Over at ENV, Casey Luskin draws our attention to a new paper in Nature which elucidates new function for long-non-coding RNA. The paper, which can be downloaded here, reports, Most of the mammalian genome is transcribed. This generates a vast repertoire of transcripts that includes protein-coding messenger RNAs, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and repetitive sequences, such as SINEs (short interspersed nuclear elements). A large percentage of ncRNAs are nuclear-enriched with unknown function. Antisense lncRNAs may form sense–antisense pairs by pairing with a protein-coding gene on the opposite strand to regulate epigenetic silencing, transcription and mRNA stability. Here we identify a nuclear-enriched lncRNA antisense to mouse ubiquitin carboxy-terminal hydrolase L1 (Uchl1), a gene involved in brain function and neurodegenerative diseases. Antisense Read More ›

Since Aristotle it has been common to refer to intelligent agency as a third cause in addition to law and chance.  The Philosopher obviously spoke Greek, but his concept has come to be known by the Latin “tertium quid” the “third thing.”  Over at Witherspoon William Carroll reviews atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False.  According to Carroll, Nagel believes he has found a Quartium Quid, a “fourth thing”  Carroll writes: Nagel’s arguments that consciousness is not reducible to material phenomena, that there is an objective order of value, and that we do have knowledge of the world are all dialectical. He asks us to recognize, on reflection, their obvious Read More ›

I just want to let people on this forum know that I’m finally updating my personal website at DesignInference.com. Specifically, the page with my writings, which had not been updated for three years, is now largely up to date (though it omits articles and books in the pipeline): http://www.designinference.com/dembski-on-intelligent-design/dembski-writings. My own work and research, though still readily accessible at DesignInference.com, will increasingly take backstage as I develop it into a more general educational website directed at cultural and worldview issues. For information about my work and research on this site, please note the following links: (1) Biosketch of William A. Dembski (2) CV/resumé of William A. Dembski (3) Teaching: Courses taught by William A. Dembski (4) Writings of William A. Dembski

Check out the paper in Nature here. From the abstract, Oxygen consumption in marine sediments is often coupled to the oxidation of sulphide generated by degradation of organic matter in deeper, oxygen-free layers. Geochemical observations have shown that this coupling can be mediated by electric currents carried by unidentified electron transporters across centimetre-wide zones. Here we present evidence that the native conductors are long, filamentous bacteria. They abounded in sediment zones with electric currents and along their length they contained strings with distinct properties in accordance with a function as electron transporters. Living, electrical cables add a new dimension to the understanding of interactions in nature and may find use in technology development. Science Daily reports, Researchers at Aarhus University, Read More ›

My friend Melissa Travis just posted this excellent blog post dissecting five of the top misconceptions about intelligent design. She writes, There are few things more frustrating than hearing the same tired old myths and misconceptions over and over again, particularly when they directly relate to the subject you’ve devoted your education and career to. Intelligent Design theory suffers this plight, even at the hands of Christians who freely criticize it without doing their homework. In this short post, I would like to list and comment upon the untruths I hear most frequently. Click here to continue reading!

UK Centre for Intelligent Design director Dr. Alastair Noble has written a report on the recent conference in Malvern featuring Professor John Lennox and Dr. Douglas Axe. He writes, The 130 or so delegates who attended the Intelligent Design Annual Conference at Malvern, England, on September 28/29, 2012, were treated to a real Darwinian eye-opener from world-class speakers Dr Doug Axe (Biologic Institute, Seattle) and Prof John Lennox (Oxford).  If you think neo-Darwinism is beyond scientific dispute and that the design debate is an irrelevance, you should have heard this. Particularly telling was Axe’s exposition of the current criticisms of Darwinian evolution in the scientific literature, made all the more powerful because they come from sources that do not apparently Read More ›

Over at the Biologic Institute blog, Douglas Axe responds to Larry Moran’s response to his work on the prohibitive difficulty of enzyme conversion. Dr. Axe notes, If it can be shown that natural selection actually has (present tense) the creative capacity attributed to it, then I will certainly join those who are calling everyone to accept this. But if the facts go the other way, as it seems they have, then perhaps the reality check should likewise go the other way. Click here to read the rest!

