The ID Report

Psychiatrist Anthony Daniels, who writes under the name Theodore Dalrymple, sounds about as dubious about "evolutionary psychology" as I am. He writes in the New York Sun,

"The Freudian claim of explanatory power was false, as was the Marxist claim, and as the Darwinist claim, the most popular such explanatory claim today, will prove to be false.

His main target, however, is Sigmund Freud, of whom he writes,

What, if anything, did Sigmund Freud actually discover? What concrete human knowledge would be lacking if he, or someone very like him, had never lived?

With most scientists, the same questions would not be hard to answer. In the case of William Harvey, we might say: He discovered the circulation of the blood. Though philosophers may tell us that all scientific hypotheses are provisional, no one now seriously expects a future scientist to discover that the blood does not, in fact, circulate.

Freud also claimed to be a scientist in the strictest sense of the word (though his world outlook was more scientistic than scientific), but all of his supposed discoveries, such as that of the Oedipus complex, were highly speculative. With little independent empirical evidence to support them, his theories were more like inventions than discoveries. No one would take seriously a doctor who concluded from the fact that a young man had broken his leg playing football that playing football was the one and only cause of broken legs; but this was more or less Freud's method.

Dalrymple's essay provides much interesting information about how Freud's theories boasted a veneer of scientific respectability, mainly (it seems) because they were an alternative to traditional explanations.

Note: My own doubts about evolutionary psychology (which is what I assume Dalrymple means by "Darwinism" in the context) stem from the fact that it attempts to find "explanations" for human behaviour in supposed events that occurred before recorded history and somehow got passed on in our genes. That recalls Freud's efforts to find explanations in unconscious childhood traumas. It is very satisfying to people who need an explanation for their behaviour, but do not want it to be a traditional one. One must finally say, about all of it, "maybe ... but maybe not, and there's really no way to know."

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

How do unconscious people know when to wake up? They shouldn't, but they do, and so ...

To make sense, any theory of mind needs to address the data from physics. Notice, I said data from physics, not from Materialism 101.

This reviewer of The Spiritual Brain thinks that the God Helmet is as funny as I did. (Look, why don't atheists get out more? They could try going to church, for example, if they want to attack religion effectively. You can learn way more about the down side of religion at church than in some atheist think tank.)

Is human consciousness a trick to ensure survival? Well, let's start with the question of whether it even helps much to ensure survival. Do animals commit suicide? Start wars over ideology? Consciousness creates numerous risks to life that would not otherwise exist.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Textbooks often don't discuss extinction - the death of all members of a species - in any detail. No surprise there, it's a frustrating and depressing topic.

Frustrating because museums would bid billions to bring back a live tyrannosaur. And depressing because good answers are often not available. So discussion can lurch dangerously into the realm of folklore.

When that happens, folklore wins hands down over fact. The extinction of the entire superorder of dinosaurs [1] which marked the close of the Cretaceous era - perhaps mainly due to an asteroid hit - has become a pop culture icon that now supports a variety of views and causes.

Pop culture need not - and does not - address the real history of life. For example, the extinction of all species of trilobite, the signature fossil of the Cambrian era, goes largely unnoticed simply because trilobites never became a pop culture icon. In any event, when discussing extinctions, competent and honest scientists can reach different conclusions. [2] But understanding the history of life requires that we grapple with what we do know about natural* extinctions, as well as about the actual patterns of evolution and of stasis (vast periods in which nothing much happens to a life form).

[ ... ]

Raup ends his 1991 book on a curious note, attributing to Darwin's theory of evolution powers he does not actually discuss in his own book - yet he then reserves a key judgment:

“Is extinction through bad luck a challenge to Darwin’s natural selection? No. Natural selection remains the only viable, naturalistic explanation we have for sophisticated adaptations like eyes and wings. We would not be here without natural selection. Extinction by bad luck merely adds another element to the evolutionary process, operating at the level species, families, and classes, rather than the level of local breeding populations of single species. Thus, Darwinism is alive and well, but, I submit, it cannot have operated by itself to produce the diversity of life today.”

- David M. Raup, Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), p. 192.

Interesting! What does he think "Darwin's natural selection" cannot have done? Compare this with what he says in the quotation just above, about the Pleistocene rain forests.

In his day, Raup was taking a big risk by even suggesting that Darwinism might not be true, so he wisely merely provides facts that dispute it - and then covers his tracks with a resounding promotion of Darwinism in areas of study that he does not actually address in his book.

Sometimes, that is the only way to get key information across.

Go here for more.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Excerpt:

When a scrap of evidence supports any one of the competing theories of the origin of life, doubts about that theory itself are often not discussed in the article. That practice distorts the overall picture.

To see why, suppose for example that the police are trying to determine which of three suspects stole a car. None of the suspects is considered a truthful witness, so asking for a confession isn't an option. We hear about - and focus on - information that apparently places one of them at the scene of the crime. However, what if - on the balance of the evidence - the police believe that that particular suspect was out of the country at the time? If our discussion of the new evidence omits that fact, we are not providing a full account of the information. And that is what a lot of reports on origin of life research in science media sound like.

Go here for more.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Are prayer studies a waste of government money? No way!

Fellow atheist evolutionary biologist blasts Richard Dawkins in Skeptical magazine

Neuro this and neuro that and neuro go away ...

