Discovery Institute's Blog, page 190

On Academic Freedom Bills and More, Here's Why I Rarely Trust Reporters: The Case of Patrick Anderson

With some reporters, facts count for little or nothing. They're not interested in reporting on a situation objectively. They have their minds made up, and they are going to promote their agenda no matter what. I've had this experience numerous times since I started working at Discovery Institute in 2005. Well, it's happened again.

Yesterday reporter Patrick Anderson at the Argus Leader in South Dakota called to interview me. We discussed an academic freedom bill that's recently been submitted...

If the Number Pi Were Set to Music

This is what it would sound like.

The composer explains:

This is a song I wrote to help me memorize π, since I can memorize music easier than strings of numbers. In my mind, I can hear the melody, and figure out the numbers.

That is very cool, and quite lovely.

What Darwin's Darlings Need to Know about David Hume

There is little question that David Hume (1711-1776), patron saint of nearly every skeptic who came after him, has profoundly influenced Darwin's most passionate believers. Michael Shermer touts the so-called "Hume Maxim," Daniel Dennett considers him his "favorite" philosopher, and Richard Dawkins's attack on the rationality of theism is said to have a particularly "Humean aroma." Indeed, as William B. Huntley has explained so well, Darwin himself took his cues from Hume.

But Darwin's contem...

Problem 5: Abrupt Appearance of Species in the Fossil Record Does Not Support Darwinian Evolution

Editor's note: This is Part 5 of a 10-part series based upon Casey Luskin's chapter, "The Top Ten Scientific Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution," in the volume More than Myth, edited by Paul Brown and Robert Stackpole (Chartwell Press, 2014). Previous installments can be found here: Problem 1, Problem 2, Problem 3, Problem 4. When the series is complete, the full chapter will be posted online.

The fossil record has long been recognized as a problem for evolutionary theory. In the...

More from Nobel Laureate Charles Townes on Scientific Evidence of Design and Purpose in the Cosmos

Earlier I noted the passing of Dr. Charles Townes, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. In case you wondered if Townes's comment on intelligent design in cosmology, which I quoted, was just a stray remark not representative of his general thinking, in fact he made a number of comments over the years that are clearly favorable to a design perspective. He told Esquire magazine:

The laws of physics are very special, and the creation of human life is really quite striking. One has to believe that e...

Privileged Species with Michael Denton Is Now on Blu-Ray

Revealing how the cosmos is designed for human life, Privileged Species with Discovery Institute geneticist Michael Denton is not only an inspiring and illuminating science documentary -- it's also a beautiful one to look at. And that's fitting since Dr. Denton shows how the universe is the splendid and fantastically intricate setting specifically designed for a precious jewel.

Only the Blu-ray format can do that justice, so we're delighted to be able to announce that the film is now availabl...

Join Us for the 2015 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith! And Don't Miss the Early Bird Special

Bill Nye draws on his reputation as the "Science Guy" to inform us that humans are "insignificant" specks living on a planet that orbits "an unremarkable star," while astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, of Cosmos fame, describes God as "an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance."

Are they right? Are humans really the insignificant products of a blind, uncaring cosmos that did not have us in mind? Is belief in God the enemy of scientific progress? What is the true nature of scientific in...

Charles Townes, RIP: Nobel Laureate Who Endorsed Intelligent Design in Cosmology

Physicist and Nobel laureate Charles Townes, who argued for intelligent design at the level of cosmology, has passed away at the age of 99. Dr. Townes shared a Nobel Prize in 1964 for research that led to the invention of the laser.

He earned a PhD at Caltech and then worked at Bell Labs during World War II where he designed radar systems. He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1948. In 1961 he moved to MIT, and finally settled at UC Berkeley in 1967, where he taught and researched i...

David Suzuki’s Anti-Human "Blue Dot" Campaign

Canadian environmental radical David Suzuki is at it again. Not content with denigrating humans as "maggots" that go around defecating on the environment, he now wants to add a "right" in the Canadian Charter to "a clean environment." Such a "right" would be anti-human in that it would destroyCanada's prosperity and subvert individualliberty.

The "Blue Dot" campaign, like most radical thrusts, is long on warm fuzzies and short on specifics to hide its ruinous intent. It uses propaganda -- pre...

Lawrence Krauss, Eric Metaxas, and Aquinas' Fifth Way

As Daniel Bakken noted here earlier, atheist physicist Lawrence Krauss has responded in The New Yorker to Eric Metaxas's recent Wall Street Journal essay "Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God." Krauss denies that astrobiology and cosmology point to God's existence. I disagree with every keystroke of Krauss's rebuttal, except, oddly, the title: "No, Astrobiology Has Not Made the Case for God." It pains me to agree with Krauss's assertion, in the following limited sense.

I agree not beca...