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“[T]here is a pernicious and increasingly influential strand of thought these days — normally referred to as ‘scientism‘ — which is not only a threat to every other discipline, including philosophy, but risks undermining the credibility of science itself… Author Sam Harris [for example]… argues that science can by itself provide answers to moral questions and that philosophy is not needed… Science popularizer Neil deGrasse Tyson (and physicists Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking, science educator Bill Nye, among others)… declares philosophy useless to science (or ‘dead,’ in the case of Hawking)… Any number of neuroscientists… believe that ‘your brain on X‘ provides the ultimate explanation for whatever X happens to be. Science popularizer Richard Dawkins… says ‘science‘ disproves the existence of God (while deploying what he apparently does not realize are philosophical arguments informed by science)… A number of evolutionary psychologists (though not all of them!) [also] make claims that go well beyond the epistemic warrant of the evidence they provide… [W]hen scientistic thinkers pretend that any human activity that has to do with reasoning about facts is ‘science‘ they are attempting a bold move of naked cultural colonization, defining everything else either out of existence or into irrelevance… If you want to call that science, fine, but you end up sounding pretty ridiculous. And you are doing no favor to real science either.“
— Massimo Pigliucci, Ph.D. (Biology), Ph.D. (Philosophy of Science)
https://blog.apaonline.org/2018/01/25/the-problem-with-scientism/
and…
“[T]heology requires an understanding of many fields — history, philosophy, literature, science, and so forth — while science is far more narrow, requiring specific technical skills and little knowledge of anything else. Most of the scientists I know do not have the skills to study theology… What we need are more honest scientists who are Christians and are not afraid to proclaim their faith, showing the world that the so-called conflict between faith and science is false and that honest science can be done by those who love Christ.“
—Thomas S. Buchanan, Ph.D (Theoretical and Applied Mechanics), Fellow in four professional societies, Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Biomechanics.
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo50/the-soul-of-science
and…
“Reliance on reason alone led the Greeks to many false conclusions about the universe — aether, geocentrism, and spontaneous generation, to name a few…
Inspired by the smashing success of the Scientific Revolution, John Locke and George Berkeley concluded that the only reliable source of knowledge was empirical. Unlike the ancient and medieval rationalists, who believed that the cognitive powers of the mind were sufficient for discovering the true nature of things, Locke and Berkeley insisted that knowledge stemmed from sensory experience…
[This r]ationalism fell deeper and deeper into the shadow of empiricism, until it was finally fully eclipsed by the “hard” [materialistic] empiricism of David Hume…
To rescue rationalism from the onslaught of Hume, Kant synthesized it with empiricism by proposing that the mind comes endowed with faculties that give meaning to our experiences. This synthesis, Kant submitted, makes possible the identification of laws, including the moral law… In the Kant schema, reality was split asunder into the phenomenal world and the noumenal world… For Kant, certain knowledge was only attainable with respect to the phenomenal world. Knowledge of the noumenal world would always remain tenuous…
In time, though Kant would have been pained to learn it, all of Supernature — including the moral law — was pushed to the sphere of Faith…
[Eventually] everything could be given a natural explanation — i.e., that everything was reducible to elemental forms of matter and energy and as such, could eventually be brought into the realm of Fact. This worldview is known as scientific materialism [a.k.a. scientism ]…
[M]materialistic science [though,] is far from faith-free… [G]iven that only natural explanations are allowed [in materialism], materialistic science depends on the very premise it is trying to demonstrate. Thus, like all worldviews, scientific materialism is founded on a faith statement…
Consider, for instance, one of the most basic and familiar features of nature: gravity. As with angels, heaven, and God, we can’t see, smell, taste, or touch gravity… Even the most successful theories of gravity are not explanations but descriptions, and wildly different descriptions at that… [T]he gravitational phenomena we observe, and the laws and equations that describe them, are independent of their explanation or ultimate cause… [Whichever] explanation [of gravity] we accept is an exercise of faith, not a demonstration of fact. The same goes for other common forces, like magnetism and electricity…
When we drill down to subatomic dimensions, we enter a world of bare faith… For example, there is a whole category of stuff in the quantum realm labeled ‘virtual.’ It includes subnuclear-sized particles and photons that have never been detected and that, indeed, do not exist except as ethereal abstractions in the minds of physicists so they can make sense of phenomena that make no sense without them. Even the quantum field, which is credited with preventing the annihilation of matter by keeping the negatively charged electron cloud from combining with the positively charged nucleus, is nothing more than a rarefied label for something (the stability of matter) that is, materialistically speaking, inexplicable…
From the cosmic scale of gravity down to the micro scale of the atom, faith undergirds scientific knowledge — faith in materialism. Nowhere is that more candidly expressed than in the words of evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin: ‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises… because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.’”
— Regis Nicoll, MS, Nuclear Engineering
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo45/the-lights-by-which-we-see
and…
“Science cannot be practiced in thin air. In fact, it requires substantive philosophical presuppositions if it is even going to get off the runway. These assumptions include the existence, orderly nature, and knowability of the world; the reliability of our senses and intellect in discovering truth; the existence of truth itself; and the uniformity of nature. Many have argued that these assumptions, while consistent with a naturalistic [i.e. atheistic] world view, are odd and without ultimate justification in that world view. These assumptions are best explained and quite at home in a Christian world view.“
— J.P. Moreland, Ph.D. (Philosophy)
https://www.equip.org/articles/is-science-a-help-or-threat-to-faith-/
and…
“Scientism [is] the [anti-scientific, purely philosophic] notion that science has exclusive access to the truth… ‘Science‘ is usually equated by proponents of this view with empiricism or, in many fields, with a method of inquiry that employs controls, blinding, and randomization. [Revealed in recent studies, though], a small group of contemporary psychologists have published a series of provocative experiments showing that faith in science can serve the same mentally-stabilizing function as religious beliefs… That is to say, beliefs about science [are often] defended thoughtlessly — even unscientifically… In other words, deep faith in science is sometimes just another form of (irrational) extremism… [In fact, one recent study revealed that scientistic] psychology, not theology, is at the root of extremist ideologies… [Not surprisingly {at least to those with open minds}] Moral relativism, which holds that objective criteria do not exist for judging norms, seems to spring from [this discovered] link between extremism and the craving for [scientific] certainty… The psychology of extremism reveals an important point: part of what makes a [scientistic] belief system dangerous is its dogmatic denial of uncertainty… [But] If the moral authority of science is rooted anywhere it is in the opposing stance, in its acceptance of fallibility and its welcoming treatment of ambiguity and unknowns. That is where [true] science finds its contrast with scientism and many religious perspectives… Scientism [therefore] does a disservice to this spirit of humility in the face of human ignorance.“
https://qz.com/476722/be-careful-your-love-of-science-looks-a-lot-like-religion/
… &
“Science is worshiped by a religious fundamentalism [known as ‘scientism‘] that, contrary to evidence, believes it will guide us into all truth. This is an objectively irrational, unproven and unprovable [therefore unscientific] belief… Science can tell us some things about the material world, but it cannot tell us how we should behave as a result of this knowledge. Pretending otherwise is a problematic allegiance, and broadens the concept of ‘science’ beyond what it can fairly hold.”
https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/13/why-science-is-a-false-god-that-will-sorely-disappoint-you/
[ASND thanks Wintery Knight for that image.]
