All posts by Wintery Knight

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Podcasts

Stephen C. Meyer debates Charles Marshall on the Cambrian explosion

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Here is a summary of recent podcast of Unbelievable between intelligent design proponent Stephen C. Meyer and UC Berkeley evolutionary biologist Charles Marshall. Dr. Marshall had previously reviewed Dr. Meyer’s new book “Darwin’s Doubt” in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal “Science”.

Details:

Stephen C Meyer is the world’s leading Intelligent Design proponent. His new book Darwin’s Doubt claims that the Cambrian fossil record, which saw an “explosion” of new life forms in a short space of time, is evidence for ID.

Evolutionary biologist Charles Marshall of the University of California, Berkeley has written a critical review of the book. He debates Meyer on whether Darwinian evolution can explain the diversity of life in the Cambrian rocks.

For Meyer & Darwin’s Doubt:
http://www.darwinsdoubt.com/

For Charles Marshall’s review:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6152/1344.1.full

Here’s the debate on YouTube:

The brief summary this time is not provided by me, it’s from Evolution News.

Excerpt:

This past weekend Britain’s Premier radio network broadcast a debate between Stephen Meyer and UC Berkeley paleontologist Charles Marshall, recorded at the beginning of November. As David Klinghoffer noted yesterday, the subject of the debate was Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt. Yes, that’s the same Charles Marshall who reviewed Darwin’s Doubt in Science back in September. See here for our multiple responses.

It was an excellent debate, with both participants offering important insights and good arguments, though in my opinion Meyer unquestionably had the better of it, especially concerning the key scientific question of the origin of the information necessary to build the Cambrian animals. Nevertheless, both parties came to the table ready to engage in serious, thoughtful, and civil discussion about the core issues raised in Darwin’s Doubt, and we commend Marshall not only for participating, but for focusing his critique of the book on the central scientific issues, something other critics have conspicuously failed to do.

The debate was consequently both constructive and civil. Both parties complimented, as well as critiqued, the work of the other. Marshall, for example, described the first third of Darwin’s Doubt — the section that discusses the Cambrian and Precambrian fossil record, Marshall’s own area of principle expertise — as “good scholarship.” He also said it “looks like good science” and that Meyer “writes well,” and that he (Marshall) “really enjoyed reading”Darwin’s Doubt. Meyer, for his, part expressed his admiration for Marshall’s many scientific papers in paleontology and noted that he had been looking forward to the conversation because he and Marshall clearly “shared a passion for the same subject,” despite their different perspectives. Of course, Marshall is not pro-ID and both men expressed spirited disagreements, but they did so in a mostly respectful way that made the debate all the more interesting and engaging to listen to.

I was very impressed with Dr. Marshall’s performance during the debate, although he did try to poison the well a bit against ID at the beginning, and he got nasty at the end. It’s amazing how Dr. Meyer was able to get him to stop it with the politics and get serious, just by sticking to the science. Even when Marshall got insulting at the end, it was still valuable to see how the other side has to abandon rational argument and scientific evidence once they see that they can’t win on the merits. It’s “Inherit the Wind” in reverse.

Evolution News also posted a more complete guide to the debate in this post, and I recommend that you read that post before listening to the debate if you are not familiar with the science.

This is a great debate, and you definitely ought to listen to it. I hope I’ve posted enough here to convince you. If you haven’t yet bought “Signature in the Cell” and “Darwin’s Doubt“, then I urge you to get them, although they are intermediate/advanced level books. The two books are the state of the art in intelligent design research, good enough to be debated with a University of California, Berkeley professor of biology.

News

Knight and Rose grade Trump’s Cabinet picks on the Freethinking podcast

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Desert Rose and I went on the Freethinking Ministries podcast to talk about Trump’s Cabinet picks. We talked about around a dozen of Trump’s Cabinet picks with host Josh Klein. Which ones will be confirmed? Which ones were home runs? Which ones were stinkers? Tune in to find out. And along the way, we  talked about why Christians should care about policy. See below for my notes.

Here’s the YouTube episode:

And if you like audio-only podcasts, you will find the episode here on Apple, here on Spotify, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts. These guys are a regular listen for me, because they are great on apologetics, and on policy. Which is uncommon.

Here are my notes with links to the articles that I read, to prepare to go on the show:

  • This Trump Pick Can Silently Strangle the Deep State (Daily Signal)
  • Trump taps longtime ally Kash Patel to lead FBI (New York Post)
  • 5 biggest FBI scandals during Christopher Wray’s tenure as director (Fox News)
  • Trump taps COVID-censored Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya to lead NIH (New York Post)
  • 5 revelations from the House COVID-19 report (Christian Post)
  • Trump names his picks for FDA, CDC and surgeon general (New York Post)
  • Trump Taps Champion of Free Speech, Biological Reality to Replace Woman at DOJ Who Jailed Pro-Lifers (Daily Signal)
  • Putting RFK Jr. in charge of health breaks the first rule of medicine (New York Post)
  • ‘Disgusting’: Nikki Haley Condemns Two Trump Cabinet Picks (Daily Caller)
  • Dr. Oz, Running For U.S. Senate As A Republican, Has A History Of Donating To Democrats (Daily Wire)
  • Trump Cabinet pick Dr. Janette Nesheiwat faces MAGA fury after COVID videos resurface (UK Daily Mail)
  • President Trump needs the full story on Penny Schwinn’s education history in TN (Robby Starbuck)

We talked about several other picks not discussed in these links, as well.

