Discovery Institute's Blog, page 219

In Endorsing Intelligent Design, Novelist Stephen King Joins a Distinguished List of Stereotype-Shattering Free Thinkers

When Stephen King came out last May as a supporter of intelligent design, you could maybe, maybe, maybe write it off as a slip of the tongue. Perhaps he didn't know what the phrase means, or hadn't been advised by his fans that he was playing with fire. But now he's gone and said much the same thing, while focusing more on the cosmic than the biological side of ID.

Speaking with Josh Zepps of HuffPost Live, King acknowledges having a "tendency to believe in intelligent design." See the interv...

Can We Escape the Need for a Transcendent First Cause? R.C. Sproul Argues "Not a Chance"!

Noted seminary professor and Christian author R.C. Sproul, along with Keith Mathison (professor of systematic theology at Reformation Bible College), have recently released an updated and revised edition of Sproul's book Not a Chance, first published in 1999.

This philosophically and theologically oriented book covers much of the same material that a Philosophy 101 or Logic 101 textbook might discuss. However, the parts that will interest our readers the most explore the evidence that the uni...

Irony Watch: William Dembski Thanks Richard Dawkins for Inspiration

Here's a wonderful irony. Reflecting on the origins of his thinking on intelligent design including his forthcoming book, Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information, William Dembski acknowledges the influence of Richard Dawkins, who gave him the link between specification and complexity as a marker for ID. Of course that's not how Dawkins saw it, writing in The Blind Watchmaker, but he put the idea and the language into Dr. Dembski's mind.

While you're savoring that, take a moment to pr...

William Dembski Explains Why Intelligent Design Does Not, and Cannot, Make Sense Under Materialist Premises

It often seems that in conversation with our Darwinist interlocutors, there's a fundamental non-meeting of minds. For them, intelligent design doesn't make sense, as if the language itself that we use were incompressible to them. That's because under their premise -- methodological naturalism, their picture of the world and how it must work -- ID can't make sense! In his forthcoming book, Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information, eminent ID theorist William Dembski sketches the alter...

Neuroscience Tried Wholly Embracing Naturalism, But Then the Brain Got Away

In "Darwin's 'Horrid Doubt': The Mind" I noted:

Ironically, while Darwin may have doubted the fully naturalized mind and felt horrid about it, most of his latter-day supporters believe and feel good. And, on its own terms, their faith cannot be disconfirmed.

That is well for them because the evidence does not support them. But the culture does.

The clearest exponent of the culture is Duke University philosopher Alex Rosenberg, who proudlyadvocatesscientism: "Science provides all the significa...

Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let's Dump Methodological Naturalism

After reading my article about methodological naturalism (MN), a correspondent wrote and asked a good question:

Doesn't ID satisfy the requirements of MN, if we define MN as simply excluding inferences to supernatural causes? Obviously MN cannot rule out all cases of agent (versus strictly physical) causation. Because, if MN does exclude agent causation, then archaeology, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and in fact many other areas of ongoing scientific research, would b...

A Paradigm Shift in the Making: William Dembski's Revolutionary Breakthrough

Editor's note: We are delighted to welcome Professor Mary Simpson Poplin as a new contributor to ENV. What follows is Dr. Poplin's Foreword to William Dembski's forthcoming book, Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information. Dr. Poplin is a professor of education at Claremont Graduate University and has conducted extensive research on highly effective teachers in urban poor schools. She is the author of the books Is Reality Secular?: Testing the Assumptions of Four Global Worldviews and...

William Dembski on What "Information" Is

What concept could be more fundamental to intelligent design theory than "information"? None, but what exactly does the word mean in the context that we use it? William Dembski explains.

His new book, Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information, is out this autumn but YOU STILL HAVE SIX DAYS to take advantage of the wonderful discount, 35 percent off the suggested retail price including free shipping, if you pre-order by September 30! That's just $22.95 if you act now.

After that, you'll...

A Logistical Triumph, Our Simulcast with Meyer, Lennox, and Metaxas Reached as Many as 24,000 People Across North America

Our simulcast on Sunday evening, "Science and Faith: Are They Really in Conflict?," was a smash success. We're still compiling exact figures, but preliminarily here's what we've got.

This single event with Stephen Meyer, John Lennox, and Eric Metaxas was simultaneously broadcast by 128 co-hosting churches and other groups across North America -- 40 states and 5 provinces of Canada -- reaching an audience of around 13,000-24,000 people.

We've heard of churches with attendance counts ranging up...

A Logistical Triumph, Our Simulcast with Meyer, Lennox, and Metaxis Reached as Many as 24,000 People Across North America

Our simulcast on Sunday evening, "Science and Faith: Are They Really in Conflict?," was a smash success. We're still compiling exact figures, but preliminarily here's what we've got.

This single event with Stephen Meyer, John Lennox, and Eric Metaxas was simultaneously broadcast by 128 co-hosting churches and other groups across North America -- 40 states and 5 provinces of Canada -- reaching an audience of around 13,000-24,000 people.

We've heard of churches with attendance counts ranging up...