21Feb 2025 by Post

Dawkins and Picard Win This Year’s Trotter Prize

affective computing, American Humanist Association, C.S. Lewis, Charlie Townes, clash, Culture & Ethics, Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, debates, Denis Noble, Denyse O'Leary, Faith & Science, Francis Collins, Francis Crick, Ide P. Trotter Sr., Intelligent Design, James Shapiro, Mendelian genetics, Micah Green, Michael Egnor, Miracles (book), MIT, Old Testament, qualia, Richard Dawkins, Roger Penrose, Rosalind Picard, Rudder Theatre, Santa Fe, Simon Conway Morris, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Steven Weinberg, Stuart Kauffman, Texas A&M University, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Blind Watchmaker, The End of Christianity, The Third Way of Evolution, Trotter Prize, Tufts University, violence, Zeitgeist
A reflection on the 2025 Trotter Prize Lecture delivered by Oxford's Richard Dawkins and MIT's Rosalind Picard. Source
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31Oct 2024 by Post

What Science Owes to Faith, Hope, and Love

beauty, Edwin Chargaff, empirical data, empiricism, Evolution, explanatory scope, Faith & Science, faith and science, germ theory, John Williams Draper, knowing, Paul Dirac, philosophy, physical world, predictiveness, scientific theories, scientism, Secularism, Steven Weinberg, testability, truth, Warfare Myth, water
It's a stretch to say that our ability to do realist science arose from a mindless process of evolution. Source
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02Apr 2024 by Post

My Dinner with Steven and Louise Weinberg

Atheism, atheists, attorney, Austin, Baylor University, Christianity, Faith & Science, faith and science, Intelligent Design, Jesus, Law, law professor, Louise Weinberg, naturalism, Nobel Prize, Phillip E. Johnson, physicists, physics, Physics, Earth & Space, scripture, Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes, The Nature of Nature, theism, theists, University of Texas, Waco
Weinberg was holding court, going on about how much he knew about the origin of the universe and how atheism was the only intellectually viable option. Source
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17Aug 2023 by Post

Comparing Design Evidence in Physics Versus Biology — Is One Stronger than the Other?

Aaron Zimmer, Atheism, atheists, Big Bang, biology, cosmological constant, Darwinian theory, Elie Feder, Evolution, evolutionary history, fine-tuning, fossils, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, life forms, mathematics, multiverse, Paul Nelson, physical constants, physicists, physics, Physics to God, Physics, Earth & Space, Podcast, Return of the God Hypothesis, Stephen Meyer, Steven Weinberg, unguided processes, universe
The multiverse is nakedly an attempt to save atheism from science. Darwinian theory is less nakedly so. Source
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19Aug 2021 by Post

Meyer in the Jerusalem Post: Farewell to the Purposeless Cosmos

Africans, atheists, causal circularity, Charles Murray, computer code, DNA, Douglas Murray, faith, Faith & Science, First Cause, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Jerusalem Post, Jordan Peterson, molecular machines, New Atheists, New New Atheists, Phil Torres, Privileged Planet, Return of the God Hypothesis, South Africa, Stephen Meyer, Steven Weinberg, supernatural, Tom Holland
From living in South Africa for more than four years, I got a good sense of African perspectives on atheism. Source
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11Dec 2019 by Post

Are the Laws of the Universe “Inevitable”?

Adam Falkowski, Albert Einstein, beauty of nature, Big Bang, black holes, CEA Saclay, Daniel Baumann, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Laurentiu Rodina, laws of the universe, mathematics, metric tensor, Natalie Wolchover, Nobel Prize, Paul Dirac, physics, Physics, Earth & Space, Quanta Magazine, quantum mechanics, Shakespearean sonnet, Sistine Chapel, Steven Weinberg, theory of gravity, University of Amsterdam
Natalie Wolchover at Quanta Magazine has a thoughtful but misguided essay on the “inevitability” of the laws of nature. She writes: Compared to the unsolved mysteries of the universe, far less gets said about one of the most profound facts to have crystallized in physics over the past half-century: To an astonishing degree, nature is the way it is because it couldn’t be any different. “There’s just no freedom in the laws of physics that we have,” said Daniel Baumann, a theoretical physicist at the University of Amsterdam. She cites Baumann to describe the incredible interlocked intricacy of physical laws: [L]aws essentially dictate one another through their mutual consistency — that nature “pulls itself up by its own bootstraps.” The idea turns out to explain a huge amount about the universe.…
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