Has science discovered God ? Evolution versus Intelligent Design, today
on Listen Up.
A battle over how life began has evolved into a new level of debate.
Leading scientists and biologists, school children, the U.S. President,
Time Magazine, academic journals, even comedy shows are talking about
the issues science is raising over Intelligent Design.
Today we try to understand a question as old as our earth. How did life
begin?
Scientist Francis Collins directs the Human Genome Project which
revealed all of the 3 billion letters of our DNA instruction book. He
calls scientific discovery an occasion of worship. In looking for the
meaning of life though, geneticist Collins says science doesn’t have the
answer. Rather the origins of our unique human sense or right from
wrong, and the record of Christ’s life Earth hold the key for that
discovery. The meaning of life is a question anyone can get an answer
for. We were built to respond to God. Debate over intelligent design is
perhaps just one more tool God uses to get our attention.
Associate Research Professor, Conceptual Foundations of Science, Baylor
University; Ph.D. Philosophy, Univerity of Illinois at Chicago; Ph.D.
Mathematics, University of Chicago; Masters of Divinity, Princeton
Theological Seminary.
William Dembski has a Ph.D. in philosophy (Univerity of Illinois at
Chicago), a Ph.D. in mathematics (University of Chicago), and a masters
of divinity from Princeton. A mathematician and a philosopher, he is
associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science
at Baylor University and a senior fellow with Discovery
Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.
Dr. Dembski previously taught at Northwestern University, the
University of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas as well as
having done post doctoral work at MIT, the University of Chicago, and
Princeton.
Author of The Design Inference, Intelligent Design, and the recent No
Free Lunch, Dembski has also recently founded the International Society
for Complexity, Information, and Design. Dembski's work focuses on
understanding the nature of intelligent design. His work illuminates
underlying principles from information theory pointing to the type of
complex information which intelligent design can produce. The
identification of information produced by intelligent design creates
the method by which Dembski believes we can detect design in the
biological realm. Dembski has also worked with IDEA before--in 2001, he
gave a lecture hosted by the IDEA Club at UCSD, entitled, "Darwin's
Unpaid Debt".
William Dembski is perhaps the foremost researcher into intelligent
design theory. His work turns intelligent design into a practical
rather than purely theoretical theory.
PAMELA
WINNICK
Pamela R. Winnick, author of A
JEALOUS GOD: Science's Crusade Against Religion (Nelson Current/
November 2005), is the former reporter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
who covered the PA Department of Education and originally broke the
story of the statewide dispute over teaching evolution. An award
winning journalist and attorney of 20 years, Winnick says intelligent
design should NOT be taught at the present time in public
schools for these reasons:
1)It invites lawsuits. School boards should be in the business of
education, not litigation.²
2)The Dover, PA case was being used as a test subject by the Thomas
Moore Center, a Christian-based organization with no local
affiliations.²
3)Intelligent design has not gained enough critical mass within the
science
community to be included in the science curricula of public
school.²
4)Only 12 percent of American students are literate in science,
according
to national studies. It is more important to attend to science overall
in
the schools than to waste time and energy in the courtroom.
OUTSIDE the classroom, however, Winnick firmly believes that
³the debates over Darwin must be fully aired and covered
fairly by the media.² She says, ³It is not just the
religious community which objects to Darwin. As I detailed in my book,
in 1966 a group of leading mathematicians, including some from MIT,
convened a conference to challenge Darwin on
mathematical--not religious--grounds. The media never mentions these
secular objects.²
In A JEALOUS GOD: Science's Crusade Against Religion, Winnick, a
secular Jewish Democrat, takes a sympathetic look at religion,
separating myth from fact in the raging battles between the religious
and scientific communities. In this provocative expose, Winnick risks
³political incorrectness² and courageously takes on
the scientific community, exposing its many falsehoods and its
gratuitous and unfounded attacks on the religious community. She looks
carefully at intelligent design as well as many hot-button issues
including cloning and embryonic stem cell research.
