2013

Arsonists reportedly destroyed a well known Science Center in Naples Italy that promotes Evolutionism. From the pages of the Journal Nature: http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/496169c On the night of 4 March, unknown arsonists destroyed the famous City of Science centre in Naples. This shocking event has been publicly welcomed by some hard-line creationists in Italy, who disapprove of the teaching of evolution at the centre. ….. The conservative commentators who instead seemed to rejoice at the centre’s destruction include the national news paper Il Foglio, which applauded the flames as purification against the sourge of evolutionism — “a nineteenth-century superstition” destined to bring young people to “despair and simian behaviors”. This inflammatory anti-Darwinism has been rapidly amplified on the Internet. …. Italy’s current Read More ›

Some readers will recall the case of the Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel, former dean of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Tilburg University, who was publicly exposed in 2011 for faking his data in several dozen published papers about human behavior that had made him famous – and who, after being caught, decided to publish a book about his con, detailing how and why he’d done it. Uncommon Descent ran a story about the case (see here), and another story about how it was exposed (see here), while James Barham discussed it at further length over on his blog, TheBestSchools.org, in an article entitled, More Scientists Behaving Badly. A story about the case appeared in The New York Read More ›

In evolutionary thought there is a stark contrast between its scientific ambiguity and its metaphysical certainty. There are all kinds of problems in explaining how the world could have arisen on its own, and yet at the same time evolutionists constantly assure us that evolution is a scientific fact. For example, while Philip Ball urges his fellow evolutionists to admit that we don’t fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level he simultaneously presents the idea as a fact and bemoans those who doubt this new truth. But how can we be so certain the species originated spontaneously when our best attempts to explain how this could have happened continue to fall short? When I pointed this out an evolutionist rebuked Read More ›

Philip Ball’s opinion piece in this week’s Nature, the most popular science magazine in the world, is news not because he stated that we don’t fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level, but because he urged his fellow evolutionists to admit it. On this 60th anniversary of the discovery of the DNA double helix, Ball reviews a few of the recent findings that have rebuked the evolution narrative that random mutations created the biological world. Unfortunately Ball fails to take his own advice and ends up doing precisely what he advises other evolutionists against—whitewashing the science.  Read more

Go here to pre-order the book!

Sometimes, it is necessary to speak for record on rather unpleasant matters. This is one of them, in response to longtime objector AF’s willfully continued misrepresentations and false accusations. Accordingly, I clip 479 in the Oldies thread, with reference to my corrective at 459 and AF’s retort at 465 that compounds the misrepresentations and false accusations AF has made: ________________ >>Over the past few days, AF has unfortunately shown just why after eight years he has made no progress in understanding or soundly interacting with design theory or thinkers. This has come to a head in his remark at 454 above, where he stated: CSI is a bogus concept so it would not figure in anyone’s calculations. That is a Read More ›

Secretary of State John Kerry said on April 22, 2013:  “The [climate change] science is screaming at all of us and demands action.” This chart is from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with annotations by Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit.  It shows that the alarmists’ computer models (the blue line) do not match reality (the red line). In other words, they have failed miserably.   Yes, the science is screaming alright.  It is screaming that the climate change alarmists are simply wrong.  John Kerry’s statement is a classic example of the human capacity to ignore or disregard all contrary evidence once a particular idea has taken hold.

This is the kind of headline I’d expect to see from the Onion. If only it were so…

Dr. Stephen Meyer will feature in the third hour of tomorrow’s Michael Medved show, the first of his new Science & Culture Weekly Update series. Be sure to tune in!

The Omega watch company’s co-axial chronometer  is billed as the most precise mechanical device in the world.  In their video ad featured here, the images associate the intricate design of the cosmos with the design of the watch…a classic teleological argument.  The implication seems to be that the intricate, superb design of the watch is equal to that of the Cosmos itself.  But if you’re a philosophical naturalist, as nearly every ID critic is, then you accept that the watch requires an intelligent design, the forces of matter and energy interacting over eons of time through chance and/or necessity not being adequate to explain a watch.  However, that same ID critic accepts that the Cosmos, and everything in it, which Read More ›

In a comment in the oldies thread on Sunday evening, Chance Ratcliff raised a very instructive case study  for a search space that is well worth being headlined. Let us adjust a bit on the calc of the config space, and reflect: _____________ CR, 111, Oldies: >> An illustration might be of some help. For {{an 8-bit, 256 level}} gray scale image of 1024 [ –> 2^10] pixels squared, there’s a search space of {{  2^20,  256-level elements giving 256^(2^20) = 4.26 *10^2,525,222}} possible configurations. This [strike . . . ] provides a vast landscape of images over which it is possible to traverse. For example, there are a nearly inestimable amount of configurations that could yield a recognizable rendering Read More ›

An interesting paper recently appeared in Genome Biology and Evolution finding that the Beta-globin pseudogene is under purifying selection. From the abstract, HBD encodes the δ-globin chain of the minor adult hemoglobin (HbA2), which is assumed to be physiologically irrelevant. Paradoxically, reduced diversity levels have been reported for this gene. In this study, we sought a detailed portrait of the genetic variation within the β-globin cluster in a large human population panel from different geographic backgrounds. We resequenced the coding and noncoding regions of the two adult β-globin genes (HBD and HBB) in European and African populations, and analyzed the data from the β-globin cluster (HBE, HBG2, HBG1, HBBP1, HBD, andHBB) in 1,092 individuals representing 14 populations sequenced as part of the 1000 Genomes Project. Additionally, we assessed the diversity levels in nonhuman primates Read More ›

Larry Moran has decided to educate me about junk DNA. I appreciate the level of detail he has provided. I am not an expert in this field. I do however have a brain and, as a physicist, a vastly superior brain (I joke, sort of). I am not an IDiot, nor am I a larey moron (nor is he), and I like to see clear careful thought. I do not see this in a lot of the anti-ID polemics on the internet, nor in general presentations of evolution in the media. Thus, Larry’s latest posts are much more edifying to read. However, I still don’t agree with all the reasoning, and I don’t think he has told both sides of Read More ›

Newbie commenter Andre, in an exchange with Mr Matzke, asks some interesting questions concerning DNA. First, let us remind ourselves of what we are discussing, courtesy NIH: Next, Andre’s comment: DNA has the following; 1. Functional Information 2. Encoder 3. Error correction [4]. Decoder . . . can you please show me in a step by step fashion how such a system could randomly without any intelligence, and totally unguided build itself? Where did the functional information come from? What was first the encoder? The decoder? Error correction? Functional information? This is an irreducibly complex system any part removed and the system fails to function. Can you prove otherwise . . . ? It would be interesting to see the Read More ›

An interesting debate took place last week featuring Dr. Frank Turek and David Silverman, with a range of both strong and weaker arguments. The topic was the existence of God, but some I.D.-relevant themes came up in the debate. See it for yourself here.