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The ‘Multiverse’:
In a Scientific American article titled ‘Our Improbable Existence Is No Evidence for a Multiverse,’ Philip Goff argues it’s faulty reasoning to conclude from the extraordinarily improbable fine-tuning of our universe that a multiverse exists.
https://www.str.org/w/why-we-can-t-reason-from-fine-tuning-to-a-multiverse
… &
“The [ space-time theorems ] imply the possible existence of many companion ‘universes’ to ours… [but] we cannot [ever] observe them, which makes their status as scientific observations [completely untestable]… Atheists [do] acknowledge the obvious: [that] the likelihood that [random] chance [alone] can account for the constellation of physical parameters that lead to the emergence [of] man in our universe is vanishingly small… [But] atheists argue that if the laws of physics differ slightly in each universe in the [infinite] multiverse, then the probability across all of the [infinite number of] universes [all but one of which we cannot ever detect or examine] — the multiverse — that the values of forces in one universe [i.e. our universe] would permit life to arise becomes much higher… [But] it is meaningless to apply [statistical] probability arguments across disconnected universes [with different laws of physics, which would necessarily include different laws of mathematics — including statistics]… Because all ‘universes’ except ours are unobservable, we cannot actually either measure the probability or confirm that, or [even] how the laws of physics vary in the other ‘universes’… What atheists have done [with their ‘multiverse’] is invoke a concept… that is… scientifically unobservable. [A]theists… merely assert that [their ‘multiverse’] accounts for fine-tuning [of the scientifically verified laws of physics] without providing even a shred of [scientific] evidence [for that ‘multiverse’]. The ‘multiverse’ theory [therefore exempts] atheists from [the very] science [in which they claim to believe]… [Thus] the ‘multiverse’ myth is [nothing more than] a debating tactic, not science.”
— Michael Egnor, pediatric neurosurgeon and professor of neurosurgery, State University of New York, Stony Brook.
https://salvomag.com/post/the-multiverse-myth
and …
“[T]he universe is, as physicist Steven Weinberg put it, ‘one fine-tuning that seems to be extreme, far beyond what you could imagine just having to accept as a mere accident‘… The latest explanation [for that ‘extreme fine-tuning‘], trotted out by Columbia astrophysicist Caleb Scharf, is that an early, advanced, non-biological civilization ‘decided to tinker with the expansion‘ of the universe in a way that made it amenable to the evolution of biological life… [ASND has to ask, ‘Given that Caleb Scharf is a naturalistic, materialistic atheist, what, exactly, is an atheistic, naturalistic, materialistic ‘non-biological civilization?‘] [T]he extraordinary [theories] concocted by the science [community to explain the observed ‘extreme fine tuning‘ clearly evident in both the laws of physics and the universe that we know exists within them]… lack any evidence, extraordinary or otherwise… [One attempt to explain such ‘extreme fine tuning’ in the universe is known as] the multiverse theory [which] has gone mainstream over the last couple of decades… [The multiverse theory] assert[s] that our cosmos… contains an infinite number of universes, ensuring that the intricate network of [finely-tuned] coincidences necessary for our existence will have been actualized… [Theories] of how these universes came about rival anything imagined by H. G. Wells or Gene Roddenberry… [The first, known as] the many-worlds theory… starts with a controversial [so-called Copenhagen] interpretation of quantum theory in which sub-atomic particles continuously split into separate quantum states… The problems with many-worlds are many, including where all of these parallel universes exist, how an entire universe can be created by an infinitesimal change in a particle’s state, and the endless stream of universes created by every object in the cosmos at every moment in time… [Another theory known as] ‘chaotic inflation’ resonates with many in the scientific community [but] its [complete] lack of empirical support has led to other proposals… [Yet another theory which credits black holes with the creation of new universes] has a major problem. Unlike chaotic inflation, in which matter disappears over the microscopic time scales allowed by quantum uncertainty, black hole matter disappears over macroscopic time scales, violating the law of conservation [a.k.a. the First Law of Thermodynamics]. That problem eventually led Stephen Hawking, who had supported the theory for three decades, to recant: ‘I’m sorry to disappoint science fiction fans, but if [mass and energy] is preserved [as required by the laws of physics], there is no possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes‘… In essence, multiverse proponents assert that an infinite number of universes have to exist, because we’re here [but] even if another universe did exist with its own unique set of physical parameters, it would be undetectable with instruments constrained by the distinctive parameters of our universe. In other words, the multiverse is unfalsifiable [and therefore, by definition, unscientific]… But there is too much at stake [in particular, the philosophy of atheism] for naturalism to accept a single universe, because, as cosmologist Bernard Carr warned his peers, ‘If there is only one universe, you might have to have a fine-tuner.‘ In other words, ‘If you don’t want God, you’d better [be able to prove] a multiverse.‘ Thus Carr tipped the hand on the dirty little secret of modern cosmology: the object is not to follow the evidence wherever it leads, but to follow [atheists’] wishes and boldly go where they lead, hoping it’s so. And this from folks who are proud to say that… their beliefs are not based on faith or wish-fulfillment, but on hard evidence. Those of sober mind will sense that there is more metaphysics than physics going on here. As science writer and journalist John Horgan notes, ‘Multiverse theories aren’t theories, they’re science fictions, theologies, works of the imagination unconstrained by evidence.‘ Harsher criticism comes from a former proponent of multiverse theory, theoretical physicist Paul Steinhardt: ‘The key thing that distinguishes science from non-science is that scientific ideas have to be subject to tests. Some people [namely multiverse proponents] are nowadays thinking, no, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case.’” [So much for “science”.]
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo41/its-beyond-us
and…
“[T]here is an infinite number of universes out there [many atheists claim] — and voila! — one of them is bound to be like ours, and so we’re naturally here to observe it. But this is a philosophical explanation, not a scientific one. In response to the scientific evidence suggesting a conclusion they don’t like (i.e., there is a creator), many [atheists] have leapt into metaphysics [via the the miltiverse theory] without admitting so. Since it is impossible to empirically prove the existence of other universes outside of our own, [atheists] take ‘multiverses’ on faith because materialism requires such a dodge [from empiricism]… It’s not just that science has hit an obstacle in explaining the cosmos. Science itself is being [ignored]. Denyse O’Leary, in Tuning Out the Universe, explains how ignoring the evidence we see is morphing into ‘post-fact science’… Now that evidence has piled up that points to design in the cosmos and in life — that is, to Creation — [atheists simply] shrug [and ask] , ‘Who needs evidence?’… Yet students are still being told [by those very same atheists] that ‘science’ has trumped biblical views of Creation [which view, btw, includes the Big Bang ].”
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo41/science-fictions
and…
Do Infinite Universes Explain the Fine-Tuning?
