Science Reporting

No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence
By William A. Dembski
Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, 404 pages
ISBN 0-7425-1297-5

No Free Lunch, the sequel to mathematician and philosopher William Dembski’s Cambridge University Press book The Design Inference, explores key questions about the origin of specified complexity. Dembski explains that the Darwinian search mechanism of random mutation coupled with natural selection is incapable of generating novel complex, specified information (CSI).

You cannot critique a theory for inappropriately concluding “X” when indeed the theory does not conclude “X.” Jewish Action Magazine has an article entitled “Revisiting Intelligent Design” that repeats this common flawed argument for intelligent design. First, the article misrepresents Michael Behe’s arguments as saying that ID proposes “the existence of a supernatural being, whom he calls the ‘intelligent designer,’ meaning, of course, God.” Of course Behe does believe that the designer is God, but Behe has made it clear that as a science, intelligent design does not try to address religious questions about the nature of the designer. So while the designer may be God, the empirical data cited by Behe–information in DNA and complex machines in the cell–do Read More ›

The Daily News, a newspaper in the predominantly Buddhist nation of Sri Lanka, has an excellent article authored by Dr. V.J.M. de Silva expressing skepticism towards Darwinian evolution. Silva states, “This article is not meant to be a critique of any Buddhist doctrine, for which I have the highest regard,” and he then explains, “Life, it seems, did not wait for blind chance to roll the dice, but erupted at the first available instant, leaving Darwinists with no time at all for their probabilistic processes. . . . Evolution (neo-Darwinism) is not a theory that has been proved. It is not like physics and chemistry. However, it is presented in the news media as an accomplished fact of science and Read More ›

There’s a new resource for those wanting to learn more about the ID debate. Jason Rennie, an Australian podcaster, has a series of 25 podcasts, called “Darwin or Design?“

Rennie has compiled 25 interviews with prominent thinkers on both sides of the ID debate into a sort of “audiobook” which gives the listener a chance to hear each individual in their own words (and voice!). Interviews include Mike Behe on irreducible complexity, Guillermo Gonzalez on The Privileged Planet, Joey Campana on ID research, and Denyse O’Leary on ID and the media. On the critics’ side, evolutionists like Sean Carroll and PZ Myers gave their two cents.

Question: What do you do when a theory logically predicts both (a) and not (a)? Answer: Apparently you heavily promote it. MSNBC recently published two articles promoting Darwinian just-so stories to the public. The first article about the evolution of Waterfowl genitalia contends, “Scientists had speculated that male waterfowl evolved longer phalluses to give them a competitive edge over those not as well-endowed when it came to successfully fertilizing females.” That makes sense, I suppose. But the article makes one admission that strikingly contradicts that little just-so hypothesis: “Most birds lack phalluses, organs like human penises. Waterfowl are among the just 3 percent of all living bird species that retain the grooved phallus…” If long phalluses are so advantageous for Read More ›

This week’s WORLD Magazine features an interview (available here to subscribers) with biochemist Michael Behe, “Darwin Slayer” and author of this year’s The Edge of Evolution, his first book since the groundbreaking Darwin’s Black Box back in 1996. As Marvin Olasky writes, “[A] book once every decade or so is about as much as Darwinians can take. Behe’s new work shows that Darwinism’s random mutation and natural selection explain little about how one species has led to another.”

According to an article in Scientific American: Homo sapiens is the only species that keeps detailed records. That is why biologist Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield in England started in 1998 to comb through Finnish church records from two centuries ago for clues about the influence of evolution on reproduction. The data and analysis may have historical and even sociological value. Perhaps there is even some anthropological points to be noted. But how is this evolutionary biology? The answer is a cliché, but still true: when all you’ve got is a theoretical hammer, every study is a nail. Once again, we have biologists desperately seeking relevance and self-worth.

Michael Behe has posted his response to Richard Dawkins’ review of The Edge of Evolution on his Amazon blog, and it’s worth noting for what it reveals about how Behe differs from many of his critics.

The Darwinists devoutly desire to avoid the true history of their creed, and usually the media assist in the cover up–unknowingly, I would like to think. The “Inherit the Wind” trope that is monotonously employed by journalists–not to mention Judge Jones of Dover, PA fame–derives from the play and movie of that name. But this cliché, which is the source of what many journalists think about the subject, was fiction and not even aimed at the evolution issue so much as the danger of McCarthyism in the 1950s. The real Scopes trial in 1925 was rather different. And so was the biology textbook that was at the heart of the Scopes trial.

When I go to the dog park, my 4 year old lab retriever Kali shows some obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) tendencies. No matter how tired she is, how thirsty she might be, or how out of breath, when I throw the tennis ball she races off after it at top speed. She can’t not chase the ball.
Darwinists can’t not claim that that intelligent design is an argument from ignorance. In fact, not only are they fond of insisting this, they show OCD-like tendencies about it. No matter how much information you provide showing that ID is not an argument from ignorance, like Kali with her tennis ball, they switch into high gear.

Last week on ID The Future, we featured a short video clip of Dr. Jay Richards discussing the Darwinist’s favorite question for ID theorists, so who designed the designer? Inevitably in any lengthy discussion of ID with a Darwinist, they resort to asking that question as if it makes some ultimate point that will settle the issue once and for all. The video of Richards’ answer to this is short and definitive.

Still it raised hackles over at The Panda’s Thumb.