Month: December 2008
The Story of Jesse Kilgore and the Consequences of Teaching One Side of Evolution
There’s a special podcast at ID the Future today: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/intelligentdesign/episodes/2008-12-17T09_37_30-08_00 This episode of ID the Future tells the story of Jesse Kilgore, a college student whose loss of faith and subsequent suicide has been linked to his biology class and Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. After his professor challenged him to read the anti-theistic book and rule out the possibility of God’s existence in light of the evidence for evolution, Jesse experienced a crisis of faith. Now his father is arguing for academic freedom for intelligent design and critiques of Darwin’s theory. Listen in as he and others explain how Jesse was affected by reading this book. The tragedy of Jesse Kilgore’s death affects all of us. Our thoughts and Read More ›
My Reply to Dr. Novella’s Critique of Intentionality as a Property of the Mind
Steven Novella recently replied to my post in which I pointed out six properties of the mind that were not properties of matter. Strict materialistic theories of the mind restrict themselves to purely materialistic explanations. The difficulty is that the salient properties of the mind — intentionality, qualia, continuity of self through time, restricted access of thoughts, incorrigibility of mental states, and free will — are not known to be properties of matter, including brain matter. The important things that characterize the mind are not material. How then can the mind be explained completely by materialism? I’ll review the first property (intentionality) here, and the other five in subsequent posts. I’ll first give my original observation about it, then Dr. Read More ›
Trails of Microorganisms Discovered on Ocean-Bottom Knock Down Favorite Darwinist Argument Against Cambrian Explosion
A news article at ScienceCentric.com reports that single-celled protists have left tracks and grooves in the ocean-bottom that resemble fossil grooves or “trail” fossils that are found in some pre-Cambrian strata. Darwinists have asserted that such pre-Cambrian track or trail fossils must have been produced by complex, multicellular, worm-like animals, thus implying that the Cambrian explosion was not really as explosive as the fossil record makes it appear. Actual fossils of the alleged pre-Cambrian worms that supposedly made the trails are yet to be found, but Darwinists have claimed that the track fossils are smoking gun evidence that they existed. The Darwinists’ story is challenged by this new find: if tracks can be produced by single-celled protists, then pre-Cambrian track Read More ›
Oh…No…No…No…This Is Important Spit!
In his recent post on Pharyngula, P.Z. Myers comments on the “breakthrough” in our understanding of human evolution that has emerged from an analysis of the genes in humans and apes that code for salivary amylase, an enzyme in spit that helps digest carbohydrates. For unfathomable reasons, this research, led by Nathaniel Dominy and George Perry, has captured quite a bit of attention in the scientific community and even in the press. Concurrent with publication of their paper in Nature Genetics last year, Dominy and colleagues put out a press release entitled: “Extra gene copies were enough to make early humans’ mouths water.” Dominy bizarrely credits mutations in salivary amylase with the evolution of the human brain:
If Neuroscience Is a Victory for Materialism, What Would Defeat Look Like?
Dr. Steven Novella has taken exception to my recent post suggesting that the materialist theory of the mind has characteristics of a superstition. In the recent past, the Yale neurologist has been so confident of the truth of his materialistic ideology on the mind-brain problem that he has asserted that “The materialist hypothesis- that the brain causes consciousness- has made a number of predictions, and every single prediction has been validated.” Leaving aside the hubris (has any reputable scientist ever claimed that ‘every single prediction’ of his pet theory has been validated?), one of Dr. Novella’s implicit predictions seems to have frustratingly failed to materialize. In his latest post, Dr Novella seems to have been certain that, following his pronouncement Read More ›