In my previous post #1, #2, #3, I addressed the Origin of life (OOL) problem. In #3, I promised to work my way back to infinities from the FT, as well as show “how this transform turns points into volumes, and lines into areas”. Along the way, I hope to address the comment, If, via non-locality, information about life is stored holographically in billions of cubic light years then is it possible to say anything more about the mechanism by which this information gets into the organic material in the cosmic biosphere? This part of your thesis seems rather sketchy. So this fourth and concluding post attempts to fill in some of the blanks, though I will forewarn you, it Read More ›

In a recent Scientific American (July, 2009) “Ask the Experts” column, evolutionist S. Jay Olshansky explains why humans have not evolved eyes in the back of the head. Olshansky makes the argument that (i) natural selection is limited to those designs that just happen to arise and (ii) what happens to arise is not driven by need. In other words, we don’t have eyes in the back of the head not because they wouldn’t be useful, but because early versions never happened to arise there in the first place.  Read more

I am happy to announce that a new Spanish ID blog is now up and running. Take a look here: ¿Darwin o Diseño Inteligente?

Michael Yarus, an emeritus professor at UColorado,  is one of the leading experts on the RNA World hypothesis, which takes the origin of life as flowing from RNA chemistry. His recent book with Harvard UP, Life from an RNA World, contains lots of material responding to ID, though without basic understanding, to say nothing of nuance. The reason I bring the book up here, however, is to note his extensive use of Dawkins’ famous METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL evolutionary computing simulation. Yarus changes the target phrase to NOTHING IN BIOLOGY MAKES SENSE EXCEPT IN THE LIGHT OF EVOLUTION, but the essence of Dawkins’ simulation is nonetheless there in all its glory — indeed, Yarus develops this “instance of evolution” Read More ›

Over at Watts Up With That?, Willis Eschenbach has written an interesting post entitled Some people claim, that there’s a human to blame …, regarding whether humans are responsible for the sharp rise in CO2 levels after 1850. He is upfront about his own personal view:

Let me preface this by saying that I do think that the recent increase in CO2 levels is due to human activities.

The strongest evidence for this view comes from the historical record, as it reveals an “excellent agreement between the eight different ice cores, including the different methods and different analysts for two of the cores.” Not only that, but there is also “excellent agreement between the ice cores and the Mauna Loa data,” which suggests that it “represents a good estimate of the historical background CO2 record,” although the possibility that the agreement is due to coincidence, conspiracy or simple error cannot be totally excluded. Willis Eschenbach then argues:

So if you are going to believe that this is not a result of human activities, it would help to answer the question of what else might have that effect. It is not necessary to provide an alternative hypothesis if you disbelieve that humans are the cause … but it would help your case.

A very sensible point. But what caught my eye was a comment by a reader who calls himself “Darkinbad the Brightdayler” (June 7, 2010 at 1:05 a.m.; the third response from the top), who objected to the word “believe” in the paragraph just cited:
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A recent Scientific American article (July, 2009) explains the evolutionary roots of your right and left brain. The article, written by three evolutionists, explains that it was once thought that the hemispheric specialization of our brain (e.g., language in the left hemisphere, spatial thinking in the right hemisphere) evolved in our hominid ancestors, over the past few million years. But it now appears to have evolved orders of magnitude farther back in time. Why the half a billion year change? Mainly because of the accumulation of evidence of hemispheric specialization in a wide array of species. “So what” you ask?  Read more

Falsificationism has always been an important part of science. Many scientists argue that if a theory cannot be falsified, then it does not qualify as genuine science. That view may be overly simplistic—and it is not falsifiable by the way—but certainly falsificationism is an important tradition within science. Theories are based on empirical data, and it is the empirical data which should have the final say on whether the theory makes sense. Therefore it is curious that evolutionists, while insisting on falsificationism for theories they oppose, suddenly drop this favorite criterion when it comes to their own theory.  Read more

