designer. They said, “Design means a designer and we all know that the designer is really the God of the Bible!”

Well, do we all know that? And if so, how do we all know that?

One student, who was aware of Eastern (vs. Western) views on these subjects smiled as the objection was raised, and I thought I knew why. But I am not sure I gave a good account of the matter at the time, so here I offer a more carefully considered account, admitting that it is difficult for some Westerners:

Westerners are raised in a culture where, generally speaking, if they have any religious convictions, the Bible is a primary source. The Bible introduces us to God as an actor in the stories in the Bible.

For what I am about to say now, I ask readers to set aside the question of whether the revelation of the Bible is true or false. Focus simply on seeing it as an interpretation of design in the universe.

If you had never heard of the Bible, how might you account for design in the universe? Here are two options:

- there is a “way” - the way things must be in order to work. Not a personal deity, but underlying laws Many such laws may remain to be discovered. Some may be incomprehensible to us.

- we are all - usually unconsciously - part of a cosmic mind that conceived this world and its design. The world itself is an illusion, but its design is real, and we must be in the right relation to it in order to be reunited with the cosmic mind.

I do not raise these ideas here to argue for or against them but to establish that design in the universe can easily be identified without a Designer. Hundreds of millions of people have lived and died assuming that that is so.

It will be interesting to see whether the course runs again in the spring.

The Internet and the intelligent design controversy

Apparently, Bill Dembski is taking some heat over the occasional use of some animated footage captured from the Internet that turned out to belong to Harvard:

Back in September of 2006 I announced at my blog UncommonDescent that a “breathtaking video” titled “The Inner Life of Cell” had just come out. The video was so good that I wanted to use it in some of my public presentations, but when I tried to purchase a DVD of it (I sent several emails to relevant parties), I was informed it wasn’t ready. Moreover, at the time, the video did not have a voiceover explaining the biology of what was being shown.

So some people who are invested in materialism and want to put off the question of whether materialist theories (the Enron of biology) can explain everything from the origin of the universe and life to the rise of consciousness - of course - want their that to be the issue instead.

Well, this certainly brings back memories! In the universe before the Internet, I was a permissions editor for a few years. The most important part of my job was helping to address the problem of what to do when we discovered that we did not actually have permission to use something that was already in print.

That can happen much more easily than people who are not in the publishing business suppose. Some rights holders are untraceable or do not answer their mail or have unintentionally behaved in such a way as to create the impression that they do not care if their work is public domain, or otherwise behave in a confusing way. I sometimes spent hours putting together a single file. And I was considered good at what I did.

Still, it wasn’t a big deal. The publishers whose rights we had infringed had probably infringed ours (all unintentionally), and everyone just wanted to smooth it over correctly.

However, the Internet is a new world because anybody can publish. Stuff can easily appear without attribution and disappear without notice. I am glad I don’t do that job today. Anyway, when the matter was brought to his attention today, Dembski said he would use another item.

As if keeping him from using a particular film clip is going to change the current massive direction of the evidence against random assembly and development of life!

The Economist on the surfboard Theory of Everything

“A shape could describe the cosmos and all it contains”, the Economist announces, profiling the claim of a surfer dude with science cred to have discovered a theory of everything:

ONE of the mysteries of the universe is why it should speak the language of mathematics. Numbers and the relationships between them are, after all, just abstract reasoning. Yet mathematics has shown itself to be particularly adept at describing both the contents of the universe and the forces that act on them. Now comes a paper which argues that one branch of the subject—geometry—could form the basis of all the laws of physics.

Reach for your hat whenever someone claims that a simple idea explains absolutely everything.

Personally, I think it will turn out to be a crock, and I’ll be hearing about Paris Hilton long after I’m hearing about this. But this certainly shows the level of anxiety out there to find a Theory of Everything.

British journalist Melanie Phillips weighs in for the ID guys

A British journalist, Melanie Phillips, said to be in Prince Charles’s circle of friends, has come out swinging in defence of the ID guys. In the “The real nutters are the fanatics who despise religious belief” (Daily Mail), mid-column, she denounces the irrationality of the atheist lobby:

In suggesting that life sprang into existence without any kind of governing intelligence, they fly in the face of the evidence emerging from science that the hitherto unimaginable complexity of life forms, including the living cell, makes it scientifically impossible for life to have emerged without some kind of intelligent design.

Nevertheless, the Dawkins-ites are lionised as apostles of reason. Meanwhile, those scientists who are doing what scientists are supposed to do - follow where the evidence leads them - and who have concluded as a result that life was created by a guiding intelligence, are hysterically smeared by the Dawkins camp.

