26Oct 2021 by Post

Do We Live on a Privileged Planet?

astronomy, atmosphere, beauty, chemical elements, Doppler effect, helium, Intelligent Design, Isaac Newton, Jay W. Richards, Joseph von Fraunhofer, Mars, Mercury, Moon, Physics, Earth & Space, rainbows, René Descartes, solar eclipse, spectroscope, stars, sun, telescope, The Privileged Planet, Titan, universe, Venus, water, William Huggins, William Hyde Wollaston
Yes, rainbows are beautiful, but are they good for anything? Indeed, they have been very important for science. Source
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04Aug 2021 by Post

Diatoms, an Evolutionary Mystery, Come into Nano-Focus

archaea, bacteria, beauty, Blaise Pascal, Caltech, Coscinodiscus, Cristobal Vila, Current Biology, diatoms, electron microscope, Engineering, eukaryotes, frustules, Germany, God Hypothesis, Gothic cathedrals, Intelligent Design, Izabela Zgłobicka, Life Sciences, light microscope, Michael Gross, microbes, Nature by Numbers, Nature Scientific Reports, photosynthetic algae, Poland, purpose, Zachary Aitken
The jewels of the microbial world, when seen with new nano-scale imaging techniques, look like Gothic cathedrals. Source
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30Jul 2021 by Post

Jordan Peterson Springs the Trap of Scientism

Andrew Copson, beauty, Carl Jung, competence, Faith & Science, history of ideas, Holocaust, hydrogen, hydrogen bomb, Intelligent Design, Johannes Kepler, John Lennox, Jordan Peterson, Lawrence Krauss, leprosy, Michael Shermer, myths, Oxford Union, physicists, psychology, religion, Return of the God Hypothesis, Sam Harris, scientific method, scientific revolution, scientism, Stephen Meyer
There’s a gaping God-shaped hole in both Krauss and Peterson’s particular ways of spinning all this. Source
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15Jan 2021 by Post

When Darwinism Reigns, “The Pyramid Is the Point”

alpha male, animals, beauty, biology, brutality, charm, condors, Culture & Ethics, CuriosityStream, Darwinian evolution, Darwinism, Discovery Institute, Evolution, gorillas, hierarchy, Intelligent Design, John Zmirak, personal interactions, pyramid, sea lionesses, teleology, The Stream, YouTube videos
The Darwinian view encourages a way of interacting with others where the aim is to “humiliate [one’s] lesser brethren, just to remind them who’s boss.” Source
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22Dec 2020 by Post

The Heavens Declare: Looking Forward to 2021

ancient literature, beauty, binoculars, biology, Caldwell 78, cosmology, Creation, Evolution News, heavens, Hubble Space Telescope, Intelligent Design, NASA, NGC 6541, orderliness, Physics, Earth & Space, Psalm 31, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Return of the God Hypothesis, skies, stars, Stephen Meyer, telescopes
As to evidence for intelligent design, my impression has long been that the ancients gave more weight to the stars than to their own bodies. Source
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30Sep 2020 by Post

Why Something Instead of Nothing? November 19, Oxford’s John Lennox Goes “Against the Tide”

Atheism, atoms, beauty, C.S. Lewis, Christianity, cultural elite, debates, faith, Faith & Science, God’s Not Dead, human consciousness, Internet, J.R.R. Tolkien, John Lennox, Judeo-Christian tradition, Kevin Sorbo, mathematicians, Northern Ireland, Oxford University, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, science, theaters, theism
Trumpeters for atheism are not being truthful when they say things like “Religion teaches us to be satisfied with not really understanding.” Source
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07Jan 2020 by Post

Earth — The Mystery of Our Colorful Home

Apollo 8, Apollo astronauts, beauty, birds of paradise, butterflies, Carl Sagan, color, crystals, Don Davis, earth, Earthrise, emerald, flowers, Frank Borman, gem stones, insects, Io, Jim Lovell, lunar limb, Mars, Moon, natural selection, Neptune, peacock, Physics, Earth & Space, rainbows, reef fish, sexual selection, solar system, space art, surprise, Uranus, Venus
“Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth coming up! Wow, that’s pretty!” These were the words William Anders spoke to the other two Apollo 8 crew members, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman, just before he took the now famous “earthrise” picture on December 24, 1968. Since then, other Apollo astronauts and even unmanned lunar spacecraft have taken similar pictures (see above). Notice how Anders reacted to the view of Earth rising over the lunar limb; these were obviously spontaneous reactions to something that caught him off guard. He expressed surprise and noted how pretty it looked. These are expressions of beauty. A beautiful thing surprises us. The fact that the earthrise pictures have been reproduced so many times speaks to their universal appeal. Probably most…
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05Dec 2019 by Post

How Butterflies “Evolve” by Design

beauty, butterflies, caterpillar, cortex (gene), Douglas Blackiston, Drosophila, Elena Casey, Evolution, foresight, Georgetown University, Heliconius, helicopter, hotspot gene, Illustra Media, Intelligent Design, larvae, Lepidopterans, light waves, Martha Weiss, Metamorphosis, Model T, Monarch butterflies, moths, New Scientist, odors, Paul Nelson, photonic crystals, pigmentation, PLOS ONE, Royal Society Biology Letters, South America, tobacco hornworm moths, University of Liverpool, wing patterns
Butterflies, those universally loved flying works of art, offer many reasons to celebrate design in nature.  They showcase aesthetic beauty beyond the requirements of survival (see “Beauty, Darwin and Design,” featuring Paul Nelson).  Their migrations show foresight over multiple generations.  The one-gram Monarch butterflies astonish biologists with their exceptional endurance to survive hardships while flying thousands of miles on paper-thin wings (see “2-Minute Wonder: A Monarch’s Journey“). Their navigation systems exhibit stunning accuracy to arrive at locations they have never seen. Their keen senses can find the right host plants from miles away; they can smell very faint pheromones for mating; and they can distinguish precise angles of sunlight for orientation and timing of migration.  Their wing scales, organized into “photonic crystals,” give precision control of light waves to create…
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