(Note: These are the key books, not science or media news. The Top Ten Darwin and Design Science News Stories for 2009 are here, and my comments are here, the Top Ten Darwin and Design Media News Stories for 2009 are here, and my comments on the latter are here. Also, to get the links, you must go here.)

My comments follow.

4. Nature’s IQ by Balazs Hornyanszky and Istvan Tasi. Hungarian scientists Balazs Hornyanszky and Istvan Tasi offer a novel contribution to the intelligent design literature by extending Michael Behe’s theory of irreducible complexity from biological form to biological behavior. Where did the mysterious instincts of animals originate? Nature’s IQ. The authors document more than 100 astonishing, unexplained phenomena from the animal kingdom, with 200 amazing color pictures. The authors point out how Darwinian “just so” stories fail to explain these irreducibly complex instincts and behaviors. This book is a valuable addition to any library for its amazing photos of animal life and it’s catalog of fascinating animal behavior regardless of whether you believe they were a product of random mutations and natural selection or a product of artful, purposeful design. Read More ›

New research shows that in the span of just fifty years songbirds have become slightly smaller, probably as a consequence of global warming. This is no big surprise as it has long been understood that size is inversely correlated with temperature. The Darwin contemporary Christian Bergmann first observed this trend, in terms of a correlation with latitude, and the trend became known as Bergmann’s Rule. But how did the change come about?  Read more

Spider silk has been an active area for biomimetics research for several years. Spinoff companies have been launched in anticipation of commercial gains. However, despite the enthusiasm and commitment of research staff, the prizes are still elusive. Whilst the main goal is to produce fibres that are as strong and as flexible as spider silk, there are other aspects of the natural material that have attracted the interest of researchers. One of these concerns the ability of webs to be a site for dew collection. “When Lei Jiang first observed the phenomenon, he was intrigued. “How does that happen?” he wondered. After all, he says, “if you took a human hair, water would not stick to it like that”. His Read More ›

[This is somewhat old news, but I think it is worthy of posting.]

Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman reports:
Which Religious Sins Will Sink the Scientist

The Chief Scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Education, Dr. Gavriel Avital, is being called upon to resign because he has defied two religious doctrines. No, not Jewish doctrines, but secular doctrines of the “scientific consensus”, evolution and global warming.

Pharyngula reported on February 22, 2010The Don McLeroy of Israel
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Will Provine is scheduled to do two debates at Grace Community Church. The first debate will be March 12th, and the second March 13th.

Description:

DEBATE 002: “Flight in birds and bats: Is evolution or creation the best guide?”

(Provine vs. McIntosh)

Birds and bats have very specialized characteristics that make the phenomena of flight possible. What is the ultimate source of those physical characteristics? Is naturalistic evolution the best guide for understanding flight, or does flight indicate the design of a Creator?

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Evolution, say evolutionists, is both fact and theory. It is a fact in the sense that we know it occurred. It is a theory in the sense that we don’t know how it occurred. The theory part seems obvious enough. The biological evidence reveals many problems for evolution and so we don’t know how it could have occurred. But if we don’t know how it occurred, how is it that we know that it did occur?  Read more

It is amazing what evolutionists say when confronted with their own words. Perhaps the most consistent claim of evolutionists is that evolution is a fact. For centuries evolutionary thinkers have been making high truth claims, and the evolution-is-fact claim is now standard in the literature. But when confronted with this claim in light of the facts of biology which contradict their idea, evolutionists retort that you don’t understand the concept of a “fact.” But what is there not to understand? Evolutionists say their idea is a fact as much as is gravity. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt, and it would be perverse to doubt it.  Read more

There are two kinds of evolutionists: Those who deny the massive convergence in biology, and those who deny the implications of the massive convergence in biology. Let me explain. The similarities between species are one of the favorite evidences of evolutionist’s. They argue these similarities, sometimes striking, reveal the underlying evolutionary pathways. There’s only one problem: Striking similarities also show up in patterns that cannot be ascribed to common descent. In fact, such convergences are abundant in biology. But you would hardly know it from talking to evolutionists who say the species form a neat common descent pattern. Yes, they do fit a neat common descent pattern with the data are pre filtered according to the neat common descent pattern. Read More ›

