I attended and participated in this conference in Castle Rock, CO, last night and today. It was superb–a world-class conference in every way, and most gratifying. Steve Meyer present the essence of his information argument the first night, covering a huge range of material in an approachable, but challenging way. He thus outlined the major argument of his magisterial work, Signature in the Cell. On Saturday morning, Michael Behe winsomely explained the nature of ID and illustrated it with material from Darwin’s Back Box and (to a lesser degree) The Edge of Evolution.  In the question-answer time, an ID critic challenged ID primarily on the basis of the Dover decision and Behe launched into a fifteen-minute rebuttal, complete with PowerPoint Read More ›

1997 will forever remain in my memory as the year that I had the opportunity to fly out to Galapagos and see the fauna of these magnificent islands for myself. My parents had been living in Ecuador for some years prior and I had made it my duty to go out to visit them on a regular basis. This year however was different. Working as the British cultural attaché in Ecuador, my father had been called to the Galapagos on business and had several meetings arranged at the Darwin Station.

I was intensely excited about what lay ahead not only because I had read so much about the wonders of the Galapagos wildlife but also because I was eager to visit one of the ‘pinnacles’ of Darwin’s evolutionary thesis. I had frequently been told about the impressive Frigate birds with their puffed out red chests, the almost motionless marine iguanas that bask in the sun, the curious boobies with their characteristic blue feet, and the giant tortoises that are now housed at the Darwin station itself. Read More ›

On the other hand, if this is what you’ve got to do to sell the product, maybe it ain’t so great … SOURCE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hUNBhRiKCI

Check this out — move the cursor to the right: learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale

| In THE DESIGN OF LIFE, Jonathan Wells and I describe E. O. Wilson’s attack on Mother Teresa as follows (the context of the discussion is that whereas traditional morality must come to terms with the problem of evil, evolutionary morality must come to terms with the problem of good): For E. O. Wilson, goodness depends on “lying, pretense, and deceit, including self-deceit, because the actor is most convincing who believes that his performance is real.” Accordingly, Wilson attributes Mother Teresa’s acts of goodness to her belief that she will be richly rewarded for them in heaven. In other words, she was simply looking out for number one, acting selfishly in her own self-interest, looking to cash in on the Read More ›

Nick Matzke and other critics of ID like nothing better than to conflate ID with young-earth creationism (go here for the latest in this vein by Matzke). But as University of Wisconsin science historian Ron Numbers has noted, even though it’s inaccurate to conflate the two, this is “the easiest way to discredit intelligent design” (go here). Matzke, as a loyal Darwinist, is thus simply being true to form. For the record, just because various non-ID conferences and events are reported here at UD (e.g., creationist, atheist, or theistic evolutionist) does not constitute an endorsement of those events. Nor does the appearance of an ID proponent at such events constitute complicity with the positions of the organizers. I myself have Read More ›

I just finished reading a rather fascinating article by Bruno Maddox over at Discover Magazine on Charles Darwin’s first paper, a paper he presented to the Royal Society around 1836 and which gained him entrance into the Society as a Fellow. The paper dealt with the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, found in the “remote Highlands of Scotland”. Glen Roy had captured the attention of geologists everywhere at the time, and what made it difficult to explain is that these flat “roads” presumably had formed at the bottom of a lake; but there were three “roads” at three different levels, and, looking to the east these supposed lakes had nothing to contain them, instead seeming to empty out into a valley (‘glen’ in Scottish). Based on his experiences in South America, including experiencing an earthquake firsthand, Darwin theorized that instead of having been formed by lakes, this area had actually been uplifted from the ocean at three different times inthe past. Four years later, Louis Agassiz, the highly regarded Swiss geologist, rightly explained that it had been glaciers that had sealed off the eastern end of the valley, thus forming the lakes during glacial times, and, ultimately the Parallel Roads.

How did Darwin react to the critique his paper underwent as a result of Agassiz’ new interpretation? Not very well. In fact, that’s the very point the author makes. Darwin would later say, “My paper was one long gigantic blunder from beginning to end.” But this admission came in 1861, after his Origins had gone through several printings and a new edition was on its way; i.e., while Darwin felt comfortable with all the plaudits coming his way, at a time when he could admit such a “gigantic blunder”.

Here is what Bruno Maddox writes: Read More ›

Why is thought, being a secretion of the brain, more wonderful than gravity, a property of matter? It is our arrogance, it is our admiration of ourselves… — Charles Darwin, age 29, in his notebook This is an incredible comment. It is difficult to understand how anyone with a brain could not observe that thought produces such things as symphonies, literature and mathematics, while gravity just makes things fall down and holds planets in their orbits. Furthermore, thought does not secrete like insulin from a pancreas, it is willed (at least that’s what I do, and I assume others do as well). Darwin was far more simpleminded, naive, and superficial in his thinking than I realized. I already knew that Read More ›

[This just in an email from the skeptics:]

The Center for Inquiry is launching a Secular Celebrant Program!

