Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Year

2022

Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 18, 2022
Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, ,

Researchers: Genetic mutation against malaria is not random

News
March 18, 2022
Evolution, Intelligent Design
2
Researcher: “I do not think it is a coincidence that the HbS mutation, which provides protection against malaria, originates de novo more frequently in sub-Saharan Africans than in Europeans,” Livnat says. “I also do not think it is a coincidence that it originates more frequently in the gene where it provides this protection compared to the nearly identical nearby delta globin gene, where precisely the same mutation could happen but would not provide protection.” Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 18, 2022
Categories
horizontal gene transfer
Intelligent Design
Tagged
,

“Almost unbelievable” instances of horizontal gene transfer…

News
March 18, 2022
horizontal gene transfer, Intelligent Design
2
Terms like “almost unbelievable” and “magic” are rare in science. One can’t help wondering whether they are code for “This isn’t what Darwinian evolution would teach us to expect but we can’t talk about that, of course.” Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 17, 2022
Categories
Culture
Darwinism
Intelligent Design
Tagged
,

Neil Thomas on how Darwin’s Origin of Species came to be madly adored

News
March 17, 2022
Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
2
Darwinism was never very good at explaining the world of nature as such. It provided a fashionable basis for atheism in a world otherwise dominated by finely tuned laws. Thomas provides a fine tour of the nineteenth century in which that was just the thing many were looking for. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 17, 2022
Categories
Academic Freedom
Intelligent Design
Tagged
,

Academic freedom in the real world…

News
March 17, 2022
Academic Freedom, Intelligent Design
2
Science prof Jerry Bergman notes a tendency in academic freedom court cases: “In all cases when information interpreted as favorable to a theistic worldview was presented in the classroom, the ruling went against the instructor, while in all cases critical of Intelligent Design and/or theism, U.S. courts ruled in favor of the teacher.” Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 17, 2022
Categories
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, , ,

Trust the Science! and see where it gets you: The disgraced New York State governor COVID-19 edition

News
March 17, 2022
Intelligent Design
5
Essentially, COVID enabled the“Trust the Science!” elite to parade their Virtue at the expense of the lives of many others. If you, gentle reader, are one of the “others,” we suggest you don’t forget that. And don’t expect to hear much of this in the Cool media either because it mainly affects people who Don’t Matter. Read More ›
Type
post
Date
March 17, 2022
Categories
Atheism
Defending our Civilization
Ethics
Logic and Reason
rhetoric
Tagged
,

L&FP, 53: Mackie’s concession regarding the deductive form argument from evil against the existence of God (answering CD et al.)

kairosfocus
March 17, 2022
Atheism, Defending our Civilization, Ethics, Logic and Reason, rhetoric
16

It seems there is still a feeling in some atheistical quarters that Mackie’s formulation of the deductive argument from evil has withstood Plantinga’s challenge. This recently came up here at UD. and led to an exchange: PART A: THE EXCHANGE IN THE MAGAZINE BIAS THREAD CD, 183: >>KF @ 174I found this an interesting aside: So, in an era with the Plantinga free will defence — as opposed to theodicy — on the table, what can be offered that makes God a suspect notion? ________ I think claims that Plantinga defeated the logical problem of evil are wildly exaggerated, if not downright wrong. For an excellent discussion of this, Raymond Bradley’s article is a must: The Free Will Defense Refuted Read More ›

Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 16, 2022
Categories
Cambrian explosion
Ediacaran
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, ,

Can the Cambrian Explosion be explained away by the earlier Ediacaran Explosion?

News
March 16, 2022
Cambrian explosion, Ediacaran, Intelligent Design
2
David Klinghoffer: Lukas Ruegger is the personable new intelligent design “explainer” whose videos take an approach similar to Khan Academy’s. The latter’s offering on evolution is replete with junk science, as Casey Luskin has detailed. Ruegger’s treatment of the subject is much better, and I appreciate his clarity and brevity. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 16, 2022
Categories
Intelligent Design
Mind
Physics
Tagged
, , , ,

At Mind Matters News: John Horgan at Scientific American: Does quantum mechanics kill free will?

News
March 16, 2022
Intelligent Design, Mind, Physics
3
Horgan sides, somewhat tentatively, with free will. He notes that humans are more than just heaps of particles. Higher levels of complexity enable genuinely new qualities. What humans can do is not merely a more complex version of what amoebas can do — in turn, a more complex version of what electrons can do. Greater complexity can involve genuinely new qualities. A philosopher would say that he is not a reductionist. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 15, 2022
Categories
Intelligent Design
Tagged
,

Nature isn’t symmetrical; But is that the price of variety?

News
March 15, 2022
Intelligent Design
1
Lack of symmetry: Interestingly, some honeybees (45% to be exact) tend to naturally favour one of their sides, right or left, when flying. They showed a distinct bias when made to choose between flying through two holes, and researchers think that this kind of bias might help the colony as a whole, because it could result in the rapid travel of the group of bees through a cluttered environment. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 15, 2022
Categories
Extraterrestrial life
Intelligent Design
Origin Of Life
Tagged
, ,

Paper at PNAS challenges universal common descent

News
March 15, 2022
Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life
3
The underlying issue may well be this: With the James Webb Space Telescope headed off to survey countless exoplanets, astrobiology (search for extraterrestrial life) is becoming cool. A strict neo-Darwinian approach, as in “All life unearth arose from a single cell” is, at best, inconvenient. At worst, a true bummer. The astrobiologist is going to be much happier with “prime candidates for developing new theory on the ‘laws of life’ that might apply to all possible biochemistries…” Life lesson: Researchers will sacrifice Darwinism pretty quickly when it is an actual impediment. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 15, 2022
Categories
Culture
Darwinism
Genetics
Human evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, , ,

What? Paper on human mutation admits to “fundamentally challenging” neo-Darwinism?

News
March 15, 2022
Culture, Darwinism, Genetics, Human evolution, Intelligent Design
2
But Darwinism about human beings is the bread and butter of pop science media! If that’s under threat now, what will become of, for example, evolutionary psychology? Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 15, 2022
Categories
Epigenetics
Intelligent Design
Plants
Tagged
,

Epigenetics and plant psychology: They show “scents of alarm” ;)

News
March 15, 2022
Epigenetics, Intelligent Design, Plants
3
Researchers: Prior studies have shown that when grown near mint plants, soybean and field mustard (Brassica rapa) plants display heightened defense properties against herbivore pests by activating defense genes in their leaves, as a result of "eavesdropping" on mint volatiles. Put simply, if mint leaves get damaged after a herbivore attack, the plants in their immediate vicinity respond by activating their anti-herbivore defense systems in response to the chemical signals released by the damaged mint plant. Read More ›