Science vs. Science
The Evolution Wars
The conference “Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe,” sponsored by the Wethersfield Institute, was held at the great hall of Cooper Union, in Manhattan. On the walls were photographs of presidents from Lincoln to Clinton in mid oration. The featured speakers on this occasion were less well known; Mike Behe, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer. All have been traveling Read More ›
Designed for Living
Does God exist? You can answer that question in at least two ways, including, notably, “yes.” But how do you argue for that particular answer? A new cottage industry among the religiously minded is the re-articulation of the so-called “cosmological argument” for the existence of God. Its proofs work backward. They start with visible creation and reason that it can Read More ›
Design & the Discriminating Public
Evolution has enormous purchase on the public imagination, and it’s easy to understand why. Just peek into the average living room where toddlers everywhere are sitting wide-eyed before videos like The Land Before Time series. This series offers nothing less than an excursion into evolution. Colorful one-celled organisms arise in a blue-green primeval ocean, where they “change again and again,” Read More ›
Intelligent Design Theory
In this scientific age, it is impossible to quarantine the claims of science. They invariably leak into other cultural domains. So we should attend to what scientists tell us. Sometimes it is quite important. For instance, in The Meaning of Evolution, George Gaylord Simpson repeats what is surely the “official” dogma of the contemporary scientific guild: “Man is the result Read More ›
Science and Design
En Español When the physics of Galileo and Newton displaced the physics of Aristotle, scientists tried to explain the world by discovering its deterministic natural laws. When the quantum physics of Bohr and Heisenberg in turn displaced the physics of Galileo and Newton, scientists realized they needed to supplement their deterministic natural laws by taking into account chance processes in Read More ›
Looking for God at Berkeley
http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2001-06-20/feature.html/page1.html A provocative theory called “intelligent design” claims evolution is hogwash. But it’s not the usual religious zealots leading the latest attack on Darwin. It’s scientists and professors at Cal. In a crumbling UC Berkeley research lab, Jed Macosko is looking for God. Macosko is a molecular biology researcher who holds chemistry degrees from Cal and MIT. As a Christian, Read More ›
Human Genome Map Has Scientists Talking About the Divine:
Aftershocks of the human genome announcement rippled through San Francisco all weekend as the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science brought thousands of thinkers here to mull the surprising fact that humans have only a few more genes than mice. But to my mind, the most memorable moment in these last few weeks of genetic Read More ›
Don’t take God out of the Classroom
On Valentine’s Day, 2001, the Kansas Board of Education voted to change the state’s science teaching standards to emphasize evolution and the Big Bang theory in the teaching of how life began on earth. The current board members have overturned a 1999 set of science standards that were passed by a more conservative board. The conservative board, in an effort Read More ›