Most opposition to new ideas in science comes from fundamentalism within science, neuroscientist says

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Recently, some commenters at one of my home blogs, the Post-Darwinist, have urged me to address the question of whether it is true that most Discovery Institute fellows are evangelical Christians.

I suppose so, except for the ones who are Catholics, agnostics, or Moonies or something.

Go here for reasons why the accusation is basically garbage and - way more important to you - the early beginnings of a list of reasons not to believe Darwinism.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

I blog at Uncommon Descent, a community blog where this question was sent to Bill Dembski by a TV chase producer:

... can you or they provide any samples of things that intelligent design theory has predicted, which researchers have later determined to be true?

I gather Dembski sent that guy some predictions, but I've been busy, so I didn't get around to compiling any suggestions till now. Figured I'd post them here.

Including

Complete series of transitional fossils will not usually be found because most proposed series have never existed. Eventually, researchers will give up on ideologically driven nonsense and address the history that IS there. They will focus on discovering the mechanisms that drive sudden bursts of creativity.

Positive prediction: Discovering the true mechanisms of bursts of natural creativity may be of immense value to us, especially if we need to undo some significant harm to our environment.

Also: Also: The Pope vs. howler monkey stand-ins?

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

It's what happens when Buffalo bull meets Cow gal or versa vice.

You probably don't hang out in places like that, so to you it's just a dinner entree.

Still, it's significant in a particular way: Fertile hybrids of genus bos and genus bison, separated for many thousands of years, form the basis of an industry in Western North America. What does that mean for theories of how different species come to exist?

Jane Harris-Zsovan of The Design of Life team says,

The existence of the beefalo and its cousins, the dzo and zubron, show us that - after millennia of separation - the gene pool of individuals in the genus bison and genus bos has not changed enough to make interbreeding impossible. And, in the case of European bison and American bison, there is debate as to whether speciation has fully occurred.

Clearly, the Darwinian theory of speciation by natural selection is not the whole story. Maybe it's not the true story at all.

Go here for more.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Ron Reagan (son of Ronald) 1. called it "The greatest breakthrough in our or any lifetime."

John Edwards, 2004 US vice-presidential hopeful and part time prophet, predicted that Christopher "Superman" Reeve would arise and walk provided that religious fanatics did not stop the progress of science.

And when Bush nixed new funding in 2001, Newsweek's science correspondent Sharon Begley suggested that his compromise might be "a cruel blow to millions of patients."

Whatever were they all talking about? The fabled fountain of youth? Well, more or less. Actually, they were talking about processing frozen human embryos abandoned at fertility clinics, to use in stem cell research (ESCR).

Go here for more.

Also:

Business and social Darwinism: An uneasy mix?

Mythbusting: The Catholic Church and the Galileo myth

The Large Hadron Collider: Gateway to other universes?

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Recently, a person who claimed to be a Catholic informed me that I was a liar if I didn't tell readers that the Catholic Church has fully embraced Darwinian evolution.

Ironically, I'd be a liar if I told readers that the Catholic Church HAS fully embraced Darwinian evolution, because it hasn't and I know that it hasn't. (I wouldn't be a liar if, like my correspondent, I were simply confused or mistaken.)

My correspondent is probably honestly confused, because many people have been, by inept reporting.

In October 1996, John Paul II told the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,

... some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis.* In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.

Many sources ran with this, trumpeting that the Pope supports evolution. They did NOT bother to read, consider, or report JPII's further remarks:

"There are materialist and reductionist theories, as well as spiritualist theories."

[Guess which kind the Church likes? Hint: Not the one Darwin liked.]

"The magisterium of the Church takes a direct interest in the question of evolution, because it touches on the conception of man, whom Revelation tells us is created in the image and likeness of God. The conciliar constitution Gaudium et Spes has given us a magnificent exposition of this doctrine, which is one of the essential elements of Christian thought."

[= Man is a fallen god not a risen animal.]

"Pius XII underlined the essential point: if the origin of the human body comes through living matter which existed previously, the spiritual soul is created directly by God."

[= The immortal soul really exists and is unique to humans.]

Richard Dawkins, probably the best-known Darwinist worldwide, attacked the Pope for his statement, because he realized - if others didn't - that JPII was cutting the heart out of the enterprise. No meaningful interpretation of Darwinism can survive JPII's qualifications. The whole point of Darwinism is to situate humans firmly within the animal kingdom and the whole point of JPII's statement is to jerk them out of it.

Also, "more than an hypothesis" does not mean what many have interpreted it to mean. The online document at EWTN inserts an asterisk and provides the following note:

EWTN Note on translation:
The English edition at first translated the French original as: "Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of more than one hypothesis within the theory of evolution." The L'Osservatore Romano English Edition subsequently amended the text to that given in the body of the message above, citing the translation of the other language editions as its reason. It should be noted that an hypothesis is the preliminary stage of the scientific method and the Pope's statement suggests nothing more than that science has progressed beyond that stage. This is certainly true with respect to cosmological evolution (the physical universe), whose science both Pius XII and John Paul II have praised, but not true in biology, about which the popes have generally issued cautions (as above and Humani Generis). [CBD]

There it is in black and white, folks. The popes have issued "cautions" about evolution in biology, which is Popespeak for "Darwin? Forget Darwin." (In Italian, that's Dimenticare Darwin, the Italian title of an anti-Darwin book, now in translation.)

