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Showing posts with the label Discovery Institute

Why James Tour Lost the Origins Debate to Dave Farina

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  Something that keeps getting slipped over the transom in my study is news about Dr. James Tour. He is a professor of several things including chemistry at Rice University, and friendly with the Discovery Institute, an Intelligent Design organization. He makes Darwin sad by refuting claims of materialists on the origin of life. No, I refuse to accept the claims of Darwin's acolytes on social(ist) media and elsewhere that the OoL has nothing to do with evolution, as that has been handily refuted many times over. Background image by Cowboy Bob Sorensen , photos from James Tour's YouTube post, then modified* Dave Farina considers himself an educator on science topic and has made good use of the popularity of YouTube. His channel is Professor Dave Explains . (People call themselves whatever they want, but in science and academia, claiming titles like doctor or professor is akin to stolen valor in the military .) Like other atheists, he presupposes a materiali

Sanitizing Darwin's Racist History Again

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Sometimes when creationists bring up Charles Darwin's racism, it puts  burrs under the saddles of his followers. They claim it is an ad homiem  and a distraction, but the fact remains despite their protestations. It has also been extensively documented. His racism is extremely relevant, as it is entrenched in his evolutionary conjectures. We saw how a couple of his biographers falsely tried to say that his theory had a noble motive , the abolition of slavery. Professor Joseph L. Graves, Jr. is up to something similar. Celebration of Abolition of Slavery...in 1866 via NYPL , colorized at Palette , then modified at PhotoFunia The professor is celebrated as the first black man to get a doctorate in evolutionary biology, and my response is, "Big deal." Evolutionary biology is self-serving and has little value to real science. Also, how many black people are attracted to studying something this area? (Asking for a friend.) Seems strange to prop up a field where your "rac

Transsexuality and Transhumanism

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen There are deviant people loudly demanding what they think are their rights, but there are more subtle thing that happen with movements. They often start small and over time. Deviants have been with the rest of civilization for a long time. However, their acceptance, normalization, preferential treatment  and more seem to have sprung up overnight. Many people are bewildered about all this. There is more going on than it may seem upon first examination. Writing for the Discovery Institute, agnostic Wesley J. Smith postulates that this ties into the transhumanist movement. Bionic eye, Pixabay / intographics Let's study on transhumanism . Using medical technology to repair bodily injuries or defects is commonplace. Transhumanism goes beyond healing and intends to upgrade humanity . Some proponents think they are helping human evolution, which is definitely not the correct use of that word. Wesley Smith suggests that transsexuality is using transhumanism (the cont

Refuting Bad Design Claims of Human Foot and Ankle

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Misotheists and other evolutionists frequently use dysteleology arguments, which basically mean that they think something was the product of bad design, therefore, no Creator. The human eye  and the panda's thumb  are two of their favorites. Not too long ago, we considered similar claims about knee joints . This time we go a mite lower and dispense with bad design arguments about the human foot and ankle. Like knees, feet and ankles give us problems. The Master Engineer cannot be blamed when people do not use them in keeping with their design. Feet and ankles, Unsplash / Jan Romero Professor Nathan Lents wanted to slap leather with creationists and Intelligent Design proponents (and possibly to bolster the faith of fundamentalist evolutionists). Like other evolutionists, he apparently argued from ignorance instead of knowledge of the subjects he discussed. Lentz wrote a book about the things that are supposedly products of evolution, no designer need apply. It did not go well. Befo

Programmed Biases and Artificial Intelligence

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The subject of artificial intelligence keeps cropping up, and it will continue to do so for quite some time. Having "machines" become sentient and taking over has been a favorite theme in science fiction for decades. Some of those stories are fanciful, others may be cautionary tales. In the earlier post " Artificial Intelligence and Replacing Humanity ," several articles were linked that show how humanity really has nothing to fear. A primary reason is that AI can never become equal to, let alone surpass, the human brain. Artificial Intelligence, Pixabay /  Gerd Altmann  (geralt) As discussed previously, AI and other computers are subject to their programming. This was recently illustrated in an opinion column by Robert Marks . Western civilization has been distancing itself from biblical principles, so it shouldn't be surprising when ChatGPT has to practically be begged to mention what many biblical creationists believe: Behemoth in the book of Job is a sauropo