In a shocking campaign of intellectual thuggery, this camp has falsely accused such scientists of being religious fundamentalists who believe the world was created in six days - when they believe no such thing at all. Some of these scientists then find they are threatened in their posts or even forced out altogether.

Well, yes, Melanie, but the Darwinism the intellectual thugs espouse is the Enron of biology, and they’ll do whatever they must to avoid letting anyone balance the books.

What I told the most recent batch of filmmakers shooting up the town....

Remember when the intelligent design controversy was dead, back in 2000, 2002, ... 2005, and all years in between? Well, as if Judgment Day and Expelled aren’t enough, yet another batch of filmmakers is doing a documentary in the intelligent design controversy. I somehow don’t think they are laying a ghost ...

No indeed, on Saturday I had to hoof downtown to an otherwise largely deserted building on the U of T campus where a TV crew wanted me to answer some questions for the camera. (Possibly it was one of those preliminary jobbies where they try to figure out if you would make good TV.)

I decided to put my thoughts on the following questions in writing beforehand, so I don’t do the Dawkins “long moment of silence thing” (= just freeze in front of the camera).

Anyway, here are the questions they wanted me to answer, and I have placed my answers below each:

1. What is the difference between ID (intelligent design) vs. YEC (young earth creation) theory?

[From Denyse: Well, (young earth) creationism means assuming that the stories in the Bible are not only true but literally true - like, God created the Earth in 144 hours.

Intelligent design isn't really about the age of the Earth; it's about the high level of information found in all life forms that could not possibly have got there the way Darwin believed it did.

For one thing, Darwin had no idea how high that level of information is, and always has been.

If Charles Darwin were alive today, I can assure you he would not be a Darwinist.

Today's Darwinism is the creation story of materialist atheism and, in some cases, of liberal religion. Tons of people feel righteous because they believe it and promote it and attack anyone who doubts it.

But there is actually no substance to it. It is wrong. It scuffs the evidence of the history of life, which shows that life started off very complex and very varied and slowly became somewhat more complex and less varied - just the opposite of what Darwin's theory predicted.


2. How the two camps view one another?

[From Denyse: Well, it's kind of a spectrum. Lots of people know Darwin's theory is wrong but they focus on different things and have different commitments. It's kind of like knowing that communism is wrong. Everyone who opposes it isn't the same as everyone else and doesn't have the same reasons or commitments.

Mike Behe, the author of Edge of Evolution, doesn't fight with the young earth creationists because there's no point. The creationists bug him when they attack the Big Bang theory of the formation of the universe, which is well attested, or deny that humans and apes share a common ancestor another thing for which there is good evidence. But they aren't trying to wreck his career, and the defenders of Darwin are. So he picks his fights. Why not?]

3. Why does the public tend to conflate ID with Creationism?

[From Denyse: A couple of reasons: Defenders of Darwin's theory have every reason to classify everyone who knows it can't possibly work as a kook, and they've been pretty good at that. Most media people haven't read much in the area and don't know what the problems are, so they go along with the kook theory, in general.

Otherwise, they'd have to do homework.

Also, it's pretty scary when you discover how much you have been told on good authority from science professionals is actually poorly founded and ideologically motivated. Many people probably think it wiser not to know. I only stumbled on the story myself, you know, and I've been running ever since.

Here's an example of what I mean: The vast majority of important evolutionary biologists are pure (no God) naturalists.

Am I supposed to believe that that doesn't colour their interpretation of evidence? I know bloody well that it does. But media focus on the fact that most of the ID guys are theists or pantheists and conveniently ignore the ideological commitments of the other side. ]

3. The role of religion in science - is there a place for it?

[From Denyse: No. Certainly not. Intelligent design theory is based on actual physical evidence. The history of life as we now know it does NOT support Darwin's theory and is better understood in information theory terms.

Here is what has happened: We are told that science studies only natural causes. IF that merely meant that science does not study miracles, which are segregated from nature by definition, I would have no problem with it.

But the expression does not typically mean that. It typically means that science is compelled to assume that high levels of information can be created through random movements of molecules. That is the fundamental article of the materialist creed, and it has never been demonstrated.

Because it has never been - and probably cannot be - demonstrated, the materialist demands that we assert it as an article of faith.

I don't want religion of any sort to be a part of science. If there is no good evidence for Darwinism (and there isn't), then it fails as a theory even if progressive people believe in it. ]

4. The politics of ID theory and education - is it a "liberal vs. conservative" battleground, or is it more complex than that?

