Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Finnish peer-reviewed article that’s pro-ID

Here’s a pro-ID article without the usual disclaimers (e.g., a ritualistic suck-up to Darwin, an obligatory sneer at ID). Perhaps this is a sign of things to come. Protein engineering: opportunities and challenges Matti Leisola1 and Ossi Turunen1 Journal Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg SpringerLink Date Tuesday, April 03, 2007 SOURCE: http://www.springerlink.com/content/d514772515583767/ Received: 28 February 2007 Revised: 20 March 2007 Accepted: 21 March 2007 Published online: 3 April 2007 Abstract: The extraordinary properties of natural proteins demonstrate that life-like protein engineering is both achievable and valuable. Rapid progress and impressive results have been made towards this goal using rational design and random techniques or a combination of both. However, we still do not have a general Read More ›

Jonathan Wells responds to P. Z. Myer’s tantrum

Jonathan wells asked me to post the following at UD: Hated by the Right People On April 2, Bill posted a comment by me [1] about a recent press release from the University of Bath. In my comment I made two basic points. First, evolutionary developmental biology (“evo-devo”) – which is currently all the rage among Darwinists – has not lived up to its promise. Despite claims by some of its practitioners to have plugged the last remaining major gap in evolutionary theory – namely, the origin of major innovations such as new organs and body plans – evo-devo has not provided an experimentally confirmed explanation of even one such innovation. Second, one of evo-devo’s most widely advertised claims has Read More ›

March Another Record Month for Uncommon Descent

Thanks everyone for helping make another new record high for Uncommon Descent traffic in the month of March. The graph is a little misleading as March had 10% greater number of days than February. Daily average number of visits (which eliminates the differences in number of days per month) rose from 6430 to 6896, up 7%. April is shaping up to be far faster growth and indeed the last week of March was more active than the first weeks. I believe we can credit this to the addition of the voting icons at the bottom of each article, particularly Reddit (the last one on the right). So if you see an article you especially enjoy please vote it up by Read More ›

“The World as Evolving Information”

Here’s an abstract to a speculative article by Carlos Gershenson on information. It is relevant to how intelligence might enter and be expressed in evolutionary processes. The article was posted yesterday at arxiv.org: ABSTRACT: This philosophical paper discusses the benefits of describing the world as information, especially in the study of the evolution of life and cognition. Traditional studies encounter difficulties because it is difficult to describe life and cognition in terms of matter and energy, falling into a dualist trap. However, if matter and energy, as well as life and cognition, are described in terms of information, evolution can be described consistently as information becoming more complex. Moreover, information theory is already well established and formalized. The paper presents Read More ›

Teach Intelligent Design — No way! Teach the Bible — Sure, that’s okay.

Did anyone happen to notice Time’s cover story for April 2? It seems there is a small movement to teach the Bible in public high schools as literature. Why, you ask would someone attempt to do something so silly? Isn’t this unconstitutional?

” “One can hardly respect the system of education that would leave the student wholly ignorant of the currents of religious thought that move the world society for … which he is being prepared,” Jackson wrote, and warned that putting all references to God off limits would leave public education “in shreds.” ” – Justice Robert Jackson, McCollum v. Board of Education, 1948

” “Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment…” ” – Justice Tom C. Clark, Abington Township School District v. Schempp, 1963 Read More ›

Darwinism — Fear of Exposure, and a Philosophy Frozen in the Past

The real source of the antipathy and vitriol directed toward the ID movement is Fear Of Exposure. The fight against academic freedom is rooted in the worry that Darwinism’s weakness will be revealed… […] The teaching of evolution today in public schools is frozen in the past where it is based largely on a mid-20th century understanding of biology. Research in the biological sciences has moved far beyond that understanding because of the hopeless inability of Darwinian principles to explain the complexity observed in living things. […] There is a revolution under way in the biological sciences. A whole new field of biology called “Systems Biology” has emerged during the past 10 or 15 years. This revolution is just as Read More ›

Me? … A fundamentalist?

I had not realized that I had become a fundamentalist until several people wrote to me, wondering what had happened.

(Fell? Hit my head?)

Regular readers of this space (devout thanks to both of you) know that I am still a Catholic, and may wish to read the claim and my response, linked below.

