What Kind of Revolution Is The Design Revolution? As Dembski begins his book by saying: “Ever since Thomas Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in the 1960s, just about every idea in science has been touted as the latest scientific revolution” (1). Indeed, Dembski was himself involved in chaos theory, a development hailed as…
The noted American evolutionist and popular science writer Stephen Jay Gould argues strenuously that science and religion occupy different domains and speak to different issues. Properly understood therefore they cannot be in conflict: the ongoing American controversy about the literal truth of Genesis versus the claims of the evolutionists must be predicated on mistaken understandings…
I love science and I love Jesus. How do I exist in such divergent domains where my fellows criticize me for being in each?
Does a biology professor’s refusal to write letters of recommendation for a student unwilling to embrace evolution amount to unfair discrimination? For conservative Christian advocacy groups, the answer is a thunderous yes. For Texas Tech University, where the issue has lately arisen, the answer is a milder no. For those concerned with science-religion issues, the…
In the March 21st, 2002, edition of The Washington Times [www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20020321-76780268.htm], Sen. Edward Kennedy takes exception to Sen. Rick Santorum’s March 14 Commentary piece, “Illiberal Education in Ohio Schools” [http://asp.washtimes.com/printarticle.asp?action=print&ArticleID=20020314-5]. Santorum, who supports intelligent design, argues that Ohio public schools should be open to teaching it. Kennedy, who has publicly supported the teaching of alternate…
The mathematician George Polya used to quip that if you can’t solve a problem, find an easier problem and solve it. Matt Young seems to have taken Polya’s advice to heart. Young has taken Shannon’s tried-and-true theory of information and shoehorned my notion of specified complexity into it. The shoe no longer fits, and so…
Many years ago, I read this advice to a young physicist desperate to get his or her work cited as frequently as possible: Publish a paper that makes a subtle misuse of the second law of thermodynamics. Then everyone will rush to correct you and in the process cite your paper. The mathematician William Dembski…
“It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane…” — Richard Dawkins “We’re leaving the fortress and heading behind the lines to blow up the other side’s headquarters, its ammunition store.” — Philip E. Johnson In…
Metanexus: Views 2002.01.04 2428 words Technology may first be understood as ‘imitating nature’, doing thingswhich nature does as well. At some point, we move on to ‘improving nature’,doing some things better than they would be without us, claims Dutchtheologian Willem Drees. He then adds, ‘Better’ is, of course, anevaluation – and thus invites the question…
Metanexus: Views 2002.01.03 2679 words If we are the products of evolution, can we take positive initiatives, makethe right choices? Or are our choices fixed since days of old, and isfreedom nothing but an illusion? Libraries could be filled with books on’free will’. Here I want to indicate briefly why I hold that a meaningfulnotion…