News

Biden issues last-minute pardons, confirming the guilt of his Democrat party allies

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Just hours before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, Joe Biden gave sweeping pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Army General Mark Milley, and members of the Democrat-run January 6 committee. These pardons offer convincing evindence that these individuals engaged in wrongdoing, and their acceptance of these pardons are evidence that they admit that they are guilty.

This article from The Federalist is by Beth Brelje, and she has a very direct headline: “Mentally Incompetent Biden Confirms Guilt Of J6 Committee, Fauci, Milley With Last-Minute Pardons”.

It says:

To be pardoned for a crime, there must be a crime. None of the people on this list have been charged for the awful ways they harmed people in their official capacities.

[…]As The Federalist’s Tristan Justice recently reported, during the hearings, “Cheney started coordinating with ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson using the encrypted Signal app to circumvent Hutchinson’s attorney, Stefan Passantino. Hutchinson suddenly went from a benign fact-witness without much to offer Jan. 6 investigators to the committee’s breakout star, offering outlandish testimony about then-President Trump attempting to violently hijack a vehicle from his Secret Service detail so he could personally riot at the Capitol.”

So which is it? Award-winning behavior, or a crime? She tampered with a witness and tainted the facts presented to the American people.

Sounds like a crime, and with this preemptive pardon, Biden proves he thinks so too — a crime vulnerable to investigation that would lead to charges. It could be no other reason.

What about Milley? What crime did he commit?

Milley was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was the top dog during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, which saw 13 soldiers die, hundreds of Americans stranded, and millions of dollars’ worth of military equipment abandoned.

Heads did not roll. Instead, the White House characterized the withdrawal as a success.

Under Milley’s leadership, the military went woke, embracing LGBTQ issues and placed racial equity above military readiness. Federalist writer Jordan Boyd reported in 2021 how, the day before the withdrawal, Milley was in a Senate a hearing explaining that he wanted to understand “white rage.”

The book, “Peril,” claimed that after Jan. 6, Milley called his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng, and allegedly told him the “American government is stable” and promised the U.S. would not attack and that the Chinese would be warned first.

With the last-minute pardon, Biden finally admits the withdrawal was a crime. But he robs the U.S. of the justice that comes from accountability. It is not surprising; Biden is good at bad exits, a BBC report said.

Another article from The Federalist, by Jordan Boyd, goes into the details on why Fauci needs a pardon:

The evidence overwhelming indicates Fauci played a large role in funding the Wuhan lab where the deadly virus originated and also worked overtime to subvert information about the viral leak that killed millions of people worldwide.

Biden’s pardon for Facui notably extends back to Jan. 1, 2014. It was around that same time that NIAID’s parent agency, the National Institutes of Health, claimed it ceased funding for the gain-of-function research (GOF) “involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses.” GOF involves extracting viruses from the wild and engineering them to infect humans to study potential therapeutics. Just three years later, GOF was eligible for taxpayer funding again.

Fauci not only supported GOF research of coronaviruses like Covid-19, but he also devoted taxpayer funding to it — specifically in the form of a $600,000 five-year annual grant through the EcoHealth Alliance for work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Then he lied about the research’s existence to Congress.

As early as February 2020, Fauci knew the signs of Covid-19’s creation and origin pointed to the Wuhan lab. He also knew from a 2020 Federalist article that masking was ineffective, flip-flopped on the importance of in-person schooling, nuked the herd immunity strategies in favor of deadly lockdowns, and pushed for a forced jab proven not to prevent infection.

Instead of informing Americans of these facts, Fauci colluded with federal government players like the CIA, the Department of State, and the Biden White House to downplay the truth about the virus. He also turned a blind eye when corporate media and Big Tech censors used their power in the public square to defame and deplatform those who dissented from the regime’s Covid response.

Fauci opted for ineffective and even harmful Covid-19 policies that made him and his agency millions. Shortly before the pandemic he became the highest-paid federal employee.

Biden’s pardon of Fauci may look like an obstacle to the justice he deserves, but it’s actually a gift in the form of an admission.

For one, Biden’s pardon does not protect Fauci from a reckoning in the form of state prosecutions. Nor does it prevent Congress from compelling Fauci to explain in detail his role in one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history.

Sen. Rand Paul, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, already vowed on Monday to continue Congress’s pursuit to “pierce the veil of deception.”

“If there was ever any doubt as to who bears responsibility for the COVID pandemic, Biden’s pardon of Fauci forever seals the deal,” he wrote on X.

What should we make of these pardons? These pardons make me think about the evangelicals for Biden, like David French and Russell Moore. These two clowns present themselves to others as pious and moral Christians. And they claim to care about morality. But now we know that they don’t care about morality at all. Or the rule of law. They just care about saying whatever they have to say to get the approval of secular left elites.