Periodically when I follow the RSS link to Dr. Mike Adams’ articles, I end up somewhere else. This time, I read the entire article before I realized it.

It seems that Dr. Dawkins has again accepted an invitation to debate a theist. This time, it further appears that he tried to rig the debate, and deny his opponent a real opportunity to refute his theory. Picking a columnist with this hope proves to be foolish. Mr. Dinesh D’Souza shows how Dr. Dawkins stumbled in thinking that Mr. D’Souza would not have a chance to refute his (Dr. Dawkins’) poor logic.¹ Dr. Dawkins excuse is probably that as this happened on Al-Jazeera, and not a more reputable news source, his slip will be missed.

PS: Judging from the datestamp in the URL, I would say that Dr. Dawkins was correcting in assuming his slip would be missed by most people.

I need to go back and finish reading this article, but the first page skimmed seems to indicate that there was more to Lamarck’s theory than we have given him credit for.¹

I am amused to find myself quoted here as an example of what all creationists argue. I would have thought that he could have found a better source. I am not really sure what he was trying to accomplish by quoting me though.

Let me be clear. I am not saying the origin of life was simply an extremely improbable accident. I am saying the origin of life was deliberately, purposely arranged, just as the fundamental laws and constants and many other anthropic features of nature were deliberately, purposely arranged. But in what I’ll call the “extended-fine-tuning” view, the origin of life is merely an additional planned feature culminating in intelligent life. The origin of life is simply closer to the very same goal that other, more distant anthropic features (laws, chemical properties, and so forth) were also put in place to bring about. Nonetheless, just as it was possible to discover a set of proximate conditions that would lead to the origin of the moon, it may also be possible to arrange a local set of conditions that would lead to life, and that would be a scientifically interesting project. If it succeeded, some would claim that it revealed that life needed no miracle. But in fact it would show the beginning of life needed a directing intelligence.¹[emphasis added]

This is an important thought. A key quote. It contains many ideas all of which are central to Intelligent Design. It contains one thought, at the end, that many people cannot grasp. If I do something, if I will an end and achieve it, then I have not proved that it could happen without someone to will it. I have not proved that it is possible for it to happen randomly. It is possible, it may even be likely, that it is only with intervention that it can possibly happen. Take weighted dice. Not just slightly weighted dice that increase your odds, but do not guarantee a particular outcome, but massively weighted dice. Dice that if you drop them, will always land with a given face up. You would have to place such dice for them to land with the weighted face up, the reverse of what physics tells you should happen. So too, it is possible that my experiment only shows that intelligence can cause something.

For evolution to be true, and not just possible, something more is needed. The bar is higher. The scientists must prove that something can happen as a result of undirected, unwilled chance. Not only that, but for it to form a realistic explanation, they must show that it is likely to have happened.

It is possible, so I am told by physicists, that the universe could just wink out of existence in a singular quantum event. It is possible, according to that physics, that we winked into existence in precisely the same manner one second before you read this. Neither are particularly likely. Neither make particularly believable or useful explanations.

Evolution might be possible. I do not think so, from what I have read, but it might be. I sincerely doubt anyone could argue that it is likely enough to make a believable explanation.

All the rest is very true. There is a very long list of things that have to be just so for us to be here. It defies probability. It stretches probability that we exist anywhere. Some authors say it even defies probability that we are here anywhere.

If you ask me to believe that there are a multitude of universes, one for each throw of each coin, and that is the best you can do to make sense of the universe, you can take your materialist theories and smoke them. They are not worth the paper it would take to print them; you have come up with something no more scientific than either of the creation stories found in the Bible. Any of the three resulting stories (one from the materialists, two from the Bible) might in a literal, historical, sense be true. None of them qualify as a scientific theory.

Periodically I get challenged on my repeated assertion that Evolution, to the (limited) extent it can be called a single theory, is inherently opposed to theism. Mr. Casey Luskin is here today to back me up on this one, having taken the time to summarize some recent examples of this.¹ Such statements as these lend credence to my assertion that evolution is not, in fact, a scientific theory at all, but is rather a philosophical one. His examples come from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, Cell Cycle, Microbe Magazine, and Gene. They also come from a variety of authors.

