Understanding Design Arguments: An Introduction for Catholics

Aristotle, atomists, Benjamin Wiker, biology, Church Fathers, Democritus, Douglas Axe, Epicurus, Evolution, Faith & Science, God's Grandeur, Gregory of Nazianzen, Intelligent Design, James Sinclair, Jonathan Witt, Leucippus, Michael Behe, Michael Denton, New Atheists, philosophy, physics, Plato, Robin Collins, Roman Catholics, Scopes Monkey Trial, scripture, Socrates, Stephen Meyer, stereotypes, Vatican I, william lane craig, Xenophon, zero-sum game
What ID denies is that every feature of nature is the product of natural forces all the way down. This commitment is necessarily shared by Catholics. Source
Read More

When Catholics Argue for Intelligent Design

Ann Gauger, Anthony Esolen, Aristotle, beauty, Benjamin Wiker, Bible, biology, Brian Miller, Bruce Chapman, Christianity, consciousness, cosmology, creator, Faith & Science, faith and science, Father Michael Chaberek, God's Grandeur, Günter Bechly, Human Origins, Intelligent Design, intermediates, J. Budziszewski, Jay Richards, John Bergsma, Logan Gage, materialism, Michael Behe, moral law, natural law, paleontology, Pedro Barrajon, Richard Sternberg, Roman Catholicism, Scott Ventureyra, Sophia Institute Press, Thomas Aquinas
The evidence from science is clear, but with the discussion of philosophical questions, the necessity of a Creator becomes overwhelming.  Source
Read More

Engineering Principles Explain Biological Systems Better than Evolutionary Theory

antiquity, Apostle Paul, Aristotle, atomism, biology, Charles Darwin, Copernican Revolution, Engineering, Evolution, Francisco Ayala, genetics, Hippocrates, Intelligent Design, Lucretius, materialism, Modern Synthesis, natural processes, Neo-Darwinism, philosophy, Plato, population genetics, Romans, Science and Faith in Dialogue, teleology
Hippocrates proposed in the late 5th or early 4th century BC a model for heredity and adaptation that Charles Darwin described as nearly identical to his own. Source
Read More

Sean Carroll: “How Could an Immaterial Mind Affect the Body?”

amino acids, analgesic, Aristotle, arthritis, biology, body, causation, chirality, Darvon, documentary, efficient cause, enantiomer, final cause, formal cause, Francis Bacon, free will, individuation, Johns Hopkins University, libertarian free will, material cause, matter, mind, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, penicillamine, philosophy, physics, Physics, Earth & Space, quantum mechanics, sculptor, sculpture, Sean Carroll, statue, trailer
Aristotle noted that when we think carefully about natural causes we see that there are four distinct ways that causes can lead to effects in nature. Source
Read More

SETI: Inventing Minds to Find Minds

aliens, Aristotle, design detection, Frank Marchis, Gaia, habitable zone, Howard Glicksman, intelligent causes, Intelligent Design, materialists, Mountain View, natural causes, Nature (journal), Paul Sutter, Physics, Earth & Space, programmers, radio signals, rocks, SETI, SETI Institute, signals, Steve Laufmann, Your Designed Body
SETI has a new technique to recognize patterns in gobs of data: invent intelligences to search for extraterrestrial intelligence that might be artificial. Source
Read More

Old Wine in New Bottles: How Darwin Recruited Malthus to Fortify a Failed Idea from Antiquity

abiogenesis, Alphonse de Candolle, Aristotle, atheists, atomism, Charles Bradlaugh, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Christianity, complexification, David Hume, Edward Aveling, Epicurus, Erasmus Darwin, Evolution, Friedrich Engels, Georges Cuvier, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Greece, Homo sapiens, Intelligent Design, Karl Marx, Law of Correlation, Lucretius, Matthew Arnold, Middle Ages, natural selection, Origin of Species, Patrick Matthew, Plato, Poor Law, Rome, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Malthus, transhumanism, Unmoved Mover, Victorian England, William Paley
It was undoubtedly a tremendous philosophical coup for Darwin whose knowledge of formal philosophy was limited. Source
Read More

Frankenstein and His Offspring

abiogenesis, Aristotle, biology, cryogenic freezing, Evolution, Frankenstein, Funny Man: Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder, Harold Urey, Intelligent Design, Mary Shelley, Mel Brooks, movies, origin of life, panspermia, Patrick McGilligan, satire, Stanley Miller, Svante Arrhenius, Why Words Matter: Sense and Nonsense in Science (series), Young Frankenstein
"Abiogenesis" seems to draw its strength from pseudo-scientific folk-beliefs that life could somehow be made to emerge from non-life. Source
Read More

Evolutionary Biologist Richard Sternberg: Why I’m a Platonist

Aristotle, Aristotle and Other Platonists, biology, demiurge, Evolution, fossil record, Genesis, information, Intelligent Design, Lloyd Gerson, natural world, philosophy, Platonists, population genetics, Richard Sternberg, Science Uprising, Stephen Meyer, Timaeus, University of Toronto, waiting-time problem
The evolutionary turns that life has taken, he says, “ultimately have their source in an informational realm that is outside space and time.” Source
Read More

Nothing New Under the Sun

Anthony Flew, Argument from Complexity, Aristotle, Atheism, British Rationalist Association, Cicero, Cristian Bandea, DNA, electron microscope, Epicurus, Eric Metaxas, Faith & Science, First Cause, Galen, God of the Details, intellectual history, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Is Atheism Dead?, Lucretius, Methodist revival, Paul Davies, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Plato, Return of the God Hypothesis, Stephen Meyer, The Mind of God, The Necessity of Atheism, The Return to the God Paradigm, Welsh revival
The inference to a First Cause has begun to percolate down to people who hold no prior allegiance to any of the world’s accredited religions. Source
Read More