2008

According to a press release from National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI):

Bethesda, Md., Wed., May 28, 2008 — Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced his intention to step down on August 1 to explore writing projects and other professional opportunities.

Dr. Collins, 58, a physician-geneticist, has served as NHGRI’s director since April 1993. He led the Human Genome Project (HGP) to its successful conclusion in 2003, and subsequently initiated and managed a wide range of projects that built upon the foundation laid by the sequencing of the human genome.

Collins is widely known as a Christian scientist, and the author of the popular book The Language of God, advancing the view that Darwinian evolution can account for the development of life (though possibly not its origin). He draws the line at altruism in human beings, though evolutionary psychologists have aggressively staked that too, along with every manifestation of religion, as their territory.

 According to the Institute,

Dr. Collins explained that his decision to step down as leader of NHGRI came after much personal deliberation. “My decision was driven by a desire for an interval of time dedicated to writing, reflection and exploration of other professional opportunities in the public or private sectors,” he said. “The demands and responsibilities of directing an NIH institute do not allow the time commitment necessary for this. In addition, I may need greater latitude than my current position allows to pursue other potential positions of service without encountering any possible conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived.”

It well be interesting to see whether Collins pursues his interest in accommodating Christianity and Darwinism, and if so, how.

Also, just up at Colliding Universes:

Coffee Break question: Why are the space aliens always supposed to have superior technology?

Exoplanets: Will intelligence be common or rare? Read More ›

Repeating what I’ve been saying for a long time – there are better ways to spend money than a preemptive strike on global warming. The UK Times publishes an article about one of those ways. Times Online May 30, 2008 Mark Henderson, Science Editor, Copenhagen ‘Forget climate change, we should spend on nutrition’ Malnutrition should be the world’s major priority for aid and development, a panel of eight leading economists, including five Nobel laureates, declared yesterday. The provision of supplements of vitamin A and zinc to children in developing countries, to prevent avoidable deficiencies that affect hundreds of millions of children, is the most cost-effective way of making the world a better place, the Copenhagen Consensus initiative has found. Three Read More ›

Czech President Vaclav Klaus published Blue Planet in Green Shackles and challenged Al Gore to debate on climate change. Having survived and overcome Marxism, he has fascinating insights into the parallels of centralized Marxist control mentality and the modern environmentalism trying to impose its utopian ideals on the rest of us. His insights appear to apply to understand the parallel efforts by materialists / atheists to impose their “scientific” worldview of macro-evolution on the rest of the world. See article and book abstract below.
—————————
Czech President Klaus ready to debate Gore on climate change

Washington – Czech President Vaclav Klaus said Tuesday he is ready to debate Al Gore about global warming, Read More ›

Freeman Dyson (one of our greatest living thinkers IMO) talks about Global Warming in a New York book reviewThe Question of Global Warming . Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe Read More ›

This one, published by New Scientist, really takes the cake. From the article:

God may work in mysterious ways, but a simple computer program may explain how religion evolved.

By distilling religious belief into a genetic predisposition to pass along unverifiable information, the program predicts that religion will flourish… The model assumes… that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to communicate unverifiable information to others. They passed on that trait to their children…

The model looks at the reproductive success of the two sorts of people — those who pass on real information, and those who pass on unreal information.

It would be a colossal understatement to call this utter silliness, and it stuns me that anyone would take this seriously, much less allow it to be published as a “scientific” study by “The World’s No.1 Science and Technology News Service.”
Read More ›

An early ID book (possibly the earliest), The Mystery of Life’s Origin by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, and Roger Olson (1984), with a foreword by Dean Kenyon, has been out of print for a while, I am told. But a .pdf can be downloaded here for now.

Information theory is a special branch of mathematics that has developed a way to measure information. In brief, the information content of a structure is the minimum number of instructions required to describe or specify it,  whether that structure is a rock or a rocket ship, a pile of leaves or a living organism. The more complex a structure is, the more instructions are needed to describe it. —Charles Thaxton, biochemist

Meanwhile ….

Study: Sun not special, therefore alien life should be common?

Does time’s one-way street prove that other universes exist? Read More ›

Before spending trillions of dollars trying to control climate change, shouldn’t we get a second opinion on both the science and policy options? S. Fred Singer, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science, U. Virginia & former director of the US Weather Satellite Service weighs in onThe Global Warming Debate. He reviews evidence against anthropogenic global warming detailed in the report Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change Singer notes:

My purpose here is to show that this concern is misplaced, that human activities are not influencing the global climate in a perceptible way, and that, in any case, very little can be done about global climate change. It is unstoppable; we should not even try to influence it. . . .I will also argue that –should it occur — a modest warming is on the whole beneficial. Read More ›

This paper will be quoted for many years as the basis for faith in the de novo origin by evolution of useful proteins. How good is the evidence? De Novo Origination of a New Protein-Coding Gene in a yeast species by Wen Wang et al “THE total number of different proteins in all organisms on earth is estimated to be 10exp10 to 10exp12. How the protein repertoire evolved the giant diversity that underlies the evolution of the complexity of life is attracting many evolutionary biologists to the field. Origination of new genes is an important mechanism generating genetic novelties during the evolution of an organism. Processes creating new genes using pre-existing genes as the raw materials are well characterized, such Read More ›

This time on ID the Future, Casey Luskin — changing things up a little — sits down to talk with videogame artist Dennis DeMercer about his recent work on the Nintendo DS version of the forthcoming game Spore. Working with Amaze Entertainment, DeMercer was responsible for animating 3-D creatures ranging from single-celled organisms to advanced intergalactic civilizations in a game that centers around players evolving creatures from one species into another in order to climb the evolutionary ladder.

