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Of Darwinism and Islamism
This is not a blog about foreign affairs, but I came across a refreshing and illuminating piece on the New Republic website that, in the context of talking about Islam and terrorism, suggested to me a reason for hope in the Darwin debate. In the current culture of science, where the 19th-century materialist Church of Science rules and the congregation bows obediently, what’s needed is a modernizing reformation. Doubts about Darwinism are part of that. We can draw a parallel to past reformations in the religious sphere, and future ones. Most of us in the West agree, for example, that Islam urgently requires a reformation. Some observers see radical Islamism not as the leading edge in Muslim life — that Read More ›
Does the NCSE Target Faith Viewpoints?
A recent blog post here at ENV by Michael Egnor, “Why Doesn’t the NCSE Have an Atheism Project?,” stated that “for quite a while; people of faith have long been the target of NCSE litigation.” To be fair to the NCSE, I don’t think that Egnor’s statement is exactly accurate; however, the truth is probably just as bad, or worse. It would be more accurate to say that the NCSE targets people who adhere to a certain purported faith and has eagerly supported litigation against those people. Part III (A) of my law review article from last year, “Zeal for Darwin’s House Consumes Them: How Supporters of Evolution Encourage Violations of the Establishment Clause,” provides some documentation on this: In Read More ›
BIO-Complexity Paper Shows Many Multi-Mutation Features Unlikely to Evolve in History of the Earth
Doug Axe of Biologic Institute has a new peer-reviewed scientific paper in the journal BIO-Complexity titled “The Limits of Complex Adaptation: An Analysis Based on a Simple Model of Structured Bacterial Populations.” The purpose of this paper is to mathematically determine just how long it takes to evolve traits that require multiple mutations before any adaptive benefit is conferred on the organism. To put this question in context, the ability of Darwinian evolution to produce features that require multiple mutations before gaining a benefit has been an issue long-debated between proponents of intelligent design (ID) and proponents of neo-Darwinism. In their 2004 peer-reviewed paper in the journal Protein Science, Michael Behe and David Snoke simulated the evolution of protein-protein interactions Read More ›
Surprise! The Pope is Catholic
Reuter’s Philip Pullella is reporting that Pope Benedict says “God was behind the Big Bang.” Well, what exactly would you expect the Pope to say on the subject — that God was not behind the Big Bang? The story starts with this: VATICAN CITY — God’s mind was behind complex scientific theories such as the Big Bang, and Christians should reject the idea that the universe came into being by accident, Pope Benedict said Thursday. “The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe,” Benedict said on the day Christians mark the Epiphany, the day the Bible says the three kings reached the site where Jesus was born by following a star.