02Feb 2024 by Post

Artificial General Intelligence: Machines vs. Organisms

Accelerating Change Conference, algorithm, An Idol for Destruction (series), Are We Spiritual Machines?, artificial general intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, brain, ChatGPT, Chinese, Chinese Room argument, computers, consciousness, COSM, Culture & Ethics, endogenous activity, George Gilder, Gottfried Leibniz, Jay Richards, John Searle, John Smart, jumbo jet, machines, Marvin Minsky, Mastery (book), Michael Denton, Monadology, Moore’s law, Neuroscience & Mind, organisms, Ray Kurzweil, Robert Greene, Stanford University, Telecosm, The Age of Intelligent Machines, The Age of Spiritual Machines, Thomas Ray, Turing Machine, Venice
It may seem that I’m picking too much on Ray Kurzweil. But he and I have been crossing paths for a long time. Source
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26Mar 2021 by Post

What’s Wrong with Calling Intelligent Design “Anti-Evolution”?

Annual Review of Anthropology, anti-evolution, anti-science, Arkansas, common ancestor, creationism, dialogue, Eugenie Scott, Evolution, Intelligent Design, National Center for Science Education, natural selection, organisms, Paul Nelson, rhetoric, Stanley Weinberg, The American Biology Teacher
The term “anti-evolution” has been used for decades, over and over, by untold numbers of defenders of Darwin and critics of the theory of intelligent design. Source
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21Feb 2020 by Post

I Disagree with David Klinghoffer, But It’s My Fault for the Confusion

Against Method, arthropods, Brian Charlesworth, Cambrian Explosion, Charles Darwin, chordate, David Klinghoffer, Deborah Charlesworth, Douglas Futuyma, Evolution, Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, Galápagos Islands, history, Intelligent Design, Jerry Coyne, Macroevolution, molluscan, natural selection, neo-Darwinian synthesis, Nicholas Barton, organisms, origin of life, Paul Feyerabend, William Paley
In a post yesterday, David Klinghoffer cited my comments in a recent podcast and described his own view that intelligent design could be considered as a theory of evolution, making the point that intelligent design tries to explain the innovations that happened in the history of life (e.g., the origin of life itself, the burst of complexity during the Cambrian explosion, etc.). I’d describe the situation a little differently. Evolution is an implication — that is, an empirical consequence — of design. Design is the more general (i.e., comprehensive) idea, and the well-understood phenomena usually designated as “evolution” are in fact consequences of designed systems undergoing or responding to perturbation. If anything, then, it would be more accurate to say that “evolution is a sub-theory of design,” no matter how…
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