Short Answer: No
http://www.reasons.org/articles/do-infinite-universes-explain-the-fine-tuning
and…
“… if any level of the multiverse actually exists then it is harmonious with theism.”
http://sententias.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/EPS-Paper-God-and-the-Multiverse-PDF.pdf
[ASND thanks Wintery Knight for that image.]
and…
Is the Existence of a Multiverse a Problem for Christianity?
Short Answer: No, but it is for atheism.
————–
“In his book, God: The Failed Hypothesis, Victor Stenger says, ‘If God created the universe as a special place for humanity, he seems to have wasted an awfully large amount of space.‘ Stephen Hawking, in the best-selling science book of all time, A Brief History of Time, shares Stenger’s view: ‘Our solar system certainly is a prerequisite for our existence… But there does not seem to be any need for all these other galaxies.‘… Those who have not had the privilege of studying astrophysics may not realize that the universe must be as massive as it is in order for human life, or any kind of life, to be possible within it. There are at least two reasons for this necessity… [1] If the universe’s mass… had been even the slightest bit less than a hundred times the fifty billion trillion stars occupying the observable universe, nuclear fusion during the first several minutes of its existence would have proceeded less efficiently. Thus, the cosmos would have been forever incapable of generating elements heavier than helium — elements such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sodium, and potassium — all of which are essential for any conceivable kind of physical life. On the other hand, if the universe’s mass had been even the slightest bit greater, nuclear fusion during the first several minutes after its beginning would have been too productive, and all the hydrogen in the universe eventually would have been fused (after just two generations of stars) into elements as heavy as iron or heavier. Again, all the most life-essential elements, including hydrogen itself, would have ceased to exist. Given the laws of physics by which the universe operates, the cosmic mass must have been no different from exactly what astronomers observe, or we wouldn’t be here to observe and discuss it… [2] [T]he rate of cosmic expansion depends on the universe’s mass… [and] the closer the bits and pieces of mass were to one another in the early universe [immediately after the Big Bang], the more powerfully gravity would have acted as a ‘brake’ to slow down cosmic expansion. Conversely, the farther apart those bits and pieces were, the faster the universe would have expanded… If the universe had contained a lesser mass density, its expansion would have been so rapid that gravity could not pull together enough gas and dust to form stars such as the Sun and planets such as Earth. On the other hand, if the cosmic mass density had been any greater, gravity would have caused gas and dust to condense too effectively. In such a universe, all the stars would be much larger than the Sun, and any planets orbiting such stars would be unsuitable for life… The bottom line is that physical life cannot exist in a universe with either a lesser or greater mass density than the value we observe in the cosmos.”
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo20/mass-appeal
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“It has become axiomatic that life naturally evolved out of nonliving materials billions of years ago. Given enough time and the chemical opportunity, living cells self-assemble. However, the experts on the development of complex molecules from simpler ones, the synthetic chemists, do not know how this process actually occurs. There are no known pathways to create the components that make up a living cell from nonliving matter. They have no idea how amino acids… nucleotides… saccharides… and lipids… can be formed naturally on a prebiotic [E]arth, especially before the formation of biological enzymes, to catalyze many of the requisite chemical reactions… When Craig Venter’s team created the first synthetic cell, they didn’t assemble a cell from scratch; they replaced a living cell’s DNA with a modified version. In other words, they replaced the molecular software of an already existing computer. The hardware already existed. While… Venter’s efforts [are] one of the most important and promising developments of this century, it is important to point out they did not create life from nonliving materials. Synthetic chemists may be able to draw a cell’s component target out on paper, but they cannot retrosynthesize it. And yet [despite the actual scientific evidence] atheists presume life just forms [all by itself]…”
https://pjmedia.com/faith/2017/08/24/caused-life-come-existence/
————–
“At some point [atheistic biochemist Matti Leisola] realized the god-of-the-gaps criticism [which he used against theists] cut both ways, since a functional atheist could also insert a pat explanation into any knowledge gap. He also came to see another problem that the god-of-the-gaps criticism obscured: Materialists seemed to think the proverbial knowledge gap was ever-shrinking, but in [reality], the more scientists learned about the natural world, the more they found new and unexpected mysteries opening up. More important[ly], the [atheistic] argument for allowing only material explanations simply presupposed that only material causes exist. What if that presupposition was wrong? [Eventually] his doubts [about his own atheism] had become a conviction. ‘Scientists have no materialist explanation for the origin and complexity of life,’ he wrote. ‘The confident bluffing of the dogmatic materialists notwithstanding, they weren’t even close.‘ Experimental science, he concluded, seems to point in a different direction.”
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo45/where-the-evidence-led-me
————–
“Examples [of natural selection supporting Darwinian evolution] paraded in many standard biology textbooks include Darwin’s finches, peppered moths, and drug resistance. [Darwin’s] finches’ beak size returned to normal within a few years after [each] drought ended, resulting in no directional change [toward a new bird, or even finch, species]. Yet even if a directional change had occurred, it would not have demonstrated how a finch could one day become a falcon any more than it would have shown how a primordial swill of molecules could become a gene… Even with thousands of years of intelligent intervention — i.e., breeding — dogs have always remained dogs… The long history of animal breeding strongly suggests a terminal point of evolution, bounded by genetic limitations…
[The] ‘discovery’ [that] that light-colored moths turned dark during England’s Industrial Revolution, when pollution buildup on tree trunks made light moths more visible to predators… was touted as ‘evolution in action,’ even though it was later learned that peppered moths do not normally rest on tree trunks and that the photos purportedly supporting the findings had been staged… Nonetheless, the shoddy moth study still adorns school textbooks as a classic “proof” of natural selection…
While evolution can occur as small, limited changes in an organism’s genome, such changes are far more often detrimental than they are beneficial. In the rare instances where a benefit is conferred (e.g., antibiotic immunity, pesticide resistance), it usually comes about as a result of the loss or suppression of information in certain genes… not of a gain in information, which is necessary for novel life forms to occur. The bottom line is that mutations tend to destroy functions at a far greater rate than they create new ones…
Just as the lyrics to [songs] are not reducible to the chemical reaction between ink and paper, so also the ‘complex and specified information’ of DNA is not a product of chemical laws. That leaves two options: blind chance or design… [When] Microsoft engineers analyzed the chemical sequences of DNA [they] remarked, ‘Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.‘ Just think, if the most highly evolved thing in the cosmos — the human mind — using the collective imagination, creativity, cognitive power, and scientific know-how of the brightest software engineers on the planet, is unable to re-create the [complexity of] instructions resident in DNA, then to conjecture that those instructions could have been cobbled together through an aimless process of random variation and adaptation is nothing short of stupefying. If complex and specified information is inexplicable by natural laws or by chance, then it must be a product of design…
So why do Darwin’s promoters keep backing a champ riddled with so many problems? I think the best answer comes from self-professed atheist Thomas Nagel:
‘It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God… I hope there is no God!… I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and is responsible for… the overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind.‘
In short, devot[ion] to evolution may stem not so much from… scientific strength as from an emotional aversion to [the] number one contender: intelligent design.”