Charles Darwin was not a Slavery Abolitionist

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Disciples of Charles Darwin try to brush aside or ignore his view of women as inferior , and especially his blatant racism . Some build a straw man by claiming that we said evolution is racist when we talk about scientific racism and other extensions of his conjectures. There have been owlhoots who claim that saying Darwin was a racist is an ad hominem , but that conveniently ignores the fact that his beliefs were fundamental in his development of evolution — ideas have consequences . People also point out that he was opposed to slavery, and a couple of authors try to make Charlie appear to be a passionate abolitionist. Public domain image, run through removebg , colorized at Palette , flames added at LunaPic A couple of biographers wrote a book that portrayed Darwin as someone who was concerned with the abolition of slavery. His work on species was with abolition in mind. When Dr. Robert F. Shedinger gave the tome close scrutiny, he realized it was stuff and nonsense. Sure, it was

Giraffes and Evolutionary Just-So Stories

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Believers in descent-with-modifications evolution tell a story of how the giraffe got its long neck, which has been repeated for many year. Some things are taught that even some Darwinists say are simply not true. While many examples have been given of evolutionists saying ridiculous things to bamboozle people into accepting evolution, there are also some that are willing to be upfront about the problems they have with certain claims. Giraffe evolution is one of those areas — and not just the neck, but the entire animal. Giraffes, Unsplash / Melissa van Niekerk Biblical creationists as well as Intelligent Design advocates like to point out that there are numerous biological details in giraffes that have to be in place or nothing works, nothing makes sense. (The okapi is related to the giraffe , and that critter also has Darwinists baffled.) They cannot explain the giraffe's neck , and its genome is also problematic for them , and other indications of specified complexity. Clinton R

Why They Reject the Truths of Design and Creation

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Over at Evolution News, an Intelligent Design site run by the Discovery Institute, there was a fund-raising article. Nothing wrong with that since neither they nor biblical creation science organizations receive government funding — unlike the secular science industry. The author, Dr. John G. West, raised some points worth discussing in " The Biggest Obstacle to Accepting Intelligent Design ". Regular readers know that I have serious reservations about the "big tent" ID movement, but they often do good work showing flaws in minerals-to-microbiologist evolution. Both ID and creationists use intelligent design arguments about living things and specified complexities. Engineer at work, Pexels / RF._.studio Dr. West says the biggest obstacle for people to accept Intelligent design is: Not hearing the evidence in the first place . I reckon there's some truth to that. A spell back I was telling someone that I promote creation science, and the o

The Standard Human Evolution Story vs. the Facts

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This time, I am going to take you along a different trail. It is a series of articles from an Intelligent Design site worth considering. The ID movement has some serious limitations , but they do some good work in showing design   (obviously)  and flaws in evolution. When talking to typical evolution supporters, they often repeat material from secular news releases. We have seen that the press is often disingenuous and exceeds what evolutionary scientists actually claim. Darwin's acolytes claim to have mountains of evidence, but evolutionary scientists know otherwise. Ardipithecus ramidus , Wikimedia Commons / Sailko ( CC BY 3.0 ) One sidewinder actually said that human evolution is complete and has no gaps. That's the guy who gets quoted by evolution supporters who deny the Creator, but he's at odds with the majority of experts. That's right, there are disputes about evolution and major flaws in candidates for our ancestors are known. Unfortunately, people are impress