In the current political climate, anyone who challenges the supremacy of
science is ipso facto considered an ³anti science²
Christian fundamentalist.
But Pamela R. Winnick defies that stereotype. While personally
supporting federal funding and oversight of embryonic stem-cell
research and opposing the teaching of creationism in the public
schools, she urges readers of all political persuasions to take a hard
look at the consequences of the new
³scientism.²
The book, already explosively controversial, turns the table on the
age-old myth of the martyred scientist punished by a narrow-minded
religious community. It is time to pierce the propaganda and understand
where science will lead us if left unchecked.
Pamela R. Winnick is a graduate of Columbia Law School, an editor of
its law review, and a graduate of Columbia Journalism School. She has
written for Newsweek, Orlando Sentinel, National Review, Weekly
Standard, Columbia Law Review, and Family Circle. A recipient of a
prestigious award from the Overseas Press Club, she has been a medical
reporter for the Toledo Bladeand a staff writer for the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette where she wrote widely onthe intersection between science,
law, and religion. A native New Yorker,Winnick has two grown children
and lives with her husband in Pittsburgh.
ALANNA
MITCHELL
Alanna Mitchell is an
award-winning author and Darwinian Scholar and was formerly the
international award-winning senior features writer at the Globe and
Mail. The World Conservation Union and the Reuters Foundation
cited Mitchell’s work as the best environment reporting in
North America, which led to a term of study at Oxford
University. Her latest book is called ‘Dancing at
the Dead Sea.’
ROBERT
MANN Director of the Canadian Christian Science Assocation www.csca.ca
University of Waterloo, President of the Canadian BIOGRAPHY:
Robert Mann is Chair of the Physics Department at the University of
Waterloo and an Affiliate member of the Perimeter Institute. He is
President of the Canadian Scientific & Christian
Affiliation. His research interests are in gravitation,
cosmology, particle physics, and science & religion. He has
authored over 200 research papers in physics and has edited
three books. He has spent research leaves at Harvard
University, Cambridge University and the KITP at the University of
Santa Barbara, California. He has given over 150 invited
talks during his career. Married with one daughter and a member of
First Mennonite Church in Kitchener Ontario where he is currently
Sunday School superintendent, his hobbies include movie-making, hiking,
travelling, running with his dog, playing with his cat, and acting in
musicals.
Robert Mann’s Research activities
Research is presently directed in three areas:
(a) New tests of the equivalence principle are being designed and
investigated. Such tests provide us with important information about
the gravitational force, and may give some clues as to the structure of
quantum gravity. Specific examples include gravitational redshifts of
quantum vacuum energies, non-metric effects on anomalous magnetic
moments, gravitational depolarizatinon of polarized light and neutrino
flavour mixing due to gravitational effects.
(b) Physical properties of black holes are being studied as a means of
gaining insight into quantum gravity. The formulation of the
thermodynamics of gravitating systems of finite size (such as a black
hole in a box) is being carried out to this end. Pair production of
black holes and quantum corrections to the laws of thermodynamics are
being investigated as a means of gaining a fundamental understanding of
the origin of black hole entropy.
(c) Theories of lower dimensional gravity are being investigated. Such
theories model many important conceptual elements of classical and
quantum gravity in a context that is mathematically simple and elegant.
Specific projects include a study of the N-body problem, gravitational
collapse, dilatonic black holes, and interior structure of black holes.
Lower-dimensional black holes.
Gary Chiang received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of
Toronto. For his doctoral thesis, he used electrophysiology and
electron microscopy to investigate the release of neurotransmitter from
nerves attached to muscle fibers in the walking legs of lobsters.
After graduating, he spent seven years working on the nerves of insects
in an active research laboratory at York University in Toronto. During
this time he discovered the insect abdominal pressure receptor which
enables a blood feeding insect to sense the size of its blood meal.
