I didn’t know about this conference - and it features Michael Denton too

Tom Heneghan advises, “As Darwin Year ends, some seek to go ‘beyond Darwin,’” (Reuters Faith World: Religion and Ethics, December 14, 2009).

So I was intrigued by a conference held at UNESCO here in Paris recently about scientists who believe in evolution but want to go “beyond Darwin.” Organised by French philosopher of science Jean Staune, its speakers argued that Darwin could not explain underlying order and patterns found in nature. “We have to differentiate between evolution and Darwinism,” said Jean Staune, author of the new book Au-dela de Darwin (Beyond Darwin). “Of course there is adaptation. But like physics and chemistry, biology is also subject to its own laws.”

Well, say it in French or in English, but just say it out loud: “le darwinisme, c’est incroyable;” “Darwinism is unbelievable.”

Still, here is the story in a nutshell: Once a person claims to me that the chimp in the zoo is 99% identical to one of my grandkids, I know I am dealing with an unbelievable belief. Just how to deal with it is a difficult question, especially if the belief is government-funded and supported by all the right people (who don’t think I should have grandkids anyway).

Michael Denton, a geneticist with New Zealand’s University of Otago, said Darwinian “functionalists” believed life forms simply adapted to the outside world while his “structuralist” view also saw an internal logic driving this evolution down certain paths. His view, which he called “extraordinarily foreign to modern biology,” explained why many animals developed “camera eyes” like human ones and why proteins, one of the building blocks of life, fold into structures unchanged for three billion years.

Here’s more from Denton:

Q: What do you think of “intelligent design” now?

I have some sympathy with the intelligent design movement. I can see their point. But in the end, I think natural self-organising matter plus natural selection can probably explain it. I don’t like the attitude of the Darwinian establishment towards intelligent designers because one thing the Darwinist establishment certainly can’t explain is the origin of life. That’s for sure. Probably special creation is better than what they’ve got. That’s almost like confessing a murder, I know, but I don’t mind being quoted on that. Because I personally see so much fitness in the cosmos for the ends of life, then that it is at least compatible with a design hypothesis like Aristotle or Aquinas. I’m quite irritated by the way the Darwinists claim they have all the answers. I don’t think they can explain the fitness of the universe for life. They can’t explain the origin of life. So I think they should be a little bit more humble.

Well, Michael Denton has himself been going beyond Darwin a long time. He has been described as a post-Darwinian, and his views have been vindicated by evidence. His book Nature’s Destiny is a long explanation of why he doesn’t believe the garbage fronted - by law - to publicly funded schools in places where you, gentle readers, probably pay taxes. Merry Christmas - no, not to you, serfs, but to your Darwinist masters, whom you support.

Many of us doubt that Denton’s self-organizing matter can explain the origin of information. That’s like thinking the Scrabble pieces can organize themselves in such a way as when you scatter the pieces they form a perfect, intelligible message. Friends have suggested that Denton read Polanyi and Yockey. Otherwise, he is stuck with “the mother gives birth to herself.”

But I recommend Denton anyway because he understand marsupial mammals, and many North American pundits do not. We have only one known; only the Virginia opossum. I have never seen one in the Toronto area; they are not well furred and apt to suffer from frostbite.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Uncommon Descent Contest 19: Spot the mistakes in the following baffflegab explanation of intelligent design theory

In a review in First Things by David B. Hart, of Richard Dawkins’s The Greatest Show on Earth, we are informed - on the mag’s cover - that Dawkins “gets a gold star” for his book of that name (January 2010 Number 199).

Indeed, he does get the gold star from reviewer Hart. Hart is full of praise for Dawkins, though daintily demurs at his hardline atheism. But he is a total, unwavering convert to the greatest scam ever conceived in the history of biology, that Darwinism - a conservative aspect of wild nature that trims out life forms unsuited to an ecology - actually has vast creative powers.

I can’t yet seem to find the review on line, but that was not for lack of trying.

Now the contest: Here’s what Hart has to say about design in nature:

The best argument against ID theory, when all is said and done, is that it rests on a premise - irreducible complexity” - that may seem compelling at the purely intuitive level but that can never logically be demonstrated. At the end of the day, it is - as Francis Collins rightly remarks - an argument from personal incredulity. While it is true that very suggestive metaphysical arguments can be drawn from the reality of form, the intelligibility of the universe, consciousness, the laws of physics, or (most importantly) ontological contingency, the mere biological complexity of this or that organism can never amount to an irrefutable proof of anything other than the incalculable complexity of that organism’s phylogenic antecedents.

