Discovery Institute's Blog, page 203

Wrapping Up, We Present the Latest Documentary from Discovery Institute, Featuring Biologist Michael Denton, at 20 Percent Off!

Ah well, all good things come to an end. If it's not The New Republic, then it must be our Twelve Days of Discounts. Today is the Twelfth Day, and that means you can cash in with a discount of 20 percent off. Remember, the day's saving lasts for just 24 hours, until 6 pm on Tuesday. Go here and enter the code EZ29FV2Z.

Today's offering? The newest documentary release from Discovery Institute, Privileged Species, highlighting the work of our Senior Fellow Dr. Michael Denton and directed by Cen...

Recalling Nana's Face: Does Your Brain Store Memories?

A singular consequence of the materialist-mechanical metaphysics that permeates our culture and our sciences is that we commonly hold basic beliefs that are abject nonsense. One such belief is the almost ubiquitous one -- among ordinary folks as well as neuroscientists and surprisingly many philosophers -- that the brain "stores" memories. The fact is that the brain doesn't store memories, and can't store memories.

It has been known for the better part of a century that certain structures in...

Matching Darwin's "Tree of Life," the "Tree of Intelligence" Comes Crashing Down

Freed from the constraints of naturalism (nature is all there is), the animal mind is a fascinating topic. Great writers have reflected on the waytheir cats think. The cat is a convenient subject for two reasons. One is this, no one advertises a common inheritance of humans and cats. We meet on equal terms.

That said, the most farflung outcome of the current effort tonaturalize the mind, despiteDarwin's horrid doubt, is the quest to map our own minds onto those ofprimate apesand other mammals...

About the Implosion of The New Republic -- and Your Opportunity to Support Ideas over Cynicism

Leon Wieseltier, the famed and now former literary editor of The New Republic magazine, has had some important things to say lately about science and scientism. He's out of a job, and in the news, after much of the staff of the magazine quit in protest at the way TNR's new owner, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes (pictured at right), was handling the decisions and responsibilities that come with his role.

If you haven't followed this story, you should. It's the rare development in the news tha...

As Our Epic Series of Holiday Discounts Draws to a Close, Get The War on Humans on DVD for 35 Percent Off!

The tension builds: You have exactly two days left now to take advantage of our Twelve Days of Discounts. Today is the Eleventh Day, and that means you can cash in with a discount of 35 percent off. Remember, the day's saving lasts for just 24 hours, until 6 pm on Monday. Go here and enter the code EZ29FV2Z.

Today's offering? No, you're eyes are working just fine. It is The War on Humans -- not the book, though, which we offered yesterday, but the documentary film on DVD!

As you know, the deba...

Is Evolution True? Laying Out the Logic, Part 2

University of Toronto biochemist Larry Moran was quick to respond to my post of last week, "Is Evolution True? Laying Out the Logic." He replied on his blog Sandwalk ("A creationist argument against the evolution of new enzymes") the same day mine was published. His post was sprinkled with his own IDiosyncratic version of mockery, but he had very little to say by way of an actual argument.Moran poked fun at my description of the argument for enzyme design (no surprise there), but he left out...

What's This, Another Day of 50 Percent Off Your Favorite Discovery Institute Titles? Yes! It's The War on Humans in Paperback!

Whoa, it's getting close to the wire. Today is the Tenth Day of our Twelve Days of Discounts, bringing with it a generous discount of 50 percent off. It doesn't get better than that. Remember, the day's saving lasts for just 24 hours, until 6 pm on Sunday. Go here and enter the code EZ29FV2Z.

Our offering of the day? The War on Humans, by Wesley J. Smith.

The environmental movement has helped produce significant improvements in the world around us -- from cleaner air to the preservation of nat...

Materialism Ought to be Judged as Much by the Ignorance It Demands as by the Knowledge It Purports to Afford

A contemporary phenomenon worth noting is the persistent denial of the relevance of philosophy by prominent materialists. It has almost become a rite of initiation for scientific materialists to deny the relevance of philosophical inquiry and assert the almost limitless insight on offer from natural science.

Harvard evolutionary biologist and leading ant expert E.O.Wilson (as I noted yesterday).

I like to say that most of philosophy, which is a declining and highly endangered academic specie...

Don't Miss Our Best Deal, for 24 Hours Only: 50 Percent Off for Darwin's Conservatives: The Misguided Quest!

Yesterday was the Eighth Day of our Twelve Days of Discounts, so you know what that means. That's right, today is the Ninth Day, and with it comes the steepest discount we are giving this holiday season: 50 percent off. Remember, the day's discount lasts for just 24 hours, until 6 pm on Saturday. Go here and enter the code EZ29FV2Z for your savings.

Our offering of the day? Darwin's Conservatives: The Misguided Quest, by John G. West, a concise précis of why the debate about evolution matters...

E.O. Wilson on Scientism and the Meaning of Life

Darwinist E.O. Wilson, a biology professor at Harvard and the world's greatest authority on ants, has a Big Think video on science and the meaning of life.

An excerpt:

I like to say that most of philosophy, which is a declining and highly endangered academic species, incidentally, consists of failed models of how the brain works. So students going into philosophy have to learn what Descartes thought and then after a long while why that's wrong and what Schopenhauer might have thought and wha...