Tag Archives: Darwinian Evolution

Videos

Video of Johnson-Provine debate on evolution vs physical evidence

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In 1994, when this debate was held, intelligent design was still pretty new. This debate, more than any other resource, clarified what was at stake in the debate over origins.

Provine makes clear what follows from the truth of evolution: no free will, no objective standard of good and evil, no life after death, no meaning in life. Johnson argues that the Cambrian explosion disproves Darwinian evolution, and the only reason why Darwinian evolution is widely-accepted is because materialism is pre-supposed.

If materialism is pre-supposed, then only atheistic answers to the origins question are allowed, so naturally Darwinism wins – it has to win once you make a philosophical assumption that matter is all there is. (An assumption contradicted by the big bang theory, which requires the creation of all matter from nothing.

Here’s a summary of the debate:

Debate before an audience between two professors on the naturalistic vs. the theistic way of understanding human existence.

William Provine, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University, cites evidence supporting neo-Darwinian theory and argues that microevolutionary processes account for the origin of all life. He asserts that modern evolutionary theory is incompatible with belief in God; that there are no absolute moral and ethical laws; that free will does not exist; and that human character is merely a result of heredity and environment.

Phillip Johnson, Professor of Law at the University of California in Berkeley, agrees that modern neo-Darwinian theory is atheistic and scientific; however, as a general theory it is a philosophical dogma that is inconsistent with the evidence.

Provine and Johnson debate basic questions: Do we owe our existence to a creator? Can the blind watchmaker of natural selection take the place of God? Moderator is Timothy Jackson, Dept. of Religious Studies, Stanford University.

And here’s a couple of clips from the opening. (H/T Uncommon Descent via ECM)

The rest are  linked here.

This is very much worth watching, especially for atheists who typically are not aware that evolution rests on a philsophical assumption that is assumed, and that contradicts astrophysics. That has to stop. And the best way to stop it is by calling it out into the open using debates like this one.

For those of you behind a firewall, here are text excerpts.

And don’t forget about my recent post about the role of pre-suppositions like the pre-supposition of naturalism in historical Jesus research. The post contains debates where this is actually discussed as well.

Podcasts

William Dembski discusses new peer-reviewed paper on intelligent design

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The paper talks about how to measure the amount of information required by evolutionary algorithms in order for them to work. The paper describes accounting processes for measuring where information is put into evolutionary algorithms, so that it becomes clear how much information is needed up front. The paper shows that the information present in evolutionary algorithms does not emerge as a result of evolutionary algorithms – the “active information” has to be put into the process at different points for the process to work.

The paper:

“Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success,” published in IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics A, Systems & Humans.

The MP3 file for Part 1 is here.

Part 1 Topics:

  • about the IEEE, the publisher of the paper Dembski and Marks
  • the search problem and evolutionary algorithms
  • the concept of “active information”
  • blind search versus targeted searches
  • No Free Lunch theorems
  • Conservation of information
  • Responding to an objection: is Darwinism analogous to the search problem?
  • does evolution have mathematical underpinnings?

The MP3 file for Part 2 is here.

Part 2 Topics:

  • fitness functions and fitness landscape
  • constraints as information
  • does the paper support intelligent design?
  • how have critics responded to this paper?

You can read the entire paper for free here.

Videos

BloggingHeadsTV restores censored video interview of Michael Behe

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You can watch the video here, where Michael Behe is interviewed on a variety of topics by an atheist, who is nevertheless impressed by Behe’s book.

Topics:

  • Michael’s book, “The Edge of Evolution” (04:29)
  • Malaria and evolution (06:56)
  • Do proteins point to teleology? (05:59)
  • Have we really hit a wall of understanding? (04:08)
  • Challenges to Michael’s theory of irreducible complexity (05:28)
  • John: The boredom objection to intelligent design (09:13)

Here is Robert Wright’s comment about the restoration of the interview:

This diavlog has now been re-posted. The decision to remove it from the site was made by BhTV staff while I was away and unavailable for consultation…. It’s impossible to say for sure whether, in the heat of the moment, I would have made a decision different from the staff’s decision. But on reflection I’ve decided that removing this particular diavlog from the site is hard to justify by any general principle that should govern our future conduct. In other words, it’s not a precedent I’d want to live with.

Kick off the audio, (or download the MP3), and then read the comments of the Darwinists.

Comments from open-minded, tolerant Darwinists

Many of the commenters don’t mention the interview at all – they didn’t watch it.

Here’s one comment:

I’ve listened to a few seconds of this diavlog, enough to hear John McWhorter call Behe’s nonsense “a very important book.” I can’t remember the last time I lost so much respect for someone so quickly.

And another:

Grab the popcorn: this is bound to be a good thread. (Doubtful I’ll actually watch the diavlog.)

And one last one:

If this creationism thing keeps up no one will want to be on bhtv anymore. A spinoff site is better than no site for us regular viewers. Who’s with me?

Who can have any confidence in a theory when the adherents cannot even be bothered to listen to a tenured biochemist explain his own research which contradicts that theory?