An interesting column by one, Howard Rich, the moral of which is not to rely on legacy media for news you actually need:

In the immediate aftermath of the tragic Tucson shooting earlier this year, the legacy press took it a step further — essentially implying that the new media was complicit in the attack on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by virtue of the “climate of hate” it helped create in America.

Obviously, the facts of the Tucson case quickly (and completely) debunked this theory — but not before a parade of liberal talking heads had spewed a torrent of reckless vitriol on new media outlets and the First Amendment freedom they exercise.

But is there something in it for them?

Fast-forward three months to April 6, when reporter Matthew Boyle of The Daily Caller published a report outlining the details of Read More ›

Christian evolutionary biologist Todd C. Wood has been dismissing ID-related research that attempts to determine the boundaries of Darwinism, demanding that ID researchers show what ID can do.

In this, he overlooks a simple fact: Today’s Darwinism functions as a sort of magic. It can do anything at all. Thus, no other mechanism, design or whatever, is needed.

In fact, no science can be done in the area of evolution until that ol’ Darwinian magic is discredited in favour of a rational evaluation of the probabilities of various proposed methods of evolution.

Otherwise, everything devolves into the usual witches’ cauldron of Darwindunit, complete with cackles from the broomsticks overhead.

The ID guys are only doing what everyone should be doing now, but few dare or have the sense to: Read More ›

Mobile DNA, Finding Treasure in Junk, by Haig H. Kazazian is available free for download at Barnes and Noble:

In Mobile DNA, leading geneticist Haig Kazazian thoroughly reviews our current understanding of the substantial role mobile genetic elements play in genome and organism evolution and function. He offers an accessible intellectual history of mobile DNA, rich and insightful perspectives on how investigators ask and answer research questions, and his predictions about future developments and research directions for this active field. Read More ›

Just up at ENV is Jay Richards’ “Catholics and Intelligent Design, Part 2” (April 14, 2011):

it’s easy to underestimate Aristotle’s influence in Roman Catholicism, due to his influence on the “Angelic Doctor” Thomas Aquinas. The Greek philosopher’s contributions are invaluable.iv Partially for this reason, however, we’ve sometimes failed to keep critical distance between the pagan philosopher and the faith itself. Traditional Catholics are much more likely to have an Aristotelian blind spot than, say, an Epicurean blind spot. Read More ›

Dembski’s CSI concept has come under serious question, dispute and suspicion in recent weeks here at UD.

After diligent patrolling the cops announce a bust: acting on some tips from un-named sources,  they have caught the miscreants in the act!

From a comment in the MG smart thread, courtesy Dembski’s  NFL (2007 edn):

___________________

>>NFL as just linked, pp. 144 & 148:

144: “. . . since a universal probability bound of 1 in 10^150 corresponds to a universal complexity bound of 500 bits of information, (T, E) constitutes CSI because T [i.e. “conceptual information,” effectively the target hot zone in the field of possibilities] subsumes E [i.e. “physical information,” effectively the observed event from that field], T is detachable from E, and and T measures at least 500 bits of information . . . ”

148: “The great myth of contemporary evolutionary biology is that the information needed to explain complex biological structures can be purchased without intelligence. My aim throughout this book is to dispel that myth . . . . Eigen and his colleagues must have something else in mind besides information simpliciter when they describe the origin of information as the central problem of biology.

I submit that what they have in mind is specified complexity, or what equivalently we have been calling in this Chapter Complex Specified information or CSI . . . .

Biological specification always refers to function . . . In virtue of their function [a living organism’s subsystems] embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the sense required by the complexity-specificity criterion . . . the specification can be cashed out in any number of ways . . . “

Here we see all the suspects together caught in the very act.

Let us line up our suspects:

1: CSI,

2: events from target zones in wider config spaces,

3: joint complexity-specification criteria,

4: 500-bit thresholds of complexity,

5: functionality as a possible objective specification

6: biofunction as specification,

7: origin of CSI as the key problem of both origin of life [Eigen’s focus] and Evolution, origin of body plans and species etc.

8: equivalence of CSI and complex specification.

Rap, rap, rap!

“How do you all plead?”

“Guilty as charged, with explanation your honour. We were all busy trying to address the scientific origin of biological information, on the characteristic of complex functional specificity. We were not trying to impose a right wing theocratic tyranny nor to smuggle creationism in the back door of the schoolroom your honour.”

“Guilty!”

“Throw the book at them!”

CRASH! >>

___________________

So, now we have heard from the horse’s mouth.

What are we to make of it, in light of Orgel’s conceptual definition from 1973 and the recent challenges to CSI raised by MG and others.

Read More ›

Bradley Monton, the atheist philosopher who is friendly to design, makes a number of his papers available here, including “Against Multiverse Theodicies”, “Mixed Strategies Can’t Evade Pascal’s Wager”, “Design Inferences in an Infinite Universe”, “God, Fine-Tuning, and the Problem of Old Evidence”, and “Is Intelligent Design Science? Dissecting the Dover Decision.”

Here’s his book, Seeking God in Science: An atheist defends intelligent design. Some illuminating comments on the book:

“This is a brave and important book. Monton does not defend ‘intelligent design’ as true – he thinks it is most likely false. Instead, he defends it as a hypothesis worth taking seriously. He argues convincingly that it can be formulated as a scientifically testable hypothesis, and that there is some important empirical evidence for it – not as much evidence as its supporters claim there is, but some evidence. Virtually all voices in this debate insist either that ID is not even worth taking seriously or else that it is manifestly the truth. It is refreshing to see a talented philosopher give the thesis its due and make a serious attempt to weigh the evidence for and against it, without the weight of the ‘culture wars’ hanging over every sentence.” – John T. Roberts, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill  Read More ›

In my last post I asked Mathgrrl the following direct and unambiguous question: “OK Mathgrrl. I will put it to you: Was Orgel’s concept of specified complexity coherent or meaningful?” I then made the following prediction as to her response: “My prediction: More dancing, evasion and obfuscation.” My prediction was confirmed. Mathgrrl placed two comments on the thread to that post and she did not even address the question posed. Mathgrrl is unwilling to engage in a good faith debate on these pages. Case closed.

