The Three Musketeers vs D’Artagnan

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Every few years the world of the supporters of Intelligent Design becomes ecstatic when the founding father of their thought liberating movement – Dr. Michael Behe – publishes a new book against Darwinism…Due to that, apparently some churches’ records show an increased mass attendance, confessions, donations…etc. It is almost as if one the apostles of Jesus Christ wrote another book of the Bible even though Behe clams his publications are not religious but rather scientific…

But not everyone is celebrating… Does this mean the end of evolution?

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Common Descent by ID?

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Further to the OP Munging ID it seems that there is still a significant amount of confusion as to whether ID could be, or even is, compatible with common descent… Moreover, Mike Behe has been quoted by Paul Nelson here at TSZ as one of the very few from among the Discovery Institute (DI) who “supports” common descent, common ancestry or descent with modification…

While I doubt we would be able to get Mike Behe to post at TSZ, for the reasons I have already mentioned in the moderation issues in the past, unless his book critics decide to post here and he would be provoked to respond, let’s just watch some of the videos where elaborates on those very issues:

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Evolution doesn’t require experimental verification?

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Recently, I have been awestruck by the statement of one of the “reputable” regulars at TSZ that evolutionary theory doesn’t need to be subjected to any experimental testing or experimental verification…

How do you like that?

He erroneously used the famous experiment that verified Einstein’s prediction of gravity’s ability to bend light. Here are the details:
See? Experiments don’t need to be run in the lab, and they can still be valid experiments.

While this kind of statement is nothing new to me that Darwinists deny or ignore the need for the experimental verification of their evolutionary claims, on the other hand, they demand ID to be subjected to the scientific method processes for their claims to be verified…Hypocrisy at its best…

So, why can’t evolution be tested?

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Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting

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BruceS’s link to a series of discussions with the leading atheists of our day, about emergence, reductionism, and mostly just about how to make naturalism sound believable to the gathered masses the atheist preachers exist to proselytize to, is a rather entertaining bit of folly to indulge in. Its the end result of what you get when you band together the most well known atheists, each who consider themselves to be solely the smartest person in the world (due wholly to the history of their lucky accidental mutations which have no meaning, they will remind you over and over) and get them all to agree that they believe the same thing, and then listen as they all try to figure out what it is they believe. Madcap slapstick ensues.

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Evolution vs ID: The Clash of Ideologies?

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This theme has been on my mind for a long time and although I was going to do an OP on the enzyme disillusion (some experts here think they know all there is to know about how enzymes work) I thought this OP could possibly get more people involved in the discussion…

Is Evolution vs ID the debate or a clash between 2 ideologies?

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The Case for Cell-Directed Mutations

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I recently created a video (sorry, it’s a long one) covering what I view as the evidence that cells direct their own evolution. I’m curious what feedback others have on it.

Sorry about the length, but I cover a large number of topics, and try to explain it in light of all of the misunderstandings about the subject which I have seen.

Do software engineers find ‘Intelligent Design’ theory obvious, trivial or irrelevant? Eric Michael Holloway’s halfway-right, mostly-wrong, double-talking IDist ideology on display

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Recently over at PS, IDist Eric Michael Holloway wrote the following to describe himself & why he accepts/believes in IDT: “we software engineers find ID so obvious.” (https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/why-we-do-not-evolve-software/3760/2) I’d like to unpack this statement & challenge the (il)logic behind it & Eric’s views of IDT, given that he is closely linked with the Discovery Institute, Robert Marks & the new Bradley Centre. Personally I find it rather sad & troubling that ideological IDists like Eric are still actively attempting to deceive others with a semantic game, even their fellow religious, while ignoring the ‘game-ending’ points that Abrahamic monotheists who are scholars & scientists, along with not a small # of atheists & agnostics, have levelled at IDT/IDism. IDists have shown time & time again that they either cannot or will not respond to calm, careful, exact criticism, so let us see if Eric Michael Holloway will be any different.

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Faith vs Facts – Craig Venter

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Initially, I have been planning to do an OP on the amazing abilities of plants to “resolve the mathematical equations” in quantum photosynthesis…However, since another issue was raised in one of the last OPs, I’d thought it would be a great opportunity to keep the flow of the same theme going…

In the OP “On variant genetic codes”  the author has presented his case that Craig Venter’s doubt for common descent based solely on the genetic code variants (back in 2011 there were 18 of them) is not enough to doubt common descent…
Based on the discussion that took place at the University of Arizona back in 2011, do you get the impression that Craig Venter’s doubt for common descent is based solely on the fact that there are genetic code variants? I don’t … but you’d judge it for yourself:

