A panel of lectures moderated by Edward Davis.
1. Professor Huston Smith has elegantly summarized the essence of the Science-Religion dialogue in the following terms: “My favorite analogy is to imagine the physical universe as a giant balloon. Within it we can shine our flashlights (the scientific method) on anything inside the balloon, but we can’t get the flashlights outside the balloon to…
Bernard d’Abrera’s concise atlas of the world’s butterflies is a beautifully produced book with the most stunning photographs of butterflies that I’ve ever seen. Though not intended as a coffee-table book, it could eminently serve that purpose. D’Abrera himself is a world-renowned butterfly and moth expert at the BritishMuseum(Natural History) in London. Over the years…
Let me paint the picture more starkly. Consider an elementary event E. Suppose initially we see no pattern that gives us reason to expect an intelligent agent produced it. But then, rummaging through our background knowledge, we suddenly see a pattern that signifies design in E. Under a likelihood analysis, the probability of E given…
In my last piece for Metanexus, I asserted that evolutionary algorithms cannot generate specified complexity and motivated this assertion by pointing to the failure of Richard Dawkins’s well-known METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL example to generate specified complexity. My point was that Dawkins’s evolutionary algorithm converged on METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL with…
Introduction When it comes to debating the idea of design in nature I think it is important to note that the situation is very different in the USA and Europe. In the USA the idea has been compromised by creationism. The idea is being identified with creationism and as such it is seen as a…
The Seven Laws of Unnerving Uncertainty (Spelling “Mistake”) 1. Multiplicity: I never do anything for just one reason and it never has just one effect. Life is like playing piano with oven mitts on. 2. Infinity: Anything that has a cause, has multiple causes extending back in time infinitely. Anything that has an effect, has…