Life Without a Net
Intelligent design
Are Evolution and Intelligent Design Compatible?
Many “agnostics” suggest that elements of Intelligent Design are compatible with Evolution. Why isn’t it possible that there’s both a god who created life AND evolution via natural selection? This question represents a misunderstanding of evolution. Evolution is dependent on *non-intelligent* selection. That’s literally the whole point. All the predictions made by evolutionary theory rely … Continue reading
Noted Cosmologist Kirk Cameron Demolishes Hawking
Child actor phenomenon and world-renowned theoretical physicist Kirk Cameron has unleashed a scathing scientific rebuttal to amateur astronomer and known crank Stephen Hawking’s bald-faced assertion that heaven is a “fairy story for people afraid of the dark. Said Cameron, “To say anything negative about Stephen Hawking is like bullying a blind man. He has an unfair … Continue reading
Is Intelligent Design Biased?
One of the foundations of the scientific method is that it provides for replication regardless of prior conviction. That is, if ten people perform the same experiment in the same way, they will achieve the same results regardless of what they expected the results to be. In fact, this is one of the things that … Continue reading
Evolution is Dumb. Therefore, It’s True
In talking with Intelligent Design hucksters, I’m often surprised that they don’t understand a simple truth about nature. If our world was designed by a conscious creator, the creator is astoundingly dumb. I’m especially surprised when Christians espouse ID. Their god’s claims at omnipotence seem a bit… haughty… when its design models can’t even pass … Continue reading
The Real Crocoduck and Design
This is Tiktaalik. It was discovered by Neil Shubin and several of his colleagues, who had been looking for it for over a decade. In many ways, Tiktaalik is the scientific equivalent of the Crocoduck. It really is a transition between two modern forms of life — fish and amphibians. The details of Tiktaalik‘s “transitional nature” are very interesting, … Continue reading
Intelligent Design? Not Really
If life has been designed so intelligently, why does our design give so many indications of being unintelligent? What do I mean by that? When we look at things that have been designed intelligently, we see a number of characteristics: efficiency, specificity, foresight, etc. Good engineers design things that accomplish their purpose directly, with as … Continue reading
PZ Myer’s on Intelligent Design
This parable is one of the most brilliant refutations of Intelligent Design — and of the whole god argument — that I’ve ever read. Here’s an excerpt: Once upon a time, four blind men were walking in the forest, and they bumped into an elephant. Moe was in front, and found himself holding the trunk. … Continue reading
Intelligent Design is Worse than Ignorance
Christians will often say, “The universe cannot possibly have been created in exactly this way without intelligent design.” The most common way to refute this is to trot out the anthropic principle, which essentially points out that our existence only proves that our existence is possible. For whatever reason, this refutation, though perfectly sound, seems … Continue reading
Design and Transitional Fossils
This is Tiktaalik. It was discovered by Neil Shubin and several of his colleagues, who had been looking for it for over a decade. In many ways, Tiktaalik is the scientific equivalent of the Crocoduck. It really is a transition between two modern forms of life — fish and amphibians. The details of Tiktaalik‘s “transitional … Continue reading
Whoops! Another Nail in the ID Coffin
We all knew it was just a matter of time, right? For years now, one of the last strongholds of Intelligent Design proponents has been science’s inability to explain how RNA came to exist in the first place. IDers have held to the final “irreducible complexity” argument. RNA itself must have been created by an … Continue reading
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