This listing of examples is short, and is by no means definitive proof. Still, it does lend at least some credence.

“If, as the editors of Nature claim, our minds are merely the product of materialistic evolution, then the opinion that our minds are merely the product of materialistic evolution is itself just the product of evolution.” – Michael Egnor¹

In other words, if their theory is true, we cannot know it or prove it, because there is no true intelligence to be doing the thinking. It is all just the random interactions of random atoms. In order for rational thought to proceed, we must assume that, whatever is true, materialist philosophy is false.

The spread of nuclear weapons, which can never justifiably be used in war, is certainly depressing news. There is, unexpectedly, a lighter side to the news though, however slight. Even the most ardent proponents of materialism are forced to admit that here it is only common sense to look for the difference between design and chance. Can we detect the difference between a nuclear test and an earthquake? Seismologists, both those open to intelligent design and those against it, are confronted with this question.^[1]

Since I have a propensity to lose track of articles that I have not taken the time to write more fully about, a listing of some of the ones I have neglected.

• Catholic News Agency. “Roman Catholic, Orthodox Churches pledge to seek unity” www.catholicnewsagency.com 2006-09-19. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=7648
• Ms. Sue Ellin Browder. “Dirty Little Secret: Why Condoms Will Never Stop AIDS in Africa” Holy Spirit Interactive. 2006-09-20. http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/guests/suebrowder/dirtysecret.asp
• Reuters. “Scientist: Dolphins are stupid” Aljazeera.net 2006-08-17 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7FF1A9D2-FEEB-4340-A0DA-DE92AF6C49EC.htm

Mr. George Gilder claims that Mr. (Dr.?) Kurt Gödel proved “in essence that every logical system, including mathematics, is dependent on premises that it cannot prove and that cannot be demonstrated within the system itself, or be reduced to it.”^[1][2] Does anyone know if that is in fact the case? The proof is no doubt beyond me, but E.L. or J.D. would likely be able to understand it, were they interested. I am rather curious to know if this authors claims of the proof (that mathematics necessarily rests on unprovables) are true.

The other day, Lauren mentioned to me that her anatomy professor was teaching the class that the appendix is a functionless organ.  This view, that it is a vestigal organ, a remnant of evolution, is certainly a common one.  There is, however, no real reason to believe it.  What follows is a collection of articles I have found, either directly via google search, or indirectly via the references in other articles (some of which are here).

1. Loren G. Martin.  Answering “What is the function of the human appendix? Did it once have a purpose that has since been lost?” in the “Ask the Experts” section of Scientific American.  Answer posted 1999-10-21.  http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000CAE56-7201-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7
2. Ms. Julie Pomerantz.  Answering “Does the appendix serve a purpose in any animal?” in the “Ask the Experts” section of Scientific American.  Answer posted 2002-12-02.
3. Fisher, RE. 2000. “The primate appendix: a reassessment.” The Anatomical Record (New Anatomist) 261:228-236.
4. Dasso JF. Obiakor H. Bach H. Anderson AO. Mage RG. 2000. “A morphological and immunohistological study of the human and rabbit appendix for comparison with the avian bursa.” Developmental & Comparative Immunology. 24(8):797-814.
5. NIAID.  “The Immune System”  NIAID NetNews.  2003-09-25.  http://www.niaid.nih.gov/final/immun/immun.htm
6. Professor Gordon C. Mills, Professor Malcolm Lancaster, Professor Walter L. Bradley.  “Origin of Life & Evolution in Biology Textbooks – A Critique.”  Reposted at Access Research Network.  2001-10-03.  http://www.arn.org/docs/mills/gm_originoflifeandevolution.htm
7. Mr. Christopher Wanjek.  “The Appendix: Slimy But Not Worthless.”  Health SciTech 2006-05-30.  http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060530_bad_appendix.html