Science

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 ›

As Paul Nelson has recognized, it’s ironic when scientists issue press releases alleging they’ve refuted intelligent design (ID), supposedly resolving a scientific controversy they claim doesn’t even exist. Pro-ID biochemist and Discovery Institute fellow Michael Behe has already responded to a recent paper doing just that. In what appears to be another good example of a retroactive confession of Darwinist ignorance, the press release from the authors acknowledges that “[t]he development of complex features such as new protein structures by the process of evolution is largely elusive.” But I thought Nicholas Matzke of the NCSE had long ago told a reporter that “[t]he origin of genetic information is thoroughly understood.” I guess these Darwinist biochemists see it differently. They nonetheless Read More ›

I recently predicted that Darwinists in New Mexico would oppose an innocuous academic freedom bill which protects the teaching of science, and science only, in the science classroom, even if the science challenges neo-Darwinism. As the bill states, “‘Scientific information’ does not include information derived from religious or philosophical writings, beliefs or doctrines,” but teachers will be given “the right and freedom, when a theory of biological origins is taught, to objectively inform students of scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses of that theory.” How could this bill possibly allow the teaching of anything but science in the science classroom? Darwinists’ attacks upon the bill have already begun, as Marshall Berman presented a talk at Los Alamos National Read More ›

New Mexico State Senator Steve Komadina has introduced a bill into the New Mexico Senate which would protect the academic freedom of teachers to discuss scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution. The bill requires that the New Mexico Department of Education adopt rules to “give teachers the right and freedom, when a theory of biological origins is taught, to objectively inform students of scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses of that theory and protect teachers from reassignment, termination, discipline or other discrimination for doing so.” The bill would not only protect teachers, but also students: it requires the adoption of rules to “encourage students to critically analyze scientific information, give them the right and freedom to reach their Read More ›

In Part I of this short response, I explained some false information about intelligent design promoted by George Kampis at East Tennessee State University. This second and final post will discuss the false information about both intelligent design arguments and Phillip Johnson that Kampis spread. Dr. Kampis’s view was summarized as: “Dr. Phillip Johnson, ID founder and longtime critic of Charles Darwin, rejects the concept of natural selection” There are many problems here. “Intelligent design” was founded by scientists, and the term was coined in its modern form by chemist Charles Thaxton in the mid-1980s, before Johnson got involved with the subject. Jonathan Witt’s The Origin of Intelligent Design: A brief history of the scientific theory of intelligent design gives 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 ›