Following that up, the current pope Benedict XVI (B16) has gone out of his way to make his dissent from Darwinism clear. I mean the only way he could be more clear would be to issue prayer cards assuring Catholics that they are not some "casual and meaningless product of evolution." Oops, he's done that, actually.

And the message seems to be getting across to people who just weren't listening before. So B16 gets mail too.

Here is an excellent overview of Catholic teachings by Fr. Martin Hilbert of the Toronto Oratory.

Also:

The hit review in the New York Times of Antony Flew's book "There IS a God" gets mail. (Also, an explanation of how Flew came to be pegged as "world's most notorious atheist" It WASN'T Marketing's fault!).

Business and social Darwinism: An uneasy mix?

Mythbusting: The Catholic Church and the Galileo myth

The Large Hadron Collider: Gateway to other universes?

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Apparently, it’s not just physics that starts things off with a bang. Life forms have done that too, and with equal drama.

Mammals, birds, and flowers have their big bang events.

The science literature, as well as the popular science press, assumes that an adequate fossil record must show a long, gradual series of transitions from simple to ever more complex life forms, powered by survival of the fittest. That is what the Darwin's theory of evolution predicts, and therefore it is what researchers are encouraged - and trained - to look for. When confronted by the sudden appearance of complexity, they assume that their evidence is exceptional, not normal.

In reality, the only reason we have for believing that these transitional life forms ever existed is Darwin's theory. And Darwin's theory depends on their discovery.

As we might expect, every so often, paleontologists do find an apparent transitional fossil. And there is much rejoicing in the popular science media that Darwin's theory is confirmed. However, the overall pattern of fossil finds does not confirm his theory.

So what should we do?

For more, go here.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

The Facts about Intelligent Design
A Response to the National Academy of Sciences' New Science, Evolution, and Creationism booklet

Recent polls reveal that only 13% of Americans believe that humans developed through purely natural evolutionary processes. Fearing the public's unyielding skepticism of evolution, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recently released their third edition of a booklet on Science, Evolution, and Creationism promoting misinformation about intelligent design and bluffs about the scientific status of Darwinian evolution.

In Part 1 of our critique of the NAS booklet Cornelius Hunter provides an overview of the fundamental flaws of the NAS triumphant claims for Darwinism. In Part 2, Casey Luskin provides a detailed 12 page analysis of the specific errors and misrepresentations in Science, Evolution, and Creationism including documentation of how:

1. The NAS oversells the scientific importance of evolution.
2. The NAS unscientifically elevates evolution to the status of unquestionable dogma.
3. The NAS misrepresents the facts about the state of origin of life research.
4. The NAS misrepresents the nature of the fossil record.
5. The NAS misrepresents the evidence for universal common ancestry.
6. The NAS overstates the case for human evolution.
7. The NAS misrepresents irreducible complexity and the flagellum.
8. The NAS misrepresents the nature of intelligent design.
9. The NAS adopts the "Judge Jones Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It" approach to ID.
10. The NAS dismisses the scientific case for intelligent design.

You can view the full Part 2 report here. David Tyler notes that a "Spread the Word" editorial in Nature, indicates a missionary zeal to distribute the new NAS booklet and convert the masses to the Darwinian worldview. Be sure to have your ARN responses handy when the NAS booklet shows up in a public school classroom in your neighborhood.

"Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see is not designed, but rather evolved." --Francis Crick

It's a fact, the earth is flat. At least as a scientific matter. I know this because I'm a scientist who's been taught all my life nothing but earth flatness, it appears to me that the earth is flat, and, quite honestly, I like the idea of a flat earth (the implications of a round earth concern me). But more importantly, the overwhelming majority of scientists no longer question whether the earth is flat and I know that presupposing a flat earth in science establishes a powerful unifying principle (something of a rule one might say), ordering all the various concepts just so. As a scientist, I find that nothing in earth science makes sense except in the light of flatness.

You fool! you shout. Don't you know that the earth is round? Have you not seen the horizon? Ship's masts sinking into the sea? Pictures of the earth from space? I smile, thinking one must be careful with labels in the realm of science, where appearances are deceiving. One cannot rely on simple observations of natural phenomena to make scientific inferences; one must be guided methodically by a principle. And science is necessarily built upon the principle of flatness. Whether or not actually true, science must be practiced as if flatness is true. I view every observation, design every experiment, and analyze every result in light of an insistence that the earth is flat.

You seem shocked. I challenge you: tell me one area of science that does not work effectively with a belief in a flat earth (and which only works with an assumption of a round earth). Physics? Chemistry? Biology? Ecology? Zoology? Astronomy? You amuse me as you think yourself clever on that last one. Planetary appearances are simply the macro effects of micro-flatness, flatness extended in space, but flatness nonetheless. And on earth, the local flatness makes a flat earth the only reasonable theory in all of science. No matter what discipline of science you choose, it is abundantly clear that taking a flat earth as the starting point always works. For all practical scientific purposes the earth is flat and science's reliance on flatness is the key to true knowledge.

Let the evidence lead where it may! you declare, as if I ignore the evidence. But despite your clamoring I must insist that you have no evidence. What you presume as evidence of roundness cannot be evidence of roundness because the earth is flat. Maybe you are seeing edge effects, or perhaps relativistic effects of a space-time continuum. No doubt you see something you perceive as roundness, but I can't help but suspect you have a hidden religious motive, some "roundness of the gaps" urge that causes you to simplistically believe that what appears round is actually round. But science is uniform on this issue and it is no ruse; flatness is a fact, fact, FACT!

