Intelligent Design Is Not Just for Conservatives

1619 Project, Anglo-Saxons, Big Book, Cambridge University Press, Charles Darwin, Charles Kingsley, cisnormative, conservative Christians, conservatives, Darwin’s Bluff, David Berlinski, David Moulton, Discovery Institute, Dover Area School District, Ernst Mayr, Evolution, Evolution’s Rainbow, Francis Crick, George Gaylord Simpson, H.M.S. Beagle, Holly Dunsworth, Human Genetics and Genomics Advances, Intelligent Design, J.B.S. Haldane, Joan Roughgarden, Leif Jensen, liberalism, liberals, Michael Behe, Michael Denton, Nikole-Hannah Jones, orchids, Origin of Species, pseudoscience, Sewell Wright, Stephen Meyer, The Mystery of Evolutionary Mechanisms, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Thomas Nagel
After a decade of immersing myself in Darwin studies, evolutionary theory, and intelligent design, I find myself unexpectedly supportive of the iD position. Source
Read More

Darwin Devotion Detector: Take the Test Now

adaptation, atheists, Charles Darwin, chimpanzee, common descent, Darwin Day, Darwin Devotion Detector, eugenics, Evolution, free will, genes, Germany, humanzee, Intelligent Design, J.B.S. Haldane, Jane Austen, Judge John E. Jones, Kitzmiller v. Dover, Kolkata, Love, Meaning, meme theory, natural selection, population growth, purpose, rape, Richard Dawkins, secular saint, United States, value
A tongue-in-cheek questionnaire that nonetheless provides real insight into the extent to which Darwinian ideas have captured our thinking. Source
Read More

New Mode of Flight Found in Tiny Beetle

Adrian Malone, barbs, beetles, biology, bird feathers, Blepharida sacra, Charles Darwin, Chloe Tenn, Coleoptera, convergent evolution, electron micrograph, Evolution, flat bark beetle, flea beetle, Flight, froghoppers, insect wings, Intelligent Design, J.B.S. Haldane, Japan, larvae, Longitarsus anchusae, Matthew Bertone, miniaturization, Nature (journal), PLOS ONE, ptiloptery, Research, Sergey E. Farisenkov, The Scientist, Zookeys
A millimeter-sized beetle flies efficiently with feathery wings and a beat mode not seen before. Did it evolve by natural selection? Source
Read More

C. S. Lewis and Critical Reactions to Transhumanism

Artificial Intelligence, Big Brother, biotechnology, C.S. Lewis, cognitive performance, Culture & Ethics, Francis Fukuyama, genetic engineering, George Bernard Shaw, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, history, J. D. Bernal, J.B.S. Haldane, life-extension strategies, Olaf Stapledon, pharmaceutical enhancements, posthuman, regenerative medicine, Silicon Valley, Singularity University, That Hideous Strength, The Abolition of Man, transhumanism
I will briefly review two prominent voices in the opposition camp who reflect concerns at the heart of C. S. Lewis’s own case. Source
Read More

C. S. Lewis, Science, and Science Fiction

Arthur C. Clarke, Back to Methuselah, C.H. Waddington, C.S. Lewis, Childhood’s End, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, eugenics, Evolution, Francis Galton, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, J.B.S. Haldane, Olaf Stapledon, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, Possible Worlds, Science & Ethics, science fiction, scientism, Star Maker, Tao, Technology, That Hideous Strength, The Abolition of Man, the Flesh and the Devil, The Shape of Things to Come, The Social Function of Science, The World
Was C. S. Lewis an enemy of science? The apparent answer to this question is no. Source
Read More

That Hideous Strength — C. S. Lewis’s Fantasia of Consciousness at 75

A.D. Nuttall, Abraham Lincoln, Aldous Huxley, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, Brave New World, Burke, C. P. Snow, Clarence Darrow, Culture & Ethics, Dante, Darwinian theory, David Hume, Deborah Blum, Dickens, Dr. Faustus, E. A. Burtt, Emma Goldman, Evgeny Zamyatin, F. R. Leavis, Frederick Douglass, Friedrich Nietzsche, From Darwin to Hitler, Fyodor Dostoevsky, G. E. M. Anscombe, G. K. Chesterton, Ghost Hunters, Gulag Archipelago, H. L. Mencken, J. D. Bernal, J.B.S. Haldane, Jacques Maritain, Jane Austen, John Dewey, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Leszek Kolakowski, Logical Positivists, Lord Acton, Malcolm Muggeridge, Marquis de Sade, Marxists, Max Stirner, metaphysical fiction, Michael Polanyi, Msgr. R.H. Benson, National Institute of Coordinated Experiments, Petrarch, Pierre Duhem, Richard III, Samuel Johnson, Social Darwinism, space-fiction, St. Francis of Assisi, Stanley L. Jaki, Superman, T.S. Eliot, That Hideous Strength, The Alienation of Reason, The Intellectuals and the Masses, The Man Who Was Thursday, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science, The Odyssey, Thomas Carlyle, William Jennings Bryan, William Shakespeare, Yuval Harari
The novel is a narrative, fictional version of a philosophical anatomy of the satanic dimension and implication of much modern history from 1914 onwards. Source
Read More

Darwin’s Desperation?

"survival of the fittest", appendix, beards, BioEssays, Brois Yeltsin, California Science Center, cell's, censorship, chimpanzees, choking, Christians, Communist Party, conferences, Current Biology, Darwin Devolves, Darwinian theory, Dave Speijer, Dover trial, dysteleology, epiglottis, Evolution, Glenn-Peter Sætre, Heretic, Intelligent Design, J.B.S. Haldane, Judge John E. Jones, Kremlin, lip-smacking, Matti Leisola, methodological naturalism, Michael Behe, Norway, peasants, Richard Dawkins, Richard Sternberg, Social media, speech, Stephen Jay Gould, Summers Seminars, Uncommon Descent, University of Oslo
They used to just ignore us. That worked for many years. Rare appearances of the loathsome words “intelligent design” in scientific journals were quickly squashed, as Richard Sternberg can attest. Occasional payouts to avoid lawsuits, like at the California Science Center, could be dismissed as inconvenient hush money, quickly settled and ignored by the press.  Meanwhile, Darwinism marched on, confident and triumphant. Largely unimpeded by any need for debate, evolutionary biologists and psychologists, safe in the accepted custom of methodological naturalism, could spin their just-so stories without fear of contradiction. The media were willing accomplices, keeping the public submissive and quiet, satisfied with the daily illusions pouring forth from the ministry of truth. See how wonderful, elegant, and powerful Darwin’s theory is at explaining everything — from human speech evolving…
Read More