Douglas Moran

  The New York Times is reporting here on a discovery published in Nature of of a second code hidden in DNA.  According to the author, “In the genetic code, sets of three DNA units specify various kinds of amino acid, the units of proteins.  A curious feature of the code is that it is redundant, meaning that a given amino acid can be defined by any of several different triplets.  Biologists have long speculated that the redundancy may have been designed so as to coexist with some other kind of code, and this, Dr. Segal said, could be the nuclesome code.” Oops, he used the “D” word.  But let’s look beyond that  for the moment and think about what it Read More ›

It seems even the New England Journal of Medicine is unable to honestly charactarize what ID is. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/21/2277

unScientific American and Science News are reporting in (this) story that “darwinian debt”s are being generated by over-fishing and the result is that

Fast-growing fish therefore get penalized evolutionarily because they quickly become large enough to get caught…

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this nothing more than an exagerated example of dog-breeding (except with fish, of course)?

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I know this is a bit of a repeat of old news, but I thought some of you might appreciate a slightly different take on the McGill failure to put ID in it’s “proper place”. The proponents of what came to be called “intelligent design” are naturally being denounced by “respectable scientific authority,” and since advocacy of “ID” is obviously a career terminator, only about 10 percent of scientists (many safely retired) have done so. But their number is growing, and the movement is regarded by the scientific establishment as a serious danger. See what else Mr. Byfield has to say about it here. From the first article above you might also be interested to note that Alters, the McGill Read More ›

They seem to have gotten the headline wrong, but the content is correct. ID is winning the minds of intellectuals at an accelerating pace: Dr. Schroeder is only one of many intellectuals that are part of the rising tide questioning the science of evolution being taught in text books, where political agendas often create an environment stifling dissension and serious debate. Full article here. Would anyone like to take a shot at why the article title was so far off the content? Call it a Darwinian Slip?

McGill University’s Professor Brian Alters proposed a study entitled “Detrimental effects of popularizing anti-evolution’s intelligent design theory on Canadian students, teachers, parents, administrators and policymakers”. His request for funding to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, a Canadian federal agency, was denied in no uncertain terms: In denying his request, the research council’s peer-review committee recently sent Mr. Alters a letter explaining he’d failed to “substantiate the premise” of his study. It said he hadn’t provided “adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not intelligent-design theory, was correct.” Mr. Alters said yesterday that he was “shocked” at the council’s response and it offers “ironic” proof that his premise about intelligent design gaining Read More ›

Lynn Barton, college educated home-schooling ex-stock broker mother of two tells it like it is: Like a fierce game of whack-a-mole, wherever I.D.’s politically incorrect head pops up, its opponents rush to smack it back down. I am enjoying all this tremendously. What makes it so much fun to watch is that so far not one of the critics understands it. more here Note: be forwarned that the article isn’t entirely accurate technically. But it should be good fodder for discussion here.

Look at this. I suggest in no uncertain terms that threatening anyone or anything because of their political, religious, scientific, or any other belief is NOT acceptable behavior and should not be tolerated by anyone, especially on this blog. Origins, Darwinism, ID, etc. are all complex, highly scientific topics with implications beyond science that are contentious, at a minimum. But being contentious does not mean they should justify violence or threats of violence. So anyone out there reading this blog: if you’re thinking of resorting to violence or even threatening violence against ID detractors, DON”T DO IT. Your actions will only result in hurting inocent people and taking the focus off of our intended target (the science of and theory Read More ›

I know quite a few medical doctors. Some are researchers, some limit themselves to private practice, and some do both. These are men and women of all ages and specializations. Not thousands or even hundreds of them – but maybe 30 or 40. Mind you, this is only one data point from a small sampling of physicians, but it is a good one: not one of these fine people believes in Darwinian Evolution. One told me that “Any physician who doesn’t see intelligent design in even his most troubled patient is either blind or stupid or just not paying attention.” Here is an example of one doctor who is neither blind or stupid – he is paying close attention and Read More ›

On Common Descent v. Intelligent Design theories: Neither theory is proven, nor perhaps even provable, but both deserve to be on the table for discussion with equal value. The hysteria of Darwinists and atheists toward even discussing the concept of intelligent design exhibits a lack of confidence in their position, which, in and of itself, should be a part of the debate. It is unfortunate that so many public schools have capitulated to the pressures of the Darwinist-atheist coalition in its crusade to squelch any academic debate that may cast a shadow over its narrow, intolerant and tenuous suppositions. more here

“Creationist theories about how the world was made are to be debated in GCSE science lessons in mainstream secondary schools in England. The subject has been included in a new syllabus for biology produced by the OCR exam board, due out in September.” more here…

If I am a fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.
-George Gordon Byron

Intelligent Design is a theory that follows evidence observed in nature to the existence of one or more intelligent agents who had a role in building at least some of what we observe, particularly in living systems, physical laws, and cosmology. Intellectual Honesty dictates that we follow the evidence where it leads just as we should the evidence for any theory of origins (or anything else, for that matter). Rejecting the theory out of hand only because it might imply a cause which is disallowed on philosophical grounds is not science at all; it is Intellectual Dishonesty of the worst kind and a shameful placement of philosophy ahead of a science purported to be purely objective.

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“CARSON CITY — Longtime Las Vegan Steve Brown does not oppose the teaching of evolutionary theory in the public schools. Nor does he support teaching alternative views such as intelligent design or creationism. But Brown, a masonry contractor who has lived in Las Vegas for more than 30 years, does want the schools to teach the theory of evolution in what he calls the right way, which means acknowledging that much of the theory is just that — theory…” More here.

I’ts hard to imagine a more exciting time to be participating in this discussion. Just the past 24 hours have brought some incredibly exciting exchanges and inside information, see here and here. But most entertaining of all is Eugenie Scott recruiting churches to defend Darwinism:

Check this out.

And this.

So, Eugenie Scott wants to join forces with religious groups to defeat… what? Defeat a scientific theory? Aren’t scientists supposed to do that?

Ever heard of a Trojan Horse?

I can see the strategy now. Somewhere in the dank, dark caverns of Oxford U….

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“… Would they be able to detect products of intelligence and deduce that these objects had not evolved from the surrounding materials by chance?” Look here.