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo40/champ-change
… &
The Information Enigma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-FcnLsF1g
and…
“[I]nformation, not matter, is the basic stuff of life. Life differs from non-life principally by its enormous level of information. Efforts to understand life as if information were an accidental byproduct of matter are hitting a hard, opaque ceiling. There is simply no real progress on such matters as, say, the origin of life, the origin of the human race or the human mind, or even the origin of many groups of animals [at least from a materialistic perspective]… [T]he [newly discovered] Law of Conservation of Information (CoI)… [originally realized and publicized by evolutionary] Biologist Peter Medawar (1980s) and computer scientist Tom English (1996) and David Wolpert & William Macready (1997) states that natural causes can transmit complex specified information, but they can never [create] it… The cultural impact of Darwin’s theory of evolution (which asserts that new information is created through competition among life forms) is so great that few ever ask whether the evolutionary mode of creating new information is even possible… What if we had to solve a problem never encountered before, in an unknown environment? That is what a life form must do in order to, say, evolve from a cow into a whale. From a CoI perspective, Darwinian evolution, as usually described, is simply impossible, due to the odds against the chain of events happening without prior information, without guidance. And remember, Darwinian evolution means evolution without guidance… [but] existing information [had to have originated] from an intelligent agent, because that is the only source of information that we know of… [because] the defining property of intelligence is its ability to create information… So the great naturalist project, in which so many thinkers have put their hopes from the mid-19th century onward, in which man appears as an accidental animal, has totally failed. Not because it is untrue, but because it is impossible.”
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo30/immaterial-evidence
&
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo31/the-law-of-conservation-of-information-part-ii
&
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo32/the-law-of-conservation-of-information-part-iii
————–
An Open Letter to Atheists
Scientific discoveries supporting a randomly generated universe where human consciousness is an evolved illusion have never made.
An award winning science story for 2017 in Cosmos magazine told us that the universe’s underlying symmetry, far from yielding to a simple formula, is “still baffling.”
We also learned last year that researchers at CERN think the universe should not exist due to the exceedingly delicate balance of factors.
A widely offered explanation by atheists for that fact is that, in an infinite array of universes (a multiverse), ours just happens to have these particular characteristics.
But the infinite array itself is an untestable and completely evidence-free speculation.
To make the array science, some theoretical physicists have sought to change the rules of science to say that evidence is not needed to make “scientific” conclusions, only theoretical elegance.
In short, materialistic “science” has become subjective art rather than objective analytics, judged by emotional aesthetics rather than judged by empirical evidence.
So much for atheism being scientific.
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo44/when-in-doubt
————–
“While this list may seem long, it’s only a small representation of theists who retained a robust belief in God while deeply exploring the truths they learned through reason and scientific observation.”
————–
These computer-generated animations are near-precise replications of many actual, microscopic biochemical actions, interactions and reactions as they occur in the human body, depicted as they occur in real time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TZuxuVJA36Q
[Remember, though, that these biochemical machines all evolved entirely by themselves from purely random, unguided processes of genetic mutations.]
[Got that?]
————–
Scientists find second, ‘hidden’ language in human genetic code
http://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20131212-174536-3107
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Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini are both atheist scholars. Their analysis of natural selection is meticulous and devastating.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/08/natural_selecti_2075991.html
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Atheism.. Founded on Evidence or Emotion?
Some of the world’s most educated atheists speak for themselves.
http://adatum24601.blogspot.com/2013/07/atheismfounded-on-evidence-or-emotion.html
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Four ways that the progress of science conflicts with naturalistic speculations
————–
David Berlinski—Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FyxUwaq00Rc
————–
Scientism:
“[Scientism] is defined as the enterprise of providing natural explanations for everything — that is, accounting for all phenomena in terms of material objects and the physical forces among them. Many scientists defend this definition on the grounds of ‘methodological naturalism’ — the view that science is limited to naturalistic explanations because repeatable experiments can be done only on material objects and physical forces. In principle, however, this is only a limitation on method; it is not a claim about reality, which can include entities that defy explanations restricted to material objects and physical forces. In practice, however, many [materialistic] scientists assume that they will ultimately find natural explanations for everything.”
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo40/zombie-science
[ASND thanks Wintery Knight for that image.]
and…
“Only what can be empirically tested… is true” is not a statement about science but a statement about philosophy of science.
http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2011/05/16/is-science-dependent-on-other-disciplines/
and…
The Philosophical Failure of Scientism
Even Science Needs More Than Science to Work Properly
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo48/peripheral-visions
and…
The Folly of Scientism
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/20121116_TNA37Hughes.pdf
and…
The Case Against Scientism
and…
Science: the religion that must not be questioned
It’s time for the priesthood to be taken to task – and journalists aren’t up to the job
http://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2013/sep/19/science-religion-not-be-questioned
and…
Are we blinded by science? Some atheistic evolutionists with Ph.D.s say yes.
http://salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo26-science-faith/blinded-by-science.php
http://salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo26-science-faith/beyond-belief.php
http://salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo26-science-faith/in-the-beginning.php
and…
Scientism rejects philosophy as a form of knowledge
and…
Is Science Dependent on Other Disciplines?
http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2011/05/16/is-science-dependent-on-other-disciplines/
and…
Science owes a debt to theology
apologetics-notes.comereason.org/2014/03/science-owes-debt-to-theology.html
and…
Scientism in the Arts and Humanities
www.thenewatlantis.com/docLib/20140203_TNA40Scruton.pdf
————–
“… the instructions for embryogenesis appear to be instantiated in the cells that make up the developing embryo… [T]hese instructions must come from a mind, because instructions are a form of information (specifically, algorithmic information) and common experience teaches that algorithms emanate from a mind. Toward that end, [atheistic] origin-of-life researchers Paul Davies and Sara Walker recently acknowledged that currently there is no evolutionary explanation for algorithmic information instantiated in living matter.”
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo44/wonderfully-made
————–
Science Vs. Religion:
The genesis of science: How the Christian middle ages launched the scientific revolution
and…
How is it that science became a self-sustaining enterprise only in the Christian West?
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/a/science_origin.html
and…
Only 15 Percent of Scientists at Major Research Universities See Religion and Science Always in Conflict
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110921115923.htm
[Wouldn’t that depend on which religion ?]
and…
Study Shows 2 Million U.S. Scientists Identify As Evangelical
and…
Study: Atheists’ view that science and religion can’t work in collaboration is a misconception that stunts progress
http://phys.org/news/2014-02-misconceptions-science-religion.html
and…
Scientific Evidences for the God of the Bible
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epDHo0qPdQ8
and…
Christianity Is a Science-Starter, Not a Science-Stopper
http://www.pearceyreport.com/archives/2005/09/post_4.php
and…
The Science and Religion Debate – an Introduction
and…
Has Science eliminated God?
http://www.bethinking.org/science-christianity/advanced/has-science-eliminated-god.htm
and…
Has Science killed God?
and…
What is the Relation between Science and Religion
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/what-is-the-relation-between-science-and-religion#ixzz2tWUuxzeE
and…
Models for Relating Science and Religion
and…
The Return of the God Hypothesis
http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_returnofgod.pdf
and…
Does Science Need Religion?
