Free Republic

ID theorists say that information is the foundation of the universe. Others say matter is. Our choice of who to believe will shape our future. First, suppose the materialists are right. If materialism (naturalism) is simply true, because everything comes down to matter in the end, what future might we expect? Stephen Hawking insists in a recent interview that "Science will win." If we take his current non-realist views seriously, science as we have known it is finished and there is nothing to win. That doesn't mean, of course, that everything shuts down. Some projects will continue as if immortal...

Full Title:A Lapse in Watchfulness: New York Times Admits Neo-Darwinism Faces a "Paradigm Shift" Over "Failure" to Explain Body Plans Despite keeping a watchful eye out for inklings of heresy on Darwinian evolution, the New York Times occasionally lets its guard down. Such a lapse was the only way to explain the recent review of Harvard computer scientist Leslie Valiant's book Probably Approximately Correct in which Berkeley mathematician Edward Frenkel was allowed to acknowledge a "gaping gap" in "Darwin's theory." Now a colleague has pointed out to me a 2007 article in the Times that I hadn't previously seen. The...

Intelligent design theories gaining steam in scientific circles By: Dr. Granville Sewell12/16/2013 04:34 PM The debut at #7 on the New York Times best seller list last July of Stephen Meyer’s new book Darwin’s Doubt is evidence that the scientific theory of intelligent design (ID) continues to gain momentum. Since critics often misrepresent ID, and paint ID advocates as a fanatical fringe group, it is important to understand what intelligent design is, and what it is not.Until Charles Darwin, almost everyone everywhere believed in some form of intelligent design (the majority still do): not just Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but...

Taking the publication of Stephen Meyer's bestseller Darwin's Doubt as his news hook, our colleague the University of Texas, El Paso, mathematician Granville Sewell smartly answers a good question: What do you have believe if you're NOT a proponent of intelligent design? Writes Dr. Sewell in an El Paso Times op-ed: So what do ID proponents believe? Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to state clearly what you have to believe to not believe in intelligent design. Peter Urone, in his 2001 physics text "College Physics" writes, "One of the most remarkable simplifications in physics is that...

If you are familiar with Ray Comfort and the man on the street Way of the Master ministries, you will like this video. WoM ministries produced the linked youtube 30 minute video on Evolution vs. God. Ray and crew go to two CA universities to interview and debate science students and science faculty on Darwinian evolution. So please set aside a half hour from your busy schedule and enjoy "Evolution vs. God." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ#t=743

A plant-hopping insect found in gardens across Europe - has hind-leg joints with curved cog-like strips of opposing 'teeth' that intermesh, rotating like mechanical gears to synchronise the animal's legs when it launches into a jump. This image shows cog wheels connecting the hind legs of the plant hopper, Issus. Credit: Burrows/Sutton Photograph of an Issus nymph. Credit: Malcolm Burrows The finding demonstrates that gear mechanisms previously thought to be solely man-made have an evolutionary precedent. Scientists say this is the "first observation of mechanical gearing in a biological structure". Through a combination of anatomical analysis and high-speed video capture...

Darwin’s Doubt Darwin’s Doubt, the brand new New York Times bestseller by Cambridge-trained Ph.D., Stephen Meyer, is creating a major scientific controversy. Darwinists don’t like it. Meyer writes about the complex history of new life forms in an easy to understand narrative style. He takes the reader on a journey from Darwin to today while trying to discover the best explanation for how the first groups of animals arose. He shows, quite persuasively, that Darwinian mechanisms don’t have the power to do the job. Using the same investigative forensic approach Darwin used over 150 years ago, Meyer investigates the central...

Darwin’s Doubt, the brand new New York Times bestseller by Cambridge-trained Ph.D., Stephen Meyer, is creating a major scientific controversy. Darwinists don’t like it. Meyer writes about the complex history of new life forms in an easy to understand narrative style. He takes the reader on a journey from Darwin to today while trying to discover the best explanation for how the first groups of animals arose. He shows, quite persuasively, that Darwinian mechanisms don’t have the power to do the job. Using the same investigative forensic approach Darwin used over 150 years ago, Meyer investigates the central doubt Darwin...

Intelligent DesignWhose Will decreed This slash of sea Would frame This sun in gleams of green?What Plan determines stone's decline, Or shapes in stars, or shadow's sheen, Or that we track, as clever beasts, The passing haze of comet's fall,And are the glaze of Thought on flesh That sees the need of Plan at all? …Read The Rest Here>>>

Ball State University, a public institution in Muncie, Indiana, is purportedly looking into claims that a course centered around the subjects of creationism and intelligent design constitutes a violation of the separation of church and state. The college purportedly began its investigation after the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a church-state separatist group, sent a letter of complaint regarding physics and astronomy professor Eric Hedin. Hedin’s offense? He apparently encourages students to read books by scientists, journalists and proponents who embrace intelligent design. The description of his course, as reported by World on Campus, claims that students will “investigate physical...