You look at me as if I'm the devil. Try to understand it this way (although I repeat myself in unrealistic optimism that you desire to understand): regardless of the actual truth of the matter (which we may never know), science is committed to a flat earth theory that must operate as if the earth is flat. Of course scientists sometimes make adjustments for various anomalies, but no theory of science is anomaly free. In fact, holding to a theory despite anomalies embodies the very nature of science. In contrast to the dogmatic claims of round-earthers, science demands tentativeness in the face of anomalies. Very simply, flat earth theory is the best scientific explanation we have for all flatness and apparent roundness in the world today. As a unifying theory of earth science, it permits science to operate free of faith-based beliefs in roundness, cubeness, Native American sacred hole-ness, Chinese cosmic egg-ness, and every other "ness" that purports to explain the natural world.

You mock methodological flatness as "flatnessism", as if the ism makes it evil. But it is you (to hint at a label) who are fooled by the appearance of roundness. After all, the study of earth science is simply the study of flatness that gives the appearance of roundness for a purpose. But such appearances are exactly why a rule of science is necessary--without it certainty gives way to science-stopping personal belief and conjecture--one may as well believe in a round spaghetti bowl monster! Besides, flatness of earth is an established fact, supported by a mountain of evidence. Don't you understand? There can be no true roundness because the earth is flat. What more proof could one wish for? Again, no true earth scientist questions the fact of a flat earth, and no amount of "round-earthers" who pretend to scientific credentials can change this fact.

I've seen your smug looks, your smile-filled seminars, your online diatribes against "flatulancism" and your websites that portray flat-earthism as the source of all cultural decline in this country. By believing the earth is actually round, you act as if science is evil for proving the opposite. But what you fail to realize is that science is limited in what it can investigate and discover, and the limitation is precisely what separates science from faith based systems of knowledge. You insist your belief in roundness is not faith-based, but what else can it be when all the scientific evidence points to flatness? Can you point to even one flat earth science journal that has published an article on round earth theory? You have a choice. Either base your beliefs on science or on faith, but don't try to bring faith-based ideas into science.

Faith based? you ask with a stunned look (slack-jawed, I muse, suppressing a smirk). You call photos from outer space showing a round earth "faith based"? You call the shadow of the earth on an eclipsed moon "faith based"? No and no. And once again, you are not listening to me. I don't deny that photos from outer space show what appears to be a round earth (in fact, there may be true roundness in outer space, but not on earth). But it's not the photos that are faith based; it's your assumption of actual roundness that is faith based. Because the earth is flat, the roundness shown in these photos can only be apparent roundness, and because you believe it is true roundness it proves that you are basing your belief on faith, instead of science. Science is by definition the activity of seeking flat earth explanations for all earthly features.

Instead of accepting science you debate me with convincing-sounding arguments and slick presentations in forums packed with like-minded round-earthers. You constantly point to apparent roundness of the earth as if apparent roundness alone is proof of a round earth. You have your round-earthism "scientists" with their so-called research showing actual measurements of roundness. You have your campus clubs where you bring in special speakers espousing "earth curvature" as if re-naming your movement changes its unscientific foundation. I tire of your unending obstinacy. You never seem to get the point of science. For the last time: of course there is apparent roundness of the earth, but because the earth is flat, such apparent roundness cannot be evidence of actual roundness. Why can't you separate scientific thinking from other forms of thinking (including, I reflect privately, delusion).

I'm not, as you always assume, anti-roundness. In fact I believe in roundness. I've found that studying a flat earth is perfectly compatible with a faith-based belief in a round earth. Recent court decisions have shown that science and faith should be viewed as different ways of understanding the world rather than as frameworks that are in conflict with each other and that the evidence for earth flatness can be fully compatible with roundness faith. Science and faith simply ask different questions. Science asks how the world works and seeks explanations that assume a flat earth, seeking to find flat explanations for perceived roundness. Belief-based systems ask how roundness informs other aspects of the world, and may find utility in other disciplines such as the humanities. You accuse me of being "flat earth only" by insisting public school science classes teach only evidence of a flat earth. But I'm not "flat earth only", I'm "science-only".

To be honest, in times past I've harbored doubt about a flat earth. And even now I occasionally entertain the idea of a round earth. I sometimes ask myself, what would the earth look like if it were actually round? But here is where my scientific thinking prevails, separating science from other pseudo-science faith beliefs. First, by your own admission the earth is not perfectly round. What kind of a round earth is not perfectly round? I could reject a round earth theory on that basis alone. But more importantly, all true earth scientists are trained to constantly keep in mind that what they see is not round, but rather flat. It's science. It's what we do.

You will no doubt claim "truth" as the ultimate afflatus against flatness. I sigh as I wonder if it's worth the effort to even reply. You frustrate me with your failure to understand science, which is not meant to be a tool for finding all truth. Science is simply the best method available for determining how the world can be explained in terms of flatness. Therefore, science has limits, and you, in trying to introduce roundness into science, are attempting to expand science beyond its legitimate boundaries. So pulling the trump card of truth does little to persuade me.

You can have truth, I'll take science.

Roddy Bullock, JD, BSME, is the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio and is the author of The Cave Painting: A Parable of Science, published by Access Research Network. Send comments to: roddybullock@idnetohio.com.