CFI Secular Celebrant Training
December 5, 2009
Center for Inquiry Indiana
350 Canal Walk, Suite A, Indianapolis
Click here to register online.

Why a CFI Secular Celebrant Program?

As we move through life, we celebrate many occasions filled with joy and love, accomplishment and striving, loss and grief. Unfortunately, the choice of persons to conduct ceremonies for these occasions is usually between religious clergy and impersonal civil officials.

For the 16% of the U.S. population not affiliated with any religion,
this can be a traumatic experience.

They may be required to go through religious counseling and/or have religious references in their ceremony. They may be prevented from having their choice of music or readings as part of the ceremony. The local minister called on to conduct a funeral/memorial may preach a “come to Jesus” sermon or otherwise use religious references that are not in keeping with the worldview of the person being memorialized. Many of us have seen this done.

Wedding ceremonies, memorials, and other life passages are extremely important events—they are life’s milestones—and people should be able to have these ceremonies conducted in a manner and by a person of their choosing.

While some people of the secular worldview do not see a need for rituals and ceremonies of any kind, many feel that having a way of marking life passages is important. CFI feels that this is a personal choice and that secular ceremonies—and persons to conduct these ceremonies—should be available to those who want them.

Who can become a Secular Celebrant?

CFI Secular Celebrant Training is open to all, but additional steps are required of those wishing to receive CFI Secular Celebrant Certification and listing in the CFI Celebrant Directory.

Cost for all-day training workshop: $75.00 Read More ›

November 9, 2009 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. St. Pius V University (Rome) In Response to Pope Benedict XVI’s Call for Both Sides to be Heard The 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” in November 2009 will be the occasion for a unique conference at Pope Pius V University in Rome presenting a scientific refutation of evolution theory. According to Russian sedimentologist Alexander Lalamov, “Everything contained in Darwin’s Origin of Species depends upon rocks forming slowly over enormous periods of time. The November conference demonstrates with empirical data that such geological time is not available for evolution.” Recently returned from a ground-breaking geological conference in Kazan, sedimentologist Guy Berthault will present the findings of several sedimentological studies conducted Read More ›

Anika Smith has reported at Evolution News and Views an attack which appears to be original to Darwinists. Although the attackers are, as yet, anonymous, the apparent motivation was to obfuscate a conference featuring leading Intelligent Design proponents scheduled this weekend at Douglas County Event Center in Castle Rock, Colorado. Earlier this month the Shepherd Project Ministries’ website was breached using a “brute force attack” to break the password. The hackers then deleted webpages containing information about an upcoming conference featuring Discovery Institute speakers Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and John West. “No question whatsoever about [what] they were targeting,” said Shepherd Project Executive Director Craig Smith. “That was brazen. We were a little stunned, to be perfectly honest. Read More ›

An UD author in a previous post asked: “would ID proponents see ID as part of emergence or as an alternative to emergence?”. I would answer: ID is not an alternative to emergence, rather the only thing that can explain emergence when it implies complex specified information (CSI), because CSI properties cannot emerge without intelligent front-loading. Here are the reasons of my answer.

“Emergence” is a key term often used in the fields of complex systems and complexity theory. Wikipedia defines it so:

“An emergent property of a system is one that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole.” Read More ›

This new paper by James Shapiro may be of interest . In it he elaborates on the central dogma of molecular biology. It has become very complex since the old “one gene one protein and all the rest is junk” days. Here is the summary table. Conventional expression of the Central Dogma of Molecule Biology: (DNA ==>2X DNA) ==> RNA ==> Protein ==> Phenotype Contemporary statements of molecular information transfer in cell: 1. DNA + 0 ==> 0 2. DNA + Protein + ncRNA ==> Chromatin 3. Chromatin + Protein + ncRNA ==> DNA replication, chromatin maintenance/reconstitution 4. Protein + RNA + lipids + small molecules ==> Signal transduction 5. Chromatin + Protein + signals ==> RNA (primary transcript) 6. RNA Read More ›

Here’s a great reason for rejecting pop neuroscience, titled “We are neuroscientists and we come in peace”: Peace? Hmmm. Just try coming to war here and see what happens. Just when it seemed things could get no worse, Hank Greely of Stanford Law School pointed to several areas of potential friction between neuroscience research and widely held religious beliefs (findings that point to consciousness, or a form of it, in nonhuman animals, for example, might undermine the notion that humans occupy a unique position in the world) and asked whether neuroscientists might get dragged into the type of culture war waged by evolutionary biologists and creationists. … “What Makes The Human Brain Unique”? What makes the human brain unique?: Has Read More ›