Month: September 2010

At this writing I see that my post here has 122 responses, and that my post here has 81 responses. After examining all the dialog one thing seems clear to me: The ID versus Darwinian-materialism question must inevitably invade and challenge the core of the human soul. Don’t tell me that anyone doesn’t at least […]

Because of my many duties and responsibilities I post infrequently at UD. However, I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon: My posts seem to inspire a great amount of debate and very long threads, as is the case here. I have a theory about why this is the case. My thesis is that people like me, a […]

The ability of some insects to imitate the leaves and stems of plants has fascinated collectors and researchers alike. Wings, legs and other body parts can all contribute to a very effective disguise, a phenomenon known as mimesis. There has been speculation, of course, about the adaptive origins of the observed characters, but very little […]

Did you ever wonder how mosquitoes find you so quickly? Next time you might try not breathing because they are attracted to the carbon dioxide you exhale. And how do insects detect carbon dioxide? Studies have found two different neuron cell proteins (neural receptors) that seem to do the job. And they do the job […]

The scientific evidence does not favor evolution but that doesn’t mean we know all the answers. In fact some people who agree evolution is unlikely, nonetheless argue for common descent. This can be confusing because common descent is so often presented as integral to Darwin’s idea. But this need not be the case.  Read more

Do you still think God is good? — George Williams, 1987 (p. 157) In the commentary following the death on September 8 of leading neo-Darwinian theorist George C. Williams — go here for a representative selection — I’ve seen no mention of the considerable role of theology in Williams’s thought. I’d speculate that this silence […]

An article was published in The Guardian today, featuring a discussion between Oxford Zoologist, Richard Dawkins, and the renowned broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough. Describing the transformation of a dragonfly larva into a dragonfly, the pair remarked, DA: I am a naturalist rather than a scientist. Simply looking at a flower or a frog has always […]

This is a multi-part post in response to Merlin’s paper, “Evolutionary Chance Mutation: A Defense of the Modern Synthesis’ Consensus View”. See introduction and table of contents. In the last installment, we talked about how Merlin tried to paint a whole range of semi-directed mutations as “evolutionarily random”, and how this falls short when compared […]

Aircraft typically use air pressure measurements to determine their altitude above sea level. They may also use radar to directly measure their altitude above ground. Needless to say each approach is immensely complex. Insects also need to determine their altitude. Many do so by measuring how fast the ground passes beneath them. But new research […]

In this comment I included an essay I wrote in 1994 at the behest of a Christian friend, David Pounds, after my conversion from militant atheism to traditional Christianity. Dave encouraged me to write it, but it only chronicles one aspect of the journey (the most significant one). But there was another extremely significant aspect […]

As regular readers of this blog know, Stephen Barr is no friend of ID.  But here he gets it right on Hawking’s recent foray into theology.  A sample: Physics scenarios and theories are merely mathematical stories. They may be fictional or describe some reality. And just as the words of a book by themselves can’t […]

In 1996, palaeontologist Mike Benton published a fascinating analysis of tetrapod evolutionary data and concluded: “Competitive replacement has probably played a minor role in the history of tetrapods. In an assessment of the origins of 840 families of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, fewer than 26%, and probably fewer than 13%, were identified as candidate […]

Evolution cannot be said to be absolutely true, but just about. Evolution could be false, but only if most everything we thought we knew is cleverly misleading us. Short of a massive cosmic conspiracy, evolution must be true. Either Darwin was right, or this is one of those Bobby Ewing dreams. This is how certain […]