No theory or viewpoint should ever become sacrosanct because experience tells us that even the most elegant Laws of Nature ultimately succumb to the inexorable progress of scientific thinking and technological innovation. The present debate over Darwinism will be more productive if it takes place in recognition of the fact that scientific advances are made not by canonizing our predecessors but by creating intellectual and technical opportunities for our successors. — James A. Shapiro, “A Third Way,” Boston Review, Feb/Mar 1997.
I am agnostic but I can never deny that organic life (except human) is doing a wonderful job at functioning at optimum capacity. Thank you for this ... site! — an evolutionary theorist from Australia
The image of the fundamental laws of physics zestfully wrestling with the void to bring the universe into being is one that suggests very little improvement over the accounts given by the ancient Norse in which the world is revealed to be balanced on the back of a gigantic ox. If this is how explanations come to an end, what of materialism? The laws of physics are sets of symbols, after all—those now vested with the monstrous power to bring things and urges into creation, and symbols belong to the intelligence-infused aspects of the universe. — Dr. David Berlinski, The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays (2009), p. 159.
First to turn a telescope to the heavens; discoverer of sunspots, lunar craters, stars within the Milky Way, the phases of Venus, and the four large satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean satellites in his honor); staunch proponent of experiment over authority, discoverer of laws of falling bodies (in the process disproving Aristotle’s contention that heavier bodies fall faster), popularizer and publisher, mathematician, his work is of monumental importance in the history of science. Like his contemporary Johannes Kepler, Galileo wanted his work to glorify God, and believed that the study of the heavens was a worthy method of doing so. He praised God for the privilege of being the first to see new wonders above through his telescope.
Take a dumb idea. Get it on the ‘science news’ train and it will go viral – no questions asked.
When the coast is clear, and their careers are safe, some academics can afford to doubt Darwin publicly.
This is a continuation of my discussion on the requirements to allow life to exist on a planet elsewhere in the universe.
He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. (Solomon, Ecclesiastes 3:11)