We continue to examine the work of authors George Johnson and Jonathan Losos in their biology textbook, The Living World ((Fifth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2008). In their chapter on evolution and natural selection, these accomplished evolutionists begin by (1) misrepresenting the relationship between microevolution and macroevolution and biological variation here, (2) making a non scientific, metaphysical, truth claim that just happens to mandate the truth of evolution here, and (3) making the grossly false statement that the fossils themselves are a factual observation that macroevolution has occurred here and here.  Read more

Evolutionist’s come in a wide variety of religious flavors. Even in the Christian wing of evolution-dom, the details of how God and evolution are to be understood vary. There is, for example the bottom-up view where God controls the world via sub-atomic particles all working together to effect macro events. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, there is the top-down view where God controls events in a way analogous to the way humans perceive their willed actions. From my perspective, I simply move my arm. I do not initiate nerve impulses in order to activate muscle contractions leading to appendage movement. It’s almost difficult to find a view that doesn’t fit into the spectrum somewhere. But once again Read More ›

gpuccio made the following comment on my post Almost Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Design. I always like your posts, which get to the core of issues with admirable simplicity and efficacy. This is my mission and message. The Darwinistic chance-and-necessity-creative-engine nonsense as an explanation for all that exists in living systems — that is currently promoted as “irrefutable science with overwhelming evidence” — is completely out of the ballpark of reality, evidence, and reason. It’s not a close call. It’s a slam dunk that Darwinism cannot account for what we observe in living things. Figuring this out is trivially easy. Darwinists want us to believe the following: Screw things up. Throw wrenches randomly into Read More ›

One common objection which is often raised regarding the proposition of real design (as opposed to design that is only apparent) is the criticism that design is unable to be falsified by the ruthless rigour of empirical scrutiny. Science, we are told, must restrict its explanatory devices to material causes. This criterion of conformity to materialism as a requisite for scientific merit is an unfortunate consequence of a misconstrual of the principal of uniformitarianism with respect to the historical sciences. Clearly, a proposition – if it is to be considered properly scientific – must constrict its scope to categories of explanation with which we have experience. It is this criterion which allows a hypothesis to be evaluated and contrasted with our experience of that causal entity. Explanatory devices should not be abstract, lying beyond the scope of our uniform and sensory experience of cause-and-effect.

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Randal Rauser, a self-described “Tentative Apologist” explains, I ventured into turbid waters a couple days ago by mentioning that in the future I would discuss Steve Meyer’s Signature in the Cell in the blog. What followed was a barrage of discussion which led AnAtheist.Net to observe: “It looks like you have discovered a quick way to attract a fiery horde of new readers.” Indeed. Actually I learned last year about the effect that mention of “intelligent design” has in a blog. I like to think of it as being like a bucket of fish heads and blood. Slop it in the ocean and within fifteen minutes you’ll have a number of sharks swimming around the boat snapping things like: “That’s Read More ›

It is Sunday, so I allow myself one religious story. One is informed by the Reverend Michael Dowd, and evangelist for Darwinism, that the “new atheists” are God’s prophets: According to Dowd, God is speaking pointedly to Christians today through some very unlikely messengers outside the church—namely New Atheists, such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens. These bestselling authors mock the biblical view of a God who, according to the U.S. Department of Defense’s definition of terrorism, is a cosmic terrorist. “The God that Richard Dawkins says is a delusion is a delusion!” asserts Dowd. “That way of thinking about God reflects an outdated, Bronze Age worldview that we have blindly believed for generations simply because someone said Read More ›

As we learn more, this is becoming increasingly, transparently obvious. Random errors can screw things up, and — in very rare circumstances — provide a survival advantage in a pathological environment. The notion that random errors filtered by natural selection can account for all that is found in biological systems is a pathetically illogical, hopelessly improbable explanation for the information-processing machinery of the cell. Chemistry is not the basis of life. Chemistry is the medium; information is the message. On the subject of chemistry: The ID movement has thrown a satchel charge of trinitrotoluene into the Darwinian faux-edifice, and blown it to bits (pun intended).