Copyright (C) 2008 Roddy M. Bullock, all rights reserved. Quotes and links permitted with attribution.

References:

Actual quotes of evolutionists adapted for this essay:

Opening quote: Francis Crick, What Mad Pursuit, Basic Books, New York, p. 138, 1988.

"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" is the title of a 1973 essay by the evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky. The essay was first published in the American Biology Teacher, volume 35, pages 125-129.

" . . . the overwhelming majority of scientists no longer question whether evolution has occurred." National Academy of Sciences, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, 2008.

"Evolution is a fact, fact, FACT!" Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended: A Guide to the Evolution Controversies, [1982], Addison-Wesley: Reading MA, 1983, Third Printing, p.58. Emphasis Ruse's.

"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1996, p. 1.

"Pretend as they will to scientific credentials, the anti-evolution propagandists are always religiously motivated, even if they try to buy credibility by concealing the fact." Richard Dawkins, Introduction to the 1996 edition of The Blind Watchmaker.

". . . science and religion should be viewed as different ways of understanding the world rather than as frameworks that are in conflict with each other and that the evidence for evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith." National Academy of Sciences, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, 2008.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Today at the Post-Darwinist:

Physicists' latest toy: The large hadron collider - gateway to other universes?

Wired Parish: Making sense of evolution

Coffee break: The Onion salutes Wikipedia!

New sci fi journal focuses on ... sci phi!

Today at the Mindful Hack

Intriguing study of consensus - is it really what you think or what your buddies think?

What I say to people who think that the human mind is an illusion

Coffee break! Coffee break! Monkeys and fairness

Does behaviorism work?

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the history of life shows no steady Darwinian march of progress, and the recent discovery about the Avalon explosion is yet another blow to an idea that is kept alive only by ideology, not evidence (and perhaps because the Darwin bicentennial budgets have already been spent?): Excerpts:

Because the Ediacaran creatures are so little known, the significance of their sudden appearance and disappearance is often overlooked: Many scientists have been hoping to find a smooth, orderly transition from the earliest cyanobacteria to the Cambrian creatures, precisely the sort of transition that Darwin's theory of evolution predicts. But the Ediacarans are not only no help to their theory, they are actually quite a setback. An entire complex fauna came into existence quite suddenly (in terms of geological time), and just as suddenly disappeared. Worse, the Ediacarans are NOT ancestors of the Cambrians.

[ ... ]

There was no road between Avalon and Cambria at all. The most remarkable thing about Avalon life is that it strutted its strange stuff a while and then, as far as we know, just disappeared, as did the trilobite and the dinosaur.

For more go here.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Hail Darwin!
by Cornelius Hunter

It is no surprise when a dictator wins an election. With one name on the ballot the election is, of course, a landslide victory and no one is fooled by the self-congratulatory victory speech. The situation would be laughable except that the dictator holds all the power. Something like this occurred in the scientific world last week when the National Academy of Sciences published the latest version of its on-going assault against anything and anyone not aligned with evolution. According to the new 88 page booklet, entitled Science, Evolution, and Creationism, Darwin's theory is unquestionably true, required for scientific research and, in fact, the only choice to begin with.

In the life sciences one's alternatives are to be a Darwinist or to be a Darwinist. Passing grades, letters of recommendation, graduate school admission, doctorate exams, faculty hiring, and tenure promotion all require adherence to the theory of evolution. The lists are long of otherwise qualified candidates who could not take that next career step because they did not conform to the Darwinian paradigm. Academia, and the life sciences in particular, have undergone a long period of in-breeding and it is hardly surprising that, as the National Academy of Sciences' booklet triumphantly declares,

the overwhelming majority of scientists no longer question whether evolution has occurred.[3]

This in-breeding, however, is not the only reason for Darwin's triumph. In a far more profound way the game is rigged to ensure that evolution, in one form or another, is the winner. As the booklet explains, the entire enterprise of science must be limited to naturalistic explanations:

In science, explanations must be based on naturally occurring phenomena. Natural causes are, in principle, reproducible and therefore can be checked independently by others. If explanations are based on purported forces that are outside of nature, scientists have no way of either confirming or disproving those explanations. [10]

This is a standard weapon in evolution's arsenal of arguments, and I am confronted with it in virtually every debate I have with evolutionists. This argument is flawed but the full explanation requires a digression into the history and philosophy of science (see for instance my book: Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism).

For our purposes what is important is that evolutionists are dogmatic about their view of science. They believe that science must, in principle, be absolutely constrained to naturalistic explanations. Furthermore, they do not merely prefer this type of science for themselves. They believe that all scientists must rigidly adhere to this definition of science.

This is a philosophical position that evolutionists hold--there is no scientific evidence that could make evolutionist's think twice about their commitment to naturalism. Like the creationist who mandates a particular interpretation of scripture and interprets scientific evidence accordingly, the evolutionist also mandates a particular interpretation of the scientific evidence. All explanations must be thoroughly and completely naturalistic, no matter how contorted those explanations become.