Toumaï is not our Evolutionary Ancestor, Either

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Articles about a critter that is considered a "fossil hominin",  Sahelanthropus tchadensis , have been dropped over the transom here. It was presumptuously nicknamed  Toumaï  ("hope of life" in the Daza language) and some Darwinists think it is the oldest human ancestor. Sahelanthropus  was originally found in Chad in 2001, but I wonder if this supposedly earthshaking discovery is not touted so much is because there was controversy from the beginning. The bones are fragmented, and there is even speculation that people from long ago had fiddled around with it. Sahelanthropus tchadensis , Wikimedia Commons / Bjoertvedt ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) Perhaps researchers may have wanted to avoid another  Lucy-type controversy , but that's just my speculation. After all, bones may not even belong to the same kind of creature. A recent study reveals that paleoanthropologists presupposed evolution and were thrilled by finding what they expected to see, but others did not gallop for

Evolutionary Racism and the Buffalo Shootings

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Although he opposed slavery, Charles Darwin was a racist. His disciples become infuriated with us when we point out this fact and cry, "That is an ad hominem! " While it is indeed about the man, it is not fallacious. His racist views were instrumental to his version of evolution. Darwin considered black people and others to belong to less-evolved inferior races. Eventually, those "races" would be replaced by civilized man — white people. (This child wonders if the best white people were the Victorian English.) This exacerbated racism and formed "scientific racism." Tops Friendly Market, Flickr / Nicholas Eckhart  ( CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 ) The way mainstream media refer to white supremacists, neo-Nazis, etc., make it sound like there are quite a few of them. I have never met any. Yes, I've met racists but not the hardcore types, and turned down connection requests on social(ist) media for white supremacists. The Buffalo shooter on 14 May 2022 was racially mot

Top Ten Problems with Darwinian Evolution

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Casey Luskin gives his top ten problems with Darwinian evolution. These have supporting links. After that, he invites comments by asking, "What would you add"? A few months back I gave my  top three criticisms of Darwinian evolution  that I think should be taught in public schools. But the problems with Darwinian evolution run much deeper. Here are my top ten problems with biological and chemical evolution: You can participate if you wish after reading " What Are the Top Ten Problems with Darwinian Evolution?", here .

If Schools Taught Evolution's Flaws

Casey Luskin considers evolution's top three flaws to be:  (1) Tell students that the fossil record often lacks transitional forms and that there are "explosions" of new life forms, a pattern of radiations that challenges Darwinian evolutionary theory. (2) Tell students that many scientists have challenged the ability of random mutation and natural selection to produce complex biological features. (3) Tell students that many lines of evidence for Darwinian evolution and common descent are weak The article itself is short, so I suggest that you click on the reference links and learn something. You can read "What Are the Top Three Flaws in Darwinian Evolution, as Taught Today in Public Schools?" , here.

Evolutionary Icons in Textbooks Still Fail

In late 2001, Creation Ministries International did an article about the 2000 book Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?  that showed how several of the "proofs" of evolution fail. Even in 2012, we encounter "proofs" of evolution that are outdated, discredited and even fraudulent. Some of these are the Peppered Moths, Haeckel's drawings (someone said to me, "Even though they were faked doesn't mean it's still not true"...agonizing), the Miller experiment and more. I maintain that some of Darwin's cheerleaders are victims of bad science and indoctrination, but they are also to blame for taking so much by faith and not investigating the flaws in evolution that so many of us are trying to get them to see. To be blunt, presenting bad information is indoctrination, not education. The educational system appears to be more interested in promoting a worldview and misotheistic biases rather than educating and training students to think critically

More Peer Review Club Action

"Peer Review", the convenient cop-out for evolutionists to dodge actually examining the evidence for creation and Intelligent Design. Sure, let's submit creationist material to evolutionists for their opinions. Makes perfect sense. Yes, the biased "good old boys" club that promotes favorites and suppresses those who are not exactly on the inside track. Bad news, Buford: Non-evolutionists have peer review as well. But it does not meet your presuppositions. Hey, want an example of what happens when...? What happens when an editor of a technical biology journal decides, along with others, to publish the first peer-reviewed technical article that casts doubt on Darwin and lays out the evidence for an intelligent designer?  In the case of Richard Sternberg, a Smithsonian research associate and former managing editor of the independent journal called the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington , it meant being cast out of the prestigious