————–
Spirit and Nature of Science
“Dr. Schwartz said that his own work has demonstrated that non-material forces may influence material entities…“
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/181776-1
————–
Michael Strauss is a research particle physicist at the Large Hadron Collider
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V48tBF6teSM
————–
If You Cannot Scientifically Prove Your Belief, Is It Meaningless?
http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/201002/201002_122_scientif_prove.cfm
[Austin Hughes, for those who don’t know, is an evolutionary biologist.]
————–
Jerry Coyne:
Jerry Coyne’s Chapter on the Fossil Record Fails to Show “Why Evolution Is True”
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/jerry_coynes_c067021.html
and…
From Jerry Coyne, “Evolution-of-the-Gaps” and Other Fallacies
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/from_jerry_coyn_15067091.html
and…
Blink and You’ll Miss It: Jerry Coyne Turns His Attention to the “Engine of Evolution”
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/blink_and_youll2067161.html
and…
Coyne’s Twisted History of Science & Religion
and…
As Evidence of Darwinian Evolution, Biogeography Falls Well Short of Satisfying
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/as_evidence_of5067151.html
and…
The Persistent Enigma of Sexual Reproduction
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/the_persistent2067171.html
and…
Human Origins, and the Real Reasons for Evolutionary Skepticism
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/human_origins_a1067181.html
and…
The pointlessness of Jerry Coyne
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.ie/2014/01/the-pointlessness-of-jerry-coyne.html
————–
“… scientists believe [the biblical parting of the Red Sea] may actually have happened…”
————–
“Socially, when I moved from theism to atheism, and science as a worldview, I guess, to be honest, I just liked the people in science, and the scientists, and their books, and just the lifestyle, and the way of living. I liked that better than the religious books, the religious people I was hanging out with – just socially. It felt more comfortable for me. In reality I think most of us arrive at most of our beliefs for non-rational reasons, and then we justify them with these reasons after the fact.”
— Michael Shermer, speaking in ‘Nine Conversations: The Question of God’, PBS documentary
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/nineconv/
————–
“Science describes natural phenomena in terms of laws, but it does not explain where those laws came from…”
http://www.godevidence.com/2012/10/why-trying-to-explain-away-god-with-science-is-an-error/
————–
Does science prove everything?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vxJQe_FefxY
and…
12 Things Science Can’t Explain
http://www.saintsandsceptics.org/12-things-science-cant-explain/
————–
Naturalism:
“That’s not science!” Translation: “That’s not naturalism!”
http://theosophical.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/thats-not-science-translation-thats-not-naturalism/
and…
Naturalism is stopping more science today than fundamentalism
and…
Three ways that the progress of science conflicts with naturalistic speculations
and…
An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
and…
Knowledge and Naturalism
http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=64
and…
This Prison of Naturalism
http://www.cltruth.com/blog/2012/this-prison-of-naturalism/
and…
Is Naturalism a Simpler Explanation Than Theism?
http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/201201/201201_108_Naturalism.cfm?vm=r&s=1
and…
Methodological naturalism does far more than “not study the supernatural.”
————–
“Over the past few centuries, science can be said to have gradually chipped away at the traditional grounds for believing in God. Much of what once seemed mysterious — the existence of humanity, the life-bearing perfection of Earth, the workings of the universe — can now be explained by biology, astronomy, physics and other domains of science.”
————–
“In 2004, longtime British atheist philosopher Antony Flew publicly announced that he now believed in God! I could hardly believe it. Professor Flew had been an atheist for the greater part of his life and, until 2004, his entire academic career. As the ‘author of over thirty professional philosophical works,’ he ‘helped set the agenda for atheism for half a century.’ But then, in 2004, at the age of eighty-one, he changed his mind!”
http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG/b.4223595/k.8182/There_is_a_God.htm
————–
Origins of Life:
[See, also, here .]
The Origin of Life
http://www.evidenceunseen.com/articles/science-and-scripture/the-origin-of-life/
and…
“Even though [origin of life] experiments are designed to validate a naturalistic explanation for life’s origin, they end up demonstrating the necessity of intelligent agency in creating life from inanimate matter. ”
http://www.reasons.org/articles/how-did-god-create-the-first-life-on-earth
and…
“Let’s take a look at the atheist’s faith-based explanations of the origin of life.“
and…
Origin-of-Life Experiment: Going from Bad to Worse
http://www.reasons.org/articles/articles/origin-of-life-experiment-going-from-bad-to-worse
and…
Explanation for Origin-of-Life’s Molecular Handedness is Insoluble
http://www.reasons.org/articles/explanation-for-origin-of-lifes-molecular-handedness-is-insoluble
and…
Biology Textbooks Get It Wrong on Life’s Origin
http://www.reasons.org/articles/biology-textbooks-get-it-wrong-on-lifes-origin
and…
One More Crack in the Mirror: Misplaced Hope in the Latest Model for the Origin of Life
and…
Origin of Life (a short catalog of other resources)
http://www.reasons.org/rtb-101/originoflife
————–
“The stronger their religious zeal the fewer errors they made.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090304160400.htm
————–
“… the conflict here is not between faith and science; it is between the competing faiths of theism and materialism, neither of which can claim to be proved by science. Modern physics has accelerated smack into the limits of the scientific method. It raises questions it cannot answer but that human beings cannot avoid — matters of meaning and purpose.”
————–
“Calvinists notice embedded visual patterns quicker than their atheist compatriots.“
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16046-religion-alters-visual-perception.html
————–
Stephen Hawking:
Hawking on God and Creation
and…
Scientists respond to Stephen Hawking
http://www.iscast.org/response_to_hawking
and…
“As a scientist I’m certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can’t explain the universe without God.”
and…
Fatal flaws in Stephen Hawking’s atheism
http://whomadegod.org/2010/09/fatal-flaws-in-stephen-hawking%E2%80%99s-atheism/
and…
“Could nature be the originator of the laws of nature? Only if its existence and its character (its nature) were self-caused in the same sense God is conceived to be. Otherwise, nature would be dependent on some laws to explain the existence of laws, which is hopelessly circular. So then is nature really self-caused? I can’t think of anyone who has proposed a good model for it being that way. Hawking and Mlodinow certainly failed.”
http://www.thinkingchristian.net/2011/05/did-god-create-the-laws-of-physics-secular-news-daily/
and…
Stephen Hawking Says God Did Not Create the Universe: What Do You Think?
and…
“… the situation [re: philosophy of science] is actually the exact opposite of what [Hawking] describes.”
