A new study has added yet more evidence to the claim that organisms respond to environmental challenges with non DNA, epigenetic, changes that are heritable. That may sound like detailed scientific jargon that has little importance outside of the dry, technical journal papers, but nothing could be further from the truth. Evolutionary theory has traditionally viewed heritable changes as being strictly channeled through DNA. For it is the DNA that can be altered by those chance mutations. The idea is that these chance mutations sometimes just luckily happen to improve the organism, and so it is selected. Thus all change that ever occurs to a species is, ultimately, from a source that is random. Non random change that might be Read More ›

When Why Evolution Is True, a Website with about 9,000,000 views a year, voices allegations undermining the reputation of an academic at a state university, it is no light matter. Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Ball State University (BSU), who was hired by the university in 2013. In an article dated January 4, 2014, Professor Jerry Coyne not only recycles old allegations about Dr. Gonzalez which have been refuted again and again, but he gives unwarranted credence to new ones made by a man who doesn’t even know Dr. Gonzalez. Why Dr. Gonzalez was really denied tenure at Iowa State University in 2007 Coyne denigrates the academic achievements of Dr. Gonzalez, noting that he was Read More ›

In recent decades the genomes of several species have been mapped out and evolutionists are using these genome data to refine their theory. They are also making some high claims. The genome data sets, say evolutionists, are adding striking new confirmations for their theory. One piece of evidence evolutionists point to is the high similarity between the human and chimpanzee genomes. The two genomes are about 95% the same and evolutionists say this shows how easily the human could have evolved from a chimp-human common ancestor. Evolution professor Dennis Venema explains:  Read more

I love and thoroughly enjoy believing that I have free will; that I have a soul; that god exists, and that my existence will continue on in some sentient format forever; that I will be reunited with loved ones after death; I love the feeling of love, fulfillment, joy, and hope these beliefs instill in my life on a day to day basis. I love the amazing miracles I see every day that reassure me that the divine exists and is all around me. I appreciate the patience these beliefs provide me; the profound sense of meaning and value for every kindness and good thing that I encounter and that I can muster for those I love; the stability and Read More ›

My hard copy of Commentary came in the mail today, and I am reading David Gelernter’s fabulous The Closing of the Scientific Mind (already noticed here by the News Desk). As I was reading Gelernter’s discussion of the zombie thought experiment among philosophers of mind, I thought about a possible new response to one of the classic objections to ID theory – the God Would Not Have Done it That Way objection. Let me explain. In the zombie thought experiment we are supposed to imagine a person (let’s call him Fred) who looks and acts exactly like a fully conscious human being. Fred eats, drinks, converses, laughs, cries, etc. exactly like a human being, but he is in fact a Read More ›