Articles on Uncommon Descent, indexed by subject
Articles on Uncommon Descent, indexed by the name of the person they're about
The man who mistook himself for a fish
Why a rabbit is not like a can of Coke: PZ Myers’ own goal
June 2016
The amazing placenta: A reply to Dr. Ann Gauger
Consider the opossum: the evidence for common descent
May 2016
Leading thinker on human evolution admits: we’re more than just an ape
Sex and phlogiston: an essay on intellectual crimes
Baker’s dozen: Thirteen questions for Dr. Hunter
Jimmy Kimmel vs. Sarah Palin on climate change: my take
Origin of Life: Professor James Tour points the way forward for Intelligent Design
April 2016
Maclean’s inept hatchet job on Jesus
Denmark: it’s no secular paradise. Neither is Sweden.
March 2016
An open letter to Archbishop Jerome Listecki
Catholic critics of “theistic evolution” are hopelessly divided
My thoughts on the Krauss- Meyer-Lamoureux debate
Pigeons, computers and Picasso
Computer beats humans at Go: so what?
Too hot to handle: Update on the PLoS ONE paper
Is the Sixth Great Extinction a big myth?
February 2016
Feet to the fire: A response to Dr. Stacy Trasancos
Denton vs. Moran on structuralism
Is there only one brand of science?
Larry Moran needs to do some more reading
Are 3,000 beneficial mutations enough to transform a land animal into a whale?
January 2016
United Methodist Church leadership contradicts Methodism’s co-founder, John Wesley, on Intelligent Design
Guardian reporter Nick Cohen asks: Are ISIS and the Judeo-Christian tradition morally equivalent?
Physicist tells people to stop saying they have free will
Academic cover-up: can neutral evolutionary processes rapidly generate complex adaptations?
The origin of abiotic species: Seven epic fails
Debunking the debunker: How Sean Carroll gets the fine-tuning argument wrong
Two quick questions for Professor Coyne
Exposing the Hoary History of Methodological Naturalism: Does it really go back to the Middle Ages?
Why life isn’t like a Mandelbrot set
This is embarrassing: “Darwin’s Doubt” debunker is 14 years behind the times
The 12 Days of Evolution mangles the evolution of the eye
Author of global warming “consensus” study calls top climate scientists denialists!
Is methodological naturalism a defining feature of science? (Part One)
The Squid and the Supernova: A Reply to Professor Egnor
Professor Michael Egnor’s incredible claim about perception
A 97 percent consensus that’s real
November 2015
Slain officer in Colorado Springs was a pro-life pastor
Atheist biologist makes an excellent case for Intelligent Design
Jason Rosenhouse gets it half-right on Galileo
Atheist medievalist starts a history blog to educate New Atheists
Larry Moran is a Jesus denialist
Whoops! Why humans aren’t apes: Professor Coyne’s own goal
October 2015
The Skeptical Zone asks: What is a code?
Proving our point: News from Brazil
Double debunking: Glenn Williamson on human-chimp DNA similarity and genes unique to human beings
How some patients who appear to be in a vegetative state remain conscious
Human and chimp DNA: They really are about 98% similar
Larry Moran commits the genetic fallacy
Star Trek and the supernatural: A paradox for naturalists?
No debate about macroevolution? Surely you’re joking, Professor Coyne!
Coyne and Krauss’s cosmological comedy of errors
Baker’s dozen: 13 questions I’d ask an aspiring atheist politician
September 2015
Lydia McGrew nails it: Does being an atheist interfere with being moral?
Devastating take-down of Bill Nye, the science guy
What’s wrong with “harm done to the environment is harm done to humanity”?
New Atheism: Not a cult, but a religion
Is nothing certain? A response to KeithS
Heather Hastie’s logic: simple or simplistic?
“All Scientists Should Be Militant Atheists”: Lawrence Krauss’s self-refuting claim
Torley’s paradox and the difference between “possibility” and “capability”: A reply to Larry Moran
Over at WEIT, reader Ben Goren asks: “Why doesn’t Jesus call 911?”
August 2015
I get mail: Cavin and Colombetti redux
The Inanities of an Aspiring Horseman
Karl Giberson reviews atheist John Loftus’ new book
Physicist Paul Davies’ killer argument against the multiverse
Memo to Myers and Marcotte: Embryologists agree that an individual human life begins at conception
Louise Antony's three fallacies about God and goodness
July 2015
Faith vs. Fact: Jerry Coyne’s flawed epistemology
Gay marriage and the loss of civility
Were woolly mammoths designed?