Gary accepted a professorship at Redeemer University College in 1990,
and along with his wife, Jennifer, developed and maintains a
comprehensive undergraduate biology program. Gary and Jennifer have
also taught biology courses at McMaster University (Hamilton) and
Tyndale University College (Toronto).
Along with his teaching responsibilities, Gary continues to investigate
the role of nerves and hormones in the growth and reproduction in
insects. He has published over 20 research articles in peerreviewed
scientific journals, and has been an Adjunct Professor of Biology at
McMaster University and Tyndale University College.
He is currently organizing an international symposium on the biology
the kissing bug, Rhodnius prolixus, which is a vector of
Chagas’ Disease. This disease affects millions of people in
South America.
In addition to his scientific endeavours, Gary and Jennifer co-founded
the All-Ontario Christian Schools Science Fair and serve on the
advisory board for the Arthur Custance Centre for Science and
Christianity, a centre which promotes the integration of science with a
Christian theology based on a literal translation of the Bible.
Gary initiated the Custance Awards for Christian Perspective in Science
which are presented to students of the winning projects at the Ontario
Christian Schools Science Fair. He also teaches an interdisciplinary
faith and science course on origins. His faith related books include
Overcoming Prejudice in the Evolution/Creation Debate: Developing an
integrative approach to science and Christianity; and A
Christian’s Guide to Defeating Evolution: The biological
approach.
This site
houses a very large number of archived articles and other works by
William Dembski. The site has numerous articles related to the
detection of design and answering objection to intelligent design
theory, making it a good place to start if you want to learn about the
theory of intelligent design.
Created by
Eric Anderson, this site is "designed to assist professionals and
newcomers alike in understanding the fundamental claims underlying
evolutionary theory, as well as the logical and rhetorical stance taken
by evolutionary proponents." The site provides in-depth site analysis
of various critics of intelligent design, as well as primer on
intelligent design.
What
Is Intelligent Design Theory? (from the Idea Centre)
The
Short Answer: Intelligent design is a scientific theory
which seeks to determine if some objects in the natural world were
designed through recognizing and detecting the types of information
known to be produced by the intelligent agents when they act.
The
Long Answer: Intelligent design is a scientific theory
which holds that certain
features of the universe and living things are best explained by an
intelligent cause, and are not the result of an undirected,
chance-based process such as Darwinian evolution.
Intelligent design begins with observations about the types of
information produced by intelligent agents. Even the atheist zoologist
Richard Dawkins says that intuitively, "[b]iology is the study of
complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for
a purpose." Darwinists believe natural selection did the "designing"
but intelligent design theorist Stephen C. Meyer notes, "in all cases
where we know the causal origin of 'high information content,'
experience has shown that intelligent design played a causal role."
Intelligent design is thus heavily dependent upon "information theory."
One of its fundamental premises is that "information" which is complex
(highly ordered) and specified (fits a pre-existing pattern) is not
produced by naturally occurring events (chance or law-governed
processes), but rather this sort of observable information and
complexity is best explained as the product of intelligent action.
Intelligent design implies that life is here as a result of the
purposeful action of an intelligent designer, standing in contrast to
Darwinian evolution, which postulates that life exists due to the
chance, purposeless, blind forces of nature.
Evolutionary
Theory In A Nutshell
(from the Idea Center)
How
Evolution Works:
1. Random chance mutations cause changes, or variation, in a population
of organisms.
2. These different organisms then compete to survive and reproduce.
3. Those which are best able to survive and reproduce do so, and tend
to leave the most offspring. This is called “natural
selection.”
4. Over time, if some organisms survive and reproduce more than others,
a species will "evolve." Evolution
claims:
- All organisms are related through "common ancestry."
- All organisms arose through the process of mutation and natural
selection.
- All organisms arose and persist because of the random chance
processes of nature.
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On April 30, 2005 Lorna was privileged to receive an honorary Doctorate of Christian Ministries from Canada's largest Christian university, Trinity Western University. Lorna was recognized for the witness and leadership that Listen Up TV has provided in public messaging: "a leader in the voice of evangelical life in Canada."