Bill Nye used to be “The Science Guy” on PBS. Now he’s just a godless hater. The former host of the “educational” TV show targeted to preteens, which aired from 1993 to 1998, said this week that those of us who believe that God created man and woman are idiots. And that we ought not pass along that belief to our children. “I say to the grownups,” Nye condescended, “if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, your world that’s inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it.”...

Paging Nicholas Wade. He’s the New York Times science writer who worships at the altar of Darwinism. Two years ago, he reported that biologists, led by Svante Paabo of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, had determined that Neanderthals mated with modern humans. That “scientific” finding provided a convenient explanation for what happened to humanity’s supposed ancestor: We interbred with them until they disappeared. Now comes a new study, reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that the finding reported by Wade, were wrong. There was no mating, no “hybridization,” between Neanderthals and Homo...

I appreciated the comments of Leroy Stucky (Western Front, June 28) defending the biblical view of the beginning of mankind, the world and the universe, otherwise known as creationism. Creationism will always be a very difficult doctrine to accept, as long as people exclude the supernatural influence and presence of an almighty God who, in my opinion, started the whole process. I have never read an issue of The American Spectator magazine, but recently at the library I happened to pick up the May 2012 issue. The magazine, I found out, is very conservative, but not necessary Christian. However, included...

Good things are happening beneath the media radar. Stephen Meyer, the director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, spoke the other evening at a forum called “Socrates in the City.”... In his talk, inquiring how life first appeared from simpler pre-existing chemicals, Meyer emphasized the concept of biological information, which is embedded in DNA. Think of it as analogous to software code. Bill Gates said that “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.” Software contains instructions that direct computers to accomplish various functions. Likewise, DNA contains instructions for...

A lawsuit between Jet Propulsion Labs and a NASA mission specialist who claims he was demoted for his beliefs begins Wednesday, the latest in a series of court cases featuring intelligent design proponents suing former employers. David Coppedge was employed at the JPL for 14 years and served as an information technology specialist on the Cassini mission to Saturn before being demoted. He first took his case to court in the summer of 2010 and was later fired in Jan. 2011. In the complaint, Coppedge alleges that he was demoted and disciplined for discussing intelligent design with co-workers and distributing...

Professor of Atheism Richard Dawkins grows increasingly shrill. His outbursts include the following, not very recent, but typical: __________________________________ 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 (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that). __________________________________ You can, of course, make any point you like providing you don't care about first premises. One thing which evidently fails to enter Professor Dawkins' mental universe is the idea -- accepted by many scientists -- that the theory of evolution is broadly correct, but as an...

California Science Center The state-run California Science Center (CSC) has paid $110,000 to settle a lawsuit by American Freedom Alliance (AFA) against CSC for violating AFA's First Amendment free speech rights to advocate intelligent design (ID). As part of the settlement, the CSC also has invited AFA to present the ID event it previously cancelled. CSC rented its IMAX theater to AFA to show Darwin's Dilemma, a science documentary advocating ID. However, when CSC learned the film would portray ID favorably, CSC cancelled AFA's event. AFA filed suit in California Superior Court alleging viewpoint discrimination and breach of contract. "This...

Education is one of the things that nearly every American agrees is important. I am one of those people. I do everything in my power to give my children every educational opportunity. I was well-pleased with my education choices when, today in my child’s 3rd-grade class, the teacher turned on some music, and half of the children were excited because it was Beethoven, and they each spontaneously told which Beethoven piece was their favorite. However, to educate properly, the primary principle that you must operate with is this – education needs to be sensitive to the nature of humans. If...

Governor Rick Perry on evolution, in an interview with the Associated Press: "There are clear indications from our people who have amazing intellectual capability that this didn't happen by accident and a creator put this in place. Now, what was his time frame and how did he create the earth that we know? I'm not going to tell you that I've got the answers to that. I believe that we were created by this all-powerful supreme being and how we got to today versus what we look like thousands of years ago, I think there's enough holes in the theory...

Bachmann: Schools should teach intelligent design By CNN Political Reporter Peter Hamby New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) – Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann explained her skepticism of evolution on Friday and said students should be taught the theory of intelligent design. Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota, also proposed a major overhaul of the nation’s education system and said state administrators should be able to decide how they spend money allocated to them by the federal government. "I support intelligent design," Bachmann told reporters in New Orleans following her speech to the Republican Leadership Conference. "What I support is putting all science...