In “Protein evolution in BIO-Complexity”(Todd’s Blog , April 13, 2011), Todd C. Wood comments on the recent BIO-Complexity paper by Ann Gauger and Doug Axe. He finds their work puzzling because they proceed as biochemists rather than evolutionary biologists, and summarizes: In the larger scheme of things, I am sensing a discouraging pattern to BIO-Complexity publications. As I quoted above, the journal is supposed to be about “testing the scientific merit of the claim that intelligent design (ID) is a credible explanation for life,” which is a great goal. But this is the fifth paper published by BIO-Complexity, and it’s the fifth paper that focuses on perceived inadequacies of evolution. So when are we going to test “the scientific merit of Read More ›

Nicholas Dames asks “Why bother?” (N+1, April 13, 2001) with the humanities these days, offering, Last February, a professor of biology and Harvard PhD named Amy Bishop, having recently been denied tenure by the University of Alabama in Hunstville, released the contents of a nine-millimeter pistol on her colleagues during a departmental faculty meeting. She killed the department’s chair and two others. Three more were wounded. Startling as the homicides were, and though they ratcheted up the common, unglamorous tensions of the tenure process to something fit for a media spectacle, they were hard to read as an allegory for the Problems of Higher Education. Unless, that is, you were unfortunate enough to peruse the reader comments on the New York Read More ›

According to a study just published in Nature, “Complex life left the oceans earlier than thought” and “The eukaryotes spent more time evolving on land” (Jennifer Welsh, MSNBC, 4/13/2011): These freshwater eukaryotes probably came from their oceanic brethren, but the fossil record for these microorganisms is so spotty, it’s hard to tell, Strother told LiveScience. Strother’s team is continuing to sort through samples of microfossils for more examples of the types of complex life that lived at this time.[ … ] They also likely had sex — reproduced by mixing their genomes together, which most eukaryotes do — and many might have created their own energy from the sun. “In some cases they are going to be displacing things that Read More ›

In “Did deadly formaldehyde give life to Earth?”, Clara Moskowitz tells us, “Scientists test the theory in their lab, and say the answer is most likely ‘yes’” (MSNBC4/4/2011): “We may owe our existence on this planet to interstellar formaldehyde,” said researcher George Cody of the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., in a statement. “And what’s ironic about it is that formaldehyde is poisonous to life on Earth.” Cody and his collaborators, Conel Alexander and Larry Nittler of Carnegie’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, studied carbon-containing meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites for clues about where their organic compounds originated.[ … ] Since this chemical reaction could have occurred naturally, based on what scientists know of the early Read More ›

In “First Comprehensive Gene Map of the Human Brain: More Than 90 Percent Similarity Among Humans” (ScienceDaily, Apr. 13, 2011), we learn: In developing the Allen Human Brain Atlas, the Allen Institute has now thoroughly characterized and mapped the biochemistry of two normal adult human brains, providing opportunities for scientists to study the brain with new detail and accuracy. The data reveal a striking 94 percent similarity between human brains, establishing strong patterns as a critical foundation for translational and clinical research. In addition, data analysis from the two human brains indicate that at least 82 percent of all human genes are expressed in the brain, highlighting its tremendous complexity while also providing an essential genetic blueprint to understand brain Read More ›

At Religion Dispatches, Laurie “Devil in Dover” Lebo reports, “Anti-Science Bill Passes Tennessee House”: The bill, which has yet to pass the Senate, would require teachers to be helped “to find effective ways to present the science curriculum as it addresses scientific controversies.” It also says that teachers may not be prohibited from “helping students understand, analyze, critique and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.”Those “controversial” theories would include, “Biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” Sources say that many educrats prefer that none of these topics, nor any others that they may from time to time propose, be treated Read More ›

Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Human Evolution, 2 Volume Set

Bernard Wood (Editor)
ISBN: 978-1-4051-5510-6
Hardcover
1264 pages
June 2011, Wiley-Blackwell

Price: US$ 560.00

This comprehensive A to Z encyclopedia provides extensive coverage of important scientific terms related to improving our understanding of how we evolved. Specifically, the 5,000 entries cover evidence and methods used to investigate the relationships among the living great apes, evidence about what makes the behavior of modern humans distinctive, and evidence about the evolutionary history of that distinctiveness, as well as information about modern methods used to trace the recent evolutionary history of modern human populations. This text provides a resource for everyone studying the emergence of Homo sapiens.

The Foreword by Francisco J. Ayala introduces this: Read More ›

Richard Weikart’s essay, “A History of the Impact of Darwinism on Bioethics”* appears in 150 Years of Evolution: Darwin’s Impact of Contemporary Thought and Culture, showing the way that Darwinism has impacted discourse on eugenics, infanticide, euthanasia, etc.: In November 2009, scholars representing academic disciplines from across the globe gathered at San Diego State University to celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and the sesquicentennial anniversary of the publication of his On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Out of this event now comes 150 Years of Evolution: Darwin’s Impact on Contemporary Thought and Culture. Edited by Mark Richard Wheeler with the assistance of William A. Nericcio, this compelling, interdisciplinary anthology features studies of interest to diehard Darwin Read More ›