Evaluating the Pope’s encyclical, Part One: Each living creature is designed by God
Evaluating the Pope’s encyclical, Part Two: Do we have the right to eradicate species?
Evaluating the Pope’s encyclical, Part Three: Four internal contradictions in the Pope’s thinking
Straight talk about global warming: an open letter to the Catholic clergy
May 2015
The immateriality of animal consciousness: why I’m agnostic
I'd like a straight yes or a straight no, Professor Moran
Bad math: Why Larry Moran's "I'm not a Darwinian" isn't a valid reply to Meyer's argument
This is what a reply to an Intelligent Design argument looks like
What Elizabeth Liddle doesn't understand about the Cambrian explosion
A succinct case for Intelligent Design
Why you can't have have morality – or marriage – without natural law
April 2015
Is Intelligent Design dead?
A surprising admission on altruism by Professor Jerry Coyne
March 2015
Scientific American journalist: Everyone has the right to challenge a scientific consensus
Good and bad skepticism: Carl Sagan on extraordinary claims
Can intelligence be operationalized?
What really scares the new atheists
February 2015
Why atheists can't show that Ken Ham is wrong
Is Larry Moran a conspiracy theorist?
No evidence for God's existence, you say? A response to Larry Moran
Larry Moran demolishes an icon of evolution
Our own Vince Torley on podcast! (Casey Luskin interviews Vincent Torley for "ID the Future")
Phil Zuckerman on growing up godless
January 2015
H. L. Mencken: The nail in the coffin
The right to ridicule: what do readers think?
What Jerry Coyne doesn’t get about goodness
God and the Cosmos: Finding the Right Metaphor
In defense of Eric Metaxas: Is God a scientific hypothesis?
Evolutionary biology rewrites the American Declaration of Independence
Do Christians worship many Gods?
November 2014
On the poverty of scientific naturalism as an explanation: A reply to my critics
On the impossibility of replicating the cell: A problem for naturalism
Can we all agree on specified complexity?
"No war in the name of atheism": Spot the fallacy
Keith S in a muddle over meaning, macroevolution and specified complexity
Mencken's Mendacity at the Scopes Trial
Barriers to macroevolution: what the proteins say
Why Keith S's bomb is a damp squib
On not using the wrong metaphor: Catholic writer Mark Shea attempts to channel Pope Francis
October 2014
Six bombshells relating to H. L. Mencken and the Scopes trial
Selective hyperskepticism: A response to Professor Moran
The Broken Gift: Daniel Friedmann's attempt to marry science and Genesis
Is something rotten in the state of Denmark?
Scientific evidence that consciousness may not require a functioning brain
Now Jerry Coyne doubts the historical existence of Jesus Christ
Physician, heal thyself: An open challenge to P. Z. Myers
September 2014
On worshiping the right God: Jerry Coyne asks a sensible question
Why a simulated brain is not conscious
Experts pan quantum mechanical replication of Miller-Urey experiment
The New Atheists: A House Divided
On not putting all your theological eggs into one basket
August 2014
Mark Frank poses an interesting thought experiment on free will
P. Z. Myers channels Judith Jarvis Thomson on abortion; Dawkins disagrees
P. Z. Myers rebukes Richard Dawkins for his tweet on Down syndrome
Why Greta Christina’s critique of God-guided evolution misses the mark
Coyne compares Dembski to a Holocaust denier
Why Keith Blanchard really doesn't understand evolution
Do we need a context to identify a message as the product of an intelligent being?
An Aristotelian Proof of the Existence of God?
July 2014
Hyper-skepticism and "My way or the highway": Feser's extraordinary post
The myth about the Dover trial that Miller continues to propagate
Guide dogs don't know that their owners are blind
It's official: there are no ring species
Jerry Coyne's critique of the cosmological argument ... and the reply he wouldn't publish
RIKEN's 10-minute antidote to atheism: see for yourself
Do viruses help explain the origin of life?
Intelligent Design as a form of special agent intention
FFRF gets constitutional freedoms and the Founding Fathers wrong ... again
June 2014
The death of freedom of inquiry in British publicly funded schools
What kind of evolution does the Pope believe in?