For a free copy of Expelled, can you spot the mistakes in the quoted passage above? I mean, actual mistakes, as opposed to “He isn’t making any sense.” There is enough of the former, but you will find plenty of the latter too, I am afraid.

Here are the contest rules. Most important: No more than 400 words.

Also: If you won a previous contest quite recently and your prize is late, it is most likely because our post office here has four days off at this time of year, and I can’t do a thing about that. If you won a long time ago and never got your prize, write me at oleary@sympatico.ca

Go here to enter. You must register to comment, but it is painless WordPress stuff.

Darwin skeptic Suzan Mazur is one fine journalist

Here is her interview with David H. Koch, a Darwin-thumping multi-millionaire who has done much to front the cult to the public ("Evolution Sea Change?: David H. Koch Weighs In ," Archaeology Today, February 17, 2009). Mazur made headlines last year when she wrote about the Altenberg 16, scientists who met in Austria to plan a way of understanding evolution that was free of tax-funded Darwin worship. Anyway, among other things, we learn:

Next year, the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins opens at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where evidence of 6 million years of human evolution will be part of an interactive display that includes the Laetoli footprints and a reconstruction of Lucy. Visitors will be able to pass through a time tunnel to view early humans "floating in and out of focus," touch models of ancient human fossils as well as watch their own faces morph into those of extinct species. The Smithsonian display follows the creation of the American Museum of Natural History's David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing.

Rendering of proposed "Human Characteristics" display at the Smithsonian's David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, now in development. (Courtesy David Koch)
Richard Potts, director of the Smithsonian's Human Origins Program, explained about the new exhibition, "David's commitment to science and the study of human evolution will enable the Smithsonian to bring the latest discoveries in this field to the broadest audiences. The exhibition, still in the planning stages, encourages the public to explore the lengthy process of change in human characteristics over time. It also presents one of the new research themes in this field--the dramatic changes in environment that set the stage for human evolution. Although the subject can be controversial, the unearthed discoveries that bear on the question of human origins are a source of deep interest and significance for everyone to contemplate."

David Koch is Executive Vice President of $110 billion Koch Industries (he owns 42%) and CEO of its subsidiary, Koch Chemical Technology Group. He is often described as Manhattan's wealthiest resident, and contributes to Lincoln Center, Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and the fertility clinic at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, to name a few. He is also is the principal private funder of PBS's Nova series.

It gets better when she begins to challenge him:

Suzan Mazur: As a man committed to the principles and practices of freedom, including scientific freedom, and as a scientist yourself with degrees from MIT in chemical engineering - is it your perspective that we are now witnessing a sea change in evolutionary thinking? That even as the global celebration begins for Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, the man who brought us the theory of evolution by natural selection 150 years ago--Darwinian selection, or survival of the fittest, is now being viewed by serious evolutionary scientists as not enough to explain our existence?

To quote from my interview several months ago with NASA astrobiologist Chris Mckay, who was featured in the recent Nova Mars documentary you helped underwrite: "Something had to precede Darwinian natural selection. The Darwinian paradigm breaks down in two obvious ways. First, and most clear, Darwinian selection cannot be responsible for the origin of life. Second, there is some thought that Darwinian selection cannot fully explain the rise of complexity at the molecular level." So the question is: Is it your perspective that we are now witnessing a sea change in evolutionary thinking?

David Koch: No. I don't think it's a sea change. The sea change occurred back when Darwin published his evolutionary theories, backed up by massive, overwhelming evidence. What's happened since is that there's been a rather steady progressive acceptance of the concepts of evolution in the general public. It's amazing to me that in America a large faction of the population still doesn't believe in it.

Suzan Mazur: But the point is that Darwin started with life. He addressed what happens once you have life. He didn't address the origin of life. That's what Chris McKay, the NASA astrobiologist is saying.

And so it goes, until she gets him to admit that he does not know what he is talking about.

