Category: Science
Questions and Answers from Mike Behe About The Edge of Evolution
On Mike Behe’s Amazon author’s page there is an enlightening 13 part Q&A in which he clarifies his position on a number of issues related to the debate over evolution and intelligent design. It is well worth reading, as is the new book. Here is a just a taste of the types of questions that are posed to the author: In Edge of Evolution you indicate that some of the evidence supporting common ancestry is pretty persuasive. Yet a number of scientists have questioned some of the evidence for common ancestry. Do you think it is beyond the pale for them to do so? In your mind is it scientific to question common ancestry? In my view it is certainly Read More ›
Ideas, Matter, and Faith
P.Z. Myers’ reply to my observation that ideas like altruism have no physical properties, like location, leaves a thoughtful observer to wonder: why do materialists have so much difficulty with this basic philosophical principle? It’s clear that ideas share no properties with matter. Ideas have no mass, or length, or temperature, or location. They’re immaterial. Clearly, under ordinary circumstances the brain is necessary for our ideas to exist, but, because matter and ideas share no properties, it’s hard to see how the brain is sufficient for ideas to exist. Yet Myers insists that altruism is located in the brain. He’s had some trouble with my previous thought experiments, so I’ll try another:
The Nature Editorial: Either Intelligent Design is Science, or Senator Brownback Got it RIght
In a remarkable editorial, the editors of Nature recently responded to Senator Sam Brownback’s essay What I Think about Evolution in the New York Times. Senator Brownback wrote: The question of evolution goes to the heart of this issue. If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it…. Referring to materialistic evolutionary theories for the emergence of the human mind, Senator Brownback notes: …Aspects of these Read More ›
Dual-Coding Genes “Nearly Impossible by Chance” — How Would Francisco Ayala Respond?
We mortals are easily impressed by palindromes — words or phrases that have the same spelling forwards and backwards. But try writing a sentence which has two different meanings: One meaning is gained when you start with one letter of the first word, and then an entirely different meaning is understood when you start reading with the second letter of the first word. Such a sentence would be most impressive, but what if such “sentences” existed in our DNA? Leading evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala recently wrote in Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that “Chance is an integral part of the evolutionary process.” Ayala then explained why he thinks Darwinian evolution is right and ID is wrong: “Biological Read More ›
Public Schools Still Using PBS’s Evolution
Many public schools in the U.S. are still showing biology students the 2001 PBS Evolution series. This 8-hour propaganda extravaganza — like most modern biology textbooks — distorts and exaggerates the evidence to convince people that Darwinism is true. When the series was first released, Discovery Institute published a detailed 150-page Viewer’s Guide exposing the distortions and exaggerations. The Guide includes extensive references to the scientific and popular literature, as well as eight activities that teachers and students will find helpful in critically analyzing this work of pro-Darwin propaganda. Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to Getting the Facts Straight: A Viewer’s Guide to PBS’s Evolution: