Remember how evolution was confirmed by congruence and proven by parsimony? The idea was that different anatomical comparisons lead to the same evolutionary tree. Even at the genetic level, different genes told the same evolutionary story. Similar evolution trees are derived from completely different genes. Such congruence of independent data was predicted by evolution and evolutionists have consistently proclaimed it as a powerful confirmation of the fact of evolution. It is, as evolutionists like to say, a powerful phylogenetic signal. There’s only one problem: all of this is false. It is yet another example of evolution’s theory-laden science where the findings are dictated not by the data but by the doctrine. There is no powerful phylogenetic signal. That is a Read More ›

I have decided to withdraw (perhaps temporarily) from these discussions, for the following reasons: (1) I [i.e., KN] no longer believe that Uncommon Descent is a hospitable forum for examination of my criticisms of design ‘theory’ (as distinct from the design hypothesis, which I accept as a reasonable abductive ‘leap’); (2) I believe that my pleas for a version of “liberal naturalism“, as distinct from “materialism”, in the sense of “whatever it is that design advocates oppose”, have fallen on deaf ears; (3) I am presently writing a book on intentionality, normativity, and naturalism, and I no longer can afford the time and energy that I expended on my contributions to Uncommon Descent and The Skeptical Zone. Too bad. I Read More ›

All that follows is from a comment by Jon Garvey: As far as the state of knowledge of any normal reader of this (my) post can tell, it poofed into existence on their monitor without explanation. Given our state of knowledge of the universe and its probabilities, most will suppose there is an intelligence at my IP address which instantiated it by some actual action rather than magic. We have no known mechanisms for any other alternative, and “sheer electronic fluke” is, in practice, a non-explanation. Though to be honest, if the stats of this Universe or a many-worlds multiverse allow one to countenance seriously astronomically low probabilities, then this post is no less likely to arise from a random Read More ›

Amazing video of cellular machinery.  [HT JGuy] See also KF’s post today. Blind watchmaker evolution is rapidly descending the epistemic slide to “turtles all the way down” status.  Perhaps it is already there despite the fact that it continues to be the reigning paradigm.

Just heard on the Caribbean’s traditional 7:00 am BBC morning news, award of a Nobel Prize to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells The Nobel press release remarks: The 2013 Nobel Prize honours three scientists who have solved the mystery of how the cell organizes its transport system. Each cell is a factory that produces and exports molecules. For instance, insulin is manufactured and released into the blood and chemical signals called neurotransmitters are sent from one nerve cell to another. These molecules are transported around the cell in small packages called vesicles. The three Nobel Laureates have discovered the molecular Read More ›

Update:  There is a question at the end of this post.  After the first several comments, no one has addressed it, much less answered it.  I really am curious how our readers would answer. In another thread Paul Giem made this statement:  “While some holes in a blanket assertion that a non-ID position can explain everything have closed, others appear to have opened up, the origin of life being one of them.”  Dr. Giem was responding to a common narrative among materialists:  “Materialist explanations always advance, and the number of phenomena susceptible to non-materialist explanations grows ever smaller.”   Let us consider this claim in the context of origin of life (OOL) and Neo-Darwinian Evolution (NDE).   NDE has a Read More ›