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/01/maudlin-on-philosophy-of-cosmology.html
and…
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow’s Inadvertent Proof for God
http://www.strangenotions.com/hawking-proof-for-god/
————–
The Big Bang:
Could a universe create itself? Science says: No.
http://whomadegod.org/2011/08/could-a-universe-create-itself/
and…
Reflections on “Uncaused Beginnings”
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/reflections-on-uncaused-beginnings
and…
Did quantum fluctuations create the universe?
http://whomadegod.org/2010/09/did-quantum-fluctuations-create-the-universe/
and…
Mathematics of Eternity Prove The Universe Must Have Had A Beginning
and…
“… the laws of physics are incapable of accounting for existence. Laws don’t do that kind of work.“
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2012/06/is-there-an-explanation-for-existence.html
and…
“Physicist and cosmologist Dr. Alexander Vilenkin refutes some scientific models… that supposedly argue for a universe without a beginning. He then offers his own explanation (via the Borde Guth Vilenkin Theorem) why the universe did have a beginning.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXCQelhKJ7A
and…
God and the Big Bang
How the universe began — the moment of creation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBulsNbaYgo&feature=player_embedded
… &
What is the evidence for a moment of creation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPO5Wsa6pFk&feature=relmfu
… &
The relationship between science and faith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEFizpPP3R8&feature=relmfu
… &
Unsolved mysteries about the Big Bang — Dark Energy fine tuned for life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUl__nvt1X4&feature=relmfu
… &
Scientists who are Christian believers talk about God and the Big Bang
… &
More about the contributors
————–
Nothingness (before the Big Bang):
“… as much as Hawking is a genius for the ages, he seems to have missed two crucial points. One of them is ‘nothing.’ He never says quite what he means by ‘nothing,’ except that from it, the universe had the capacity to create itself. Now, this is not ‘nothing.’ It is perhaps neither matter nor energy, but it is at least potentiality of some sort; and potentiality is not nothing. What it might be is something that philosophers and scientists might debate for ages to come, but it strains reasoning to suppose that in the end they would agree, ‘well, okay, then this universe-creating potentiality turns out to be quite absolutely nothing after all.’ No, whatever it is, it is something. So in saying that nothingness can create something, he jumps a step. Where did the kind of ‘nothing’ he has in mind, the kind that has this vast potentiality in it, come from?”
http://www.thinkingchristian.net/2010/09/the-grand-design/
and…
“‘Nothing‘ is unstable… In fact… ‘nothing‘ is almost everything… [and] there are three different kinds of ‘nothing‘.”
[Really? ‘ Nothing ‘ is almost everything ? ASND wonders if Krauss’ ‘nothing‘ might someday be explained more realistically by the extra dimensions posited by quantum physics and String Theory .]
Speaking of Lawrence Krauss…
“Restricting `somethings’ to, say, time, space, and particles, one might say that the complete quantum state has both `nothing’ and `something,’ but even with this restricted sense of `something,’ it is rather a strained interpretation to say that the `something’ part arose out of the `nothing’ part; both simply exist within the total reality. In any case, the laws of physics (both the dynamical laws and the quantum state) are here being implicitly assumed to exist, and it certainly seems unfair to dismiss them as `nothing’… To me as a fellow [quantum physicist], it appears Krauss has instead swung far wide of the goal, striking only the air with his philosophical speculations that do not address the truly deep questions of existence.“
—Don N. Page, Professor of (theoretical gravitational) Physics
http://www.amazon.com/review/R20NRSZ698T31J
and…
A Response to Professor Krauss on Nothing
and…
Lawrence Krauss debates “A Universe From Nothing” with an astrophysicist
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/fec5de22-bec9-4a92-b9f9-6179236d05d4.mp3
and…
“Krauss seems to be thinking that these vacuum states amount to the relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical version of there not being any physical stuff at all. And he has an argument — or thinks he does — that the laws of relativistic quantum field theories entail that vacuum states are unstable… But that’s just not right. Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. The true relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical equivalent to there not being any physical stuff at all isn’t this or that particular arrangement of the fields — what it is (obviously, and ineluctably, and on the contrary) is the simple absence of the fields! The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings — if you look at them aright — amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.”
— David Albert, Professor of philosophy, Columbia University, author of Quantum Mechanics and Experience.
and…
Scientists Should Tell Lawrence Krauss to Shut Up Already
— Edward Feser, Professor of Philosophy, Pasadena (CA) City College
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/09/15760/
and…
“… the universe comes out of a nothingness which is everything.”
—Deepak Chopra, Hindu philosopher
[Cool, huh? Just like Lawrance Krauss — and Steven Hawking — have been telling us, “everything” actually is — or at least used to be — “nothing.”]
and…
“I don’t want to be judged by god; that’s the bottom line.”
http://lukenixblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/antitheism-and-krauss-wager.html
—Lawrence Krauss, during a recent radio/podcast program in the U.K.
[ “Want,” Dr. Krauss? What part of empirical science – which you elsewhere claim (over and over again, including right here on this Web page) is your only “bottom line” for not believing in a Creator – is “want”?]
and…
The metaphysical muddle of Lawrence Krauss: Why science can’t get rid of God
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/02/18/3692765.htm
and…
Universe from Nothing
www.scigod.com/index.php/sgj/article/download/187/222
and…
Did quantum fluctuations create the universe?
http://whomadegod.org/2010/09/did-quantum-fluctuations-create-the-universe/
and…
Debates:
William Lane Craig debates Lawrence Krauss: Does God Exist?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eNjmN9Xtmg&feature=player_embedded
&
Lawrence Krauss Constantly Interrupts William Lane Craig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iMXK7M-HMXs
&
Debate Transcripts: William Lane Craig vs. Lawrence Krauss
Is There Evidence For God?
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-craig-krauss-debate-at-north-carolina-state-university
and…
God & Cosmology: The Craig – Carroll Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07QUPuZg05I
and…
Unbelievable?
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/unbelievable/id267142101
See (actually, listen to) “A Universe From Nothing?“
and…
“Debating the issue of A Universe From Nothing with cosmologist Lawrence Krauss is Rodney Holder, Course director at the Faraday Institute, Cambridge. An astrophysicist and priest by background. In a lively exchange they debate whether Krauss’ ‘nothing‘ is [actually] ‘nothing’, fine tuning and multiverses, scientific knowledge, miracles and the usefulness of theology and philosophy.“
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/fec5de22-bec9-4a92-b9f9-6179236d05d4.mp3
and…
A Universe From Someone: Against Lawrence M. Krauss’
A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
and…
The Pseudo-Science of Atheists [Something from ‘nothing‘]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va2ugtaEe7g
and…
Not Understanding Nothing
A review of ‘A Universe from Nothing’
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/05/not-understanding-nothing
and…
“[Lawrence Krauss] is right to a certain extent — science depends on nature generally behaving itself. But he is wrong to think [science] is incompatible with Christianity. [Science] is, in fact, essential to the Christian faith, for several reasons.”
http://www.thinkingchristian.net/Clips/God-and-Science-Do-Mix.pdf
and…
“If the universe, as Krauss alleges, is ultimately the product of a purposeless quantum burp, then so are we and so are our minds. Thus Krauss, in a delightful irony, gives us good reason to doubt the reliability of our human cognitive faculties and, consequently, to doubt the validity of any concepts, beliefs or arguments that they produce…”
http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-god-particle-not-the-god-of-the-gaps-but-the-whole-show-80307/
and…
A Universe From Someone: Against Lawrence M. Krauss’ A Universe From Nothing
http://www.bethinking.org/science-christianity/a-universe-from-someone-against-lawrence-krauss.htm
————–
“The large size of the universe is often said [by atheists] to be an argument against the existence of… God…”
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/universe_too_large.html
————–
Cosmological Arguments for God:
“Most people who comment on the cosmological argument demonstrably do not know what they are talking about.”
