Even though keiths “bomb” has been defused and debunked in several ways, it has occurred to me that there is another major flaw in keiths argument. However, to reiterate the main debunking point: Barry Arrington asked for a “science bomb” that would demonstrate him wrong about what ID argues; keith’s “bomb” assumes the very thing that ID challenges – that natural forces are capable of producing the CSI found in living organisms. This makes keiths argument logical in nature (given he assumes everything that requires actual science), not scientific, and renders it irrelevant to the challenge – irrelevant even if it was logically valid, which it is not, as I will now show. First, let’s assume that genetically, living organisms Read More ›

. . . and blatant denial is not an appropriate response to the reality of and/or easily known facts concerning functionally specific complex organisation and /or associated information, FSCO/I: Facts are stubborn things, but people can be more stubborn than that. (That is, there are two types of ignorance, I: simple ignorance because one does not know the facts and/or may not understand them, but also II: ideological closed-mindedness due to being controlled by mind-closing agendas hostile to, selectively hyperskeptical towards and dismissive or suppressive of inconvenient facts, . . . such as those we just saw regarding FSCO/I.) Why am I saying this? Poster-boy no 1, rich @ 252  in the UD no bomb thread: [KF:] “Your comment no Read More ›

Here: However, a new piece of research offers an intriguing (albeit equally unproven) alternative. Zhang Wang and Martin Wu of the University of Virginia make an argument that instead of a chancy cellular merger, or engulfment of one prokaryote by another, the mitochondrial machinery actually comes from a parasite. What started out as a bacterium stealing chemical energy eventually became an organism providing chemical energy – in return for an evolutionary advantage. This proposal comes from a deep look at the genetic relationships between modern mitochondria and 18 closely related free-ranging bacteria. The researchers in effect attempt a reconstruction of the likely metabolic processes of the earliest mitochondria and their immediate precursors. They find that these critters were more likely Read More ›

The highly esteemed Franklin M. Harold is the author of a newly-published book: In Search of Cell History: The Evolution of Life’s Building Blocks, University of Chicago Press (2014). According to the publisher, this book investigates the full scope of cellular history. The content is broad and includes the relationship between cells and genes; the status of the universal tree of life with its three stems and viral outliers; and the controversies surrounding the last universal common ancestor. Extensive discussion is provided of the evolution of cellular organization and the fossil evidence for the earliest life on earth. The publisher explains: “In Search of Cell History shows us just how far we have come in understanding cell evolution—and the evolution Read More ›

Here — a useful FYI. Readers may wish to add more, this is a potentially global, grave issue. END