19Apr 2020 by Post

Jay Richards: Warfare Thesis Ignores the Roots of Science

Center for Science & Culture, Faith & Science, ID The Future, Jay Richards, Judeo-Christian culture, materialism, Podcast, religion, Robert Crowther, science, Warfare Thesis
On a classic episode of ID the Future, Center for Science & Culture Director of Communications Rob Crowther interviews CSC Senior Fellow Jay Richards. Listen in as Richards rebuts the warfare thesis — the idea that religion and science are antagonists — and argues that historically, Judeo-Christian culture “was the seedbed from which science emerged.” Has science missed out by being partnered with materialism? Download the podcast or listen to it here. Photo: Jay Richards in a scene from “Why Materialism Fails,” via Discovery Institute. The post Jay Richards: Warfare Thesis Ignores the Roots of Science appeared first on Evolution News.
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08Apr 2020 by Post

Watch: Preview Stephen Meyer’s New Book — The Return of the God Hypothesis

Adolf Grünbaum, atheists, Bertrand Russell, Christianity, cosmology, Dallas Conference on Science and Faith, Eric Metaxas, Evolution News, Faith & Science, Intelligent Design, Michael Behe, Paul Nelson, professors, publishing, religion, science, scientific atheism, Stephen Meyer, The Return of the God Hypothesis, United States
Stephen Meyer has finished his next book, The Return of the God Hypothesis, and (here is a bit of insider information) is currently awaiting copyedits from his publisher. The wheels of book publishing do not grind hastily. I’ve read the book, and it’s fantastic. If you are impatient to get your hands on it, you can get a bit of a preview in a presentation Dr. Meyer gave at the 2020 Dallas Conference on Science and Faith. You can watch that right now: It’s poignant to think that the conference, on January 25, was held just a few days after the first COVID-19 case in the United States was confirmed, in a man who had visited Wuhan. That was here in Washington State. In our present surreal, locked-down virus world,…
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06Apr 2020 by Post

Opposition Is True Friendship: A Remembrance of Adolf Grünbaum (1923-2018)

Adolf Grünbaum, Alec Stewart, art school, Arthur Schopenhauer, atheists, Bas van Fraassen, Bertrand Russell, Brahma, Carl (“Peter”) Hempel, Carnegie Mellon University, Catholics, Cologne, depression, Education, Faith & Science, Forbes Avenue, German, Germany, Intelligent Design, Jews, Joseph Stalin, Kristallnacht, National Academy of Sciences, Nazis, Nicholas Rescher, Notre Dame University, Philip Quinn, Phillip Kitcher, Philosophy of Science, Protestants, Richard Feynman, Robert Griffiths, Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion, Thomas Kuhn, U.S. Army, University of Pittsburgh, Vishnu, Wesleyan University, Yale University
“Opposition is true friendship.” —William Blake (1793) Art School Dropout Becomes Wannabe Philosopher of Science In September 1980, as an art school dropout, I wandered into the University of Pittsburgh and the best philosophy of science program in the world. At the time, I had no clue about Pittsburgh’s high standing in this particular academic field. I had no clue about much of anything, actually, except that I was keenly interested in questions about the foundations of science. Pitt was local, affordable, and by some inexplicable kindness, they had admitted me. (Years earlier, to show the world how unhappy I was with my art school, I stopped attending classes there, but for inscrutable reasons, still registered and continued to make the tuition payments. Understandably, this persuaded the art school that,…
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31Mar 2020 by Post

Are Evangelicals “Crippling” Our Coronavirus Response?

Alabama, americans, anti-Christian bias, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chernobyl, China, churches, coronavirus, COVID-19, Darwinism, doctors, Donald Trump, Earth Day, Easter, Evangelical Christians, Evolution and Ethics, Faith & Science, Federal Government, global warming, Katherine Stewart, Medicine, New York City, New York Times, nurses, pandemic, pastors, Scientific consensus, stock boys, Thomas Huxley, truck driver, United States, Wuhan, Yan Fu
Yep, according to this New York Times op-ed by Katherine Stewart: This denial of science and critical thinking among religious ultraconservatives now haunts the American response to the coronavirus crisis. Stewart, whose disdain for evangelicals is passionate, objects particularly to the President’s invocation of Easter rather than “mid-April”: Mr. Trump’s expressed hope that the country would be “opened up and just raring to go by Easter.” He could, of course, have said, “by mid-April.” But Mr. Trump did not invoke Easter by accident, and many of his evangelical allies were pleased by his vision of “packed churches all over our country.”  “I think it would be a beautiful time,” the president said. Perhaps a Presidential wish that we will be back to business by Earth Day would have mollified Ms.…
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20Mar 2020 by Post

The Biggest Myth So Far in Cosmos 3.0 — Baruch Spinoza as Science Hero

Albert Einstein, aliens, ancient Greeks, Aristotle, Baruch Spinoza, Bible, Christiaan Huygens, Christianity, Cosmos 3.0, Evolution News, extraterrestrial life, Faith & Science, Galileo Galilei, geometry, Giordano Bruno, harmonic law, Herwart von Hohenburg, historical errors, Johannes Kepler, Judaism, Michael J. Crowe, Michael Maestlin, National Geographic Channel, nature, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Physics, Earth & Space, planetary motion, Plato, René Descartes, Saint Augustine, The Assayer, Two Books, Unbelievable?
The third season of Cosmos has released four episodes so far, with more to come this Monday, on Fox and the National Geographic channel. Evolution News has commented already, here, here, here, and here. After watching these episodes, I have concluded that the most consequential historical error to correct as yet concerns the treatment of Spinoza in episode one. The series designates Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) as the next greatest persecuted hero of science after Giordano Bruno (as depicted in Cosmos 2.0; see my video discussion, “Unbelievable Mythbusting: Giordano Bruno Was a Martyr, Yes, but Not for Science”). Although Bruno was burned to death in 1600 for his religious (not scientific) views, the attempted murder of Spinoza, if it occurred, was likely due to a disputed business transaction (not science or…
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18Mar 2020 by Post

