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Science and Design: A Physicist’s Perspective

As science develops more complete naturalistic explanations to describe the universe, it may appear that there is less room for God in the picture. And if science ever discovers a “complete” theory, it could be presumed that it would describe a universe without God. I am confident, however, that this conclusion is neither necessary nor valid. Drawing upon examples from physics, my purpose is to show that in developing a more complete picture of the universe, scientists are led to greater evidences for God and His design.

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A Critique of Current Anti-ID Arguments and ID Responses

There have been a number of carefully written books and articles arguing that ID has failed to make its case. ID advocates have published responses to these arguments. Which of these lines of argument is most convincing, when compared to what is known about living systems?

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Design in Nature: Millennia of Arguments

A huge amount of change has occurred over the more than two millennia since the time of Democritus. Design arguments that he and his intellectual offspring eschewed have gone through many iterations, experiencing periods of great success and times of decline, but have never been dealt a deathblow. In fact, they continue to thrive. The recent resurgence of design arguments, coupled with an explosive accumulation of knowledge about the molecular complexity of life and elegance in the universe life inhabits, suggest that the design inference faces a robust future.

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A Critique of Current Anti-ID Arguments and ID Responses

This paper evaluates a representative sample of the best anti-ID and pro-ID publications and presents a conclusion as to the present state of the evidence and arguments regarding these positions. Published in Origins, n. 63.

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Son of Panda

A review of the book, The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems. High school biology text uncommitted to materialistic Darwinism. Published in Origins, n. 63.

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Annotations from the Literature

A collection of short commentaries on scientific papers published in 2008, covering topics such as human skeletons on Palau, the bacterial flagellum, antiobiotic resistance, abrupt appearance of fossil bats, Cretaceous feathers, dinosaur respiration. Published in Origins, n. 62.

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Making It All Uncomfortably Clear

A review of the book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. Published in Origins, n. 61.

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The Godfather of Intelligent Design

A review of the book, Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement. Published in Origins n. 61.

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Intelligent Design and its Critics

The debate raging around ID is not one of scientific fact versus religious faith. The real clash is an ideological one in which scientists are seeking to maintain the intellectual and cultural dominance of the humanist/atheist worldview.

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Contemporary Design Theory: The Intelligent Design Movement

In this article, we will review the contemporary status of the design theory and examine some of the major criticisms leveled against it.

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Is Intelligent Design Harmful to Science?

Three claims have been made that, if true, might suggest that scientists should be wary of intelligent design.... What is the status of these claims? Published in Origins n. 59.

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Intelligent Design: Is It a Useful Concept?

This article explores the usefulness of the idea of intelligent design in the context of modern (scientific) efforts to understand nature. Among the questions to be considered are whether intelligent design is a necessary inference from the properties of nature, and whether its incorporation into science would improve our ability to explore and understand nature.

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Literature Reviews: Can Science Refute Design?

Review of Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. Published in Origins n. 58.

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Literature Reviews: Philosophical Weeding

Review of the book, Thinking About God: First Steps in Philosophy. Published in Origins n. 58.

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Conflating Answers: to and from Design Questions

The argument to design is that nature shows evidence of design but does not attempt to identify the designer. The argument from design is that the design seen in nature is best explained as the result of a specific designer, most often the Christian God. Published in Origins n. 57.

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Investigating the Designer

A review of the book, The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God. Published in Origins, n. 57.

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Issues in Intermediate Models of Origins

Many models have been proposed that tend to blur some of the contrasts between the biblical and naturalistic theories. A number of attempts have been made to develop intermediate models in which elements of the biblical story of creation are mixed with elements of the scientific story of origins. All of these models share the biblical idea that nature is the result of divine purpose and the “scientific” idea of long ages of time, but all suffer from serious scientific problems or are entirely ad hoc and conjectural.

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Detecting Design in Nature

Design in nature can be detected using criteria similar to those for searching for extraterrestrial life, such as purpose, extreme improbability, or specification. Published in Origins n. 56..

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Intelligent Design: The Argument from Beauty

There is more to design than complexity. I am proposing that it is time to advance beyond an analysis of complexity, fruitful though that has been. We are able to expand the scope of design arguments to include the existence of beauty, which points to design of a different kind.

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Literature reviews: Finding Darwin’s God

A review of the book, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. Published in Origins n. 55.

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