When I was a kid, for a weekend getaway, our family used to visit a place in the woods of northern Idaho. A stream flowed through the campsite, and I remember seeing these fascinating insects called water skippers. They moved on the surface of the water on their “feet,” supported by the water’s surface tension. How did these creatures evolve by random mutation and natural selection in a step-by-tiny-step fashion? Did proto-water skippers sink and drown, and then random errors introduced into the proto-water skipper genetic code produce semi-skippers, some of whom drowned and others that eventually skipped without drowning? Which mutations would be required in this process? What is the likelihood of them occurring? How would they work? How Read More ›

Next up in our Engineering and Metaphysics series is Thomist physicist and philosopher Alex Sich who gives both enthusiastic support and harsh criticisms to the Intelligent Design project. If I understand his objection correctly, he believes that ID is incorrectly and incoherently mixing categories of knowledge, not making proper distinctions of terms, and confusing univocal and analogous modes of reasoning. His call is for ID’ers to take a deeper look into metaphysics, and have a better understanding of philosophy before engaging in the public dialogue. If your video isn’t displaying, the YouTube link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieqCqoKiLmk When he references a previous lecture, he is referring to this one. Pull quote – “I think that one must be literally out of their Read More ›

The Markus Covert group’s Cell paper from last week represents a tremendous achievement toward a more systematic understanding of how biological cells work. For decades much of molecular and cellular biology has focused on single genes and single pathways. This was partly out of necessity given the cell’s astronomical complexity. And it was also due to evolutionary dogma which viewed the biological world as so many organic contraptions strapped together one way or another. The result was a rather limited perspective of cellular biology. As Bruce Alberts explained in 1998:  Read more