On the nature and detection of intelligence: A reply to RDFish
Why no 13-year-old boy talks like Eugene Goostman
The dirty dozen: Twelve fallacies evolutionists make when arguing about the origin of life
May 2014
Science illiteracy on the liberal left: PZ Myers and Amanda Marcotte can't face the facts of life
Faraday: man of faith, man of science
Free Will: Why reports of its death are greatly exaggerated
What About the Origins of Life Itself?
On not doing one’s homework: A reply to Professor Edward Feser
April 2014
RNA, the origin of life and the gullibility of the science media
Will the real Neutral Theory please stand up?
Professor Larry Moran poses five questions for the ID movement
Putting Humpty Dumpty back together again: why is this a bad argument for design?
Branko Kozulic responds to Professor Moran
Can the neutral theory of evolution explain what makes us human?
March 2014
Fixation: the neutral theory's Achilles' heel?
The ferns that evolution forgot: virtually unchanged after 180 million years!
Why science cannot be the only way of knowing: A reply to Jason Rosenhouse
So, why are the human and chimpanzee/bonobo genomes so similar? A reply to Professor Larry Moran
Does Professor Larry Moran (or anyone else) understand macroevolution?
A voice for free speech, from the other side
A Darwinist responds to KF's challenge
In a pickle about Adam and Eve
PZ Myers: "Abiogenesis is not evolution" is a cop-out
An excellent new paper by Robin Collins on fine-tuning
Haldane's dilemma – what does science really say?
February 2014
Darwin, Kingsley, evolution and racism
Amanda Marcotte is half-right about creationists
The amazing feats of 007: something to crow about?
Professor Larry Moran squares the circle
Looking at the totality of the evidence: a response to Jeffery Jay Lowder
All at sea about science and theology: Jerry Coyne cites Andrew Dickson White on Galileo
Fishing trip: A short essay on Intelligent Design, theology and metaphysics
An exchange with an ID skeptic
January 2014
New way of producing pluripotent stem cells stuns biologists
What kind of universe can’t God make? A response to Dr. James F. McGrath
Dr. Liddle responds to my question
Dr. Martin Luther King on creation, evolution and Intelligent Design
A quick question for Dr. Liddle and other skeptics
Why the best arguments for the existence of God are not stupid
Zombies, duplicates, human beasts and consciousness
Jerry Coyne’s ethical theory unravels
Are plants intelligent, and what can we learn from them?
An apology is due from Why Evolution Is True
It's time for scientists to come clean with the public about evolution and the origin of life
Atheism and the Church of Wonderful Nothingness
Naturalist science: no threat to faith in God?
"Science is done by ignoring God" – Professor Coyne’s newfangled naturalism
Cavin and Colombetti, miracle-debunkers, or: Can a Transcendent Designer manipulate the cosmos?
November 2013
God: Lawgiver or Hypocrite? Loftus attacks divine command theories of ethics
Is God a good theory? A response to Sean Carroll (Part One)
Is God a good theory? A response to Sean Carroll (Part Two)
Is God a good theory? A response to Sean Carroll (Part Three)
Does scientific knowledge presuppose God? A reply to Carroll, Coyne, Dawkins and Loftus
Poles Apart: A Challenge to Professor Moran
Professor Larry Moran supports the use of ID-compatible science textbooks in Texas classrooms
The Myth of the Continuum of Creatures: A Reply to John Jeremiah Sullivan (Part One)
The Myth of the Continuum of Creatures: A Reply to John Jeremiah Sullivan (Part Two)
The Myth of the Continuum of Creatures: A Reply to John Jeremiah Sullivan (Part 3(a))
The Myth of the Continuum of Creatures: A Reply to John Jeremiah Sullivan (Part 3(b))
October 2013
A hypothetical question for neo-Darwinists, on the age of the earth
Atheism and religious belief in America: interesting trends
New cosmology paper by skeptical scientists lends support to the fine-tuning argument
Do apes plan for the future? Why I'm skeptical
Is Intelligent Design bad theology? A reply to David Bentley Hart
Who was Adam and when did he live? Twelve theses and a caveat
September 2013
New study: Oxygenic photosynthesis goes back three billion years
It came from outer space: Have British scientists found proof of alien life?
Darwin's Dilemma Remains Unresolved: What Lee's Paper Didn't Discuss
Clarence Darrow on rape and chloroforming the unfit: Jerry Coyne's strange choice of heroes
George Orwell on "What is Science?"
