Month: March 2007
Darwin, Mendel, Watson and Crick, and Al Gore
Is Darwinism indispensable to genetics? Darwinists claim that their theory, which is the assertion that all biological complexity arose by random heritable variation and natural selection (“chance and necessity”), is indispensable to modern medicine. What was Darwin’s role in genetics? He played an important role in classical genetics, in a negative way. In 1865, an Austrian monk named Gregor Mendel presented a scientific paper called ‘Experiments in Plant Hybridization’ at meeting of the Natural History Society of Brno in Moravia. Fr. Mendel found a remarkable pattern of inheritance in experiments on plants in his garden in his monastery. The experiments suggested that heritable factors were, in some cases, particulate, could remain hidden for generations, and sorted according to simple mathematical Read More ›
What is Wrong with Sober’s Attack on ID? (Part II): Comparing ID and Darwinism while Ignoring Darwinism’s Epicycles
In Part I, I explained how Elliott Sober’s recent attack upon ID in his article entitled “What is Wrong With Intelligent Design?” gave an inaccurate history of intelligent design. This second part will discuss how Sober’s reasoning necessarily implies that ID is testable, except for the fact that he applies a double standard and ignores the ad hoc explanations so commonly used by Darwinists to square their theory with the data. Testing by Comparing Predictions of TheoriesSober concedes that “many formulations of ID are falsifiable” and meet Karl Popper’s famous criteria that a scientific theory must be falsifiable. However, Sober critiques Popper’s usage of falsifiability as a hallmark property of science because he claims it does not always entail robust Read More ›
Press Coverage of Darwin vs. Design Conference Reveals both Tolerance and Anti-ID Bias
The upcoming Darwin vs. Design conference at Southern Methodist University (SMU) has triggered controversy because some Darwinists are intolerant of discussion of ID taking place too close to their campus offices. When the DvD conference was held in Knoxville recently, the Knoxville News reported that an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Tennessee, Michael Gilchrist, was so concerned that he “petitioned Oak Ridge National Laboratory to remove Darwin vs. Design from its technical calendar.” Gilchrist was quoted saying that “It is fine for people to think of these things, but it’s a problem when they present it as science.” It seems that for Gilchrist, he’s OK with any view about ID being promoted as long Read More ›
Then What is Ken Miller Talking About?: Miller Passes the Blame, Promotes a Straw Man
William Dembski reports that Ken Miller responded to the BBC Documentary and my recent claim that he misrepresented Dembski’s work. In short, Miller now claims he wasn’t talking about Dembski and passes the blame on to the BBC for misleading editing and blames “Discovery Institute” for believing what the documentary plainly said. Most of Miller’s response blames the BBC documentary’s editors for making it appear as if he were talking about Dembski by sandwiching Miller’s comments between narrator’s comments stating Miller is rebutting Dembski, and interspersing Miller’s comments with numerous shots of Dembski. Directly after Miller’s comments, the narrator said, “For Miller, Dembski’s math did not add up.” But does Miller’s explanation of the situation now “add up”? Readers can Read More ›
Is Darwinism Indispensable to Comparative Medicine? Meet Galen, Vesalius, Harvey, and Linnaeus.
Is Darwinism indispensable to modern medicine? As I noted in an earlier posts here and here, Darwinists usually use three arguments to assert that Darwin’s theory of random variation and natural selection is indispensable to medicine. They claim that Darwinism is necessary for comparative medicine, or that it is necessary for molecular genetics, or that it is necessary for understanding bacterial resistance to antibiotics. All three fields of medicine are obviously important, but Darwinism, understood as the theory that all biological structure arose by random variation and natural selection, is not necessary to understand any of them. In this post, I’ll deal with the first question: is Darwinism essential for an understanding of comparative medicine and comparative biology? No, it’s Read More ›