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On variant genetic codes

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Craig Venter has achieved celebrity status in Creationist circles for little more than a slightly embarrassed smile. In a discussion involving, among others, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss and Paul Davies, Venter makes the eyebrow-raising statement that he does not regard Mycoplasma as the same ‘life-form’ as other prokaryotes, or eukaryotes. His reasoning was that they have ‘different genetic codes’. Dawkins reasonably points out that their codes are ‘all but identical’ (they differ in just one position, Trp for STOP). Creationist videos of the exchange tend to fade on the aforementioned smile given in response. The videos are presented, breathlessly, as “Venter denies Common Descent in front of Richard Dawkins!”. However … one difference? Is that really enough to justify a claim of separate origins? This would be like claiming that Norwegian and Swedish had separate origins on the strength of the difference between æ and ä or ø and ö. Continue reading →

Bad Design = No Designer?

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I have been thinking about the highlights of the year 2018 especially about which idea or claim really astonished me the most in its lack of logic, absurdity or it itself being an oxymoron… While there have been many candidates, Dr. Lents’ claim about the so-called human errors based on his book, where he claims Bad Design = No Designer and therefore evolution must be true, made the top of my list as the most outrageous claim of 2018…

Here is why:  Continue reading →

How should TSZ handle racism and hate speech?

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Elizabeth Liddle, who founded this Website, has recently declared that racist remarks on TSZ should be deleted. Moderator Alan Fox would like to additionally ban hate speech, incitement to violence, and discrimination, where these are proscribed by law. However, at the present time, nothing in the Rules of this Website prohibits racism or hate speech. And how does one define these terms, anyway? In this short post, I’d like to offer a few tentative proposals.

It seems to me that a rule that bans racism alone would be too arbitrary. Why ban racism but not sexism, ageism, ableism, homophobia or transphobia?

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Love

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There has been a lot of talk here lately about Christians and Jews. here is a short sketch of my views on Christianity and Christ.


IMO Christ did not come to found a religion, although it was inevitable that his followers would organise themselves into what would become the various factions and sects that is the Chrstian religion.


His descent, passion and resurrection was a turning point in the evolution of the Earth. It was a turning point in the transition from group consciousness to individual consciousness. His prescription was one that anyone can follow whether they are Jewish, Muslim, atheist, Christian, agnostic or whatever other human invented category they align themselves with.

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2018 Year Summary: Who was converted?

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Most pro-ID or pro-evolution blogs have summaries of the year usually with the highlights of the most interesting points or OPs …Larry Moran also has one on the most popular post though of 2017…

If I were in charge of a blog like TSZ my summary of 2018 would ask for the details of the actual conversions: i.e. how effective TSZ has been in what it was set up for. It was apparently set up to attract converts from the support or belief of ID to support or believe that sheer dumb luck in the discussions of life origins…

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Cannibalistic tadpoles and matricidal worms dispute evolution

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  1. A recent study identifies phenotypic plasticity as the ability of tadpoles to change how they look and act, and how their tissues function, in response to their environment. If the pond also contains fairy shrimp, some tadpoles turn into aggressive carnivores and sometimes, the carnivorous tadpole stage becomes entrenched – without the need for a dietary trigger. This plasticity has also been confirmed in lizards, roundworms, and yeast. When yeast is exposed to the herbicide paraquat, the yeast copes by eliminating some or all of the DNA in their mitochondria, the cells’energy-producing organelles.
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A modest proposal for detecting design

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I’d like to thank everyone who participated in the recent Max’s demon thread, it might be helpful to revisit that OP for context before continuing on to what follows here. http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/maxs-demon-a-design-detection-riddle/

As promised and for what it’s worth I’d now like to submit my proposal for a method for detecting design in situations like Max’s demon where instead of looking at a single isolated artifact or event we are evaluating a happening that is extended spatiotemporally in some way. Continue reading →

ID 3.0? The new Bradley Center at the DI – is Dembski returning from retirement?

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Back in 2016, William Dembski officially ‘retired’ from ‘Intelligent Design’ theory & the IDM. He wrote that “the camaraderie I once experienced with colleagues and friends in the movement has largely dwindled.” https://billdembski.com/personal/official-retirement-from-intelligent-design/ This might have come rather late after Dembski’s star had already started to fade. Indeed, it was more than 10 years after the Dover trial debacle and already long after I personally heard another of the leaders of the IDM at the DI in 2003 say he no longer reads Dembski’s books. Yet no doubt Dr. Dembski was one of, if not the leading voice of the IDM for almost 2 decades. Here’s one UK IDist lamenting Dembski’s statement: https://designdisquisitions.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/william-dembski-moves-on-from-id-some-reflections/ Yet when a new paycheck from the Discovery Institute was offered in the Bradley Center, Dembski seems to have gotten right back on the ideological bandwagon in Seattle & reversed his dwindling of IDist camaraderie.

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