But is this highly anticipated game as much an example of the cultural pervasiveness of Darwinian evolution as it seems? Ironically, no. Luskin and DeMercer discuss their discovery that, despite the obviously evolutionary theme, Spore’s game-play actually hinges on intelligent design theory, because success depends entirely on the ability of the player — i.e. intelligent agent — to fashion a creature ready to take on the growing challenges of its environment.

Win the popular culture and you’ve won everything. See, they can’t really Expell DeMercer.

Also, just up at The Mindful Hack

Neural Buddhists, Christians, and the Mud that failed Read More ›

Bill Dembski wanted to know, re the multiverse (many worlds) theory: here:

Do many worlds present a business opportunity? Would it be possible, for a modest fee, for people to have worlds named after them? Are worlds, like genes, patentable?

A physicist friend figures that it’s better – or worse – than that. It might work for business but it would whack science cold because

Discovering the laws of our universe matters no more than noting the random tosses of dice. It certainly does not bring us closer to the heart of things. Think of any logically possible theory, and it probably holds true somewhere. Technology still makes sense in a multiverse, of course, but science as a pursuit of truth certainly loses some of its shine.

By the way, hat tip to Paul Glenn, commenter of the week, for noting in a comment to this post that there is no controversy over Darwinian evolution in North America in the same sense as there are no homosexuals in Iran.

Just up at Colliding Universes Read More ›

“There is no controversy.” “There should be no controversy.” “It’s okay to expel those who pretend that there is a controversy.” “Academic freedom does not apply where the scientific consensus says there is no controversy.” … The Washington Post has a ridiculous editorial that elevates evolutionary theory to the same status as gravitational theory and the truths of mathematics (go here). Meanwhile, the Altenberg meeting coming up this summer brings together biologists who see the contemporary state of evolutionary theory as in upheaval (go here). Yes, the field is in disarray, but there is NO CONTROVERSY. What, are we living in a Kafka novel?

Every single intelligent design opponent I have encountered eventually starts mumbling about the sinister “Big Tent” of ID.

Big Tent = what you rent when you are entertaining 1800 of your closest friends in a shattering rainstorm

The argument goes something like this: If the ID guys were sincere in thinking that the universe and life forms show evidence of intelligent design, they would trim their numbers by driving out all those who think that:

– NASA’s dating methods are wrong

– The Bible is a source of useful information

– ID may not necessarily be correct (though Darwinists are obviously the downscale detritus of a bygone materialist age)

– global warming is caused mainly by the heat generated by hysteria over the issue

“Get rid of them all, and then – and only then – we will take you seriously … ” promises the establishment pay wallah.

Yeah really.

The problem is, of course, that once you know that Darwinism isn’t true, you don’t immediately know what is true. You just know where not to look for answers.

(And whether Americans are better off with the risks of al Gore or of al Quaeda is, in my opinion, moot.)

But one thing the ID guys sure won’t need if they take the pay wallah’s advice is … a big tent.

Also: Yes, another new blog. I have further enraged a number of people (who don’t have enough to do) by starting a new blog: Welcome to Colliding Universes. Read More ›

Any effort to give precise gradations of quantification to CSI is doomed to failure.  It reminds me of certain economists’ effort to quantify “utility” through a measurement called a “util.”  See here.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the concepts are very much the same.  We can all agree that the concept of “utility maximization” is very important and represents a real phenomenon.  But while we can say of utility there is a lot, there is a little, or there is none at all, there is no way to measure it precisely.  The “util” is useful as a hypothetical measure of relative utility, but it has no value as an “actual” unit of measurement, such as inches, pounds, meters, or grams.

Read More ›

The Ian Ramsey Centre, Oxford A couple of weeks ago, I reported on the program for the upcoming Ian Ramsey Centre conference, “God, Nature, and Design” to be held July 10-13, 2008 at St. Anne’s College, Oxford University. An updated list of contributed papers has been posted. The list is noteworthy both for the range of topics considered, and the variety of home institutions of the authors. Should be a lively meeting.

Suppose you come across this tree: You know nothing else about the tree other than what you can infer from a visual inspection. Multiple Choice: A.  The tree probably obtained this shape through chance. B.  The tree probably obtained this shape through mechanical necessity. C.  The tree probably obtained this shape through a combination of chance and mechanical necessity. D.  The tree probably obtained this shape as the result of the purposeful efforts of an intelligent agent. E.  Other. Select your answer and give supporting reasons.