Intelligent Design

Darwin Day is upon us at long last. Now for a full week humanists the world over will celebrate the birth of their saint, Charles Darwin. Celebrations come complete with Darwin carols celebrating atheism and sung to Christmas carol tunes; edible trees of life; Darwin look-a-like contests; and lots more revelry. Discovery Institute is honoring Darwin with a short vidcast of their popular ID The Future podcast titled “Darwin Day and the Deification of Charles Darwin.” It features CSC senior fellows Dr. John West and Dr. Jonathan Wells discussing the historical importance of Darwinism and its impact on modern science and society.

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh are busy imitating nature’s design by building nanomachines. Two things to note: First, these new designs are not perfect, and yet they were clearly designed by intelligence. I hope ID critics will finally put to rest the inane charge that if a system has a flaw in any sense — that is, if it is not optimal in every sense (which is impossible) — then that system was not designed. As the scientists note, the nanomachines they are making are not even as good as nature’s nanotechnology. Second, if nature is full of such poorly designed systems, why is it that some of the best scientists in the world keep looking to nature for Read More ›

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] In Part I, I discussed how in the spring of 2006, I was contacted by a reporter named Edwards Humes who was writing a book on the Dover trial. He claimed to be supremely neutral, fair, and non-partisan. (Humes now refuses to grant me permission to directly quote his emails where he made these claims of neutrality.) But I had reasons to be suspicious. Reporters who go out of their way to claim to be Read More ›

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame asks:

Suppose we found a blob on Mars that moved under its own power and wasn’t a carbon-based life form. How could we tell if it was intelligent?

….What if the blob authored a book?

Don’t answer too quickly because it’s a trick question. Remember, a trillion monkeys with typewriters can write a book if you wait long enough. So let’s up the ante and say that the blob on Mars writes lots of different books. And let’s say it composes some music, designs some evening gowns, and paints some lovely pictures too. Now do you conclude that the blob is intelligent?

It’s a trick question because atheists believe that the Big Bang did all of those things and more. The Big Bang caused the sequence of events that culminated in the Bible, the Koran, and most important — Dilbert comics. If the blob on Mars created literature, we would surely consider it intelligent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTA5zm9jYDQ

[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] The York Dispatch has an article promoting an anti-ID book about the Dover trial by a Darwinist journalist, Edward Humes. Last spring, I was contacted by Mr. Humes, who requested an interview for his book. He immediately tried to convince me he was fair and objective, which is usually a red flag that a reporter isn’t going to be fair or objective. I would directly quote Humes declaring his commitment to a non-partisan journalism, but Read More ›

Access Research Network has noted a Darwinist’s lecture at East Tennessee State University entitled “Intelligent Design Theory and the Poverty of Anti-Science Thought,” by historian, philosopher, and cognitive scientist George Kampis. ARN aptly observes, “Dr. Kampis hit every ‘talking point’ of Darwinists.” Dr. Kampis’ lecture spread much misinformation about intelligent design. For example, a premed female student said: “he raised a good point when he said Intelligent Design wasn’t science.” Would her view have been the same if she had heard the facts about ID and not a false caricature? A few of Kampis’ errors will be highlighted over a series of two posts: Dr. Kampis says: “The Intelligent Design movement holds that living organisms are too complex to have Read More ›

Discovery Institute’s study, which found that 90.9 % of Judge Jones’ section on whether ID is science was copied essentially verbatim from the ACLU’s Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, provoked much discussion. As expected, most Darwinist defenders of Judge Jones swept some of the criticisms of judicial copying aside while engaging in harsh ad hominem attacks against us. I have already responded to some Darwinist defenses of Judge Jones. A few other Darwinists have continued to respond, and still they fail to rebut my legal arguments and misunderstand the type of normal analogical and policy legal reasoning I employed. I close this debate with a new response to such Darwinist critics available at: “Analogical Legal Reasoning and Read More ›

Eminent philosopher of science Elliott Sober is always worth reading. He takes ID seriously and tries to offer principled critiques–and he’s even willing, if need be, to let his critiques slice both ways.

Over at ARN’s ID Update David Tyler is considering the sad situation in science where ID is ruled out a priori and Darwinian explanations are ruled in. More importantly, it is good practice in science to consider multiple hypotheses and to find ways of evaluating them. One often notes arguments by Darwinians making the claim: “an intelligent designer would not do it this way”, always leading to rejection of the intelligent design hypothesis. Here is a case where there are good reasons, supported by a mathematical model, why an intelligent designer would do it that way. When any potential challenge to the Darwinian argument is excluded, are scientists hindered by limiting the scope of their research?