Casey Luskin reports the passing of our colleague and member of the National Academy of Sciences, Phil Skell. Philip S. Skell, sometimes called “the father of carbene chemistry,” is widely known for the “Skell Rule,” which was first applied to carbenes, the “fleeting species” of carbon. The rule, which predicts the most probable pathway through […]
Month: November 2010
Intelligent Design – Pseudoscience or A Credible Challenge To Evolution?
As I previously noted, Michael Behe has been touring the UK this week, speaking in such cities as Belfast, Bournemouth, Cambridge, Glasgow, Leamington/Warwick, London, and Oxford. On Monday, Michael Behe debated the former director of the Royal Society, Michael Reiss, before an audience of invited guests – including scientists, religious leaders and secularists. The event […]
Is PZ Myers the Future of Secular Humanism?
UD moderator Clive Hayden referred UD readers to an article at SuperScholar.org titled “The Future of Secular Humanism.” The article itself focused on a rift between the secular humanism old guard, represented by Paul Kurtz, and the new guard, represented by Ron Lindsay, who apparently ousted Kurtz from the various humanist organizations he had founded. […]
Eugene Koonin: The Pot Calls the Kettle Black
A paper written by an evolutionist from earlier this year, erroneously claiming to confirm common descent, has now been rebuked by other evolutionists. Unfortunately this is not a healthy sign of evolutionists turning to science, for the new paper is just as unscientific as the first. Read more A paper written by an evolutionist from […]
UK Christians Embrace ID;
I had the privilege of attending Michael Behe’s talk at Westmister Chapel in London on Monday evening. The talk was organised by Premier Christian Radio, so it is safe to assume that most of those in attendance were Christian listeners of that radio station. The hall was almost full as Professor Behe began his talk by illustrating how […]
Secular Humanists Despise Each Other and Humanity
A friend of mine referred me to this article at superscholar.org about the recent 30th anniversary conference that The Center For Inquiry held in Los Angeles this past October. There seems to be a lot of disagreement among the influential in the movement advocating secular humanism. Despite calls for unity at the conference, a significant […]
Glasgow Humanists Unable To Mount Successful Argument Against Behe
Michael Behe is currently on a speaking tour around the UK (tour website here), organised by the newly founded Centre for ID UK. Last night, I attended Behe’s Glasgow lecture. The evening was entitled “Darwin or Design – What Does the Science Really Say?” As is to be expected, Behe spoke both articulately and persuasively, […]
“Evolution Readiness” and Other Tools for Teaching Evolution in Our Schools
Education Week has this article expounding on the fruitfulness of campaigns designed to educate our youth in the theory of evolution. When a federal court in 2005 rejected an attempt by the Dover, Pa., school board to introduce intelligent design as an alternative to evolution to explain the development of life on Earth, it sparked […]
The Fly’s Adaptive Aerodynamics
Recent experiments have revealed that when perturbed in flight, a fruit fly can recover its heading to within 2 degrees in less than a tenth of a second. Here’s how the researchers describe the results: Read more
Social Darwinist sterilization hits bookshelf in Canada
Fight Card: Jane Harris Zsovan vs. It Couldn’t Happen Here (My comments on how Christians got involved in that mess … ) The Alberta Christian support for forced sterilization is a case in point: Why on earth did anyone think that social Darwinism was a reasonable fit with Christianity? It can’t be, and the original […]
Chickens Have Cellular Sunglasses
When light enters your eye it triggers a sequence of actions, ultimately causing a signal to be sent to your brain. Even a mere single photon can be detected in your vision system. It all starts with a photon interacting with a light-sensitive chromophore molecule. The interaction causes the chromophore to change configuration and this, […]
Sir Roger’s Revelation
In a previous blog, I had analyzed Sir Roger Penrose‘s new cosmology (CCC) as a reworking of Sir Fred Hoyle’s “Steady State Theory“. And of course, Sir Fred’s is a reworking of the Greek model of Democritus, and one of the three pillars of materialism. Also in the news is Hawking’s attempt to make the […]
The video that proves Intelligent Design
Seeing is believing, and they say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Over at Creation.com, Brian Thomas has posted a fascinating article entitled, ATP synthase: majestic molecular machine made by a mastermind. ATP synthase is an enzyme that synthesizes an energy-rich compound, ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which is used by almost every biochemical process […]
Prepared Remarks for the Dembski-Hitchens Debate
Below are my prepared remarks from the 18 November 2010 debate at Prestonwood Christian Academy with Christopher Hitchens. The full debate may be viewed here.
Ethics and the Evolution of the Synapse
Scientific mistakes are no sin, but it would be a mistake to think there is no ethical dimension to the theory of evolution. The ethical aspects of evolution are most obvious in its misrepresentation of science. Even evolutionists agree scientists are responsible for the accurate transmission of scientific knowledge to the public. And yet evolutionists […]