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/07/so-you-think-you-understand.html
and…
The Cosmological Argument: A Defense
http://mind.ucsd.edu/syllabi/02-03/01w/readings/taylor.pdf
and…
The Cosmological Argument: Some Fresh Insights
http://goddoesexistallknowit.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-cosmological-argument-some-fresh.html
————–
Particle Physics:
“… the Higgs boson has nothing more to do with God than any other particle in His creation.“
http://blog.drwile.com/?p=7966
and…
“The particle that gives mass to some matter, leaving other matter without mass, has nothing at all to tell us why there is matter or why the universe came into being. And yet as you peruse the internet for comment on the CERN discovery, you find rhetorical gems like ‘On the 4th of July, 2012 God became totally unnecessary,’ and even the wild claim that the existence of this particle disproves the scientific maxim ex nihilo nhilo fit – from nothing, nothing comes!“
http://www.beretta-online.com/wordpress/2012/has-the-god-particle-made-god-redundant/
————–
Anthropic Principle:
13 incredibly lucky Earth facts
http://www.livescience.com/21546-earth-facts.html
[Once again, however, ASND must ask, “What, pray tell, is ” luck ” ?]
[ASND also wonders why LiveScience.com only included 13 ” lucky ” anthropic facts about Earth when we know of well over THIRTY TIMES that many incredibly ” lucky ” antrthopic facts about our fair planet — and that doesn’t include the well over a hundred incredibly ” lucky ” anthropic facts about the universe as a whole.]
[ASND also wonders why LiveScience.com didn’t bother to include any of the calculatedprobabilities against such incredibly ” lucky ” circumstances in that report.]
Readers interested in a short collection of additional resources discussing this incredible ” lucky ” topic, each citing the requisite peer-reviewed research, are invited to peruse the following:
Articles:
Location, Location, Location! Research Reveals Fine-Tuning of the Solar System’s Position
and…
The Remarkable Design of the Solar System’s Turbulent Youth
… &
… &
… &
… &
and…
Simulations Confirm Fine-Tuning of Earth Impactor Event
http://www.reasons.org/articles/simulations-confirm-fine-tuning-of-earth-impactor-event
and…
Rare Solar System, Rare Sun
http://www.reasons.org/articles/rare-solar-system-rare-sun
and…
Fine-Tuning For Life In The Universe
http://www.reasons.org/articles/fine-tuning-for-life-in-the-universe
and...
Probability For Life On Earth
http://www.reasons.org/articles/probability-for-life-on-earth-apr-2004
and…
When Did Life First Appear on Earth?
http://www.reasons.org/articles/when-did-life-first-appear-on-earth
and…
The Myth of Abiogenesis
http://www.reasons.org/articles/evolution-as-mythology-part-3-of-5-the-myth-of-abiogenesis
and…
Earth’s Cycles Favor Life
http://www.reasons.org/articles/earth%E2%80%99s-cycles-favor-life
and…
Fine-Tuning Allows Essential Plate Tectonics to Take Off
http://www.reasons.org/articles/fine-tuning-allows-essential-plate-tectonics-to-take-off
and…
Oxygen Rises Just Before Life Arrives
http://www.reasons.org/articles/oxygen-rises-just-before-life-arrives
and…
Anthropic Principle: A Precise Plan for Humanity
http://www.reasons.org/articles/anthropic-principle-a-precise-plan-for-humanity
and…
Is the Universe Designed?
and…
The Anthropic Principle and the Science and Religion Debate
and…
“… if these fundamental [cosmic] parameters were much different from what they are… No life of any kind would exist.”
http://harpers.org/print/?pid=87289
and…
Quotes from Scientists Regarding Design of the Universe
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/quotes.html
and…
Podcasts:
Is Life Rare Despite Early Emergence On Earth?
http://www.reasons.org/podcasts/science-news-flash/is-life-rare-despite-early-emergence-on-earth
and…
Earth’s Early Life Reveals Complexity
http://www.reasons.org/podcasts/science-news-flash/earth%E2%80%99s-early-life-reveals-complexity
and…
Scientists: Earth Barely Supports Life
http://www.reasons.org/podcasts/science-news-flash/scientists-earth-barely-supports-life
———————
Hugh Ross vs Lewis Wolpert – Is there evidence for a Cosmic Creator?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF1xSErF_f4
———————
Has Science Refuted Religion?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulykALV2FQ8
———————
Information in DNA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IPNQUQImBU&feature=youtu.be
———————
Richard Dawkins:
Science or naturalism? The contradictions of Richard Dawkins
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/04/12/3475939.htm
and…
Dawkins’s Best Argument
The Case against God in The God Delusion
http://www.ouruf.org/d/grad/10.1%20ganssle%20-%20Dawkins%20Best%20Argument.pdf
and…
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.
A Chapter-by-Chapter Response to Richard Dawkins’ Book The Greatest Show on Earth
http://www.reasons.org/articles/welcome-back-my-friends-to-the-show-that-never-ends-part-1
&
http://www.reasons.org/articles/welcome-back-my-friends-to-the-show-that-never-ends-part-2
&
http://www.reasons.org/articles/welcome-back-my-friends-to-the-show-that-never-ends-part-3
&
http://www.reasons.org/articles/welcome-back-my-friends-to-the-show-that-never-ends-part-4
&
http://www.reasons.org/articles/welcome-back-my-friends-to-the-show-that-never-ends-1-28-10
&
http://www.reasons.org/articles/welcome-back-my-friends-to-the-show-that-never-ends-2-11-10
and…
“If the ‘purpose’ of DNA is to supervise the building of bodies, it is surprising to find a large quantity of DNA which does no such thing. Biologists are racking their brains trying to think what useful task this apparently surplus DNA is doing. But from the point of view of the selfish genes themselves, there is no paradox. The true ‘purpose’ of DNA is to survive, no more and no less. The simplest way to explain the surplus DNA is to suppose that it is a parasite, or at best a harmless but useless passenger, hitching a ride in the survival machines created by the other DNA.”
—Richard Dawkins, 1976
… &
“I have noticed that there are some creationists who are jumping on [the ENCODE results] because they think that’s awkward for Darwinism. Quite the contrary it’s exactly what a Darwinist would hope for, to find usefulness in the living world… Whereas we thought that only a minority of the genome was doing something, namely that minority which actually codes for protein, and now we find that actually the majority of it is doing something.”