One interesting result of the ASA survey noted below was the great division of the membership on Adam and Eve. There are small minorities offering every view from “Adam and Eve had no contemporaries, and were the biological ancestors of all humans, living in Mesopotamia around 10,000 years ago.” (5.8%) through to “There were no historical individuals corresponding to Adam and Eve.” (11%) The really interesting thing is that 31.9% of respondents (the only large minority) said, “The Bible is consistent with several of the above options and the issue is not of great importance.” Actually, the issue is of great importance, even though it may never be settled or settlable as a matter of factual certainty. For one thing, Read More ›

 I remember seeing the cover of a book by Stephen Jay Gould, lamenting the decline of species of snails* somewhere, with the species illustrated. I couldn’t tell the difference between them for beans, and that’s quite different from not being able to tell the difference between a dog and a cat – though it is said that they have a common ancestor. One thing is certain: They cannot interbreed. They parted—unamicably, I suspect—a long time ago. Now to the point: I want to write about what I take to be the extinction of the American Scientific Affiliation, which exists to promote “theistic evolution,” so far as I can see., but is probably now best employed promoting grey hair formulas for Read More ›

 Who would have believed these results? First, no particular surprise, nearly 86% agree that the universe is about 14 billion years old, and Earth is about 4.6 billion years old. These are the given figures. Even if they were wrong, it would make sense to accept them, for calculation purposes. But … What is a surprise is that six percent believe that there are other universes. I wish ASA had also asked how many of its members believe in astrology or visit Madam Rosa the Psychic. Well, after that, it all goes downhill quickly, like a toboggan on ice: Over 60% actually believe that “Biologically, Homo Sapiens evolved through natural processes from ancestral forms in common with primates.” Well then, Read More ›

You may have been taught in your high school biology class that DNA point mutations provide the raw material for evolution. Such mutations can cause biological variation which might lead to improved reproductive rates. In those cases such mutations would likely be selected, and evolution would have taken yet another small step. You may have wondered how such unguided point mutations could ever produce the wonders we find in biology. The answer, evolutionists will tell you, is that point mutations are only the beginning of the story. In fact there are a variety of mechanisms, many far more complex than a DNA point mutation, that can produce biological variation. For instance, new research has found that so-called jumping genes, or Read More ›

Professor Andy McIntosh, an ID proponent in the UK, has a peer-reviewed paper on the thermodynamic barriers to Darwinian evolution: A. C. McIntosh, “Information and Entropy—Top-Down or Bottom-Up Development in Living Systems?” International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics 4(4) (2009): 351-385 The Editor appends the following note: Editor’s Note: This paper presents a different paradigm than the traditional view. It is, in the view of the Journal, an exploratory paper that does not give a complete justification for the alternative view. The reader should not assume that the Journal or the reviewers agree with the conclusions of the paper.  It is a valuable contribution that challenges the conventional vision that systems can design and organise themselves.  The Journal Read More ›

Does the second law of thermodynamics pose a problem for evolution? Daniel Styer doesn’t think so. In fact, in a recent paper he found that any entropy decrease here on Earth due to evolution would have been dwarfed by the entropy increase of solar radiation contributing to the cosmic microwave background. He writes:  Read more

Thirty years ago, I matriculated from Wheaton College, a “fundamentalist” school 25 miles west of Chicago. Well, actually the faculty and student body never called it fundamentalist, that’s what the big TV station called us whenever they did their “local news specials”, and waited for the opening prayer at mandatory chapel to pan the audience for the obligatory “every head bowed” shot. In actuality, Wheaton was proud of its “progressive status” among the consortium of 13  small liberal-arts Christian colleges, promoting an “old-earth creationism” in contrast to the 24/6 “young earth creationism” usually associated with Bible colleges. They had even built their then-new science building with a rotating display of a student-excavated mastodon skeleton (“Perry”) to reinforce their commitment to Read More ›