Marvin Olasky, in an article at Townhall.com, makes a simple request: that Dr. Francis Collins, former leader of the Human Genome Project and President Obama’s recent nominee to direct the National Institutes of Health, come to King’s College in the Empire State Building and spend an hour discussing Darwinism and ID with Dr. Stephen Meyer Read More…
Month: July 2009
Academics as conformists?: No, they just want to be non-conformists, like everybody else
Or so Nicholas Wade tells us is the view of Thomas Bouchard, the Minnesota psychologist who studied twins raised apart (“Researcher Condemns Conformity Among His Peers,” New York Times, July 25, 2009). Now retiring, in an interview with Constance Holden, Bouchard assails his colleagues (paywall). Wade writes, Journalists, of course, are conformists too. So are Read More…
Ron Numbers & Paul Nelson Bloggingheads
Go here. Ron goes after Coyne and Dawkins for promoting atheism; I talk about living in a trailer park (so to speak). Watch the whole thing while you clean up your office — that’s how I watch Bloggingheads on Saturday morning, when John Horgan and George Johnson usually hold court — and post a comment Read More…
Professor Pinker engages in wishful thinking – dissent is significant among chemists and chemical engineers
As recently noted on this site, in his letter to the Boston Globe, Harvard University psychology Professor Steven Pinker began SHAME ON you for publishing two creationist op-eds in two years from the Discovery Institute, a well-funded propaganda factory that aims to sow confusion about evolution. Virtually no scientist takes “intelligent design’’ seriously, and in Read More…
Does God evolve now ?
Andrew Halloway has reviewed ‘The Evolution of God’ by Robert Wright, published over at Science and Values blog. Science and Values – So even God evolves now ?
Cambridge ‘Dissent over Descent’ Lecture
My apologies for not posting more here recently. I now have a blog on my university’s website dedicated to the future of the university, where I have done a bit of posting. But mostly I have been trying to finish a new book on science as an ‘art of living’ for new series by the Read More…
Male sex chromosome losing genes by rapid evolution, study reveals
Friday, 24 July 2009 01:05 ALEXANDER CHIEJINA With Agency Report Scientists have long suspected that the sex chromosome that only males carry is deteriorating and could disappear entirely within a few million years. However, until now, no one has understood the evolutionary processes that control this chromosome’s demise. Now, a pair of Penn State scientists Read More…
Alfred Russel Wallace vs. Charles Darwin on cruelty in nature
In World of Life, Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s co-theorist, directly addressed one of Darwin’s key reasons for rejecting design in nature, in a letter to American supporter Asa Gray: With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me.— I am bewildered.— I had no intention to write atheistically. But Read More…
Darwin the Musical
In this year of Darwin, I guess its only fitting that Darwin’s theory should be celebrated in song. So, Darwin scholar Richard Milner has done just that. Milner is now the official Darwin singin scholar. Where most scholars look for intellectual insights in their research, according to Milner, he looks for musical cues. Kinda makes Read More…
A Look Back At Brian Goodwin’s Organocentric View
(Originally published on the Access Research Network on the 28th Aug, 2008 as The Organocentric Illusion: The Biological Complexity Underlying Dynamic Systems) Brian Goodwin died last week at the age of 78 Today much of evolutionary biology has focused on trying to establish how genes may have provided the raw material for natural selection to run Read More…
Bradley Monton: Atheist argues that design is serious scientific theory
Apparently, atheist Bradley Monton has just published a book with Broadview Press: The doctrine of intelligent design is often the subject of acrimonious debate. Seeking God in Science cuts through the rhetoric that distorts the debates between religious and secular camps. Bradley Monton, a philosopher of science and an atheist, carefully considers the arguments for Read More…
Masquerades Unmasked And The Designed IQ
Synopsis Of The Second Chapter Of Nature’s IQ By Balazs Hornyanszky and Istvan Tasi ISBN 978-0-9817273-0-1 Defense, Disguise, Perception is the descriptive title that Hornyanszky and Tasi have chosen for the second chapter of their book Nature’s IQ. And the delivery of the facts is as convincing and thought-provoking as ever. Coupled with its vivid Read More…
The Intelligent Design Of Animal Behaviors
Synopsis Of The First Chapter Of Nature’s IQ By Balazs Hornyanszky and Istvan Tasi ISBN 978-0-9817273-0-1 Ethology, the field of biology that attempts to explain the origins of animal behavioral patterns, has traditionally focused on two possible sources for such patterns- those that are inherited and those that are environmentally induced. For the former of Read More…
Challenge to ID bashers
At BeliefNet, David Klinghoffer has posted: A Challenge to Intelligent Design-Bashing Regulars on this Blog Tuesday July 21, 2009 Categories: Life’s Origins & Evolution You know who you are. Rather than go on grousing about how there’s no evidence for intelligent design, it’s not science, and so on and so forth, here’s my challenge to Read More…
One step at a time: Motor molecules use random walks to make deliveries in living cells
Physorg.com – July 21st, 2009 Cells rely on tiny molecular motors to deliver cargo, such as mRNA and organelles, within the cell. The critical nature of this transport system is evidenced by the fact that disruption of motors by genetic defects leads to fatal diseases in humans. Although investigators have isolated these motor to study Read More…