A man out of his depth: Has John Farrell read and understood John Henry Newman?
Steve Pinker's bogus statistics: A critique of The Better Angels of Our Nature (Part Two)
Steve Pinker's bogus statistics: A critique of The Better Angels of Our Nature (Part One)
Jerry Coyne and Stephen Fry's fishy tale about St. Thomas Aquinas
An open letter to BSU President Jo Ann Gora
July 2013
Theism, atheism and morality
Freedom From Religion Foundation takes silliness to a whole new level
Neuroscientist says human head transplants are now possible
Do split-brain cases disprove the existence of an immaterial soul? (Part Two)
Do split-brain cases disprove the existence of an immaterial soul? (Part One)
Is this a photo? Is this a slur? Is this an argument?
The Freedom From Religion Foundation: Getting the Founding Fathers wrong
Rewriting history: Can a Darwinist believe in the scala naturae? (Darwin did.)
June 2013
Credit where credit's due: P. Z. Myers vs. Daniel Friedmann on Genesis
Did John Maynard Keynes spot the flaw in Intelligent Design?
Order vs. Complexity: A follow-up post
Order is not the same thing as complexity: A response to Harry McCall
May 2013
Is the Intelligent Designer an interventionist? A reply to Felsenstein and Liddle
Is Darwinism a better explanation of life than Intelligent Design?
Some testable predictions entailed by Dr. Kozulic's model of Intelligent Design
April 2013
Can a Darwinist consistently condemn a con man who couldn't have done otherwise?
March 2013
Could the eye have evolved by natural selection in a geological blink?
Religion as an obstacle to vaccination: New Atheists continue to propagate a myth
February 2013
Macroevolution, microevolution and chemistry: the devil is in the details
Night Vision: A new version of the fine-tuning argument
How evolutionists explained the origin of life, 101 years ago
Professor James Tour accepts Nick Matzke’s offer to explain macroevolution
Is the genetic code a real code?
January 2013
Thomas Nagel vs. his critics: Has Neo-Darwinian evolution failed, and can teleological naturalism take its place?
Refuting Coyne's myth: Science progresses but theology doesn't
Whose side are you on, Professor Coyne? What Anatole France really said about miracles
Four Metaphors for the Cosmos: A Story about a Watch, a Lute, a Recipe and a Symphony
Intelligent Design and mechanism: laying a myth to rest
Building a bridge between Scholastic philosophy and Intelligent Design
Was Paley a classical theist, and does his design argument lead us to a false God?
Paley's argument from design: Did Hume refute it, and is it an argument from analogy?
Professor Mohamed Noor: A gentleman and a scholar
Noor's non sequitur, or: Did Hitler believe in Intelligent Design?
The Big Easy Bans Intelligent Design, but the Big Story is Louisiana’s Good Science Grades
Larry Moran asks: “Do philosophers take William Lane Craig's arguments seriously?”
Larry Moran defends Paul Nelson!
Could the Internet ever be conscious? Definitely not before 2115, even if you're a materialist.
Is meaning located in the brain?
Detecting the supernatural: Why science doesn't presuppose methodological naturalism, after all
Detecting design (2): A reply to John Loftus
November 2012
Libby Anne: Portrait of an atheist feminist
Libby Anne (part 2): The ethics of a feminist atheist
Libby Anne (part 3): A reply to her article, "How I lost faith in the pro-life movement"
October 2012
New research points to a 40 million-year-old split between the ancestors of humans and orangutans
Determinism: an idea that just won't fly
Darwinians concoct a whale of a tale about the evolution of the ear
September 2012
Are crows capable of reasoning about hidden causal agents? Five reasons for skepticism
August 2012
An anti-ID biology professor who doesn’t even know the facts of life, let alone evolution
Ten questions for Professor Coyne
Do you have to believe in Adam and Eve?
What I'd like to ask Richard Dawkins
July 2012
Professor Coyne issues a challenge that’s too easy to resist
June 2012
Beyond a joke
May 2012
H. L. Mencken: Is this your hero, New Atheists?
The physicist and the princess
For the record – a comment on Dan Savage’s latest talk
April 2012
Twenty-one more famous Nobel Prize winners who rejected Darwinism as an account of consciousness
Why you can’t be a Darwinist and a “human exceptionalist”
Zack Kopplin, can you match my poker hand?