Winston Ewert, George Montañez, William A. Dembski, Robert J. Marks II, “Efficient Per Query Information Extraction from a Hamming Oracle,” Proceedings of the the 42nd Meeting of the Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, IEEE, University of Texas at Tyler, March 7-9, 2010, pp.290-297. Abstract: Abstract—Computer search often uses an oracle to determine the value of a proposed problem solution. Information is extracted from the oracle using repeated queries. Crafting a search algorithm to most efficiently extract this information is the job of the programmer. In many instances this is done using the programmer’s experience and knowledge of the problem being solved. For the Hamming oracle, we have the ability to assess the performance of various search algorithms using the currency Read More ›

Richard Dawkins on Australian TV waxes lyrical on science and religion, morality, the cross of Christ and the afterlife.

SCIENCE AND RELIGION

RICHARD DAWKINS: The implication you make is that there’s something about religion which is personal and upon which evidence doesn’t have any bearing. Now, as I scientist I care passionately about the truth. I think that the existence of a supreme being – a supernatural supreme being – is a scientific issue. Either there is a God or there isn’t. Either there are gods or there are no gods. That is a scientific issue. Yes, it’s a supremely important scientific question. If the universe was created by an intelligence, then we are looking at an entirely different kind of scientific theory than if the universe came into existence by natural means. If God or gods had something to do with the creation of life, then we’re looking at a totally different kind of biology.

So I think you can’t just say religion and science have nothing to do with each other. Science can get on and you let people have their own religious – of course you let people believe whatever they like. But you cannot say that science and religion are completely separate because religion makes scientific claims. It certainly makes scientific claims about miracles, and you cannot reconcile an authentic approach to science with a belief in miracles or, I suspect, with a belief in supernatural creation. At least the very least you should say is that this is a scientific question. Read More ›

Religious doctrinaire PZ Myers claims there is no religion in evolution. That was after he said he believed god wouldn’t make this world, and before he ridiculed a journalist for believing in miracles. But after seeing Paul Nelson and Ronald Numbers discuss the issue, Myers reveals he is deeply in denial:  Read more

According to this story from Fox News a huge battle about changes in public school curriculum is looming in the Lone Star State and will have major ramifications for textbooks around the U.S. Fox reporter Brent Baier will be airing a report on the 6pm news tonight on Fox as well. The story includes a video with Shannon Bream interviewing a panel of parents on the issue as well. The first parent (I believe her name is Hannah) got it exactly right when she referred to evolution as an hypothesis and that children should learn that scientists work to prove or disprove an hypothesis. It’ll be interesting to see the reaction of the Darwinists to this story.

Evolution, the theory that natural processes created all life, is mandated by the religious belief that God would not have created our world. Ironically, a belief about God underwrites a theory that, as Richard Dawkins put it, “made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” But historians have seen this before. Alan Charles Kors, for example, found that eighteenth century French atheism had come from the church and its culture. Kors wrote:  Read more

I realized after my previous post about Academic Freedom legislation that I did not mention why it is that I care about the ability for teachers to “teach the controversy”.

I have been told by several research leaders that any attempt to change curriculum, or do anything with public schools, is a Bad Idea™. I understand where they are coming from. But let me tell you my personal story, and why it leads me to think that biological science itself needs the controversy to be taught.
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One endless discussion that always happens with the proposal of academic freedom bills in state legislatures is that the Darwin camp always says that they are about introducing religion into science classrooms. Even if the bill says, “this does not permit anyone to introduce religion into the classrooms,” the pro-Darwin crowd somehow misses this clause, or thinks that judges interpret bills based on the “secret agenda” of those proposing them, rather than the actual language of the bill. I think a better way of settling this, is to formally define what constitutes legitimate scientific discussion in a science class. I think that there is, at least for biology, a perfectly reasonable reposity of standard information – Pubmed. Pubmed is run Read More ›