We could find a code buried in our cells but for evolutionists, only naturalistic causes can be considered. And so all scientific evidence is interpreted according to this restriction--one way or another the evidence is force-fitted to the pre existing framework. As the National Academy of Sciences booklet makes clear, this is their rule. And so it is hardly surprising that evolutionists hold that the purely naturalistic explanation for the origin of species is the right one. This claim that evolution must be true dates back to Darwin's day, and is as strong as ever today. As the booklet explains:

In science, a "fact" typically refers to an observation, measurement, or other form of evidence that can be expected to occur the same way under similar circumstances. However, scientists also use the term "fact" to refer to a scientific explanation that has been tested and confirmed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing it or looking for additional examples. In that respect, the past and continuing occurrence of evolution is a scientific fact. Because the evidence supporting it is so strong, scientists no longer question whether biological evolution has occurred and is continuing to occur. Instead, they investigate the mechanisms of evolution, how rapidly evolution can take place, and related questions. [11]

Indeed, how rapidly evolution can take place, and related questions are sometimes quite vexing. But regardless of how poorly evolution fits the scientific evidence, Darwinists are convinced it is true. Darwinists have constrained science to naturalism, and not surprisingly they consistently discover that the scientific evidence proves naturalism to be true. This is awfully convenient, but could it be that the Darwinists' interpretation of the evidence is colored by their paradigm?

In fact, the booklet's claim that the evidence for evolution is so strong is an overstatement, but the claim is hardly a surprise given evolutionist's philosophical position on science. It is always easier to adjust the data in terms of the paradigm than to adjust the paradigm in terms of the data.

One of the many problems with evolution is the seemingly endless examples of jaw-dropping high complexity in biology. How was evolution supposed to have created sonar in the bat, which is superior to our best military equipment? Since evolution is assumed to be true, questions such as this are taken by evolutionists to be not questions of whether evolution occurred but rather of how evolution occurred. They cannot explain how sonar evolved, but they know that it did evolve. It would be a problem for evolution only if it could be absolutely proven impossible to evolve. As Darwin put it:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case. [emphasis added]

In other words, unlike most scientific theories, evolution is assumed true until proven false. And while it may sound generous of Darwin that his theory would "absolutely break down," the burden of proof he places on the skeptic is actually quite high. It would be virtually impossible to prove rigorously that the bat's sonar absolutely could not have evolved, no matter how unlikely it is. The result is that Darwin's theory was granted a true-until-proven-false status not typical in science.

More recently this protection has been further strengthened using the naturalism requirement. Even if a complex biological structure was somehow proven to be impossible to evolve, explains the National Academy of Sciences, we must remember that alternative explanations such as intelligent design are not scientific because they are not thoroughly naturalistic. As the booklet informs the reader:

Even if their negative arguments against evolution were correct, that would not establish the creationists' claims. There may be alternative explanations. For example, it would be incorrect to conclude that because there is no evidence that it is raining outside, it must be sunny. Other explanations also might be possible. Science requires testable evidence for a hypothesis, not just challenges against one's opponent. Intelligent design is not a scientific concept because it cannot be empirically tested. [41-2]

So not only is evolution a fact, but it will remain so in spite of scientific problems. Those problems will simply have to wait for naturalistic solutions. Evolutionary theory may be modified, but only with alternative naturalistic explanations. In fact this constantly occurs as evolution is stretched in dozens of different directions to try to account for the data. The oft-repeated concept of natural selection, for instance, is merely a sub hypothesis of evolution. It can be sacrificed. The hard constraint within evolution, as Darwin once pointed out, is that all explanations be completely naturalistic. Beyond that anything goes. So science is constrained to naturalism, all the scientific evidence uncannily fits this constraint, and evolution remains true even when scientific challenges do arise.

While evolutionists may not know how evolution occurred, they know it must have occurred. The booklet surveys what the authors view as positive evidence for evolution, but the evidence is interpreted according to evolution rather than from a theory-neutral perspective, unfortunately leaving the casual reader with the message that this constitutes strong positive evidence.

How did life evolve? The booklet explains that there are no consensus hypotheses for this remarkable event, and that evolutionists are searching a variety of ideas. "Researchers have shown how this process might have worked," write the authors. For "if a molecule ... could reproduce ... perhaps with the assistance ... it could form ... if such self-replicators ... they might have formed ... could lead to variants" and so forth. [22] The evidence for the origin of life is packed with question marks.

Obviously we do not have strong evidence that the highly complex cell arose on its own, and the booklet admits that "Constructing a plausible hypothesis of life's origins will require that many questions be answered. Scientists who study the origin of life do not yet know which sets of chemicals could have begun replicating themselves." As if realizing that this hardly constitutes "compelling" evidence, the authors conclude this section with a nod toward the future:

The history of science shows that even very difficult questions such as how life originated may become amenable to solution as a result of advances in theory, the development of new instrumentation, and the discovery of new facts. [22]

While this certainly is true, scientists also need to evaluate theories according to what is known. We can always hope our favorite theories will be saved by future findings, but this is no substitute for accurate evaluation according to the known data. It is simply misleading and irresponsible to state that it is a scientific fact that life evolved from non living chemicals.

This unfortunately is characteristic of how the booklet informs the reader of the biological evidence for evolution. While some legitimate evidences are presented, the booklet repeatedly presents mere interpretations according to the theory as strong evidences for the theory, and it consistently ignores the many negative evidences. An informed reader can easily see that the evidences fail to demonstrate that evolution is true, much less a well supported theory. But unfortunately many readers will likely be more influenced by the authority of the National Academy of Sciences, and erroneously conclude that the evidence must support the booklet's triumphant claims.