David, thank you for your post.  Let me start out by saying that I do not have a dog in the YEC/OEC fight.  My father, for whom I have an immense respect, love and admiration is a YEC, and he and I have discussed the matter extensively over the last three and half decades.  That I ultimately concluded that I could not embrace the YEC position did not decrease my esteem for him in the least.  He and I disagree in love and mutual respect, and I hope I can do the same with other YECs.  Indeed, my best friend is a YEC and some months ago he posed the “why couldn’t God have done it this way” question to me, and Read More ›

Okay, the thread of discussion needs to pick up from here on. To motivate discussion, let me clip here comment no 795 in the continuation thread, which I have marked up: _________ >> 795Jerad October 23, 2012 at 1:18 am KF (783): At this point, with all due respect, you look like someone making stuff up to fit your predetermined conclusion. I know you think so. [a –> Jerad, I will pause to mark up. I would further with all due respect suggest that I have some warrant for my remark, especially given how glaringly you mishandled the design inference framework in your remark I responded to earlier.] {Let me add a diagram of the per aspect explanatory filter, using Read More ›

Many of you may remember Paul Kurtz, the atheist philosopher and humanist activist. He sadly passed away on Sunday at the age of 86. You can read an obituary of Dr. Kurtz at the Center for Inquiry website.

Check out this spectacular cellular visualization featured on BBC Two last night. The hour-long documentary offers an accessible description of the internal conflict that occurs regularly in our bodies between viral pathogens and our immune defense mechanisms. Although the program is given an evolutionary spin (it features Steve Jones and Nick Lane), the design and engineering implications of what is being shown are clear. It is well worth the time-investment. For those who don’t have time to watch the full program, a 3-minute preview clip can be found here.

A recent paper in Science offers an excellent review of the “broad and multifaceted spectrum of activities in human cancer” played by pseudogenes. I intend to review the paper for Evolution News & Views so I will reserve my more detailed comments for there. Here, I offer a couple of highlights. From the abstract: Because they are generally noncoding and thus considered nonfunctional and unimportant, pseudogenes have long been neglected. Recent advances have established that the DNA of a pseudogene, the RNA transcribed from a pseudogene, or the protein translated from a pseudogene can have multiple, diverse functions and that these functions can affect not only their parental genes but also unrelated genes. Therefore, pseudogenes have emerged as a previously Read More ›

Two new papers (here and here) have just been released in Science entitled “Making the Moon from a Fast-Spinning Earth: A Giant Impact Followed by Resonant Despinning” and “Forming a Moon with an Earth-Like Composition via a Giant Impact.” For popular science press releases on the story, see New Scientist and Space.com. As the Space.com report explains, The moon did indeed coalesce out of tiny bits of pulverized planet blasted into space by a catastrophic collision 4.5 billion years ago, two new studies suggest. The new research potentially plugs a big hole in the giant impact theory, long the leading explanation for the moon’s formation. Previous versions of the theory held that the moon formed primarily from pieces of a mysterious Mars-size body that slammed Read More ›

From Slashdot: Richard Dawkins is an author and an evolutionary biologist. For 13 years, he held the Simonyi Professorship at the University of Oxford. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene helped popularize the gene-centric view of evolution and coined the word “meme.” Several other of his books, including Climbing Mount Improbable, River Out of Eden, and The Greatest Show on Earth have helped to explain aspects of evolution in a way non-scientists can more easily understand. Dawkins is a frequent opponent of creationism and intelligent design, and he generated widespread controversy and debate in 2006 with The God Delusion, a book that subjected common religious beliefs to unyielding scientific scrutiny. He wrote, “One of the truly bad effects of religion Read More ›