Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Intelligent Design Revisited




(Torrey Pines Park, Del Mar, California)

Obviously I've not much to do tonight since I'm power-surfing the Internet for whatever.

One site I visited is pandasthumb.org. I haven't been there in years. Not much seems to have changed. When a serious scientific post is made few people comment, since few people can understand enough to intelligently respond. (This usually excludes me, too.) But when the creation-bashing begins, and "creationism" is once again equated with Intelligent Design Theory, the ad hominems are unleashed. I find this boring, and at times funny. (Note: if some panda's thumb lover somehow happens to read this I and all my descendents will be labeled as the most ignorant persons ever to come out of Finland.)

I revisited William Dembski's uncommondescent.com. I'm glad I dropped in, since I got connected with yet two more books that I would love to read. (Note: the same ad hominen stuff happens here, too, esp. in the comments. My theory is this: character assassination is in inverse proportion to scientific knowledge.)

Book # 1 is: The Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science, by Bruce Gordon and William Demski. Here's the book description:

" Unmatched in its breadth and scope, The Nature of Nature brings together some of the most influential scientists, scholars, and public intellectuals—including three Nobel laureates—across a wide spectrum of disciplines and schools of thought. Here they grapple with a perennial question that has been made all the more pressing by recent advances in the natural sciences: Is the fundamental explanatory principle of the universe, life, and self-conscious awareness to be found in inanimate matter or immaterial mind? The answers found in this book have profound implications for what it means to do science, what it means to be human, and what the future holds for all of us."

I am hugely interested in this question.

Book #2 - Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design , by Oxford Ph.D Stephen Meyer. A website for this book can be found here. Yes, I am still very interested in ID theory. And yes, I remain very interested in the things Francis Collins and Kenneth Miller et. al. are writing.