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The Happy Atheist PZ Myers’ blog was once the world’s most visited science blog. He then migrated his blog toward other issues like freethought and became involved in some of the most entertaining internet dramas like Elevator Gate. He actually took time as a science professor to answer questions intended for science professors: No not the list of stumpers again. I don’t have time right now to go through his responses, but he did have some good ones like: Most molecular evolution is neutral. Done. I’d like to thank PZ, Arthur Hunt, Larry Moran and all the science professors who responded to my draft list of questions. Their feedback will be very helpful to on going improvements to that list Read More ›

The new director of the NCSE, Ann Reid, is a fellow alum from the same institution as I, and in addition to my obligation to show her collegial courtesy, I feel in such high profile blog as hers, I should comment with as much eloquence and grace as possible. I would hope any IDists posting to Ann’s blog will be more diplomatic than we usually are in our blog wars, and write as if we are seeking to reach the undecided middle rather than just venting our dislike of evolutionism. Angry responses against evolution on her blog I do not view as speaking well of ID and creation. UD is a better place to vent such feelings. 🙂 Please do Read More ›

Students who ask science professors certain questions will be the ones who’ll appreciate the weaknesses in various anti-ID or anti-creation theories. Preferably they’ll ask after they’ve gotten an “A” in the class, maybe even after they’ve gotten their diploma. The ideal IDist or creationist student can hopefully score in the 99th percentile on evolutionary tests, but still understand the difficulties with anti-ID theories like Darwinian evolution. Jonathan Wells had his list of questions that high school students should ask their biology teachers, and there have been some good responses, thus I didn’t think Wells’ list provided pointed enough questions. So I’m developing a list for college students interested in ID or creation science. Here are some questions off the top Read More ›

Prize Winning Catholic Biologist Creationists Can’t Stand Kenneth Miller wrote the biology textbook often targeted by creationists who want to toss it from public schools. Oh, and now he’s won one of the Catholic Church’s top prizes. Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller, one of America’s leading advocates, has just received one of America’s oldest and most prestigious awards—from the Roman Catholic Church. At commencement on May 18, the University of Notre Dame will honor Miller with the 2014 Laetare Medal, an award given annually to a Catholic “whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity.” The award was first given in 1883 and previous recipients include former President Read More ›

Paul Nelson poses question to Nick on Paul Nelson Day and a report of Nick Matzke’s response to Paul Nelson

From the National Center for Selling Evolutionism (NCSE) NCSE is delighted to congratulate Zack Kopplin, recently named as the winner of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s 2014 Howard K. Schachman Public Service Award. In a March 24, 2014, press release, Jeremy Berg, president of the ASBMB and director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Personalized Medicine, commented (PDF), “Zack has been a true champion of science education, which has become all the more important in these times where educational standards are being debated. … Zack has tirelessly fought for the teaching of evolution in classrooms.” Among Kopplin’s achievements is the launch of the campaign, now in its fourth incarnation as Senate Bill 175 (PDF), to repeal Read More ›

DNA Skittle was a DNA visualization program pioneered by John Sanford to help identify design features of DNA that are recognizable to the human visual system. The program is available for free, but the Skittle developers need help with ensuring it is usable through internet channels. Can you spare 10 minutes and review the product and post comments here at UD or: CEU DNA Skittle Feedback. If you want an account at CEU just post here at UD that you want an account, and I’ll have a temporary password emailed to you (your UD profile email) using your UD handle as your CEU username. Here is the first round of feedback the Skittle team needs: Are all the buttons functional Read More ›

Walter Remine mentioned in passing about a parasite that slowly evolved to lose all its organs except for its anus. Unfortunately he didn’t recall the name of the creature or whether he got all the details right, but rather than peppered moths, if that creature really exists, it should be the poster child of Darwinism. I’ve argued almost from the beginning that most observed evolution in real time is loss of function. Loss of function is called reductive evolution. And the fact that most selectively favored adaptations involving function is loss of function rather than acquisition of function is what I refer to as Behe’s Rule. But far be for evolutionists to salute creationists and IDists who have pointed out Read More ›

