Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Author

Cornelius Hunter

Why the CSC Case is Important

Two years ago a group booked the California Science Center’s IMAX theater, in downtown Los Angeles, for a screening of Darwin’s Dilemma, a film that questions evolutionary theory. Furious evolutionists quickly censored the showing and canceled the event.  Read more

California Science Center to Not Pay $110,000 Settlement; Evolutionary Lies Continue

In the seventeenth century the Roman Catholic theologian Nicholas Malebranche proposed that nature’s evil and inefficiency were not created by god but by natural processes. Simply put, Malebranche said that god preferred to use simple though imprecise natural laws rather than a long sequence of complicated miracles that would be needed to achieve perfection. Malebranche was by no means the first thinker in history to argue for theological naturalism—the belief that god wouldn’t have intended for this world so it must have arisen naturalistically. In ancient Greece the Epicureans believed that randomly swerving atoms created the world. As Lucretius put it:  Read more

Brain Components Found in Single-Celled Organisms; Evolutionary Expectations Fail Again

One of the themes of biology is the ubiquity of complexity. From microbes to humans, and everything in between, biology is chocked full of fantastic designs. For evolutionists, these roads lead to the unexpected conclusion of early complexity. If evolution is true, then it somehow produced incredible feats of engineering early on, even before they would have been useful. The DNA code, with its exquisite nuances, must have arisen before those nuances would be helpful. This early complexity is another example of the evolution’s massive serendipity—evolution somehow created designs that would be crucial down the line. One example of this is the human brain, as one science writer explains:  Read more

Paul Krugman’s Embarrassing Politicization of Evolution

It is practically impossible to stay abreast of the many misconceptions and misrepresentations of evolution in the popular media. Across the political spectrum, in print, radio, TV and the new electronic media, pundits who know little to nothing about evolution hold forth on this debate as though they were experts. Here is one example from this week that is notable for its high source (The New York Times) and extreme naiveté. When The Huffington Post issues a rebuke you know it must be absurd. The writer is Paul Krugman, a New York Times OP-ED columnist. Krugman writes:  Read more

Matters of Health: Michael Lynch’s Reminder of Evolution’s Eugenics—Junk Science Matters

Michael Lynch’s recent finding that “novel means” of genetic intervention are required for the future genetic well-being of our species is a bit disturbing. After all, the last time evolutionists imposed “novel means” of genetic intervention we had everything from forced sterilization to institutionalization (read imprisonment). Nonetheless, Lynch informs us that the fundamental requirement for the maintenance of a species’ genetic integrity and long-term viability is that deleterious mutations must be balanced by the removal of such mutations by natural selection. And since Darwin’s dispensation of benevolence—otherwise known as death—is a less effective tool in our modern civilized society, and since our mutation load is unpredictable thus rendering genetic counseling ineffective, the result is that some “novel means” of genetic Read More ›

New Scientist: Not so Simple—Bugs That Break all the Rules

One of the fundamental predictions of evolution is that life must have had simple beginnings. Life is complex and ever since Darwin evolutionists have tried to explain how that complexity arose over time, for life must have had simple beginnings. An obvious problem here is that even the fundamental unit of life—the cell—is itself profoundly complex. And this problem has not been aided by evolutionist’s attempts to reconstruct what that first cell might have looked like. The results were confusing due to the wide variety of genes between and amongst life’s three lineages. No clear picture of a simple progenitor emerged. Instead, the only solution seemed to be a super progenitor that already had most of the highly complex traits Read More ›

Peak Fallacy: A Follow-Up on Nature Paper Proving A = A

In my previous post I discussed a paper published in the leading journal Nature on protein evolution. In spite of the scientific evidence showing the evolution of proteins is unlikely, this paper is used as an apologetic by evolutionists for why said evolution is actually no big problem. The paper uses a somewhat circuitous method to arrive at its conclusion that protein evolution occurs early and often and that the findings are yet more “novel evidence of the common ancestry of life.” These conclusions are false and are based on a naïve and circular analysis. This is not easy to understand, however, because the analysis is circuitous. Here I will provide a simple explanation to help illustrate the fallacy.  Read Read More ›

Peak Fallacy: Proteins Evolved Because They Evolved

In spite of common sense and the scientific evidence, evolutionists have once again shown that evolution is a miracle worker. A new paper by evolutionists in the world’s leading journal argues that proteins evolved after all, despite just about every shred of evidence mandating otherwise. And just how did evolution do it again? It turns out proteins evolved because they evolved. If only I had thought of that—I could be an evolutionist too.  Read more

Proteins Did Not Evolve Even According to the Evolutionist’s Own Calculations but so What, Evolution is a Fact

Evolutionists say they just don’t know how to discern miracles. They might begin by looking at a protein. Proteins, according to science, are not likely to have evolved. And when I say “not likely,” I mean the chances are astronomically against such evolution. I may as well simply say: Proteins, according to science, did not evolve. To review, very briefly, here are some of the reasons:  Read more

Surprise, Human Genome Didn’t Solve All the Mysteries: Life is Complicated and Evolution Fails Yet Again

Here is a Nature News Feature that speaks volumes about the state of evolutionary theory. It explains how the Human Genome project and high throughput technologies have revealed levels of complexity evolutionists hadn’t even dreamed of. It is yet another monumental failure of evolutionary theory, even though we all know evolution is a fact.  Read more

Of Gaps, Fine-Tuning and Newton’s Solar System

New research is providing a fascinating new perspective on fine-tuning and a three hundred year old debate. First for the context. When Isaac Newton figured out how the solar system worked he also detected a stability problem. Could the smooth-running machine go unstable, with planets smashing into each other? This is what the math indicated. But on the other hand, we’re still here. How could that be?  Read more

600 Genes Involved in Fundamental Cell Division

The regulation of cellular processes occurs at many levels. Gene expression, where the DNA is transcribed into an RNA molecule, is exquisitely controlled but so are the many downstream actions as well. For instance, the new RNA molecule can be inactivated by an incredible process referred to as RNA interference. This sophisticated process targets specific genes, and as usual nature’s own tools provide researchers with excellent means to investigate and harness biology. For instance, researchers have used RNA interference to turn off one gene at a time in the human cell to determine its function.  Read more

Flax: More Falsifications of Evolution and the Real Warfare Thesis

The headline says it all: “Environs Prompt Advantageous Gene Mutations as Plants Grow; Changes Passed to Progeny.” It could also have read: “Lamarck Was Correct, Evolution is False.” Of course this is not new news. For the umpteenth time we hear about the inheritance of acquired characteristics—the catch phrase most often associated with the pre Darwin naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck—which evolutionists desperately opposed for so many years until it could no longer be suppressed so now they say it was their idea all along. Yes there is indeed a battle against science, it’s just not the one evolutionists want you to believe.  Read more