Author: Michael Egnor
Dr. Larry Moran, Darwinism, and Vicious Personal Invective
University of Toronto biochemistry professor Larry Moran takes issue with my characterization of his vicious personal attacks on Dr. Jonathan Wells. Dr. Wells has pointed out that superb recent research on bacterial resistance to antibiotics was independent of Darwin’s theory. Dr. Moran said of Dr. Wells: …the right people hate Idiots…Wells makes a virtue out of lying for Jesus…He should be an embarrassment to the intelligent design creationist cult except that the members of that cult are all incapable of separating fact from fiction when it comes to science…When I first saw the Wells article I seriously wondered whether Jonathan Wells was mentally stable… Dr. Moran has a low view of people who question his evolutionary views from the perspective Read More ›
Mr. Dunford’s Concession: Antibiotic Resistance Is Irrelevant to the Intelligent Design/Darwinism Debate
Zoology graduate student and Darwinist Mike Dunford at Panda’s Thumb has replied to recent posts in which Dr. Jonathan Wells and I pointed out that Darwin’s theory is irrelevant to medical research on antibiotic resistance, and that antibiotic resistance itself is irrelevant to the debate about intelligent design and Darwinism. Remarkably, Mr. Dunford, referring to a recent advance in research on antibiotic resistance, concedes both points. He writes: The scientists worked in a lab. They artificially replicated a set of conditions (an antibiotic-rich environment) that occur in nature. Finally, they placed the bacteria into this environment – something that happens spontaneously outside the lab…We’ll pretend that anything that happens in a lab must be artificial selection, and that it is Read More ›
Dr. Wells’ Observation about the King’s Clothes
Dr. Jonathan Wells has been engaged in a blog debate with several Darwinists about a recent advance in research on bacterial resistance to antibiotics. In a recent post, Dr. Wells observed: According to a February 26, 2008 report in ScienceDaily, a team of French scientists has unraveled the structure of a protein that allows bacteria to gain resistance to multiple antibiotics. Frédéric Dardel and his colleagues crystallized two forms of the antibiotic-modifying enzyme acetyltransferase and showed that it has a flexible active site that can evolve to enable bacteria to break down various antibiotics and render them useless. The research may aid in the design of new antibiotics to deal with this form of resistance, which is becoming a serious Read More ›
Proving Dr. Novella Wrong: Enjoying Tennis in a Persistent Vegetative State
Dr. Steven Novella has laid down the gauntlet. In a recent post, Dr. Novella, a materialist who asserts that “every single prediction” of materialism has been proven by neuroscience, listed the predictions of his theory that the mind is caused entirely by the brain: If the mind is completely a product of the material function of the brain then:1) There will be no mental phenomena without brain function.2) As brain function is altered, the mind will be altered.3) If the brain is damaged, then mental function will be damaged.4) Brain development will correlate with mental development.5) We will be able to correlate brain activity with mental activity — no matter how we choose to look at it.[numbers added] He goes Read More ›
Dr. Steven Novella’s Challenge: “Prove Me Wrong, Egnor”!
Dogmatic materialist Dr. Steven Novella, assistant professor of neurology at Yale, president and co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society, and my interlocutor in an ongoing debate on the mind-brain problem, has issued a challenge to me regarding his theory that the mind is caused entirely by matter: Prove me wrong, Egnor. A bit of background helps explain Dr. Novella’s pique. In an earlier post arguing for a pure materialist understanding of the mind, Dr. Novella made this astonishing claim: The materialist hypothesis – that the brain causes consciousness – has made a number of predictions, and every single prediction has been validated. Every single question that can be answered scientifically – with observation and evidence – that takes the Read More ›