Category: Biology
Junk DNA can actually change genitalia
| June 20, 2018 | Posted by News under 'Junk DNA', Biology, Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
From at ScienceDaily: Mammals will develop ovaries and become females unless the early sex organs have enough of a protein called SOX9 at a key stage in their development. SOX9 causes these organs to become testes, which then direct the rest of the embryo to become male. The amount of SOX9 produced is controlled initially […]
At Quillette: Who will the Evergreen mob (targeted biology teacher recently) target next?
| April 24, 2018 | Posted by News under Biology, Culture, Intelligent Design, Science |
Readers may remember Ask Bret Weinstein who, with his also-biologist wife Heather Heyng, was driven from Evergreen State in Washington during a campus war on science (a side-skirmish in a bigger culture war*). From Debra Soh at Quillette: It’s been almost a year since violent student protests erupted at Evergreen State College—enough time for the […]
Three Things Biologists Rarely Know About Biology
| April 18, 2018 | Posted by johnnyb under Biology, Evolution |
I’ve talked to a number of biologists, and it seems like there are a number of important facts that are left out of a standard biological education.
Evergreen PoMo: Stop trying to “get” science. It is white supremacy.
| March 14, 2018 | Posted by News under academic freedom, Biology, Culture, Intelligent Design, Science |
Of course we knew the PoMos would get round to this. From John Sexton at Hot Air, quoting a now hard-to-find memo from Evergreen College: Earlier this week, some graffiti was spotted on campus that sought to couterpose intersectionality and the sciences, equating the latter with white supremacy. Facilities staff have completed the chore of […]
Christian Scientific Society: Can predatory animals be seen as “evil”?
| February 4, 2018 | Posted by News under Biology, Religion, Science, Mathematics, Philosophy and (Natural) Theology |
From David Snoke at the Christian Scientific Society: On Friday night, Mike Keas and I debated whether and how much human sin could be seen as a reason for animal death. We agreed on many things, for example, that the age of the earth is billions of years, that animals died before Adam and Eve […]
Science Mag: Scallop’s eye “Fine-tuned for image formation”
| December 5, 2017 | Posted by News under Biology, Culture, Darwinism, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design |
We typically think of eyes as having one or more lenses for focusing incoming light onto a surface such as our retina. However, light can also be focused using arrays of mirrors, as is commonly done in telescopes. A biological example of this is the scallop, which can have up to 200 reflecting eyes that […]
Design Disquisitions-The Evolution of a Protein Transport Machine: Fazale Rana on Irreducible Complexity
| September 21, 2017 | Posted by Joshua G under Biology, Cell biology, Darwinism, Irreducible Complexity |
This just in: Evergreen U settles with biology prof over threat of harm due to non-PC stance
| September 17, 2017 | Posted by News under academic freedom, Biology, Culture, science education |
From Ian Miles Cheong at Daily Caller: Evergreen State College has settled a tort claim with professor Bret Weinstein and his wife Heather Heying for $500,000 in connection to the 2017 “Day of Absence” protests, which saw anarchy spread throughout the campus earlier this year. “Through a series of decisions made at the highest levels, […]
Special issue of Biology: Evolution Beyond Selection will be open access
| September 10, 2017 | Posted by News under Biology, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
Here: The conventional NeoDarwinian appraisal of evolution is based on corresponding pillars of random genetic variation and selection via differential fitness. In the 21st century, a salient question arises. Is this a sufficient evolutionary narrative? This Special Issue will offer several differing perspectives on evolutionary development and phylogeny that extend beyond Darwinian selection. The role […]
Design Disquisitions: Critic’s Corner-Sahotra Sarkar
| August 22, 2017 | Posted by Joshua G under Biology, Darwinism, Evolution, Evolutionary biology, Food for thought, ID, Philosophy, Science |
My latest ‘Critic’s Corner’ post is now up. This one features the work of ID critic Sahotra Sarkar. Sarkar is one of the more sophisticated critics of ID so his work is worth engaging with. I have responded to some of his arguments in a previous post and plan to do more in the future: […]
Google: Should science be equated with truth?
| August 14, 2017 | Posted by News under Biology, Culture, Darwinism, Evolutionary psychology, Human evolution, Intellectual freedom, Intelligent Design |
From Heather Heying, weighing in on the Google foray into post-modern truth, which smacked an unwary engineer upside head, at Quillette: Should We “Stop Equating ‘Science’ With Truth”? Damore’s heresy turns on innate differences between men and women that have never been noticed by anyone in the history of human life on the planet except […]
Alan Sokal, buy yourself a latte: “Star Wars” biology paper accepted
| July 27, 2017 | