Month: September 2009
David Berlinski: Does Darwin Matter?
ENV: How do the scientific issues you write about affect the way we live? Why should the Darwin question matter to people who don’t normally concern themselves with scientific theories?DB: I think of the Darwinian debate in the way that Dickens thought of Jardynce v Jarndyce in Bleak House. It is awfully easy to be sucked into it, and once suckered, awfully difficult to get out. I have seen it so often. A man wakes and because has read a book or scanned an essay, he is persuaded that he can make a contribution. He is eager to make it. He offers his opinion on the Internet and is gratified by the prospect of the congratulations that he is shortly Read More ›
IDEA Students will Liveblog Stephen Meyer’s Intelligent Design Lecture tonight at University of Oklahoma
If you aren’t at the University of Oklahoma tonight or tomorrow for the ID events you can still follow the events online through live blog updates here.
Intelligent Design Comes to University of Oklahoma With ID Lecture and Screening of Darwin’s Dilemma
Somehow, over the past few years the University of Oklahoma has become a sort of ground zero for debating evolution and intelligent design. Appearances by William Dembski, Richard Dawkins, Michael Ruse and John West have all drawn large crowds, and not a little controversy. Tonight Dr. Stephen Meyer will deliver a lecture based on his book Signature in the Cell in Meachem Auditorium at the University of Oklahoma at 7pm. Darwinists are planning to attend with the hopes of confounding Meyer during the question and answer time. Since biologists like Dawkins and Francis Collins have avoided debating Meyer I don’t think there will be much to confound him there tonight.Tomorrow night, the new ID documentary Darwin’s Dilemma will be screened Read More ›
David Berlinski on Religion, His Teaching, and His Life in Paris
ENV: You describe yourself as a “secular Jew” and “remarkably indifferent to the religious life.” Yet so much of your writing bears directly on whether religion has been intellectually defeated by secular, science-flavored ideologies. You can’t have given no thought to religious questions. Would you share with us your hunches and suspicions about spiritual reality, the trend in your thinking, if not your firm beliefs? DB: No. Either I cannot or I will not. I do not know whether I am unable or unwilling. The question elicits in me a stubborn refusal. Please understand. It is not an issue of privacy. I have, after all, blabbed my life away: Why should I call a halt here? I suppose that I Read More ›
Introducing The College Student’s Back to School Guide to Intelligent Design
There are a lot of false urban legends promoted in academia about intelligent design (ID). They often start with myths promoted by misinformed critiques in scientific journals, court rulings, or even talks by activists at scientific conferences. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for this misinformation to then be passed down to college students, who may know very little about ID and lack the resources to correct their professors’ misinformed and misplaced attacks on ID. Not anymore. If you’re a college student, recently gone back to school and expecting to hear a lot of anti-ID views from your professors, we’re pleased to present this “Back to School Guide” for students as follows: The College Student’s Back to School Guide to Intelligent DesignThe Read More ›