The thing to be explained by Darwinism (in addition to the origin of life) is how can you get new, different body plans and organ types by the mechanisms of mutation and selection. Everyone admits that you can get cases where animal A mutates in a small way so that it can no longer breed with animal B. That is speciation of a sort, because the animals can no longer breed. But the real question is whether we can generate species with different body plans using these naturalistic Darwinian mechanisms of mutation and selection.
Here are two podcasts featuring Casey Luskin that discuss how much morphological change has really been observed according to research.
On this episode of ID The Future, Casey Luskin discusses Talk Origins, a resource often used by supporters of Darwinian evolution to refute arguments made by proponents of intelligent design. After taking a closer look, Luskin found FAQs on Talk Origins guilty of citation bluffing, overstated claims, and other misleading tactics. In particular, the Talk Origins FAQ on speciation claims to provide evidence of “observed instances” of new species. On further review, this turns out to be far from the case. Tune in to Luskin as he explains why.
On this episode of ID The Future, Casey Luskin continues his discussion about Talk Origins, a resource often used by supporters of Darwinian evolution to refute arguments made by proponents of intelligent design. After taking a closer look, Luskin found FAQs onTalk Origins guilty of citation bluffing, overstated claims, and other misleading tactics. In particular, the Talk Origins FAQ on speciation claims to provide evidence of “observed instances” of new species. On further review, this turns out to be far from the case. Tune in to Luskin as he explains why in this conclusion to a two-part series.
Basically, he takes a look at the details of cases of “speciation” claimed in the Talk Origins FAQ, and finds that the changes are minor changes, and not changes in morphology. This is not the change that we are looking for to support the hypothesis of macro-evolution. In order to become Darwinists, we need to observe change driven by mutations that leads to changes in body plans. And the mutations have to be heritable.
Highly recommended. You’ve got to love the directness of Casey Luskin explaining what needs to be proved and what has been proved. By the way, here is a more detailed written assessment of speciation claims of the Darwinists.
The Michael Medved show is a national radio show broadcast out of Seattle, Washington. According to Talkers magazine, he has the fifth largest radio audience. He has a regular weekly segment on science and culture featuring scholars from the Discovery Institute.
Here is the segment from this past week, courtesy of the Intelligent Design: The Future podcast.
On this episode of ID the Future, Dr. Jay Richards appears on the Michael Medved Show to discuss the meaning of academic freedom and the importance of teaching both sides of debated issues. Listen in as Richards and Medved look at intimidation in academia and the current efforts to censor Professor Eric Hedin at Ball State University.
URGENT: Please consider signing our petition to defend the academic freedom of Professor Eric Hedin. To sign, visit www.academicfreedompetition.com.
Each week, leading fellows from Discovery Institute will join Michael Medved to talk about the intersection of science and culture. Listen in live online or on your local Medved station, or stay tuned at ID the Future for the weekly podcast.
Topics:
Medved: Why is a group of activists trying to challenge the hiring of Guillermo Gonzalez at Ball State University?
Richards: When Guillermo was at Iowa State University, he was the best or second-best published assistant professor
Richards: A rabid atheist professor of religion blocked his tenure because of his views on intelligent design
Richards: Guillermo never mentioned intelligent design in class
Richards: Militant Darwinian fundamentalist Jerry Coyne is trying to block Ball State from hiring Guillermo
Medved: Eric Hedin, another professor at Ball State, is facing persecution for teaching both sides of evolution
Medved: Tell us about the book “The Privileged Planet” that got him into trouble
Richards: The book is about how the progress of science shows that habitable planets have to be fine-tuned
Richards: The book argues that there is a correlation between habitability and the ability to make scientific discoveries
Medved: Your book “Money Greed and God” talks about materialism has impacted economics as well
Richards: It’s problematic to assume materialism when studying economics and neglect human creativity
Medved: Why don’t intelligent design people just focus on religion, instead of trying to get into the science classroom?
Richards: Darwin himself was trying to argue against design, so the evidence for design is part of the debate
Caller1: There are many galaxies, solar systems and planets in the universe, so the odds are good of getting life by chance
Richards: There are 10 to the 22 stars in the visible so we have an idea of the probabilistic resources available
Richards: There are a lot of things that you need to get right in order to support life – the odds are less than 10 to the 22
Caller1: Why can’t just teach about astrophysics and astrobiology in a religion or history class?
