I hope readers have taken in the Nelson-Velasco debate from last month which can be seen here. It is a couple of hours with extremely knowledgeable and well-spoken philosophers advocating opposing views. But as in the greater, on-going origins debate, the crucial points are often unspoken and between the lines. While Nelson and Velasco talked biology, there was a completely different debate taking place.  Read more

“Unguided natural processes.” If you follow Intelligent Design at all – or even just follow the yammerings of the crazier Gnu atheists – you’ve probably come across that term, or something like it in the past: the claim or idea that such and such natural processes occur utterly apart from any plan or direction. Behe talks about how his work and arguments establish that something other than “unguided natural processes” would have to have been at work to explain what we see in nature, at least based on the information we have currently. Dembski says similar, with some important caveats. On the other side of the discussion, Jerry Coyne and others insist that modern evolutionary theory is wed to the Read More ›

In a recent post, Professor Larry Moran takes exception to a Youtube video by Intelligent Design advocate Dr. Jonathan Wells, who uses the illustration of a leaking cell to rebut scientific claims that life on Earth could have arisen naturally from non-living matter, via an unguided process. The Youtube video did not mention God. Instead, Dr. Wells began with a discussion of Stanley Miller’s 1953 experiment, which simulated the conditions thought at the time to be present on the early Earth, and which managed to produce more than 20 amino acids, as well as some sugars. Here’s the complete transcript of Dr. Wells’ video: Even if Miller’s experiment were valid, you’re still light years away from making life. It comes Read More ›

In a recent post in which I questioned the claim that over 100 mutations get fixed in the human population in every generation, I remarked, “I’m happy to be proved wrong.” Guess what? I meant it. After weighing the evidence presented on both sides, I’ve decided that there are no good mathematical arguments showing that 130 mutations couldn’t have been fixed in each generation of the human lineage, over the past five million years. Although the equations of population genetics are based on assumptions, these assumptions have been tested – and validated – for bacteria. And while the mutation rate per individual per generation is five orders of magnitude greater for human beings than for bacteria, the fact that the Read More ›

Thought you all might be interested in a new essay of mine on whether or not we should teach our students methodological materialism.
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This is a continuation of an earlier post, A short post on fixation, to which Professor Moran replied here. He has asked Dr. Kozulic to contact him directly; Dr. Kozulic is now answering that request as co-author of the present post. We asked Professor Moran to answer three questions relating to the fixation of neutral mutations. But before dealing with his answers, let’s confirm that both sides agree that the key point at issue here is the fixation of neutral mutations in the human lineage, subsequent to its divergence from the lineage leading to chimpanzees. In Professor Moran’s words: In an attempt to show them that evolution CAN account for the differences between humans and chimps/bonobos, I wrote up a Read More ›