Stephen M. Barr

I recently came across the odd fact that one of the leading researchers on the brain in the twentieth century was—wait for it: Lord Brain. For real. His full name and title were Walter Russell Brain, 1st Baron Brain. What is even better, he was the longtime editor of the research journal Brain . . . . Continue Reading »

In an earlier blog post on global warming , I mentioned Prof. Will Happer of Princeton. I just read the testimony that Will Happer gave to the Senate back in February of this year on global warming.  It is a very clear and reasonable statement of the case for skepticism on global warming. I . . . . Continue Reading »

Is the planet warming significantly due to human activities, and if so how much can it be expected to warm in the coming century? Frankly, I have no idea. Understanding the climate is a fantastically complicated problem, about which I know only as much as the average scientist, which is to say: not . . . . Continue Reading »

To quote the Gipper, “There he goes again.” Every time John G. West attempts to argue against my views, he misrepresents them. I have already pointed out several examples of this. But now West furnishes several more. Here is what West writes about me : Near the end of his recent blog . . . . Continue Reading »

On the Discovery Institute website , John G. West gives a three-part response to some things I said on this blog . In the first part he says: “Barr claims that ‘[w]hen scientists say that certain things in nature are random, this does mean that Nature is in a certain sense blind; it does . . . . Continue Reading »

I am sorry that I misinterpreted Joe’s position, and am happy to see that it is not the brand of theistic evolutionism represented by Francis S. Collins (and myself) that he really was criticizing. As I noted in my previous post , it is the insights of St. Augustine that are most needed here, . . . . Continue Reading »

I think both John West and Joe Carter are trapped in a false dilemma, namely the choice between believing that certain processes are random or believing that they are directed by God. The dilemma is created by a failure to take adequately into account the complete sovereignty of God and the fact . . . . Continue Reading »

Joe brings up an argument against Darwinism made by David Stove . I don’t really understand the argument as presented. In the first place, no one denies, as far as I know, that genetic mutations and natural selection still take place in human beings. That is one way that human beings develop . . . . Continue Reading »

Stephen Webb’s summary of my argument doesn’t come close to anything I said. It is an absurd caricature. In citing the fact that many religious scientists believe in evolution, I was not saying “gee, they must all be right” because “all those good people seem to agree about . . . . Continue Reading »

I find Stephen H. Webb’s reflections on Darwinism (“ How Darwin’s Wife Saved His Theory ”) very interesting, but I think there are questionable assumptions embedded in some of its verbal formulations. Consider the statement, “Critics of Darwinism . . . have long argued that . . . . Continue Reading »