I thought that this video was amusing. This is a public lecture given by a scientist on the subject of Intelligent Design. This is what passes for public discourse today.

How did proteins evolve? It is a difficult question because, setting aside many other problems, the very starting point—the protein-coding gene—is highly complex. A large number of random mutations would seem to be required before you have a functional protein that helps the organism. Too often such problems are solved with vague accounts of “adaptations” and “selection pressure” doing the job. But this week researchers at the University of Illinois announced ground-breaking research that provides a step-by-step, detailed, description of the evolution of a new protein-coding gene and associated regulatory DNA sequences. The protein in question is a so-called “antifreeze” protein that keeps the blood of Arctic codfish from freezing, and the new research provides the specific sequence of mutations, leading to Read More ›

Access Research Network is offering a prize ($50 VISA gift card) for the best response to this question: What do you say to someone when they claim that Intelligent Design is merely an appeal to a god-of-the-gaps?” Send your response to arn@arn.org Here’s the January question: How would you would respond to someone who claims that they believe in evolution rather than God? along with the answers and the winner, to give you some idea what they are looking for. No one’s name is published without their permission. FYI, here’s the winning answer: Response 3: What do you mean by evolution? First I would ask whether they mean chemical or biological evolution. Then I would ask them what they mean Read More ›

If you want to see your brain in electronic terms, you should picture it as the biggest network imaginable. It’s widely accepted that each neuron in our bodies is complex enough to be something like a little computer. Neurons are considered “pretty weird” on that account: “Unlike their blobby brethren, neurons have distinct regions. There’s the cell body, home to the nucleus. Then come the axons and dendrites, the signal-carrying and signal-receiving parts of the neuron that send long, spindly arms to form connections, called synapses, with other neurons. “ Harvard Medical School, “Once seen as nerve cells’ foot soldier, the axon emerges as decision-maker” at ScienceDaily But the system turns out to be “far more complex than once thought” Read More ›

The black hole has always occupied a sort of space in the middle, between science and philosophy. It’s good to see that acknowledged. From ScienceDaily: Erik Curiel studied Philosophy as well as Theoretical Physics at Harvard University and the University of Chicago, and the primary aim of his current DFG-funded research project is to develop a precise philosophical description of certain puzzling aspects of modern physics. “Phenomena such as black holes belong to a realm that is inaccessible to observation and experiment. Work based on the assumption that black holes exist therefore involves a level of speculation that is unusual even for the field of theoretical physics.” However, this difficulty is what makes the physical approach to the nature of Read More ›

It’s already been done. As a language, DNA can carry malicious messages: People often say that our genome is like a language. For example, a recent science paper explains that “genomes appear similar to natural language texts, and protein domains can be treated as analogs of words.”1 For that reason, DNA can be used to encode messages … But in some ways, our genomes are much more powerful than words. They are part of a process that utters not just ideas but living beings. Including human beings, who ourselves have ideas. In August 2017, researchers announced that they had used DNA to encode malware to hack a computer program that reads genetic sequences:More. Also at Mind Matters: How a computer Read More ›