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

How much should we believe of what we read about animal number sense?

Hype aside, the evidence points away from the assumption that abstract mathematics is simply the outcome of squabbles over bones. There is a gap that is simply not bridged by the studies of animal number sense, nor do available studies shed much light on the gap.

For more, go here.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Is emotion really better than reason in religious matters?

The Spiritual Brain reviewed in Jesuit thinkmag America

Is there a rock solid Religious Right vote in the United States?

Psychiatrist reviews The Spiritual Brain in The Anglican Planet

Neuroscience and religion: Key medical journal prints thoughtful article

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Intelligent design - does it mean saying "God did it"?

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Recently, the editor of a Christian Web site contacted me with a familiar question: Does intelligent design theory mean saying that "God did it"?

No, not necessarily.

Others want to know, does it mean saying that evolution didn't/doesn't happen? No, it doesn't mean that either.

I have developed some standard answers, largely from teaching an adult ed course4 in the subject, and I have posted them here in case others find them useful:

What is intelligent design?

Intelligent design posits that design, along with chance and necessity, is part of the structure of nature. Design accounts for such features as the fine tuning of the universe and the high level of information in life forms. (The level of information present in life forms cannot be accounted for within the time frame of the Big Bang unless processes such as neo-Darwinian evolution are treated as a form of magic.)

Design is, as ex-atheist Antony Flew observed, consistent with the assumption that mind (Mind, if you like) comes first and creates matter, rather than the other way around. (In fact, that was why Flew stopped being an atheist.)

Does Darwinian evolution happen?

Evolution is certainly part of a process that includes design. That is why ID theorists William A. Dembski and Jonathan Wells called their new book on evolution The Design of Life.

However - and this is critical - Darwinian evolution, as defended today, is an attempt to account for the history of life forms while ignoring design or treating it as an illusion . That is what the ID theorist disputes.

ID theorist Mike Behe points out in The Edge of Evolution that the actual progress of Darwinian evolution, as observed in the laboratory,

1) is much too slow to do what the Darwinist asserts, AND
2) to the extent that it plays a role in evolution, it usually works in the direction of simplification or debilitation of life forms, not in the direction of complexity and better function.

Its usual function has nothing to do with evolution toward more and higher functions but rather with keeping existing populations healthy by trimming poorly adapted variations.

The observed "powerful evidences" of evolution that are trotted out for the public are virtually always minor instances of adaptations. Claims about major transitions (from hippo to whale, et cetera) via Darwinian and related processes ignore the enormous simultaneous reengineering job that is required - and probably cannot have happened without design. But the public is shown only the "whippo's" change in form, not in internal structure.

Does intelligent design require belief in God?

The question of whether design requires a God is a little more complex. Design in the universe can be recognized apart from theism (belief in a *personal* God). Antony Flew is, for example, a deist, not a theist. That is, design in the universe convinces him that there is a mind/Mind behind the universe but he would not describe such a mind as a personal God. Albert Einstein appears to have held similar views.

Does atheism require a belief that there is no design?

It is important to distinguish between atheism in general and materialist atheism. Materialist atheism is by far the most popular type in the Western world today. The materialist atheist rules design out, not because there is strong evidence against it but because materialism cannot accommodate it. In other words, the materialist atheist denies design because he is a materialist (not necessarily because he is an atheist), and asserts that Darwinian evolution (and some related processes) can account fully for the high levels of information in life forms - rendering design an illusion.

But historically most atheists have not been materialists. Some Eastern religions are essentially atheistic but they recognize design. They account for it without invoking either the existence of a monotheistic God or the claim that design is merely an illusion.

How have different traditions accounted for design in the universe?

The question of design hinges on whether design in life forms is real or an illusion. If it is real, deism (an impersonal God) or theism (a personal God) is the explanation most Westerners adopt. Easterners may assume that we are all part of the cosmic Mind, that the universe itself functions as an intelligence, that the universe is a veil for that intelligence of which we are all a part, or that the Law or Way that describes the functioning of the universe is an impersonal force that acts in a way that we humans consider to be intelligence.

The ID theorist sees evolution as one of the factors in the design of life, which is a function of the design of the universe, which is best understood as a function of an intelligence behind the universe. How that intelligence is interpreted depends on the assumptions that the interpreter brings to the evidence.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Animals suddenly appear ... and after that nothing much happens. Why? How? Read the latest post at The Design of Life blog.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

On December 9, 2004, an Associated Press story story went out on the wires, "Famous Atheist Now Believes in God: One of World's Leading Atheists Now Believes in God, More or Less, Based on Scientific Evidence."

More? Or less? As it turns out, neither. He believes in God simply on the scientific evidence. Many might consider that thin gruel, but he is entitled to cite the evidence in his defense. And there is a lot of it.

Flew's change of mind was a watershed, one that has been obscured by the considerable efforts of major legacy media to discredit the story, by attempting to show that Flew is senile and/or didn't write the book. Actually, legacy media played a key role in this story, a role whose significance one must consider carefully: interfering with public understanding of the significance of Flew's change of mind. But just why did so many industry mavens feel so threatened?

