The Skeptical Zone

In this, my final post on panda evolution, I’d like to conclude with some clinching evidence for panda evolution and respond to Professor Dilley’s arguments in the last two posts of his five-...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/was-the-pandas-thumb-designed-part-four/

The importance of thinking like an engineer Uncommon Descent was, in its heyday, the leading blog for Intelligent Design, before it was eventually overtaken by EvolutionNews.org. (I contributed d...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/was-the-pandas-thumb-designed-part-three/

In an online article at Evolution News titled, Is the Panda’s Thumb Suboptimal? (April 4, 2024), Professor Stephen Dilley criticizes Stephen Jay Gould for claiming that the panda’s thumb is s...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/was-the-pandas-thumb-designed-part-two/

In a recent journal article titled, God, Gould, and the Panda’s Thumb (Religions 2023, 14(8), 1006; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14081006), former philosophy professor Stephen Dilley, who is curr...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/was-the-pandas-thumb-designed-part-one/

In the midst of attempting to resolve the issue of the lost plugins, I’ve had a couple of brief exchanges with Lizzie (Dr Liddle, owner of this website) and Vincent (Torley, fellow admin, curre...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/71513-2/

The last few weeks have seen the release of some excellent videos by both defenders and skeptics of the authenticity and reliability of the Gospels. In this post, I’ve decided to collect the be...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/apologists-vs-paulogia-and-kamil-gregor-are-the-gospels-authentic-and-are-they-reliable/

Scottish-American historian Niall Ferguson, who is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and and a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and I...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/are-we-all-doomed/

Hi everyone. Today’s post is a melange, with a bit of this and a bit of that. There’s an article from The Washington Post on a new piece of the jigsaw puzzle that gives us a better understand...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/four-for-the-price-of-one-origin-of-life-origin-of-covid-19-no-exodus-and-the-misunderstood-jesus/

Sara Jayne is a cardiac diagnostic imaging specialist with over 20 years’ experience in the medical field. After being diagnosed with a life-threatening autoimmune disease, she underwent a prof...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/sara-jaynes-near-death-experience-what-do-you-think/

Gender identity is defined by Encyclopedia Britannica as “an individual’s self-conception as a man or woman or as a boy or girl or as some combination of man/boy and woman/girl or as someone ...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/gender-identity-a-thought-experiment/

Introduction Fr. Spitzer’s Proof of the Unity of God The Trinity explained by the act of looking at a bottle The Incarnation The central paradoxes of the Trinity and the Incarnation (NOTE: I’...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/fr-robert-spitzer-s-j-explains-the-trinity-and-the-incarnation-or-does-he/

Hi everyone, and Happy New Year! After having five enjoyable days off with my family, I’ll be returning to work this evening. In the meantime, I thought I’d present viewers of The Skeptical Z...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/new-years-trifecta/

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here. However, I recently did a podcast with the Bob Murphy Show that I think many of you will be interested in. Here we discuss Intelligent Design, ev...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/intelligent-design-on-the-bob-murphy-show/

2024! I’m almost glad to see the back of 2023 but have little expectation of good news and I’m finding it hard to be optimistic. Is there anyone still reading The Skeptical Zone that can sugg...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/happy-nee-year/

How neural networks learned to talk

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/how-neural-networks-learned-to-talk/

When one is assessing the credibility of a religion, impact matters: has it been a force for good or for evil? In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught his followers how to discern false prophets...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/an-a-z-of-unanswered-objections-to-christianity-y-has-christianity-made-the-world-a-better-place/

Dr. Jeffrey Tripp has a PhD in New Testament and Early Christianity. He is also the author of a text titled, Direct Internal Quotation in the Gospel of John. His academic publications can be foun...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/dr-jeffrey-tripp-on-the-failure-of-undesigned-coincidences/

Abstract Scientists have grappled with reconciling biological evolution1,2 with the immutable laws of the Universe defined by physics. These laws underpin life’s origin, evolution and the devel...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/assembly-theory-explains-and-quantifies-selection-and-evolution/

Phil Halper (aka SkydivePhil) has produced a hard-hitting new video titled, “Atheism’s Best Argument? The Problem of Animal Suffering & The Neuroscience of Pain,” in conjunction with philos...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-expanded-problem-of-animal-suffering/

Recently, some prominent defenders of the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin have produced a spate of online videos promoting their point of view. We’ll have a look at two of these below. At f...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-shroud-of-turin-why-i-think-the-image-is-natural-and-probably-medieval/

Yesterday I saw someone joking online about how if you apply dimensional analysis to fuel efficiency, you end up with an area. Why? Because fuel efficiency is expressed (in Canada and Europe, any...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/weirdly-fuel-efficiency-can-be-expressed-as-an-area/

We’re all familiar with déjà vu — the false sense that what we’re experiencing right now is something we’ve already lived through in the past. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young described t...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/jamais-vu/

Wanted to share this interesting article in Aeon on human gestures and the extent to which they are universal vs culture-specific: Gesture talks

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-universality-of-gestures/

Abstract Phenotype robustness, defined as the average mutational robustness of all the genotypes that map to a given phenotype, plays a key role in facilitating neutral exploration of novel pheno...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/maximum-mutational-robustness-in-genotype-phenotype-maps-follows-a-self-similar-blancmange-like-curve/

Annotated excerpts : We now know that Darwin’s ‘gradualist’ view of evolution, exclusively driven by natural selection, is no longer compatible with contemporary science. Species do not em...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/evolutionist-against-gradualism/