[From Denyse: Well, yes and no. What the term "liberal" implies has changed an awful lot in my own lifetime. When I was a teen, a liberal opposed segregation and the Vietnam war. Today, increasingly, a liberal is someone who honestly believes that Bush knew about 9-11 beforehand - a point of view that I would consider presumptive evidence of being a crackpot. (Bush was never great and he retired on the job early during his second term - but he did NOT know about 9-11.)

Re education: Again, in my lifetime, the education system has moved from being the Protestant school system to being a secular materialist one. At least some of the battle is secular materialists attempting to preserve their gains - after all, everyone pays taxes to support a system that advances their view exclusively.

All that said, I don't think ID should be taught in schools because most students are challenged just to graduate with enough literacy and numeracy to satisfy an employer. BUT - on the other hand - no teacher should be prevented from civilly expressing an honest opinion that differs from that of the Darwinist establishment. Learning how to express dissent in a civil way is a part of education.]

Of course the interview didn’t go exactly scripted like this, but what ever does?

At the end, the interviewer asked me to add something, and I said that, so far as I can see, intelligent design of the universe would not be bad news for anyone except materialist atheists. Every other tradition will just claim that they invented the idea or that their prophets predicted or revealed it. That, of course, is the precise reason why so many of the anti-ID guys are materialist atheists.

I wonder how many of them went into it to disprove ID?

Why do people still take Steve Weinberg’s opinions seriously?

Here’s 1979 Nobelist Steve Weinberg on intelligent design of the universe:

I have been asked to comment on whether the universe shows signs of having been designed. I don't see how it's possible to talk about this without having at least some vague idea of what a designer would be like. Any possible universe could be explained as the work of some sort of designer. Even a universe that is completely chaotic, without any laws or regularities at all, could be supposed to have been designed by an idiot.

Not likely. A universe designed by an idiot would be ful of intelligently designed stupid systems. Just like a government.

At Take Five with Pastor Steve, the pastor (Steve Cornell) asks

Is there scientific evidence for a universe by intelligent design? Some people have a difficult time answering the question. In The New York Review of Books, Steven Weinberg (Professor of Physics, University of Texas at Austin and Winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics) contributed a piece titled: “A Designer Universe?” (October 1999). Weinberg had been invited to “comment on whether the universe showed signs of having been designed.” Instead of addressing the assigned subject, he immediately (and according to him, necessarily) shifted to a discussion about the nature of deity. He questions whether this designer would be “an idiot,” “a deity from traditional monotheistic religion,” or “a cosmic spirit of order and harmony.”

One possibility he flatly rejects is the existence of a benevolent creator. Weinberg drifts far from his assigned subject when he complains about the impossibility of a benevolent deity because of all the evil in the world.

In the end, Weinberg offers little serious consideration of the subject he was invited to address. He appeared unable to deal directly with the issue. His thinly veiled bias against theism and religion is finally unveiled at the conclusion of the article. In an incredible moment of arrogance, Weinberg suggested that, “One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment.”

I wish I knew why people still take Steve Weinberg’s opinions seriously. After Antony “There IS a God” Flew, his camp will have to do better.

News from the Design of Life and Mindful Hack blogs ...

The origin of life: Unsolved problem now shopped to off-market solutions?

The Darwinian left discovers group selection

Darwinism and popular folklore: Neanderthal man died out on account of equal opportunity?

Fred Flintstone vs. the law

He said it: Origin of Life pioneer on the challenge of origin of life research

Antony Flew: Is he too old Also, New York Times spin: Elderly ex-atheist is just senile.

Intelligence: How much is heredity and how much environment? - the Flynn effect

Books at home predict student success better than parents’ education

US anti-religion group loses standing to fight lawsuits

Faking out brain injury tests - yes, it can be done

AIDS numbers downsized: a learning experience


Pudging the Truth

Grandma was right: Just eat and be thankful

Our weighty obsession - this one should be required reading for teen girls. Eating disorders very often begin with a diet.

AIDS numbers downsized: Learning experience

AIDS numbers are about to be downsized, which should be good news for everyone: According to Craig Timberg of the Washington Post,

JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 19 -- The United Nations' top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated both the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents prepared for the announcement.

AIDS remains a devastating public health crisis in the most heavily affected areas of sub-Saharan Africa. But the far-reaching revisions amount to at least a partial acknowledgment of criticisms long leveled by outside researchers who disputed the U.N. portrayal of an ever-expanding global epidemic.

The latest estimates, due to be released publicly Tuesday, put the number of annual new HIV infections at 2.5 million, a cut of more than 40 percent from last year's estimate, documents show. The worldwide total of people infected with HIV -- estimated a year ago at nearly 40 million and rising -- now will be reported as 33 million.