Timothy Larsen has written an interesting piece in The Times Higher Education supplement Opinion: Stop turning the other cheek – The US academy should treat discrimination against Christian students or scholars as seriously as it would racism or sexism He writes; “Nevertheless, scholars ought to be concerned that Christians often report that the academy is a hostile environment. Are academics generally glad that such a perception exists? If not, how might it be dispelled? If it is based on genuine experiences, what can be done about a climate that tolerates religious discrimination? If the two stories presented here are merely assailable, anecdotal evidence, then why not gather information on this issue more systematically? Do academic institutions ever try to discover Read More ›

Here, in “Justification by Faith”, Darwinist atheist Michael Ruse comments on Christopher (new atheist) Hitchens’s esophageal cancer diagnosis ( bad news): Third, with Hitchens I simply don’t see that deathbed conversions, especially those done in fear or pain, are worth a thing. They have about as much validity as a confession forced out through waterboarding. I have often wondered, when I am on a plane, if it were announced that it was hijacked and we were on the way to the White House or whatever, what then would I do? Would I tell Jesus that I am sorry? I confess that I might. But if Jesus thinks that that is worth anything, then he loses my respect entirely. This is Read More ›

In 2009, outspoken Darwinist and opponent of intelligent design, PZ Myers, presented a lecture at the Atheist Alliance International 2009 conference in Burbank, California. The Richard Dawkins Foundation kindly posted it on youtube: As per usual, Myers blasts Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute for allegedly erroneously presuming that complex structures only arise from intelligent agents, implicating that one needs to demonstrate something other than complexity to demonstrate intent. Curiously, PZ Myers adamently asserts in his introductory remarks that he has attended ID conferences and lectures; that he as read the literature and hence qualifies as an authorotative expert on the topic of Intelligent Design. One can only wonder whether Myers was awake during these lectures that he claims to Read More ›

Get a load of this one: Infants presumably acquire the special strain of bifido from their mothers, but strangely, it has not yet been detected in adults. “We’re all wondering where it hides out,” Dr. Mills said. The indigestible substance that favors the bifido bacterium is a slew of complex sugars derived from lactose, the principal component of milk. The complex sugars consist of a lactose molecule on to which chains of other sugar units have been added. The human genome does not contain the necessary genes to break down the complex sugars, but the bifido subspecies does, the researchers say in a review of their progress in today’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The complex sugars were Read More ›

You probably learned in high school biology class that the new DNA data has powerfully confirmed evolution. Take any gene and it reveals differences between the species exactly as we would expect. And this sentiment is not limited to high school textbooks. As the Chair of a university Biology department once wrote to me, “DNA sequences provide an absolute and irrefutable record” that evolution is a fact. “Virtually every single gene sequence we examine,” he explained, “can be seen to be represented in closely related species and in more distantly related species with increasing numbers of nucleotide changes as we look at more distant species.” It was, he concluded, “absolute proof, in hard copy, reiterated in every single gene of Read More ›

A friend writes, regarding this information regarding some information about science philosopher Karl Popper on a Scientific American blog: “It’s the first time I’ve read that Popper later regretted allowing himself to be browbeaten on the subject of the irrefutability of Darwinism.” In “A Dubitable Darwin? Why Some Smart, Nonreligious People Doubt the Theory of Evolution”, John Horgan writes (Jul 6, 2010) The philosopher Daniel Dennett once called the theory of evolution by natural selection “the single best idea anyone has ever had.” I’m inclined to agree. But Darwinism sticks in the craw of some really smart people I don’t mean intelligent-designers (aka IDiots) and other religious ignorami but knowledgeable scientists and scholars. He goes on to trash knowledgeble scientists Read More ›

An interesting conference bringing together ID proponents and theistic evolutionists is coming up in Austin this October:  The Vibrant Dance of Faith and Science (http://vibrantdance.org). The organizers are hoping to bring unity to the science-faith debate: Our Mission is to inspire, educate, and unify pastors, scientists, Christian leaders, and concerned lay people, as well as seekers and skeptics, with the growing congruence of scientific discovery with our Christian faith and to explore the implications and applications of that congruence. The key word here is CONGRUENCE. The problem is that ID theorists and theistic evolutionists see such congruence in very different terms. For ID theorists who are also Christians (some are not), evidence of design in nature mirrors the faith claim that God by wisdom created Read More ›