This episode of ID the Future is 17 minutes long. It’s the third in a series – here are parts one and two.
Details:
On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin and Stephen Meyer finish up their talk with a discussion of why intelligent design presents the best explanation for the Cambrian explosion.
Special limited time offer: Save 43% and get 4 free digital books when you pre-order Darwin’s Doubt.
What sort of reasoning did Darwin use in The Origin of Species?
Can this method of “inference to the best explanation” be applied to the Cambrian explosion
The importance of appealing to causes that we have experienced ourselves
Example: explaining from an effect (volcanic ash) to a cause that his adequate (volcanic eruption)
We have experience of how volcanoes cause the ash, so we should infer based on what we know
In the case where the effect is information in biology, we see that naturalistic mechanisms are inadequate
But we know from our own experience that intelligent agents can generate information
Many people think that science must confine itself to materialistic explanations
If so, then it is possible miss out on the true explanation by ruling it out before looking at evidence
If you haven’t yet read Meyer’s first book, “Signature in the Cell”, you should probably grab that one. It’s the best book on intelligent design that’s out right now. It talks about the origin of the first living cell, surveying all naturalistic explanations for it, and concluding that the best explanation – the one most consistent with what we know now – is intelligent design.
Nearly nine out of ten babies born to co-habiting parents this year will have seen their family break up by the time they reach the age of 16, says a study.
Half of all children born this year will not be living with both natural parents when they reach their mid-teens, and almost all those who suffer family breakdown will be the children of unmarried parents, added the report.
The study, based on figures from the national census and large-scale academic surveys, extrapolates from current trends and calculates that just 9 per cent of babies born to cohabiting couples today will still have their parents living together by the time they are 16.
The report adds that the declining popularity of marriage and the rise of co-habitation will damage the lives of increasing numbers of children.
The figures were produced by researcher Harry Benson, of the Marriage Foundation think tank, who said: ‘The report provides solid evidence that married parents are more stable than unmarried parents.
‘The contrast between married and unmarried parents who remain intact by the time their children reach their teenage years demonstrates that marital status plays a crucial role in family breakdown.
‘With family breakdown costing an estimated £46 billion a year – more than the entire defence budget – in addition to the immeasurable social damage, it is clearly in the interest of the Government and the taxpayer to work to counter this devastating trend.’
Terrorism returned to the streets of Britain yesterday when a soldier was murdered by two suspected Islamists who attempted to behead and disembowel him as he left a barracks, in the first deadly attack since the 2005 London bombings.
One of the suspected killers, who addressed an onlooker who had a camera, said the pair had carried out the attack “because David Cameron, [the] British government sent troops in Arabic country”.
As pedestrians stood close by the armed men, he went on: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,” according to footage obtained by ITV News .
The Independent understands the dead soldier – who was wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt – was a member of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, which is currently based overseas. He was ambushed by the men as he left the base in Woolwich, south-east London, who attacked him and then dragged his body into the middle of the road to pose for photographs while standing over him waving a cleaver and a gun, according to witnesses.
[…]One witness, identified only as James, said he and his partner saw two black men attack a young man aged about 20 with kitchen knives like he was “a piece of meat”.
“They were hacking at this poor guy, literally,” he told LBC Radio, adding that a group of brave women tried to shield the soldier from the two men.
“They were hacking at him, chopping him, cutting him. These two guys were crazed. They were just animals. They dragged him from the pavement and dumped his body in the middle of the road and left his body there.”
Two attackers armed with meat cleavers filmed their deadly assault on a man in London, according to Sky sources.
A man reported to be a serving soldier died and two people have been shot in Woolwich, after what Sky sources understand is being treated as a terrorist attack.
Senior Whitehall sources said the two attackers asked passers-by to film them, and they shouted “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is great).
In footage that has emerged, one of the attackers wields a bloodied meat cleaver and says: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.”
The black man, dressed in a grey hooded jacket and black woolly hat, apologises to members of the public who witnessed the horrific scenes before making a number of political statements.
In the footage, he is heard to say: “We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
“I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe.
“Remove your government, they don’t care about you.”
Witnesses also described seeing the “crazed” Woolwich attackers “hacking” at their victim and posing for pictures before charging at police wielding meat cleavers.
Here’s a still shot of one the murderers at the scene:
Islamic terrorist on camera: how will the liberal media spin this?
If this happened in the United States, I have no doubt that the fools on the secular left would be blaming this on the Tea Party conservatives and evangelical Christians. I have no doubt that the Democrats in the Obama administration will look at the video and the still images of the murderer and come away thinking that a crackdown on evangelical Christians who are pro-life and believe in limited government is needed. In addition to going after Bible-believing Christians, they would probably want to double welfare payments for people who are in the country illegally.
One other point. A lot of very stupid secularists see stories like this and then have the view that there is something wrong with certainty and conviction in religion. There is nothing wrong with certainty and conviction in religion provided that the religion is not Islam. I have a friend who is a Christian who is very firm in her convictions and she carried groceries Wednesday to an atheist who was sick and on crutches. She is very convinced about the truth of her beliefs and acted on them. Being certain of your views and acting on them is fine as long as the views are rooted in truth.
WINTERY KNIGHT 