2013

This morning, CH has by implication raised the issue that has been hotly debated recently: getting a cosmos out of “nothing.” I thought it would be helpful to headline my comment: ______________ >>  . . . “Something from nothing” is always problematic. Now, I know I know, here is Ethan Siegel of Science Blogs in partnership with Nat Geog, inadvertently illustrating the problem: It’s often said that you can’t get something from nothing. And while this may be true for most practical applications of your life, it isn’t true for our physical Universe. And I don’t just mean some tiny part of it; I mean all of it. When you take a look at the Universe out there, whether you’re Read More ›

Aristotle explained how objects in the sky move laterally whereas objects here on Earth move vertically, but how did it all start? The philosopher needed his Prime Mover to avoid an infinite regress in motion. The Unmoved Mover initiated motion without any prior motion. Isaac Newton overthrew Aristotle, but while the physicist’s new laws explained cosmic motion, they did not explain how the cosmos originated. For that a Creator was needed. Immanuel Kant provided an early version of how the cosmos could have evolved, but he remained in awe of the moral law within. Charles Darwin explained how the species, including any so-called moral laws, evolved, but how did life begin? Did not the Creator breath to life “a few Read More ›

Evolutionist Joel Cracraft’s courseEvolution: A Course for Educators is “informed” by thoseNext Generation Science Standards. That reminds us of how after the 2005 Dover trial, kangaroo court Judge John Jones explained … Read more

Martin Cadra has a wonderful blog focusing on non-Darwinian views on evolution. He recently highlighted some rare publications by field biologists who provide empirical evidence that challenges the idea that Darwinian evolution is the source of butterfly mimicry. Here is an excerpt: Since Darwin’s time mimicry is presented as one of the best example of the efficiency of natural selection. Several species should have been shaped by natural selection to resemble or mimic dangerous or poisonous species. It is supposed that protected by their shape and coloration they deceive their predators. Thus mimicry confers them a survival advantage. In many cases mimicry is believed to be found among butterflies where palatable species mimic unpalatable ones (so called Batesian mimicry). In Read More ›

Some recent posts by Jerry Coyne brought back memories of this article: So if we don’t have free will, what can we do? One possibility is to give in to a despairing nihilism and just stop doing anything. But that’s impossible, for our feeling of personal agency is so overwhelming that we have no choice but to pretend that we do choose, Why you don’t have free will Pretend? As in “make believe”? As in live one’s life according to a presumed falsehood? A religious person at least has some conviction (even a mistaken conviction) he is following the truth, but Coyne “knows” what he is following is false, but still does it. Nuclear physicist Dave Heddle offers another criticism: Read More ›

Over on The Panda’s Thumb blog, Darwinian apologist P.Z. Myers recently posted a pejorative laden critique of a review article by Casey Luskin. Luskin was responding to a recent New York Times article on a study purporting to show how certain genes in fish might hold an important clue on how fins turned to feet. I won’t rehearse the articles here, you can read them in the links. Rather, I want to look a bit more closely at Myer’s critique of Luskin’s article and the supposedly “scientific” problems he has with Luskin. He begins by highlighting a quote from Luskin’s article where Luskin writes, “Hox genes are known to be widely conserved among vertebrates, so the fact that homology was Read More ›

In my last post, The Edge of Evolution?”, I drew readers’ attention to a 2011 paper by the Croatian biochemist Dr. Branko Kozulic, titled, Proteins and Genes, Singletons and Species, which argues that the presence of not one but literally hundreds of chemically unique proteins in each species is an event beyond the reach of chance, and that since these proteins exhibit specified complexity (as the amino acids which make up the polypeptide chain need to be in the correct order), each species must therefore be the result of intelligent planning. (A parallel argument can be made for de novo protein-coding genes.) In this short post, I’d like to discuss a few falsifiable predictions which I believe are entailed by Read More ›