Yes, 33 million is 33 million too many, and no, AIDS is not directly related to the purpose of this blog. But one thing this story demonstrates is the hazards of statistics gathering, which is, at times, very much related to the purpose of this blog. For example,

Among the reasons for the overestimate is methodology; U.N. officials traditionally based their national HIV estimates on infection rates among pregnant women receiving prenatal care. As a group, such women were younger, more urban, wealthier and likely to be more sexually active than populations as a whole, according to recent studies.

[ ... ]

Newer studies commissioned by governments and relying on random, census-style sampling techniques found consistently lower infection rates in dozens of countries. For example, the United Nations has cut its estimate of HIV cases in India by more than half because of a study completed this year. This week's report also includes major cuts to U.N. estimates for Nigeria, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Well, it makes sense that old people (a growing category in any community that benefits from peace, sanity, clean water, and modern technology) wouldn’t be at quite the same risk for AIDS ...

The main thing to see is that the critics of alarmism were right. There was and is a big problem, but it wasn’t exactly the problem we thought. A clearer picture means focusing on the real problems.

David Warren on Darwinism as just another failed “ism”

So far as it sticks to science -- that is, investigates empirical phenomena & proposes vaguely testable or even merely fruitful explanations of how they work & came to be -- yes, what you call "Darwinism" (& I call, neutrally, "evolutionary biology") can go on forever, & not one philosopher's nose will be out of joint.

It is only when some Darwinoid (& Dawkins is the perfect contemporary example) starts rendering judgements on the ontological status of man, on ultimate cause, on the metaphysical foundations of morals, on the existence or non-existence of God, & other such things beyond the reach of empirical science, that we will raise any question about his licence to get up in the morning.

So once again: I have no objection to the pursuit of evolutionary biology. I have a big objection to having my children taught that "science has now proved that philosophy is a crock, & religion is dangerous & silly.

More generally: there is no room for "isms" in science, because "isms" are not empirical. "Isms" must be defended philosophically. I am not targeting "Darwinism" especially. "Communism," "Nazism," "Islamism," & "Lamarckism" are also out of play. We do not call gravity "Newtonism," or thermodynamics "Kelvinism," or relativistic physics "Einsteinism." And such terms as "Lamarckian," "Darwinian," & "Mendelian" must be understood to refer to the
history of science, or to past, present, or future extra-empirical tendencies -- not to biology, per se.

This is an area of philosophical etiquette where even the great & admired Ernst Mayr sins casually & frequently.

I'm teaching tonight. And you heard it here first.

Publisher braces for controversy as definitive book on intelligent design hits market

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Publisher braces for controversy as definitive book on intelligent design hits market DALLAS – November 19, 2007 – The Foundation for Thought and Ethics has just published The Design of Life. This definitive book on intelligent design (ID) comes as a shot across the bow to dogmatic defenders of Darwinian orthodoxy. Written by two key ID theorists, mathematician William Dembski and biologist Jonathan Wells, it presents the full case for intelligent design to a general audience. Critics, in dismissing The Design of Life, contend that intelligent design has collapsed in the wake of the 2005 Dover trial. Author William Dembski responded, “Those same people have been announcing intelligent design’s demise every year since 1990. Strangle it as they might, intelligent design just won’t die. The Design of Life shows why the better arguments and stronger evidence are now on the intelligent design side.”

According to FTE president Jon Buell, The Design of Life is not intended for high school students; it is aimed rather at college/university students and adults who want a clearer understanding of why a growing number of scientists doubt Darwin. “FTE enlisted William Dembski and Jonathan Wells because the public needs a book that compares the argument for design, point by point, with the argument for no-design,” noted Buell. The book covers the origin of life, origin of species, and origin of consciousness, as well as other controversial areas. “We now know so much more than Darwin did,” said author Jonathan Wells, who also wrote The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design (Regnery 2006). “Instead of just papering over more cracks, it’s time to take a fresh look. The Design of Life shows why it is no longer possible to be an intellectually fulfilled Darwinist.” The Design of Life, which goes on sale today, retails for $35. It is available through online booksellers and at a discount directly from the Foundation for Thought and Ethics at www.thedesignoflife.net.

About the Foundation for Thought and Ethics FTE is a nonprofit educational organization based in Dallas. It publishes books on topics impacting the public understanding of worldview, morality, and conscience. From its inception over 25 years ago, the organization has maintained a special interest in intelligent design, publishing books in this area and fostering dialogue about it among leading scientists, scholars, and educators. FTE’s web site is www.fteonline.com.

Note: I will be putting entries on the book's blog site when it is up. I have been saving some favourites.