Is the “Science” of Richard Dawkins Science Fiction?
Atheist Richard Dawkins is hopping mad at the makers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Dawkins accuses the filmmakers of “lying for Jesus” because they make it seem that he believes in intelligent design and space aliens. Dawkins is an outspoken critic of intelligent design (ID). In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins defined biology as “the study of complicated Read More ›
Intelligent Design
Detecting Design?
In The Design Inference (Cambridge, 1998), I argue that specified complexity is a reliable empirical marker of intelligent design. A long sequence of random letters is complex without being specified. A short sequence of letters like “the,” “so,” or “a” is specified without being complex. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified. Thus in general, given an event, object, Read More ›
The Fine-Tuning Design Argument
I. Introduction The Evidence of Fine-tuning1 Suppose we went on a mission to Mars, and found a domed structure in which everything was set up just right for life to exist. The temperature, for example, was set around 70o F and the humidity was at 50%; moreover, there was an oxygen recycling system, an energy gathering system, and a whole Read More ›
Fishing for votes
As any statistician knows, Vice President Al Gore’s plan to recount votes in Democratic-majority counties has been intrinsically unfair. During the last three weeks, Gore’s lawyers mounted a full-court press to force hand recounts in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. Most recently, they sought a court order to hand count some 10,000 ballots in Miami-Dade County that did not Read More ›