February 2012
But they don’t feel anything, Professor Coyne
January 2012
The Evolution of Evolution: Are Living Things Intelligently Designed to Evolve?
It's all about information, Professor
The Big Picture: 56 minutes that may change your life
Silly arguments against God, by very clever writers
Methodological naturalism: Science enabler or science stopper? A response to Dr. Elizabeth Liddle.
Game on! A bioinformatician confronts Intelligent Design.
Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”
No evidence, you say? A reply to Eric MacDonald.
Is this the Dumbest Ever “Refutation” of the Fine-Tuning Argument?
Will this do, Professor Moran?
Christopher Hitchens: RIP (1949-2011)
November 2011
Adam, Eve and the Concept of Humanity: A Response to Professor Kemp (Part 1)
Embryo and Einstein – Why They’re Equal
At last, a Darwinist mathematician tells the truth about evolution
October 2011
“Liar, liar, pants on fire”? Ten Tough Questions for Professor Dawkins.
Professors Coyne and Miller clash on free will
September 2011
Bad science by Dr. Victor Stenger, arguing in the cause of atheism
Machine 1 and Machine 2: A Challenge to the Ethics of the New Atheists
The four tiers of Intelligent Design – an ecumenical proposal
Why the mathematical beauty we find in the cosmos is an objective “fact” which points to a Designer
What assumptions does the fine-tuning argument make about the Designer?
No Googling, please. Who wrote this?
Gauguin and gods’ graveyards: A response to H. L. Mencken
Battle of the two Elizabeths: are free will and physical determinism compatible?
A short quiz on Intelligent Design for both advocates and opponents of ID
You lose, Reverend: a minister blunders while attacking the inerrancy of his own holy book
Why morality cannot be 100% natural: A Response to Professor Coyne
Three puzzles that are real – A response to a skeptic
July 2011
Why a multiverse would still need to be fine-tuned, in order to make baby universes
To dream the impossible dream: the quest for the 50-bit life form
So you think the multiverse refutes cosmological fine-tuning? Consider Arthur Rubinstein.
No good theology, you say? Oh yes, there is!
How is libertarian free will possible?
Why I think the interaction problem is real
A very revealing post on naturalism, or: Good and bad extrapolations in science
Two pretty good arguments for atheism (courtesy of Dave Mullenix)
June 2011
You can't have them, atheists!
So you don’t believe in Adam and Eve? Ask an atheist for advice!
Media conspiracy: now it's official
May 2011
The Giraffe: A Model of Intelligent Design
Minds, brains, computers and skunk butts
Sweden’s Big Government ‘Utopia': Not so tolerant after all
April 2011
I, Robot
Seven questions for Professor Carroll
Two quick questions for Professor Beckwith
Of little green men and CSI-lite
Of Pegasus and Pangloss: Two Recurring Fallacies of Skeptics
Is the notion of God logically contradictory?
January 2011
We hold these truths to be self-evident...
Newborn babies: not persons, and not fully human – P. Z. Myers
Why this universe? Good question. (Part Two of a reply to Professor Keith Parsons)
Why the moon isn’t made of green cheese (Part One of a reply to Professor Keith Parsons)
How FIRE can help in the fight for academic freedom on campus
A better kind of beauty, or: Why some people mistakenly reject Intelligent Design as unaesthetic
Professor Jerry Coyne on why Intelligent Design should be taught in public schools
Professor Raymond Tallis on good and bad arguments for atheism
Taking Manhattan out of the Apple?
November 2010
The video that proves Intelligent Design
Do Intelligent Design proponents worship two Gods?
October 2010
Death of a grande dame: can we build morality on the foundation of natural goodness?
Which one is different: gravity, continental drift or evolution?
Autumn Reading for Jerry and friends
Thomas Aquinas, patron saint of evolutionary psychology? I think not!
My faith is falsifiable, Professor Coyne. Is yours?
St. Thomas Aquinas and his Fifteen Smoking Guns (A five-part reply to Professor Tkacz)
The 10^(-120) challenge, or: The fairies at the bottom of the garden
June 2010
How to take down NDE (Neo-Darwinian Evolution)
Is "holding a belief" unscientific?
May 2010
Fuller vs. Ruse: Some thoughts on the controversy
April 2010
Programs, cells and letting God be God (A concluding reply to the Smithy)
Living things, Machines and Intelligent Design (Part Two of a Response to the Smithy)
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