ECLD goes Wikipedia

An update on our "Virtuous Leadership" project:

The Wikipedia articles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Havard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuous_Leadership

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Center_for_Leadership_Development

have been created.

Several translations (e.g. French, Finnish) are already complete, but we intend to wait before publishing them. We need to work further on the English files first.

Is Richard Dawkins Still Evolving?

Two first-rank Oxford scientists, Dr. Richard Dawkins (atheist) and Dr. John Lennox (theist, Christian), debated Darwinism in Oxford two weeks ago. Dr. Lennox, a kind grand-father type figure, challenged Dawkins on his own scientific grounds. Astonishingly, Dawkins - for the very first time - said:

"A serious case could be made for a deistic God."

Melanie Phillips, a Spectator columnist, listened to the debate and interviewed Dawkins after it. "Is Richard Dawkins Still Evolving?" is the topic of her article. She speculates whether Dawkins' "theory is now in the process of further evolution -- and whether it might even jump the species barrier into what is vulgarly known by lesser mortals as faith."

It wouldn't be the first time a prominent atheist scientist turns to faith. Phillips writes: "Anthony Flew, the celebrated philosopher and former high priest of atheism, spectacularly changed his mind and concluded -- as set out in his book There Is A God -- that life had indeed been created by a governing and purposeful intelligence, a change of mind that occurred because he followed where the scientific evidence led him."

This was the second intellectual dual between the two men. The first debate, in which they debated Dawkins' most recent book, The God Delusion, can be seen here. The quality of the sound and the video is super.

David Berlinski and His Critics

I met some very interesting people at the TriaLogos festival in Tallinn last week. One of them was Dr. David Berlinski. I had not heard of him before, even though I kind of follow the Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design dialogue, but after the festival I did a more in depth study of the guy and found out that he is one of the leading and most outspoken Darwinism critics there are.

David Berlinski is a Senior Fellow for the Discovery Institute think tank. You can find his impressive CV along with a short bio here. His latest book, The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions, sounds counter-cultural to say the least.

What makes Berlinski stand out is that he is a self-proclaimed "secular Jew" and agnostic, not a Christian. Some say he is a "zealous sceptic, more concerned with false gods than with real ones".

Having a tendency to lose academic positions with what he himself describes as an embarrassing urgency, Berlinski now devotes himself entirely to writing. In Tallinn he said he has been fired from every professorship he's ever had. The reason? His anti-Darwinism.

Ben Stein's new documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed includes numerous Darwinism critics - professors and scientists - who have been ousted from the "scientific community" for daring to question the status quo. A trailer of the documentary - which probably will never air in Finland (purported "low sales" as censorship justification) - can be seen here.* In the trailer, Berlinski is the man with the umbrella Stein shakes hands with and he is seen a few seconds later leaning back in an armchair in thought.

I must add that though Berlinski says that "everyone knows the evolution theory is a gas-bag" and calls evolutionary psychology "an enormous wasteland", he is not wholly impressed with the ID movement's attempts at explaining the questions that Darwinism quite obviously fails to explain. In Darwinism Versus Intelligent Design he states his independence from both. I recommend reading both the Darwinists' and the ID scientists' response to his critique. Halfway through the piece the podium is given to Berlinski who gracefully replies to each one.

I intend to attend a lecture given by the Dean of the Polytechnic University, Dr. Matti Leisola, titled Has Science Buried Religion? in Lahti this upcoming Wednesday at seven o'clock. The talk is part of a apologetic series offered by Studia Generalia.

* I checked the Amazon reader ratings for the documentary. It got 3 out of 5 stars. How so? If you look more carefully, it got only either ones or full fives, nothing in between. The pro-Darwinists gave it ones and the others a five.