Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Year

2019

If apes are people, we aren’t (but that’s the point, right?)

One factor that helps diminish awareness of the fact of human exceptionality is the promotion of “buzz” concepts around animal intelligence that are not supported by the histories of disciplines and fall apart under scrutiny. But any time one fails (apes can be taught to talk!), another rises, seamlessly, in its place (elephants can be taught to communicate via high tech!). No one ever calls any of these people to account. Read More ›

Has Google become a cult?

It is beginning to meet many of the definitions of one, which matters to those of us who use the search engine: Project Veritas announces that a new rebel Googler has sent nearly 1000 documents on algorithm bias to the DOJ. While we prepare a news story on Zach Vorhies’ revelations, it may be worth asking why one of the world’s largest companies has developed what appears to be the atmosphere of a political cult… Tiku offers an account of the underlying intensity that went well beyond the needs of a sound strategy for helping stranded co-workers: “Finally, to a remarkable extent, Google’s workers really do take “Don’t Be Evil” to heart. C-suite meetings have been known to grind to Read More ›

How many Earth-like planets are there?

Claim: " Based on their simulations, the researchers estimate that planets very close to Earth in size, from three-quarters to one-and-a-half times the size of earth, with orbital periods ranging from 237 to 500 days, occur around approximately one in four stars." Read More ›

Another think tank now openly questions Darwinism

Here’s a summary of Turner's views: “I can remember the day it happened: I could no longer be a Darwinist.” Hoover and Power Line are conservative outlets, yes. But there was a time when they would hesitate to get involved with criticizing Darwin, for fear of boarding Noah’s Ark. But Darwinism is just too out of sync with reality now. Read More ›

“Modern” eye pigment has been around over fifty million years

“‘We were surprised by what we found because we were not looking for, or expecting it,’ says Johan Lindgren, an Associate Professor at the Department of Geology, Lund University, and lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature.” Note that they are now wondering whether Cambrian arthropods’ eyes were really that different. Talk about stasis. Read More ›

Researchers identify a new sensory organism that detects pain

Assuming this holds up, everywhere we look, more systems, more organization, and it all just sort of happened by magic, oops, Darwinism. One wonders, at what point will the inability to distinguish between Darwinism and magic lead to some sort of re-evaluation of the origin of complex specified information in life forms? Read More ›

Ordivician Radiation–Another Strike Against Darwin

The Cambrian Explosion, demonstrated time and again to be an ‘explosion,’ is a problem for Darwinian theory. Darwin postulated gradualsim; in fact, he insisted upon it when pressed by supporters to modulate this position of his. The problem is that multiple life forms are required to “build” new life forms. You need lots of species for higher taxa to accumulate over time. But we see almost the complete opposite in the Cambrian Explosion. Steven Meyer wrote a book about this: Darwin’s Dilemna. Now there’s more. Another ‘explosion’ during the Ordivician. The authors of a study published in Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology had this to say: The early evolution of animal life on Earth is a complex and fascinating subject. The Cambrian Read More ›

So creationism works—but only for genes?

So 2/3 of the time, we have “ de novo emergence from ancestral non-genic sequences, such that homologues genuinely do not exist?” Okay. Somebody better go put their arm around the Selfish Gene. It’s tough being the Last Darwinian. Gene, we did not do this to you. Francis Collins and Craig Venter did this to you. Honest. Read More ›