Free Republic

DEBATE THREADThis INFORMAL debate will focus on Part 1 and 2 of Alex Williams' paper "Life's irreducible structure." Williams' paper will serve as the affirmative, namely: (A) All aspects of life (not just bacterial flagellums and blood clotting cascades) lie beyond the reach of naturalistic explanations, and (B) only intelligent design meets the criterion of an acceptable historical inference according to the Law of Cause and Effect. Part 1 of Alex Williams' paper follows. A link to Part 2 can be found in reply #1. It is strongly suggested that both papers be read before participating in the discussion/debate. One...

Age of the Universeby Dr. Gerald Schroeder According to a possible reading of ancient commentators' description of God and nature, the world may be simultaneously young and old. One of the most obvious perceived contradictions between Torah and science is the age of the universe. Is it billions of years old, like scientific data, or is it thousands of years, like Biblical data? When we add up the generations of the Bible, we come to 5700-plus years. Whereas, data from the Hubbell telescope or from the land based telescopes in Hawaii, indicate the age at about 15 billion years.Let...

Update (January 2005)Antony Flew has retracted one of his recent assertions. In a letter to me dated 29 December 2004, Flew concedes:I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction. He blames his error on being "misled" by Richard Dawkins because Dawkins "has never been reported as referring to any promising work on the production of a theory of the development of living matter," even though this is false (e.g. Richard Dawkins and L. D....