Unguided Origin of Life: “Completely Impossible but Must Have Happened”

Charles Thaxton, Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, Discovery Institute, Evolution News, Faith & Science, Intelligent Design, John West, Jon Buell, origin of life, Robert J. Marks, Robert Shapiro, Roger Olsen, Stephen Meyer, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Walter Bradley, Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence
“It’s completely impossible, but it must have happened.” That’s how philosopher of science Stephen Meyer summarizes most responses from proponents of unguided chemical evolution when challenged on the origin of life. In January, Meyer led a panel discussion with the authors of the foundational intelligent design text The Mystery of Life’s Origin at the Dallas Conference on Science & Faith. You can see the entire interaction now, as Discovery Institute begins launching videos of the presentations from the hugely successful event: The occasion for the panel was the release of a new and greatly expanded 35th-anniversary edition of the book, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: The Continuing Controversy. You’ll enjoy the discussion between Meyer and Walter Bradley, Charles Thaxton, and Roger Olsen. It’s introduced by materials scientist Walter Bradley, and…
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24Feb 2020 by Post

Where Science and Faith Meet: Westminster Conference, April 3-4, in Philadelphia

betrayal, biology, cosmic fine-tuning, cynicism, Daniel Reeves, design detection, Early Church, faith, Faith & Science, foresight, Intelligent Design, John West, Marcos Eberlin, Melissa Cain Travis, nanomachines, Parents, Philadelphia, reproduction, science, scientific evidence, scientists, Secularism, Stephen Meyer, students, teachers, Vern Poythress, Westminster Conference on Science and Faith, youth track
It’s possible to simplistically sweep aside challenges to a materialist picture of reality. Proponents of atheism do this all the time. And it’s possible to sweep aside challenges, or what seem to be challenges, to a theistic understanding. People do this, too, all the time. Neither is intellectually satisfying. And the latter sets a trap for young people. Parents and educators might feel it’s the safest way to take shelter from claims by scientists and other academics that are thought to engender cynicism and undermine faith. But what happens when young people grow up, are immersed in a university or secular culture, and realize how little they were prepared for or exposed to counterarguments against their family’s religious tradition? The resulting sense of betrayal has been reported many times. Youth…
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17Feb 2020 by Post

On Evolution, Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Charles Darwin, Darwininan theory, Divine Foot, Evolution, Faith & Science, free will, Genetics and the Origin of Species, Intelligent Design, Keith Stewart Thomson, Macroevolution, Microevolution, mind, Neal C. Gillespie, Richard C. Lewontin, spirit, Ted Peters, Theodosius Dobzhansky, William A. Dembski, Zombie Science
On February 10, 2020, Lutheran theologian Ted Peters published an online article titled “Fighting over Evolution. Why?“ He concluded that “a culture war is raging, to be sure. But, this is not a war between science and faith.” I agree completely — if by “science” we mean empirical science. Empirical science searches for the truth by proposing hypotheses and comparing them with the evidence. If a hypothesis is consistent with the evidence we tentatively take it to be true. If it is inconsistent with the evidence we revise it or reject it as false. In reality, things can get a bit more complicated. But this is science at its best. A Different Meaning Yet “science” has taken on a different meaning in the modern world. For many people, “science” is…
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20Jan 2020 by Post

Westminster Conference on Science and Faith, April 3-4 in Philadelphia: Design and the Designer

biology, Burke Museum, Center for Science & Culture, Chemistry, cosmology, Dallas, Daniel Reeves, Early Church, East Coast, Evolution, Faith & Science, foresight, Intelligent Design, John West, Marcos Eberlin, Melissa Cain Travis, orphan genes, Paul Nelson, Philadelphia, Stephen Meyer, Westminster Conference on Science and Faith
Here in Seattle, the University of Washington recently opened a spectacular and expensive ($106 million) new building for its natural history museum, the Burke Museum. A friend visited there yesterday — I have not yet had a chance to do so — and sent along photos. We were both struck by how the exhibits lay it on thick with regard to evolution as an unguided process. Large signs seem aggressive in advertising the curators’ position: “EVOLUTION ISN’T PLANNED,” declares one display. Another insists that life is “SHAPED BY NATURE,” and, by implication, by nothing else. The culture invests great energy and wealth to bombard us with messages like these. That’s the case even as, at deeper and deeper levels, science reveals evidence of a plan, foresight, a deliberately shaping force working…
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08Jan 2020 by Post

Dallas Conference Will Unveil Intelligent Design’s Original Edition

Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence, Brian Miller, Charles Thaxton, Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, Daniel Reeves, Darwin's Doubt, Discovery Institute Press, Douglas Axe, Faith & Science, Guillermo Gonzalez, Intelligent Design, James Tour, Jonathan Wells, Michael Behe, origin of life, original edition, Paul Nelson, Roger Olsen, Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Walter Bradley, William Dembski
We are just a couple of weeks out from the 2020 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, Saturday, January 25 in Denton, TX. Until today, though, we have withheld one important piece of information about the event: it will be the launch of a wonderful new book from Discovery Institute Press. Actually, it’s an updated, expanded edition of a classic: The Mystery of Life’s Origin: The Continuing Controversy, the 1984 Ur-text or original edition of the modern theory of intelligent design, now with new supplementary essays by scholars extending the work. This is very exciting for us because the three co-authors, biochemist Charles Thaxton, materials scientist Walter Bradley, and geochemist Roger Olsen, will all be on hand for a panel discussion. To Spark a Debate The new edition includes the…
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