Darwin’s Rhetorical Foundation of Sand: Theological Utilitarianism
Conversations with William Dembski — The Thesis of Being as Communion
In this video Dr. William Dembski describes the central thesis of his new book Being as Communion. Dembski proposes that the fundamental “stuff” of this universe is information, not matter. Listen to Dembski discuss the nature of reality, relational ontology, the creation of information, and more. Being as Communion is a title that I came up with as I was Read More ›
The Metaphysics of Evolution
I was about fifteen when I began to think about evolution. I was then just discovering the sciences systematically, and took them as what they offered themselves to be, a realm of reason and dispassionate regard for truth. There was a hard-edged clarity to them that I liked. You got real answers. Since evolution depended on such sciences as chemistry, Read More ›
Realism Regained
In this technical philosophical treatise, Discovery Institute Fellow Robert C. Koons investigates an innovative philosophy of mind. Koons takes on two powerful dogmas in this wide-ranging philosophical work: anti-realism and materialism. In doing so, Koons develops an elegant metaphysical system that accounts for such phenomena as information; mental representation; our knowledge of logic, mathematics and science; the structure of spacetime; Read More ›
Defeasible Reasoning, Special Pleading and the Cosmological Argument
Introduction The cosmological argument for God’s existence has a long history, but perhaps the most enduring version of it has been the argument from contingency. This is the version that Frederick Copleston pressed upon Bertrand Russell in their debate about God’s existence in 1948. In 1997 (“A New Look at the Cosmological Argument, American Philosophical Quarterly 34:193-212), I noted that Read More ›
Metaphysics Matters
In his influential book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins asserts that “Like successful Chicago gangsters our genes have survived . . . in a highly competitive world, . . . [and so] a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness.” Therefore, “We are survival machines-robot vehicles programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” Read More ›