Richards: Because the evidence for design is found in things like bacterial flagellums and the origin of life
Richards: Since evidence for design is scientific, it makes no sense to talk about it in a history or religion class
Caller2: Intelligent design argues that we are too complicated, but then the Designer must be even more complicated
Richards: Consider a situation where a murder has been committed, but the murder suspect has fled the country
Richards: Are we not allowed to infer that an agent murdered the victim if we can’t produce the murderer?
Caller2: But inferring that an intelligence is the cause of some effect means that you stop asking questions
Medved: Why is it so hard for you to accept
Caller2: I’m an atheist and I like the Big Bang theory, and it explains where matter came from
Medved: The Big Bang theory explains the origin of space and time from nothing: that’s not atheism, that’s theism
Caller3: Intelligent design theory is nothing but a fear of randomness in the universe
Richards: The arguments for intelligent design are based on discoveries abut the origin of life or the Cambrian explosion
Richards: The real question is whether materialistic mechanisms and random chance can explain the evidence
Caller4: Explain your idea that habitability is corelated with the ability to make discoveries
Richards: Example: in order to have perfect solar eclipses, the masses of the Sun, moon and planet have to be fine-tuned
Richards: Example: life-permitting atmosphere is also a transparent atmosphere, so we can see past it to make discoveries
Richards: Example: galactic habitable zone is also the best place to do astronomy and make discoveries
By the way, there was a troubling update about the Darwish Inquisition against Eric Hedin – it looks like the panel of investigators is stacked with close-minded naturalists.
I subscribe to the ID the Future podcast, and I really recommend that you do as well!
Apologetics 315 posted the video of a debate from the Reasonable Faith speaking tour in the UK:
This is a must-see debate. It was extremely fun to watch.
Details:
On Wednesday 26th October 2011 William Lane Craig debated Peter Atkins on the topic: Does God Exist? This debate took place at the University of Manchester as part of the UK Reasonable Faith Tour with William Lane Craig. The debate was chaired by Christopher Whitehead, Head of Chemistry School at the University. Post-debate discussion was moderated by Peter S Williams, Philosopher in Residence at the Damaris Trust, UK.
Dr. William Lane Craig:
William Lane Craig (born August 23, 1949) is an American analytic philosopher, philosophical theologian, and Christian apologist. He is known for his work on the philosophy of time and the philosophy of religion, specifically the existence of God and the defense of Christian theism. He has authored or edited over 30 books including The Kalam Cosmological Argument (1979), Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology(co-authored with Quentin Smith, 1993), Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time (2001), and Einstein, Relativity and Absolute Simultaneity (co-edited with Quentin Smith, 2007).
Craig received a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Wheaton College, Illinois, in 1971 and two summa cum laudemaster’s degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, in 1975, in philosophy of religion and ecclesiastical history. He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy under John Hick at the University of Birmingham, England in 1977 and a Th.D. underWolfhart Pannenberg at the University of Munich in 1984.
Dr. Peter Atkins:
Peter William Atkins (born 10 August 1940) is a British chemist and former Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Lincoln College. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, including Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Molecular Quantum Mechanics. Atkins is also the author of a number of science books for the general public, including Atkins’ Molecules and Galileo’s Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science.
Atkins studied chemistry at the University of Leicester, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, and – in 1964 – a PhD for research into electron spin resonance spectroscopy, and other aspects of theoretical chemistry. Atkins then took a postdoctoral position at the UCLA as aHarkness Fellow of the Commonwealth fund. He returned to Oxford in 1965 as fellow and tutor of Lincoln College, and lecturer in physical chemistry (later, professor of physical chemistry).
You can get the audio of the debate here, along with links to their previous debate from 1998. This debate is accessible and understandable to novice-level Christians.
I am happy when debates like this come out. I have friends who are Christians who doubt the importance of apologetics in evangelism, because they don’t think that apologists can prove anything or win arguments. I have friends who are skeptical of using arguments that assume a 14-billion year old universe, because they think that the Big Bang is compatible with atheism (!). I have friends who think that philosophical arguments have no persuasive force. I have friends who think that nothing can be proven from history, beyond a reasonable doubt. I have co-workers who ask me whether anyone wins these debates. I think that this debate answers all of those questions.
