Donald Johnson, a scientist who checked out of Darwinism, had a look at the junk DNA file in Probability’s Nature and Nature’s Probability LITE: A Call to Scientific Integrity (2009), p. 56: Dawkins popularized the idea that any DNA not actively trying to get to the next generation would slowly decay away through mutation and Read More…
Author: News
Denyse O'Leary is the News blogger for Uncommon Descent
Seems like yesterday: British TV presenter disowned Darwinism
… in the last year of his life. Not anyone’s idea of a fundamentalist Christian, Gordon Rattray Taylor (1911-1981) was the author of a well-known anti-population-growth work and other trendy stuff as well. In the last year of his life (1983) Taylor wrote The Great Evolution Mystery, disowning Darwinism. Some excerpts here. He talked about Read More…
Harris poll: 76% support books that “discuss evolution” in school libraries
A recent Harris poll revealed “Most Americans Opposed to Banning Any Books” (April 12, 2011): While few Americans think that there are books which should be banned completely, opinions differ on books that should be available to children in school libraries. Strong majorities say that children should be able to get The Holy Bible (83%) Read More…
Another unusual, life-free exoplanet
“’Exotic’ planet is densest of its kind: 55 Cancri e as dense as lead and has year less than 18 hours long,” we learn from Emily Chung, CBC News (Apr 29, 2011): 55 Cancri e is a super-Earth located in a very tight, short orbit around a yellow dwarf star similar to Corot-7b, above. Corot 7b Read More…
Seems like just yesterday … atheist British journalist checked out of Darwinism
1997: …natural selection can be made to explain opposed and even mutually contradictory individual adaptations. For example, Darwinists claim that camouflage coloring and mimicry (as in leaf insects) is adaptive and will be selected for, yet they also claim that warning coloration (the wasp’s stripes) is adaptive and will be selected for. Yet if both Read More…
She said it: Philosopher Mary Midgley tells humanists why she isn’t a humanist
Here. Famed British philosopher Mary Midgley has examined the religious aspect of Darwinism/materialist humanism in some detail, pointing out that denying the reality of the mind leaves it with nothing but empty speculation about what ancestors did as a way of understanding human nature. She also points out that the era of evolutionary psychology followed Read More…
Fact: All real scientists believe Darwinism – otherwise, they wouldn’t be real scientists
Sweden’s king decorated molecular cytogeneticist Antonio Lima-de-Faria “Knight of the Order of the North Star” for his outstanding experimental work, which elucidated the molecular organization of the chromosome and its evolutionary path. And his opinion of Darwinism is here. And as Suzan Mazur reports, Lima-de-Faria does not consider Charles Darwin’s 1859 idea of natural selection — Read More…
Coffee!! Can mathematics illuminate politics?
Here’s a discussion at New Scientist on proportional representation vs. “first past the post”: Can mathematics help? On 5 May, the UK will hold a referendum to determine which voting system the country should use in future elections, with voters asked to decide whether they want to adopt the alternative vote (AV) or stick with Read More…
Is no one ‘that kind of Darwinian any more’? Non-Darwin atheist philosopher/biologist team doubt it.
… some of our good friends, patented experimental biologists (usually known as ‘wet’ biologists) who have read previous versions of this manuscript, slapped us on the wrist because they think what we are saying is overkill. They told us, ‘no one is that kind of Darwinian any more.’ We’d be happy if that were so, Read More…
One reason an atheist philosopher endorses intelligent design
Consider some feature of the universe, such as its beginning to exist (assuming that it did begin to exist). There are various competing explanations we can consider for such a feature, and one of those explanations will be that the feature was due to an intelligent cause. We may judge this explanation to be the Read More…
Coffee!! She reported it: Why the public should always believe “science”
WORLD GETTING CRAZIER, HE SAYS. IN A FEW HUNDRED YEARS THE WHOLE EARTH WILL BE OUT OF ITS MIND London Aug.1. The vision of a mad world and an era of lunacy was prophesied by Dr Forbes Winslow yesterday while expressing his dissent from the statement made at the Eugenics Congress by Dr Mott that Read More…
He said it: Why Darwin’s personality matters
Now it may be argued that Darwin’s hostility to Christianity is beside the point. Shouldn’t a scientific theory be judged on its own merits, rather than on the motives and psychology of its progenitor? Yes, of course – if the theory is truly scientific Read More…
“Twentieth century dematerialism”?
A late 2010 cosmology book features cosmologist Paul Davies as editor. Davies is known for a number of reflections on extraterrestrials. Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics “This is the anthology we have been waiting for … seminal papers deal with matter through the history of Greek thought, seventeenth-century materialism and Read More…
“Evolution,” we are told, “can cause a rapid reduction in genome size”
From the Max Planck Institute, we learn (April 21, 2011): Despite being closely related to the lyre-leaved rock cress, the thale cress has a considerably smaller genomeIt would appear reasonable to assume that two closely related plant species would have similar genetic blueprints. However, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Read More…
Brown University anti-ID biochemist wins award
Brown University Catholic biochemist Ken Miller is to receive the Stephen Jay Gould Prize prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution because Dr. Miller has proved an eloquent and passionate defender of evolution and the scientific method. Dr. Miller received his PhD in Biology from the University of Colorado and taught from 1974 Read More…