Well, we must give the guy marks for honesty. The average third-rate biology prof is just content to emit Darwin noises and know as little as possible about real challenges.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Darwinism and academic culture: Mathematician Jeffrey Shallit weighs in

You can tell that Darwinism is failing when it attracts completely ridiculous attacks like
this one, on Signature in the Cell (Harper One, 2009). The gist of Shallit's complaint is that Nagel thought Meyer's book a prize.* But Shallit says,

Meyer claims, over and over again, that information can only come from a mind -- and that claim is an absolutely essential part of his argument. Nagel, the brilliant philosopher, should see why that is false. Consider making a weather forecast. Meteorologists gather information about the environment to do so: wind speed, direction, temperature, cloud cover, etc. It is only on the basis of this information that they can make predictions. What mind does this information come from?

What mind indeed? If we experience either snow or dull, freezing rain here tomorrow, why should I be surprised? This is the season officially known as winter.

So, maybe Nagel, the brilliant philosopher, knows more than Shallit, the University of Waterloo prof.

I thought Thomas Nagel's discussion of animal mind, in "What is it like to be a bat?" was the best of its type, in elucidating the difficulties of a materialist explanation of mind. I would commend it to all.

For example, the information that explains how the butterfly emerges from the mess of the pupa, after the caterpillar has done its bit by constantly eating leaves, is vastly more complex than the information that explains why rain falls or snow blankets. We seek an explanation for metamorphosis, not for why rain or snow falls.

Here is an example:



So how is the trick done inside the "magic box" of the pupa? As one biologist told me, "The entire caterpillar dissolves, and is reconstructed as a butterfly." The stored energy from the caterpillar's voracious eating habits creates that? ... ridiculous. Let's hear more explanations, and subject them to tests, based on the life of the universe.

*Signature in the Cell (Harper One, 2009) was indeed literally a prize at Uncommon Descent recently. I hope for more copies soon, for more contests and more prizes.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Intellectual freedom in Canada: Libel laws finally clarified in Canada, not so clearly elsewhere

Franklin Carter at the Book and Periodical Council's Freedom of Expression Committee notifies great news!:

The Supreme Court of Canada has established a new defence against libel: "public interest responsible journalism."

The CanWest News Service reports.

Kirk Makin of The Globe and Mail reports.

Tonda MacCharles of the Toronto Star reports.

Because of the ruling, two newspapers in Ontario will get new libel trials.

The CBC reports.

In the National Post, Janice Tibbetts reports.

Great news? You better believe. There is no real journalism apart from "public interest responsible journalism." Who cares whether someone's neighbour is kibitzing with the letter carrier, or whether the building super is brewing hooch in the laundry room cupboard? Like, that stuff is just so not a public issue (a private issue for the parties concerned, sure, but ... ).

Real journalism is precisely why big wheels sue newspapers and journalists for reporting news that they don't want the public to hear. They take advantage of incidental mistakes, to throw a cloud of squid ink over the big picture, as the linked reporters and columnists explain.

Assume Thugley Beggarall is suing the Toronto Star because the paper reported that he was convicted of blowing up 35 Pleasant Drive whereas the house he totalled was 33 Pleasant Drive. Hard to tell from the mess, in which surrounding houses were also writeoffs, though not his intended target. And what public interest is supported by his legal action for libel?

If you think you deserve responsible and informative news coverage, rejoice with me over this ruling. All a Canadian journalist need do hereafter is "due diligence."

Obviously, some journalism is irresponsible. But you will find that in the tabs at the supermarket checkout counter, along with the exploding bubble gum + funnies, and astrology scrolls. Everyone who is old enough to be trusted with an allowance should know what to make of such rubbish. When a medium discredits itself, it isn't really a big problem.

Meanwhile, in the United States and Britain, good citizens are also fighting back against this present darkness: Rachel (of New York State's "Rachel's Law") writes,

The recent movement to change British libel laws to allow for greater freedom of expression has its origins in New York City and New York State.

I am a New York-based scholar specializing in research on terror financing and economic warfare. In my book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed—and How To Stop It," I alleged that Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz funded al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorists organizations through his charitable fronts.

In 2005, Mr. Mahfouz sued me for libel in London, where my book had never been published or marketed. He chose London due to its antiquated libel laws, which are plaintiff-friendly. As recently noted by New York Times correspondent Sara Lyall, London is known as the "Libel Mecca" of the world, and Mr. Mahfouz was the most notorious abuser of the British system. A one-man wrecking crew of Americans' free speech rights, Mr. Mahfouz exploited British libel laws and courts, threatening or suing more than 40 writers and publishers, including many Americans. These cases were never tried on the merits. Mr. Mahfouz's litigiousness and deep pockets helped to silence and intimidate Americans and others who tried to expose his terrorist connections.