This debate clearly shows why Christians should not shy away from studying science, philosophy and history. We will not discover anything that harms Christian theism by thinking logically and by looking at the evidence. To the contrary, it is the atheist who makes war on the progress of science, and who is forced to resist the clear experimental evidence, and to resort to baseless speculations and blind faith. If you want to see a good debate with an intelligent atheist, I recommend watching the debate between William Lane Craig and Peter Millican instead. But if you want to see a really, really overwhelming defeat for atheism, watch this debate. It is very clear at the end of this debate why Richard Dawkins refused to debate William Lane Craig at Oxford.
SUMMARY OF THE OPENING SPEECHES
I only had time to summarize the first two speeches. Keep in mind that Dr. Craig always shines in his rebuttals, and this debate is no different. So you’ll want to watch those rebuttals. Dr. Atkins literally says in this debate in his first rebuttal “There was nothing here originally. There is nothing here now. But it is an interesting form of nothing which seems to be something.” And the audience laughs nervously. This debate is like that. You will see a clear winner and clear loser in this debate. This fight is decided by knockout.
William Lane Craig opening speech:
1. the origin of the universe
2. the moral argument
3. the resurrection of Jesus
Peter Atkins opening speech:
1. Dr. Craig is stupid, lazy and evil:
– Dr. Craig’s arguments are old: from the 11th century! Old arguments can’t be true
– Dr. Craig is just asserting that “God did it” because he is lazy
– Dr. Craig feels pressured to agree with the theistic majority
– Dr. Craig needs a psychological crutch to comfort him
– Dr. Craig is fearful of death
– Dr. Craig is just wishing for an eternal life of bliss
– Dr. Craig is driven by his heart, and not by his head
2. Origin of the universe:
– Maybe the universe is eternal and has no beginning – we don’t know
– Maybe mommy universes can give birth to daughter universes
– It is naive to think that a cause is needed to cause the creation of the universe from nothing
– Science is just about to show how it is possible that something appears out of nothing without cause
– Some scientists have already begun to speculate about about how something can come into being out of nothing
– Maybe nothing is not really nothing, but it is actually something
– It would be admitting defeat to say that God created the universe out of nothing
3. Fine-Tuning:
– It could be the case that the fundamental constants are not variable
– It could be the case that the fine-tuning of the cosmic constants is a happy accident
– It could be the case that there are billions of billions of unobservable universes that are not fine tuned
– It could be the case that the cosmic constants in these billions and billions of unobservable universes are all random so that some are fine-tuned
– Anyone who infers that an intelligence is the best explanation of a finely-tuned set of life-permitting cosmic constants is lazy
4. Purpose:
– Philosophers and theologians are stupid
– I don’t think that there is purpose in the universe
– I think that the universe is more grand if there is no purpose, so there is no purpose
5. Miracles:
– I don’t think that miracles happen
– The resurrection is a fabrication
– It could be the case that Jesus didn’t exist
– It could be the case that Jesus wasn’t really crucified
– It could be the case that Jesus didn’t really die after being crucified
– It could be the case that the disciples stole his body
– It could be the case that the women went to the wrong hole in the ground
– the gospels are political propaganda written long after the events they are reporting on
6. Theodicy:
– God has no morally sufficient reason for allowing humans to perform actions that result in suffering
– God has no morally sufficient reason for allowing nature to cause suffering
7. Morality:
– customs and conventions emerges arbitrarily in different times and places based on an awareness of the consequences of actions, as well as various anecdotes and experiences
– these customs and conventions are decided based on the goal for survival, in much the same way as politeness and manners emerge for decorum and to avoid offense
– it is childish to presume that there is an umpire God who decides moral values and duties
8. Religious believers are stupid, lazy and evil:
– the notion of God has arisen because people are stupid and want to be comforted
– there are no arguments or evidences for belief in God
– people who believe in God do not think, but instead take refuge in incomprehensible nonsense
WINTERY KNIGHT 