—Richard Dawkins, 2012
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/09/in_debate_brita_1064521.htm
… &
“… what here Dawkins calls a ‘remarkable fact’, turns out only three years later to be known (such that even he agrees, as the above link shows) to be totally false. It’s not even close; it’s as large an error as one could make in a propositional statement. Not only that, but, this totally false statement is in an area of Dawkins’ speciality.”
and…
Atheists Say Richard Dawkins is an Embarrassment and Troublesome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lQ69VVR4gc
and…
God particle scientist [Peter Higgs] hits out at [Richard Dawkins]
and…
The Dawkins Letters
http://www.bethinking.org/search/author/David%20Robertson
and…
Richard Dawkins under fire for ‘mild pedophilia’ remarks
http://www.religionnews.com/2013/09/09/richard-dawkins-under-fire-for-mild-pedophilia-remarks/
and…
Why Richard Dawkins’ typing monkey theorem is a load of nonsense
http://pjsaunders.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/why-richard-dawkins-typing-monkey.html
———————
What About Souls?:
“None of Hamer’s [‘The God Gene’] work was subjected to peer review by other geneticists or published in any scientific journals. And the study, upon which the book was based, was never repeated.”
http://www.thinkchristianly.org/the-god-gene-neuroscience-and-the-soul/
and…
The Soul: How We Know It’s Real and Why It Matters
http://inchristus.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/the-soul-how-we-know-its-real-and-why-it-matters/
———————
“PZ Myers is probably best known for his popular blog, Pharyngula, which bears the tag line, “Evolution, Development, and Random Biological Ejaculations from a Godless Liberal“.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/colliding_with_the_pharyngula_047281.html
———————
NCSE’s Eugenie Scott Reassures Scotland: There’s No Scientific Controversy on Evolution or Climate Change
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/ncses_eugenie_scott_reassures051171.html
———————
Sam Harris:
Review(s) of Sam Harris’ Free Will
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html
&
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/blue_pill_or_re_1066231.html
&
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/bluff_and_brava066241.html
———————
Atheism & Intelligence:
The New Atheists Are Not Intellectually Bright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8__UWuj8Do&feature=player_embedded
and…
College Graduates Less Likely To Abandon Religion, Research Shows
http://www.utexas.edu/opa/news/2007/06/sociology06.html
and…
Church Attendance Boosts Student GPAs
http://www.livescience.com/5051-church-attendance-boosts-student-gpas.html
and…
“Believing in God can help block anxiety and minimize stress”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090304160400.htm
and…
Religion and Mental Health: Going to Church Is Good for You
http://www.reasons.org/articles/religion-and-mental-health-going-to-church-is-good-for-you
and…
Live Long and Prosper: Going to Church Increases Lifespan
http://www.reasons.org/articles/live-long-and-prosper-going-to-church-increases-lifespan
and…
Are Atheists Smarter or Simply More Self-Reliant and Self-Indulgent?
and…
College Graduates Less Likely to Abandon Religion, Research Shows
http://www.utexas.edu/news/2007/06/06/sociology/
and…
God preserve me from smug atheists and dodgy studies
and…
How Not To Interpret That Religion and IQ Study
http://m.nationalreview.com/node/356006/print
and…
Recent Study Arguing that Atheists are more Intelligent than Religious People is missing Several Key Factors
http://sententias.org/2013/08/23/intelligence-and-religiosity/
and…
Are Religious People Less Intelligent than Atheists?
http://bombadere.hubpages.com/hub/Are-Religious-People-Less-Intelligent-than-Atheists
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Intelligent Design:
“The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins’ comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a ‘lucky chance.’ If that’s the best argument you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion… the origins of the laws of nature and of life and the Universe point clearly to an intelligent Source. The burden of proof is on those who argue to the contrary.”
http://www.tothesource.org/10_30_2007/10_30_2007.htm
— Antony Flew, Ph.D. (Philosophy), 1923 – 2010, the 20th century’s “most famous atheist.”
and…
Atheists & Agnostics Who Dare to Doubt Darwin
https://salvomag.com/article/salvo17/neither-god-nor-darwin
… &
“… the[re is an] increasing number of atheists and agnostics who are coming out and critiquing Darwinism and/or supporting ID.”
[That article quotes Thomas Nagel, Ph.D. (Philosophy), from his new book, Mind and Cosmos:Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Nagel has admitted several things which his fellow atheists have not, including the following in his previous book, The Last Word. “I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope that there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.“]
… &
“Nagel is an atheist who… finds the evidence for modern Darwinian theory wanting. Moreover, he is keenly appreciative of the ‘iconoclasts’ of the intelligent design movement for raising a significant challenge to the current scientific orthodoxy.”
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/noted_atheist_p063451.html
… &
“From a fruitful method, materialism becomes an axiom: If science can’t quantify something, it doesn’t exist, and so the subjective, unquantifiable, immaterial ‘manifest image’ of our mental life is proved to be an illusion. Here materialism bumps up against itself. Nagel insists that we know some things to exist even if materialism omits or ignores or is oblivious to them. Reductive materialism doesn’t account for the ‘brute facts’ of existence — it doesn’t explain, for example, why the world exists at all, or how life arose from nonlife. Closer to home, it doesn’t plausibly explain the fundamental beliefs we rely on as we go about our everyday business: the truth of our subjective experience, our ability to reason, our capacity to recognize that some acts are virtuous and others aren’t. These failures, Nagel says, aren’t just temporary gaps in our knowledge, waiting to be filled in by new discoveries in science. On its own terms, materialism cannot account for brute facts. Brute facts are irreducible, and materialism, which operates by breaking things down to their physical components, stands useless before them. ‘There is little or no possibility,’ he writes, ‘that these facts depend on nothing but the laws of physics.’ … If materialism is true as an explanation of everything — and they insist it is — then psychological facts, for example, must be reducible to biology, and then down to chemistry, and finally down to physics. If they weren’t reducible in this way, they would (ta-da!) be irreducible. And any fact that’s irreducible would, by definition, be uncaused and undetermined; meaning it wouldn’t be material… Materialism can only be taken seriously as a philosophy through a heroic feat of cognitive dissonance; pretending, in our abstract, intellectual life, that values like truth and goodness have no objective content even as, in our private life, we try to learn what’s really true and behave in a way we know to be good.”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/heretic_707692.html?nopager=1
and…
“Meyer’s book has been praised by George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School; Scott Turner, a professor of biology at SUNY; Russell Carlson, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Georgia and a dozen others.”
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/09/18/darwinism-and-materialism-they/print
and…
How could this illogical compensation argument have gone unchallenged for so long in the scientific literature?
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/09/how_the_scienti_1076101.html
[Now you know.]
[You’re welcome.]
and…
Seven Nobel Laureates in science who either supported Intelligent Design or attacked Darwinian evolution
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Science, Doubt, and Miracles
http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/201204/201204_122_science_doubt_miracles.cfm
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Why do some claim that science cannot test the supernatural (and rule it out a priori) but also claim that science has disproved the supernatural?
http://www.toughquestionsanswered.org/2010/06/24/can-science-test-for-the-supernatural/
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Jennifer Fulwiler: Scientific Atheism to Christ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw8uUOPoi2M&feature=share
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Atheist on Why She is Pro-Life: “We’re Not Dealing With Tissues or Blobs”
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