Larry Moran replied to my latest post with an admission of failure. He thinks he has failed to educate, but I think rather he is confusing the word ‘persuade’ with the word ‘educate’. He thinks I am rationalising junk DNA with a pile of ‘what-ifs’. But the fact is that most of my ‘what-ifs’ are already known to have some basis in reality. I am not denying any obvious reality. Indeed, the basic machinery of life looks like design, far more than when Paley was around. Yes, there could also be a great deal of junk. That’s why I have said a number of times that ID is not committed to the idea that there is no junk. Yet, from Read More ›

A few years ago, Intelligent Design researcher Professor Michael Behe wrote a thought-provoking book entitled The Edge of Evolution, which argued that design was much more pervasive in Nature than commonly thought. Professor Behe argued that each and every class of living things, and quite probably each and every family, had been intentionally designed. Now, a recent paper by Dr. Branko Kozulic, a biochemist who serves on the editorial board of the Intelligent Design journal Bio-Complexity, argues that each and every species of living things was intelligently designed, and that the biological concept of a species can best be defined in terms of the unique proteins and genes that characterize it. In a nutshell, Dr. Kozulic’s argument is that there Read More ›

From ENV  — even as Dr Eugenie Scott of NCSE retires (having championed the ID is Creationism in a cheap tuxedo smear for years and years in the teeth of all correction . . . ) — we see a development, courtesy a whistle-blowing Law School student: The latest attempt to insert creationism into the classroom is what is known as the Theory of Intelligent Design. The theory is that all of the complex natural phenomena could not have happened randomly; there had to be a design and a designer. Since the concept of the designer does not require a biblical interpretation, its advocates believe that it could possibly pass constitutional muster. Some states have proposed that science standards be Read More ›

The NCSE has announced that their director Dr. Eugenie Scott will be retiring by the end of this year. I wonder who will be chosen to replace her? NCSE’s executive director Eugenie C. Scott announced on May 6, 2013, that she was planning to retire by the end of the year, after more than twenty-six years at NCSE’s helm. “It’s a good time to retire, with our new climate change initiative off to a strong start and with the staff energized and excited by the new challenges ahead,” she commented. “The person who replaces me will find a strong staff, a strong set of programs, and a strong board of directors.” During Scott’s time at NCSE, she was honored with Read More ›

Duane Gish passed away a few weeks ago, and even though I’m late in reporting it, I felt it important to offer a small tribute to him since he fought Darwinism for much of his life. I didn’t always agree with him, but before the ID movement, he was one of the few sufficiently competent voices in the world that articulated the case for intelligent design (albeit in a creationist context). From the NCSE website: The young-earth creationist Duane T. Gish died on March 5, 2013, at the age of 92, according to Answers in Genesis’s obituary. Born on February 17, 1921, in White City, Kansas, he served in the U.S. Army from 1940 to 1946 in the Pacific Theater Read More ›

Contrary to what some scientists have asserted previously (see here and here), there’s no good evidence that humans were responsible for the extinctions of around 90 giant animal species that once roamed Australia – including the Diprotodon pictured above, a hippopotamus-sized giant wombat that roamed Australia until 46,000 years ago. In fact, most of these species had already disappeared by the time people arrived. That’s the conclusion reached by an international team of scientists in a major review of the available evidence, and published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (abstract here). The study concludes that climate change, rather than overhunting by the first human beings to settle in Australia, was what brought about the demise Read More ›

Slate.com is all upset that repeal of the Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008 was was rejected yet again in a 3-2 vote in the State Senate. 19 year old Rice University Student Zack Kopplin has been leading the charge to get this “outrage” done away with once and for all, with help from the usual suspects. What’s interesting to note is the reason that one Senator, Elbert Guillory, D-Obelousas, who essentially cast the deciding vote, gave for his vote against repeal. Sen. Elbert Guillory, D-Opelousas, said he had reservations with repealing the act after a spiritual healer correctly diagnosed a specific medical ailment he had. He said he thought repealing the act could “lock the door on being able Read More ›