[Update: The problem has been fixed! As a kind poster noted at the PostD, it now reads, correctly, “Roman Catholic” in the online version. Now I won’t spend years putting out fires – plus, I can send all those snakes back to Petco and get a refund before something terminally stupid happens.]
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Another Icon of Evolution Bites the Dust – Antibiotic Resistance

Molecular Mechanisms of Antibacterial Multidrug Resistance Cell Magazine 22 March 2007 Michael N. Alekshun and Stuart B. Levy Schering-Plough Research Institute, 2015 Galloping Hill Road, Kenilworth, NJ 07033, USA Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance, Department of Molecular Biology & Microbiology and Department of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02111, USA Available online 22 March 2007 My emphasis. Treatment of infections is compromised worldwide by the emergence of bacteria that are resistant to multiple antibiotics. Although classically attributed to chromosomal mutations, resistance is most commonly associated with extrachromosomal elements acquired from other bacteria in the environment. These include different types of mobile DNA segments, such as plasmids, transposons, and integrons. However, intrinsic mechanisms not commonly specified Read More ›

Blythian evolution explains antibiotic resistance, not Darwinism

I was nicknamed “Gas.”

Charles Darwin
Autobiography

Is evolution of antibiotic resistance by bacteria an example of Darwinism? Such a claim is very suspicious since Darwinism deals mainly with the origin of species.

Evolution of antibiotic resistance is an example of survival of the fittest within a species, not an origin of species. This phenomenon ought more properly to be credited to the ideas of Edward Blyth rather than Charles “Gas” Darwin.

Loren Eiseley, Professor of Anthropology and the History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania correctly argues:

the leading tenets of Darwin’s work—the struggle for existence, variation, natural selection and sexual selection—are all fully expressed in Blyth’s paper of 1835.

[For more details, read Was Blyth the true scientist and Darwin merely a plagiarist and charlatan?]

Despite this, Panda’s Thumb author Tara Smith continues her usual equivocations about evolution here. If by “evolution”, one means change, then everyone is an evolutionist, even creationists like Blyth.
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Cambridge House Press (not to be confused with Cambridge University Press) publishes adolescent critique of ID

Barrett Brown and Jon P. Alston, who appear only recently to have entered puberty judging by their obsession with sex, have just published Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design, & The Easter Bunny (Cambridge House Press, 2007). I would like to share with you some quotes. The book is full of stuff like this ,which I trust we can use to advantage: On ID proponents: “This will not be a polite book. Politeness is wasted on the dishonest, who will always take advantage of any well-intended concession, and the leaders of the so-called “Intelligent Design” movement, as we shall see, are so incredibly dishonest that they could cause a veteran heroin addict to blush — not of any Read More ›

Darwinists, eugenicists, and new stories at The Mindful Hack

Recently, there was a bit of correspondence between moderators of our list about the question of whether aggressive Darwinists can be accused of being like Nazis.

Now, my own view on this subject is as follows: I don’t really care whether Darwinists who routinely launch or justify persecutions against non-materialists are offended. It’s absolutely fine with me if they realize that their actions are closely observed and recorded. Read More ›

Clueless Mockery at PT

I don’t say much around here these days. In fact, I’ll be honest with you; the hard science which resides at the core of the debate over whether or not naturalistic mechanisms could have generated biological novelty or whatever else doesn’t especially interest me, so I pretty much leave it to others. Nor do I make it my mission to duke it out with anyone and everyone who opposes some position I hold with respect to ID. My time is just too precious, and many people won’t change their minds no matter what you tell them. But occasionally I come across statements just too flagrantly moronic to let them slide. Such is the case with this cheap shot a “guest contributor” at The Panda’s Thumb takes at something Dr. Egnor says (Egnor’s statement provided within the quote):
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Jonathan Wells on the contemporary state of Evo-Devo

I asked Jonathan Wells to put together the following brief update on evo-devo.

A March 30 press release from the University of Bath quoted evolutionary biologist Ronald A. Jenner as saying: “Since its inception, some workers feel that evo-devo hasn’t quite lived up to its early expectations.”

This is an understatement, since evo-devo has not provided an experimentally confirmed explanation of even a single case of macroevolutionary change. Yet Jenner’s sober assessment contrasts sharply with the extravagant boasting of Darwinist Sean B. Carroll: “Evo Devo reveals that macroevolution is the product of microevolution writ large… We now have a very firm grasp of how development is controlled. We can explain how tool kit proteins shape form, that tool kit genes are shared by all animals, and that differences in form arise from changing the way they are used.” (Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo, Norton 2005, pp. 291, 295)

Maybe Jenner and Carroll should talk… Read More ›

Nine “Climatologist” Supreme Court Justices Rule on Science

Government must deal with greenhouse gases: US Supreme Court When the science isn’t convincing then have it declared true by judical fiat. This is the new modus operandi for the science establishment. First Dover and Intelligent Design now the nation and Global Warming. The judiciary is out of control and the science establishment is now a Political Action Committee that relies on government to enforce its findings when the facts won’t support their case. What a fine mess.