Except for me.

I refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the British courts, asserting my rights as a U.S. citizen. Unimpressed, the British judge rendered a default judgment in favor of Mr. Mahfouz. I was ordered to pay the Saudi more than $225,000, publish apologies in major international newspapers, and destroy all copies of my book internationally.

Apparently, Ehrenfeld had no rights as a US citizen, until New York State passed "Rachel's law", exempting US citizens resident in New York from insane libel findings elsewhere. Florida, California, and Illinois have passed similar laws, but Ehrenfeld is hoping for a national ruling by Congress.

Well, good luck with that, in the present social engineering environment.

Here's another one, in case you thought the Islamists were the only feature on this show:

Joseph Sharkey, a New Jersey-based freelance travel journalist, is being sued in Brazil for "insulting the dignity" of the nation in the aftermath of a lethal plane crash that he and few others survived. Mr. Sharkey, who criticized Brazil's incompetent air control on his blog, was sued for defamation, and the Brazilian government is moving to criminalize his case.

Right. Government-funded lawsuits are way cheaper than competent air control.

In my experience, if guidance and resource personnel behave competently, they can offer a reasonable account of what happened, even if everything else horses up. So why sue an unhappy passenger?

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Peer review: Life, death, and the British Medical Journal

This controversy erupted over estimates of war deaths since World War 2 (1939-1945:)

Researchers from Canada, the UK and Sweden have slammed the influential British Medical Journal (BMJ) for publishing an error-filled study on global war deaths, refusing an equivalent rebuttal article and having a flawed peer-review process.

Apparently, the contested article took issue with the fact that Oslo's International Peace Research Institute data show that global war deaths "declined by more than 90 per cent between 1946 and 2002."

"This is not some trivial academic disagreement," says Andrew Mack, director of the Simon Fraser University-based Human Security Report Project (HSRP), which p published a detailed critique of the BMJ's claims in the December issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (JCR).

"Accurate statistics on the health impacts of war are critically important not just for researchers but also for humanitarian organizations whose assistance programs save millions of lives around the world."

The BMJ doesn't deny the problem:

"But the BMJ is well aware that its peer review process is flawed," says Spagat. "A recent study, whose authors include the journal's current editor, revealed that, on average, only a third of the 'major errors' deliberately inserted in a BMJ article were picked up by reviewers."

In what other line of work would such incompetence be accepted? Would you like your electrician to achieve only this level of competence? He only "gets" one third of the electrical safety hazards in your home?

And remember, if you live in the UK, your taxes pay for these scholars to "do their thing."

Adds Mack: "There appears to be no way of effectively rebutting BMJ articles that contain unwarranted -- and damaging -- critiques of the work of other scholars.

A couple of years back, I wrote on the problem of peer review: Often, it is simply the way establishment hacks prevent competition from new information and new interpretations.

Re war deaths, two notes:

- It would hardly be surprising if deaths in battle declined steeply, post World War II, because battlefield medicine has greatly improved. Indeed, it was improving during the war itself (1939-1945), and some sources credit the Allies' victory in part to discovery of penicillin, which restored personnel who might otherwise have been disabled or dead. Plasma, anti-malarials, and other drugs also received a huge boost due to the War.

- Modern warfare increasingly targets civilians. It could be 9-11. Or 7-11. Or it could be someone's granny, shopping at a Halal meat market in Iraq, to prepare a family celebration. When the conflict is between a trained terrorist and your granny, you should expect low "battlefield" casualties. That is not a battlefield, after all; it is a monstrous crime scene.

- Still, it ought to be possible to maintain another point of view, with solid references. That's one thing peer review should enable, but it is increasingly obvious that peer reviewers do not want to bother.

Anyway, the intelligent design controversy is hardly the only area where peer review can merely maintain a convenient consensus - or tweak beards safely in a politically correct way.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy

1. What makes Darwinism politically correct?

This episode of ID the Future features Robert Crowther interviewing CSC senior fellow Dr. Jonathan Wells on his book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. Dr. Wells explains the peer-pressure involved with Darwin's theory and shares from his studies in 19th century Darwinian controversies and evolutionary development at Yale and UC Berkeley, respectively.