First, why even call them legacy media? Aren't they online as well as in print? Yes, they are on line. But it is their attitudes that are history, not the technology. Their fatal weakness is that they operate on the assumptions that have driven print publication for centuries, not on the assumptions that drive Internet publication today. For example, they assume that readers have limited choices and poor judgment in sources of information, and need their sophisticated and skeptical journalists to act as a filter to tell us how to see the world. In reality, today's reader, at least in the Western world, has vast choices of information and many ways of looking at the world. Legacy media have been losing circulation and ad lineage rapidly as a result.

Look at it this way: If people really believed that Antony Flew had not written There IS a God, the publisher would be compelled by decency to withdraw the work. After all, few care to know why Roy Abraham Varghese is a Catholic of some sort or Bishop N. T. Wright is an Anglican, especially if they and their publisher Harper One* were indeed guilty of the deception implied. But as of 11:08 am EST January 1, 2008, There IS a God was #995 on Amazon.com, which is pretty good for a book about philosophy. So we can count the campaign to discredit the book as failed.

But now, as to why so many felt so threatened: Many media celebrities are comfortable with a view of reality in which science is about facts and God is about fantasies or irrelevancies. If Flew had had a big religious conversion, joined a sect, and was now banging on doors handing out tracts, they could laugh and forget him. Silly old man. Too bad after all these years ...

But that's not what happened. He did not have an experiential religious conversion. He changed his mind based on the evidence from science, particularly evidence that has come to light only in the past fifty years. He believes, based on the evidence, that there is a mind behind the universe, that the universe is top down not bottom up. Worse still, he reveals in the book that many leading twentieth century scientists - including Einstein, who has often been described as an atheist - thought the same thing. He explains why they thought so and why he thinks so, in a way that is well within the grasp of an average reader. Such a careful elucidation is devastating to the recent, intellectually shallow anti-God campaign, puffed by the same legacy media and typically driven by people with a big mad on about Judeaeo-Christian religion - and little else to recommend them to broad public attention.

But now, who was Flew and why should we pay attention to his change of mind?

*Harper One is also the publisher of The Spiritual Brain, but I have been critical of their handling of the Flew book here.

Part One: Antony Flew sought to make the best case for atheism
Part Two: Following the argument wherever it leads
Part Three: Rediscovering the God of the Philosophers
Part Four: Einstein's God and Antony Flew

Next: Part One: Antony Flew sought to make the best case for atheism

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Antony Flew, 84, is the author of over 30 professional philosophical works. His Theology and Falsification, first read in 1950 to the Oxford University Socratic Club chaired by CS Lewis, was very widely circulated. Flew, throughout his long life, sought the best reasons for atheism that he could find, and then, in his 80s, decided that it all wasn't really working - but mainly because of the evidence from science.

Roy Abraham Varghese, who had organized philosophical symposia since 1985, at most of which Flew made the case for atheism, describes the significance of his 2004 change of mind thus:

It is not too much to say that within the last hundred years, no mainstream philosopher has developed the kind of systematic, comprehensive, original, and influential exposition of atheism that is to be found in Antony Flew's fifty years of antitheological writings. (ix)

One needs to look back to such 18th and 19th century figures as David Hume or Friedrich Nietzsche for anything like the depth of Flew's work.

There were, of course, many other 20th century atheist thinkers. But Varghese argues that thinkers like Ayer, Sartre, Camus, Heidegger, Rorty, and Derrida differed from Flew in that they offered systems of thought, one of whose byproducts was atheism.

Essentially, they were saying, my system is right - oh, and by the way, there's no God. But that means that you must buy into the system to get the atheism. And if you come to doubt the system, why believe the atheism?

Flew's God and Philosophy and The Presumption of Atheism took a different tack. They provide arguments against theism (belief in God) that do not depend on buying into a system but follow from logical assumptions. For example, in God and Philosophy, Flew argued that God is an incoherent concept and in The Presumption of Atheism, he argued that the burden of proof lies on theism, and that atheism should be the default position meanwhile. These are much stronger arguments and harder to counter because they do not depend on the task of undermining a system (which, in the case of Nietzsche and Derrida, for example, may be quite easy to do). Flew's arguments and assumptions forced theists to grapple seriously with why they believe as they do. Varghese believes that the challenge that Flew provided had the unintended effect of revitalizing philosophical theism.

Varghese is, by contrast, sharply dismissive of the "new atheists," Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Lewis Wolpert, Victor Stenger, and Sam Harris (xvi-xvii), of whom he writes,

The authors, for the most part, sound like hellfire-and-brimstone preachers warning us of dire retribution, even of apocalypse, if we do not repent of our wayward beliefs and associated practices. There is no room for ambiguity or subtlety. It's black and white. Either you are with us all the way or one with the enemy. Even eminent thinkers who express some sympathy for the other side are denounced as traitors. The evangelists themselves are courageous souls preaching their message in the face of imminent martyrdom.

But when it comes to seriously engaging the intellectual arguments for the existence of God, the new atheists are AWOL in his view.

In The Spiritual Brain, Mario Beauregard and I similarly noted a general decline in the quality of thought in atheism in recent years, which - it seems to me - curiously parallels the decline in Christian thought noted by Mark Noll in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Often the best that the new atheists can do is to come up with some harebrained theory of how religion might have been passed on from our ancient ancestors in our selfish genes. Now that the human genome has been mapped, it might be a good idea to declare a moratorium on all such theorizing unless the theorist can point to the specific genes about which the claim is made, and demonstrate the effect unambiguously.

Too much certainty is bad for us, apparently. Life should be an adventure.

Varghese is