Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Vodka! Jean Claude Perez, the golden ratio, dragon curve fractals and musical design in “junk DNA”

Jean Claude Perez is a self-organizational theorist, he is not a creationist. He has also published papers with an occasional visitor to UD, Andras Pellionisz. If the mathematical/musical patterns Perez has found in DNA are improbable relative to laws of physics and chemistry, then he may have found yet another design feature of DNA, and this feature is found by combining coding DNA with non-coding DNA and viewing it holistically. Here is the simplest explanation I found of his work: When cells replicate, they count the total number of letters in the DNA strand of the daughter cell. If the letter counts don’t match certain exact ratios, the cell knows that an error has been made. So it abandons the Read More ›

Quick Question – Captcha Misbehaving?

Quick question: Has anyone else experienced the following: 1. I write a comment and press the “Post Comment” button. 2. I get a complaint that I haven’t properly filled out the Captcha answer. 3. I go back, double check my Captcha answer, and submit again. 4. Again, it refuses. 5. I triple check and submit again.  Same story. 6. I click out of the window, say, by going back to UD Home (hopefully after remembering to copy my comment to the clipboard), find the thread again, paste in my comment, fill out the Captcha, and — ta-da! — it works fine. I haven’t done a scientific survey, but I’m suspicious it happens when I have had a thread open in Read More ›

Self-study science programs for IDists, organic chemistry

At the school where I received my Master of Science degree in Applied Physics, the basic undergraduate cost was $61,000 per year. Thankfully I wasn’t an undergrad there! I remember during commencement, I thought to myself as each undergrad crossed the stage to receive their diploma, “another quarter million dollars for academia.” I could go back and take formal classes to learn more science, but at this point it would only be for indulging in the joys of science, not advancing my occupation in financial management. To me, science is the study of God’s work. If I thought the universe and life were accidents, the product of a random number generator, I’d probably not be interested in studying it any Read More ›

Evolutionary convergence saves creationist hypothesis over GULO

When similarities cannot be explained by common descent, evolutionists will plead “convergence” (some mysterious coincidental occurrence to explain similarity). Well what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Creationists are now realizing if evolutionists can claim convergence, so can creationists! Evidence of Evolutionary Discontinuity and Genetic Entropy AbstractModern genomics provides the ability to screen the DNA of a wide variety of organisms to scrutinize broken metabolic pathways. This wealth of data has revealed wide-spread genetic entropy in human and other genomes. Loss of the vitamin C pathway due to deletions in the GULO (L-gulonolactone oxidase) gene has been detected in humans, apes, guinea pigs, bats, mice, rats, pigs, and passerine birds. Contrary to the popularized claims of Read More ›

Professor goes Ape at UConn over sign “Evolution is a Lie”, then preaches a pantheist revival

[youtube UpYDaCS0G94#t=136] Christian evangelist Don Karns of Hampton, Virginia, said Boster approached him as he was holding a sign about evolution, mocked him, and then became confrontational. “He asked me if I had accepted Darwin as my lord and savior,” Karns said. “He was very agitated, very demonstrative… it was very unbecoming of a professor.” Within minutes, Boster, who began teaching at UConn in 1997, also began to openly mock campus tour coordinator Scott Smith of Schoolmaster Ministries of Raleigh, North Carolina, as he preached. “As I was pointing to Christ—I was talking about the sin nature—I said, ‘There’s probably some people out there—maybe even professors—who think they descended from monkeys,’” Smith stated. “[Boster] jumped off the ground and came Read More ›