If I am a fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.
-George Gordon Byron

Intelligent Design is a theory that follows evidence observed in nature to the existence of one or more intelligent agents who had a role in building at least some of what we observe, particularly in living systems, physical laws, and cosmology. Intellectual Honesty dictates that we follow the evidence where it leads just as we should the evidence for any theory of origins (or anything else, for that matter). Rejecting the theory out of hand only because it might imply a cause which is disallowed on philosophical grounds is not science at all; it is Intellectual Dishonesty of the worst kind and a shameful placement of philosophy ahead of a science purported to be purely objective.

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The following text and image were sent to me by colleague and fellow Darwin-doubter Stu Harris. It’s well known that people tend to look like or take on the visage of their pets, pop heroes and spiritual mentors. Daniel Dennett is apparently not immune to this process. Over the years he has more and more taken on the countenance of his guru Charles Darwin. Below is a recent picture of Dennett set against two of Darwin. Astounding isn’t it? Could this be a form of mimicry that protects Darwinians in some way? Could it be that the iconic image of Darwin shields one from intellectual attacks by normally rational members of the scientific community, thus promoting the survival of the Read More ›

Check out the article below. It explicitly refers to a process that produces modified enzymes as “Intelligent Design.” Further, it distinguishes between directed evolution and the process introduced by these researchers: their process more thoughtfully chooses the residues to mutate. Both are in fact examples of Intelligent Design, but one has to appreciate, especially in the current climate of controversy, that the researchers are being up front about how intelligent design is at the center of their work and also that they resisted the urge to suck up to the establishment by offering ritualistic deference to Darwin and conventional evolutionary theory. At Berkeley: Intelligently Designed Molecular Evolution Contact: Lynn Yarris (510) 486-5375 lcyarris@lbl.gov BERKELEY, CA — Evolutionary paths to new Read More ›

Here are some links to the Australian radio “Science Show” where Robyn Williams (who is writing a book against ID) sets out to trash ID. He interviews a few people at the AAAS including Eugenie Scott and George Coyne. It follows a piece on the spagetti monster: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1581473.htm http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1581474.htm or the MP3 of the whole program http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/science_20060304.mp3

Beyond the standard chicken-and-egg positions on the origin of life (i.e., ploynucleotides-first vs. proteins-first), there is now fast emerging a lipids-first position (cf. the work of Pier Luigi Luisi and coworkers). For more on the fat-first position and its potential to revolutionize origin-of-life studies, see O. Mouritsen, Life — As a Matter of Fat: The Emerging Science of Lipidomics (Springer: 2005). Question: What is the natural route to lipid membranes in the absence of other cellular machinery?

An extraordinary family who walk on all fours are being hailed as the breakthrough discovery which could shed light on the moment Man first stood upright.

Scientists believe that the five brothers and sisters found in Turkey could hold unique insights into human evolution.

The Kurdish siblings, aged between 18 and 34 and from the rural south, ‘bear crawl’ on their feet and palms.

Study of the five has shown the astonishing behaviour is not a hoax and they are largely unable to walk otherwise.

Researchers have found a genetic condition which accounts for their extraordinary movement.
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Akron Biology Faculty Members Decry Daniel Ely

Indeed, if undergraduate majors in our biology department revealed such profound misconceptions about basic evolutionary biology we would have serious misgivings about conferring their degrees in biology.

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Salvador Cordova: Do you oppose the offering of courses on Intelligent Design and/or Creationism in the Philosophy and Religion Departments of secular universities?

Eugenie Scott: No.

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In Academic, Heal Thyself we find more evidence of what happens when truth confronts ideology in academia. While many issues are rumored to have played a role in Mr. Summers’s resignation (including charges of favoritism in a messy legal case involving foreign investments), the controversy that will inevitably symbolize his presidency was the manufactured outcry early last year over his glancing reference at a conference to possible innate differences between the sexes in aptitude for science and math. The feminist pressure groups rose en masse from their lavishly feathered nests and set up a furious cackle that led to a 218-to-185 vote of no confidence by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences last March. Instead of welcoming this golden opportunity Read More ›

Panda’s Thumb Steve Reuland points to this junk science article The Origin of the Nucleus to highlight his ignorance of recent discoveries in experimental biology.

Elsewhere on PT Steve implied he was too good and wouldn’t waste his valuable time participating in the Nuclear Evolution Debate. His inability to spot the junk science in the first paragraph of the article he hypes speaks to contrary reasons why he declined the invitation.

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A number of people conflate heat entropy with information entropy and then willy-nilly substitute one for the other. This is what the NeoDarwinists do when they point to the sun and say it makes the earth an open system to explain the evident way life violates information entropy. The sun is irrevelevant in this siutation as it is adding heat, not information. While heat and information entropy are closely related (they both behave according to 2LoT which was originally formulated for heat alone) they are not the same thing and cannot be exchanged. Heat diffuses in a closed system until maximum entropy is reached where the heat is uniform (everything is the same temperature). Likewise a dye will diffuse through Read More ›

Keith Burgess-Jackson at AnalPhilosopher has this to say about militant anti-religious atheists and their treatment of ID as a pernicious threat to be kept out of public school classrooms at all costs:

Leftist Hostility to Religion

Michael Ruse, like me, is (1) a philosopher, (2) a Darwinist, (3) an atheist, and (4) a respecter of religion. Militant atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Brian Leiter, who hate religion and despise the religious, are vilifying him for it. See here and here. Leiter calls theists “theocrats,” as if, given the chance, they would impose their religious beliefs on everyone. In fact, it is Leiter and his ilk who would impose their leftist beliefs on everyone. (Read Leiter for a few days. You’ll see what a totalitarian he is.) I am far more concerned about the likes of Dawkins, Dennett, and Leiter acquiring power than I am about Christians (for example) acquiring power. Read More ›

Check out the following online lecture/tutorial by Granville Sewell (Texas A&M) on the connection between thermodynamics and ID: www.math.tamu.edu/~sewell/odes_pdes/thermo.html

http://www.intelligentdesign.fi

Comm 4381 This special section will address the above goals by examining four controversies connected with Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species Arguments for and against Darwin’s theory Arguments for and against intelligent design (id). Can a Christian (or Jew, or Moslem, or any monotheist) be a Darwinian? Does id have a proper place in the biology classroom? The Teacher, John Angus Campbell will be visiting James Madison University as a judge in a $10,000 debate over ID