The facts A 2008 study popularized by Michael Blastland in his book, ‘The Hidden Half’, shows that genetically identical crayfish (clones) from the same batch and grown in a tightly controlle...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/marmorkrebs-disprove-natural-selection/

Dr. Lydia McGrew is a renowned Christian apologist and philosopher, who surely needs no introduction to viewers of this blog. Recently, she released her Elevator Pitch for the Resurrection of Jes...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/what-do-you-think-of-dr-lydia-mcgrews-elevator-pitch-for-the-resurrection/

“The existential vacuum is a widespread phenomenon of the 20th century.” said Viktor Frankl. I am living in an existential vacuum. We pay a price for our relative freedom. Animals are rooted ...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/are-we-living-in-an-existential-vacuum/

Darwin defined “evolution as “descent with modification”. But modification of what? The messy mix of DNA in sexual reproduction is not modification of anything. Two become three in sexual r...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/descent-with-modification-misrepresentation/

Atheists Review Professor Dave’s Debate | Evolution News I don’t know how many of you watched the train wreck referenced in this EVN post, or even care, but I found the “atheist” twist am...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/what-passes-for-debate-these-days/

As they used to say on Monty Python, “and now for something completely different….” 🙂 Two Great Thinkers on the God Hypothesis | Evolution News

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/evn-dsouza-interviews-meyer/

The Answer to Chickens and Eggs One regret I have regarding the demise of Uncommon Descent is being unable to continue discussion with Upright Biped, a regular at UD who believed he had an argume...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/rna-world/

(Note: my recent interview with Edouard Tahmizian of Internet Infidels is at the end of this post.) Christian apologist Dr. Jeremiah Johnston, a New Testament Baptist scholar, pastor and author w...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/how-not-to-argue-for-the-resurrection-plus-my-latest-interview-with-ed-tahmizian/

For the first 30 years of my life, I was a “David Barton” American Christian … raised as a Baptist YEC … Air Force pilot “defending America against Communism” … etc etc.  Beginning...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/prof-michael-hudson-explains-the-rise-of-china-brics/

I thought it would be a good idea to start a separate thread specifically to discuss the Turin shroud and related relics as it concerns the events leading up to the resurrection, but not the resu...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/who-can-he-be/

Over the last month, UD has been down more often than it has been up. In addition, Barry and News have been AWOL, leaving the keys to the kingdom to a pompous, arrogant, sermonizing narcissist. M...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-death-of-uncommon-descent/

A few hours ago, I watched an online debate between acclaimed New Testament scholar and historian Professor Bart Ehrman and evangelical scholar Justin Bass, who is Professor of New Testament at J...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-best-debate-ive-seen-on-the-resurrection-of-jesus/

I make observations and interpret what I see from my own personal perspective and world view. If I am, a creationist, a physicalist, a vitalist, a specialist, religious, atheist or whatever, my e...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/observations-and-interpretations/

Fig 1: Somewhat similar? YES. Related by birth? NO. Proof is impossible. When Napoleon’s army invaded Egypt in 1798, a large number of animal mummies were brought back to France. These represen...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/fossil-record-falsifies-evolution/

Excellent dissection of Creationist Conflationary Confusion. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/evo-devo refutes evolution Short version may be summarized: Deuterostomes have a dorsal centra...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/p-z-myers-nails-it-again/

Tyler Vela, a Calvinist apologist and an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in America who converted from atheism to Christianity as a young man, graduated with a Pre-seminary B.A. in B...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/calvinist-apologist-deconverts-from-christianity-but-not-theism/

The field of bioelectricity is very enlightening. The intro to Michael Levin’s lab states: We work at the intersection of developmental biology, computer science, and cognitive science. Our go...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/bioelectrics/

Those are terms I found in descriptions of wine and high fidelity sound, respectively. Descriptors like that have always made me wonder: Do they name anything objective? Do wine experts agree on ...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/energetic-stony-character-and-a-chocolatey-mid-range/

In the photo above, you can see the famous basketball player Shaquille O’Neal endorsing Epson printers. He was undoubtedly paid a lot of money for that, because Epson believed that the increase...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-mystery-of-celebrity-endorsements/

Detail from The Last Judgement, Jan Van Eyck Perhaps the most disturbing idea in Christian dogma is the notion of hell — a place of unending torment for the detestable souls who don’t qualify...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/rationalizing-hell/

In this blog article, I’ll be summarizing Dr. Gavin Ortlund‘s recent rehabilitation of C. S. Lewis’s “Liar, Lunatic or Lord” trichotomy, which he defended last year in a 41-minute inter...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/dr-gavin-ortlunds-defense-of-c-s-lewiss-liar-lunatic-or-lord-trichotomy-and-why-i-think-it-wont-work-on-skeptics/

I came across the following by Kairosfocus while wasting time reading comments at uncommon descent: FP, do you not see many who gain much by lies and fraud, and die in full benefit of ill gotten ...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/without-the-threat-of-eternal-damnation-are-there-no-personal-advantages-to-being-truthful/

Earlier this week there was a debate on Consciousness in the Machine, basically asking whether machines can be conscious. In a somewhat different manner than myself, Bernardo Kastrup rejects the ...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/will-ai-ever-be-conscious-is-it-already-nope/

Last semester Erika López Prater, an adjunct professor of art history at Hamline University, was teaching a class in global art history. The syllabus included some works of Islamic religious art...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/injustice-in-the-name-of-inclusion/

By now, many of you will have heard of ChatGPT. If you haven’t, be prepared — you’re going to hear a lot about it over the coming weeks and months. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence lan...

http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/chatgpt-narrates-tsz/