Gregg Davidson, Friend of Science, Friend of Faith: Listening to God in His Works and Word. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019. The year was 1988 when I brought my dog-eared copy of Paul Ackerman’s It’s a Young World After All to my high school science teacher: “Mr. Vogt, you need to read this! It will prove […]
intelligent design
Do ID theorists have an agenda? And does it matter if they do?
The discussion thread for my article “Intelligent Design Explanations are not Science Stoppers” includes a spirited exchange with RonH. One point of disagreement that quickly emerged in our interaction concerned the relevance of the background beliefs and intentions of intelligent design advocates in assessing the arguments for intelligent design. RonH was keen to link intelligent design to the […]
Intelligent Design Explanations are not Science Stoppers
It’s a familiar charge for anybody well versed in the ID literature: ID explanations ought to be rejected because they are “science stoppers.” (See, for example, Karl Giberson and Donald Yerxa, Species of Origins: America’s Search for a Creation Story (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), 225-26.) How’s that exactly? The idea is that once you invoke intelligence as […]
The Not-So-Intelligent Designer: A Review
Abby Hafer, The Not-So-Intelligent Designer: Why Evolution Explains the Human Body and Intelligent Design Does Not. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015). If you love intelligent design, you’ll (probably) hate this book. If you hate intelligent design, you’ll (probably) love this book. If you’re somewhere in-between in your assessment of intelligent design, you’ll probably find yourself somewhere […]
God, Science, and the Universe: A Debate between Krauss, Meyer, and Lamoureaux
This debate live-streamed on March 19th and features Lawrence Krauss (atheist), Stephen Meyer (intelligent design theorist), and Denis Lamoureux (theistic evolutionist).
Intelligent Design and Astrology
Yesterday in the discussion for my article “The Anthropocentrism Switcheroo“, I made the following comment: “Everybody’s interested in how some words are defined. Like most scientists, Tyson is very interested to defend a particular definition of “science” … and to ensure that dissonant definitions like that assumed by ID are excluded.” This prompted Andy Schueler […]
What are the chances?
A friend of mine sent me this graphic this past week. Not only is it good for a laugh (or at least a smirk), but it also makes an important philosophical point. Just what that point is can be left up to discussion…
24. Travis Dumsday on evil and divine hiddenness
If there is any person in the modern age who has embodied saintliness, it was that pillar of faith, Mother Teresa. So it was quite the surprise when, after her death in 1997 her diaries were published and we discovered that this paragon of faith had often struggled with doubt. She wrote: “If there be a […]
Intelligent Design: A response to the A-Unicornist
Mike D (aka The A-Unicornist) wrote an article yesterday titled “Randal Rauser is an ID proponent“. Near the beginning of the article Mike D quotes me as stating: “ID is the view that appeal to intelligent or agent causal explanations is a legitimate part of natural science.” He then replies: That’s not accurate, actually. Because of […]
Thoughts on Evolution: A response to Stephen J. Bedard
Yesterday blogger Stephen J. Bedard at the “Hope’s Reason” blog posted a review of my book You’re not as Crazy as I Think. Bedard enjoyed the book and gave it a very positive review. (And he notes in the review that The Atheist Missionary, a regular reader at my blog, had recommended the book. As a […]
The spider that knew how to make a spider
A few days ago one of my readers, Mark, forwarded this fascinating video depicting what appears to be a new spider species that makes up for its diminutive size by making large decoy spiders in its web. The “Smarter Every Day” youtube channel that has produced the story is a well established presence on youtube […]
Darwin was wrong (and why intelligent design theorists are not necessarily happy about the fact)
Yes, Darwin was wrong. In a quote much beloved of intelligent design theorists Darwin famously declared: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would break down.” This quote appears in Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box (Touchstone, 1998), 39. […]
Should we “teach the controversy”?
In “Monkeying around with common sense” I offered a critique of Tennessee’s new bill for teaching scientific controversies in school. My critique consisted of pointing out that this kind of method would be frowned upon in other knowledge discourses like history and English. So it seems inappropriate for this bill to single out science as […]
Monkeying around with common sense: Tennessee’s anti-evolution bill
According to the Huffington Post, a bill is about to be enacted into law in Tennessee which intends to offer protection to teachers who want to encourage their students to explore “controversial” scientific perspectives. I’ll quote Huff Post quoting sections of the bill and then offer some commentary: In an effort to cultivate “intelligent, productive, […]