Listen here.

The book's Web site is here.

In my view, Darwinism is politically correct because it is a tax-funded racket parasitizing real science. It attracts the sort of people who like free form speculation about the tyrannosaur's parenting skills, Neanderthal man's sex life and why homo sapiens (modern man) believes in God (not because some had an encounter with God, of course; such an idea could never be entertained).

2. The Design of Life: What the Evidence of Biological Systems Reveals

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin discusses The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems with author Dr. William Dembski. Is design in nature just an "illusion," as Richard Dawkins proclaims? Dembski and co-author Dr. Jonathan Wells show the answer is "no." Biologists have and continue to use the assumption of design successfully, precisely because design in biology is not an illusion but real.

Listen here. Design is not an illusion, but then neither is the cushy position that current society grants to people who claim it is. Almost any other position, no matter how ridiculous, can be fronted (space aliens, multiple universes ... and I suspect that is only a start.)

3. How to teach responsibly without getting sued?

This episode of ID the Future features Casey Luskin interviewed by Kevin Wirth on the key legal cases involving teachers teaching evolution. What does the case law say about teachers' rights and free speech?

Luskin, a lawyer with a science background, published a survey of case law in Hamline University Law Review to help the public understand what the courts have ruled on the topic of teaching origins.

This survey of twenty-one cases investigates the question many teacher, parents, and students ask: what is legal when it comes to teaching evolution? Can public schools teach scientific critiques of evolution? What does Discovery Institute recommend for teaching in schools? Find out by downloading the survey of case law here.

Listen here.

What the Discovery Institute endorses? You'd never know it from what you read. Two reasons I realized years ago that the legacy mainstream media are gone cats are

a) the inability of the average reporter to get certain basic facts straight, for example:

Doubts about Darwin do not turn on the age of the Earth, but on implausible claims about the origin of high levels of information - you know, the jumbo jet slowly materializes from the scrap heap, with no intelligent input at all ... And so does the trilobite and the tyrannosaur, and man. And that Alfa Romeo you always wanted (but you had to buy a minivan when your wife had twins)? Yeah, really.

b) passive, gullible acceptance of completely stupid claims about human psychology, whose only purpose is to prop up Darwinism.

As I wrote to some friends recently:

I have said this many times, but indulge me while I say it again: The “big bazooms” theory of human evolution – taken seriously by Psychology Today as the biggest truth – is a classic in the field.

Allegedly, men prefer well-endowed women so that their selfish genes can determine whether the woman is fertile.

Oh? So it has nothing to do with the reasons many men prefer big steaks, big mugs of beer, SUVs vs. Golf Minis, bagging a moose vs. bagging a prairie chicken?

Who knew? Who could ever have guessed?

As I have pointed out elsewhere, animals show similar preferences to people.

Wolf packs prefer bringing down a caribou or a beefalo to bringing down a deer. The deer is as much trouble to chase, but doesn’t give anywhere near the number of servings.

So if we want to talk about the evolution of the preference for abundance vs. non-abundance, we must go way, way back into mammal or vertebrate evolution. No need to spend a lot of time with Old Stone Age Man.

The only reason for the Darwinist's Old Stone Age Man schtick is to find a question that “evolutionary” psychology can supposedly answer in a materialist way.

I have yet to see it perform better than psychology in real time.

Yet sponsored Darwinist nonsense is everywhere now, and it corrupts both thinking and behaviour.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Human evolution: Ardipithecus, humans, and chimps

Someone wrote to me recently, asking

Ever since the reporting of Ardi, I expected a commentary of it on your blog but so far I have found none unless I missed it. I'm curious to what you have to say about it since the researchers of Ardi claim chimps may have descended from us. That being the case then evolution's tree of life would have to be reimagined. Thoughts?

I think Jean Auel did the best job in Clan of the Cave Bear, and she even admitted that she was writing fiction. Which, in my view, puts her way ahead of dozens of profs who can tell me exactly how long-dead people - who never left any writings behind - thought about stuff like religion and family life.

Anyway, I am putting this to the commenters. What do you think about Ardipithecus? An ancestor of us? Of chimps? Both?

You can go here to comment.

By the way, this blog is a volunteer enterprise. Unlike the Darwinists, I am not part of your tax burden. If you feel like contributing, don't let me deter you. I could blog more if I had more resources.