Hans Fiene’s video here brought to mind our recent exchanges on the nature of evidence in these pages. Be sure to watch to the end past the credits.
Month: April 2015
Is There Even One Point Upon Which There is Universal Agreement?
I have a question for non-ID proponents only and it is very simple: Is there even one tenet of modern evolutionary theory that is universally agreed upon by the proponents of modern evolutionary theory?
Article on latest OOL theory criticized for design language
From Quanta Magazine: Life emerged so long ago that even the rock formations covering the planet at that time have been destroyed — and with them, most chemical and geological clues to early evolution. “There’s a huge chasm between the origins of life and the last common ancestor,” said Eric Gaucher, a biologist at the […]
New Yorker Magazine considers the sponge
Here: A sponge essentially carves organs out of negative space, using its layers and jelly to delineate a complex network of channels and pores, which transport nutrients and waste much like a human kidney or bloodstream. This Spartan anatomy is so efficient that a single sponge can filter up to a thousand times its body […]
Hydrothermal vents spout life again, at New Scientist
Here, Michael Le Page reviews biochemist Nick Lane’s new book, The Vital Question: Why is life the way it is? Living cells are powered by a totally unexpected process. The energy from food is used to pump protons across a membrane to build up an electrochemical gradient. This gradient drives the machinery of life, like […]
Chimpanzee mind vs. human mind
Earlier we noted that the “We share 99% of our DNA with chimps” claim rises again” (Like Dracula it can’t really die, as it is culturally needed. So it just keeps rising from the grave. Evidence is irrelevant.*) In a paywalled article in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Henry Gee reviews Thomas Suddendorf’s The Gap: […]
Philosopher of physics to physicists: Calculate, but don’t shut up
From Tim Maudlin at PBS Nova blog: Many questions about the nature of reality cannot be properly pursued without contemporary physics. Inquiry into the fundamental structure of space, time and matter must take account of the theory of relativity and quantum theory. Philosophers accept this. In fact, several leading philosophers of physics hold doctorates in […]
How Would You Answer These Questions?
A friend writes to inform me that his son’s high school biology teacher is busily indoctrinating him into Darwinism by writing test questions that force the student to spew back Darwinist party-line answers in order to receive credit. Here are the questions: 1. One argument made against evolution is: evolution is random, so it cannot […]
Eight reasons why atheists change their minds…
Closing our religion coverage a bit late today, here’s an interesting item on eight common factors as to why atheists change their minds. One key reason appears to be that they are propagandized to think that theists are dumb. But then, as one witness writes, And then there’s Leah Libresco—another atheist blogger turned Catholic. Leah […]
Richard Lenski: “It is an incontrovertible fact that organisms have changed, or evolved”
Practically since Darwin the various species of finches on the Galápagos Islands have been declared to be decisive, powerful examples of evolutionary theory. An undeniable confirmation of the age-old Epicurean idea that the world arose spontaneously. But exactly how do some bird species on an island group in the middle of the ocean demonstrate such […]
Neil deGrasse Tyson on the biggest mystery of the universe …
… that it is knowable and mathematically based. That was said better by Eugene Wigner. The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. – “The Unreasonable Effectiveness “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural […]
If neurons evolved more than once on Earth…
From New Scientist: Until recently, the consensus has leaned towards a very Darwinian story. In this scenario, sometime around 600 million years ago, the common ancestor to all animals gave rise to some organisms with simple neural networks. Central nervous systems arose later, allowing for greater coordination and more complex behaviours. These perhaps started out […]
Babble on, pop neuroscience. The crowd is listening.
From The Register: Neurobabble makes nonsense brain ‘science’ more believable Neuroscientific explanations of human behaviour appeal to people because we’re suckers for simplified, mechanistic brain-centred explanations – even if they’re rubbish or don’t make sense. A droll study by four psychologists tested psychological statements and placed them alongside “irrelevant” information from neuroimaging fMRI scans, to […]
Is Intelligent Design dead?
Mathematician Jason Rosenhouse has written an extraordinary post in which he pronounces the Intelligent Design movement officially dead: “Truly, ID is dead,” he declares. In this post, I’d like to put forward three good mathematical arguments illustrating why the Intelligent Design movement remains very much alive. All of these arguments come from scientists who are […]
Octopus movement control is unique
From ScienceDaily: “Octopuses use unique locomotion strategies that are different from those found in other animals,” says Binyamin Hochner of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “This is most likely due to their soft molluscan body that led to the evolution of ‘strange’ morphology, enabling efficient locomotion control without a rigid skeleton.” Odd, isn’t it, how […]