[cross posted at CEU Insight and Inspiration. The essay is terse and is primarily oriented to high school seniors and college freshman struggling with their Christian faith, but presents the essentials in refuting the “bad design” argument. It links to revised essays that were edited and cleaned up from their original form at UD. The links are for those wanting a far more advanced treatment of the “bad design” argument.] [for new students of creation science and intelligent design] Perhaps the strongest argument against the existence of God and against His Intelligent Design of the universe is the fact the world is a real mess. The argument goes something like this: Someone so smart and capable as God wouldn’t make Read More ›

Larry actually had some rare kind words for me. He said here Cordova is correct. Thanks for the kind words, Larry! Larry goes on to argue that organisms can tolerate lots of mutations and still reproduce. Yes, I agree, but reproduction is not the real thing in question, it is the existence of designs. I’ve argued even with creationists the issue isn’t whether mutations are “beneficial” or “deleterious” in the sense of differential reproductive success, the question is whether neutral evolution and real selection in the wild will tend to destroy design rather than build it. What’s the simplest fix to the problem of irreversibly accumulating bad mutations (as I illustrated here)? Simple, renormalize the selection coefficients and declare being Read More ›

Hats off to VJTorley for vindicating claims I’ve made about neutral theory (non-Darwinian evolution) for almost the last eight years at UD. He found this by PZ Myers: M]aybe we should be honest from the very beginning about the complexity of modern evolutionary theory and how it has grown to be very different from what Darwin knew. First thing you have to know: the revolution is over. Neutral and nearly neutral theory won. Fixation The Neutral Theory’s Achilles Heel Oh you mean PZ you all weren’t honest from the very beginning. 🙂 Just kidding! I would argue a slightly different Achilles heel, not the rate of “fixation” (awful term as it suggests improvement when in fact it could just as Read More ›

I’ve found it helpful to UD to post a thread where people can vent some of their off-topic ideas and thus keep off topics out of other threads. As long as you aren’t being confrontational and are family friendly, you are free to speak their mind. Here are my off Topics: “dogmatic opponents of design who demanded that the Center be shut down have met their Waterloo. Baylor University is to be commended for remaining strong in the face of intolerant assaults on freedom of thought and expression.” Bill Dembski Here is a good documentary on Waterloo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4K3vjCprE8 And another off-topic. This is the account of someone having the sort of change of heart that might make them open to Read More ›

the department chair took me aside and shared with me the results from the latest standardized testing of the senior biology majors. The test splits up their scores in four categories: cell, organismal, genetics, and evolution. To my absolute delight, Bryan College students scored in the 99th percentile – in the evolution category! That was their highest category too. Uh oh! Who’s been teaching them evolution? Well, that would be me. The class I’m teaching this semester is called “History of Life,” which is just a euphemism for evolutionary biology. I teach straight from Freeman and Herron’s Evolutionary Analysis, and we read Darwin’s Origin of Species during the class. The students know my position on origins, and when appropriate, I Read More ›

My eyes popped out with this headline from none other than Darwin-loving, ID-despising, creationist-hating New Scientist: Tree of Bird Life Could Solve Noah’s Ark Problem 😯 GENETICS could help solve the Noah’s Ark problem: faced with limited space, which species do you save? Focusing on the most evolutionarily unique and ancient species could allow us to save more branches of the tree of life, at the lowest cost and effort. Now a genetic analysis has found the most unique birds and identified 113 locations that hold more than half the global avian evolutionary diversity. The findings will be used to focus conservation efforts where they will have the biggest impact. Conservationists tend to focus on a few big-name species, like Read More ›

[Noah Opens in Theaters Tomorrow] There’s nothing quite so helpful as a fatwa and threats of a Christian boycott to create buzz in advance of a new movie. “Noah,” scheduled for its U.S. release on March 28, has become such a target. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain have banned the movie because it depicts a prophet, which, as Danish cartoonists will attest, isn’t the peachiest of ideas in certain circles. Even here in the land of religious tolerance, the National Religious Broadcasters threatened to boycott the film unless Paramount, the film’s distributor and co-financier with New Regency, issued a disclaimer that the movie isn’t a literal interpretation of the Genesis story. …. Alas, under pressure, Paramount altered its Read More ›