In the News

In ENV, and a press release from the new centre...In recent years, the development of Intelligent Design theory has been associated with the USA, but now a Centre for Intelligent Design has opened in the UK.

Intelligent Design (ID) theory argues that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by intelligent causation. As the scientific case for ID has become increasingly visible around the world, it deserves a voice in Britain.

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A new "Intelligent Design Applet" for Android, BlackBerry, iPad, and iPhone has been created by IDEA Center Board Member, Dr. H. Wayne House, the editor of Intelligent Design 101. The App includes links to pro-ID websites, pro-ID blog updates, and FAQs on intelligent design. For more information, visit the Intelligent Design Applet's website

Casey Luskin, of the Discovery Institute, reports in the Liberty Legal Journal that for years, David Coppedge offered pro-ID videos to co-workers at JPL in a non-aggressive, respectful manner. If his colleague declined to watch the DVD, he dropped the matter. But in early 2009, one of Coppedge's supervisors learned of his distributing pro-ID videos among JPL employees. After yelling at Coppedge and accusing him of "pushing religion," his supervisor ordered him to cease distributing the DVDs.

Coppedge felt singled out and harassed, and he expressed this to his supervisor. Coppedge later learned that JPL's human-resources department had started investigating the matter.

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A full screening of Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record, followed by Q & A will occur at SMU on September 23rd. Panelists will be Douglas Axe, Johnathan Wells, Richard Sternberg, and Stephen Meyer.

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In a USA Today article...

click here for a link to article

it is claimed that...the universe blasted itself into existence spontaneously, following M-theory's rules to create physical laws that we call gravity, magnetism and so on, purely by chance. "He's (Hawking) pointing to a crucial and fascinating feature of Einstein's general relativity (law of gravity): universes are free!" says Caltech physicist Sean Carroll in an e-mail. He's the author of From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time. "It costs precisely zero energy (and zero anything else) to make an entire universe. From that perspective, perhaps it's not surprising that the universe did come into existence."

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What is that "fascinating feature of Einstein's general relativity" that allows something to come from absolutely nothing? Or is it not really absolutely nothing, but, in fact, "something" from which the universe arrives. As pointed out by those in the know...it is assumed that the space-time continuum can be created in an inflationary big bang while maintaining zero net energy. If true, the universe might be the ultimate example of a free lunch. If not, then the quantum vacuum state might be the "something" from which the universe sprang as a physical entity. It has yet to be demonstrated that a quantum vacuum with the right energy density and growth rate can accompany the birth of a general relativistic, big bang universe. It is merely an article of faith on the part of some theoretical physicists that it can be so. One of the present issues is that the quantum vacuum energy density is about 120 orders of magnitude different from what can be reconciled with the apparent rate of acceleration of the expanding universe. But too many physicists don't want to let that stubborn fact get in the way of a good, just-so story.

It is clear that chance has no being (ontology); therefore chance is powerless. Chance turns out to be a label we give for processes we don't understand. If Parmenides was correct (ex nihilo nihil fit), and chance is powerless, then Hawking and Sean Carroll are wrong, as was John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell. With regard to the infinite regress, it is not "everything must have a cause", but rather, "every effect must have a cause". For example, the Judeo-Christian God is eternal, and not an effect, therefore, God (the intelligent designer?) was not caused.

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More critique of Hawking's ideas found...

Here...