Is life on Earth the product of a supernatural Creator or Darwinian evolution? Can science prove the existence of God? Michael Shermer goes head to head on Audiomartini with noted Intelligent Design theorist William Dembski, fellow of the Discovery Institute. The devout and the heretical alike will gain insight from this fascinating interview.

download 10MB MP3

Where the known meets the unknown is where science begins

At a February 12, 2002, news briefing, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld explained the limitations of intelligence reports: “There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

Rumsfeld’s logic may be tongue-twisting, but his epistemology was sound enough that he was quoted twice at the World Summit on Evolution. The June conference, hosted by San Francisco University of Quito, was held on the Galápagos island of San Cristóbal, where Charles Darwin began his explorations. Rumsfeld’s wisdom was first invoked by University of California at Los Angeles paleobiologist William Schopf, who, in a commentary on a lecture on the origins of life, asked: “What do we know? What are the unsolved problems? What have we failed to consider?”

Creationists and outsiders often mistake the latter two categories for signs that evolution is in trouble, or that contentious debate between what we know and do not know means that the theory is false. Wrong. The summit revealed a scientific discipline rich in data and theory as well as controversy and disputation over the known and unknown. (continue reading…)

A review of Michael Ruse’s Darwin and Design: Does Evolution have a Purpose?.

Psalms 19:1 declares: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” The divine design inference is not confined to the ancient Hebrews. (continue reading…)

Science and Culture in Evolutionary Theory

This article Rethinking Marxism Vol. 15, No. 4 (October 2003).

We live in the Age of Science. Scientism is our world-view, our mythic story about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. As such, scientists are our preeminent storytellers, the mythmakers of our epoch. Prominent among them are such cosmologists and evolutionary theorists as Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Edward O. Wilson, and Richard Dawkins, whose books are read by professionals and the public alike, with spectacular advances and (publishers hope) matching sales that reflect the rise of a scientistic literati, where it is now chic to have read (or at least to have on your coffee table) their works. (continue reading…)

The advance of science, not the demotion of religion, will best counter the influence of creationism

In one of the most existentially penetrating statements ever made by a scientist, Richard Dawkins concluded that “the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”

Facing such a reality, perhaps we should not be surprised at the results of a 2001 Gallup poll confirming that 45 percent of Americans believe “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so”; 37 percent prefer a blended belief that “human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process”; and a paltry 12 percent accept the standard scientific theory that “human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.” (continue reading…)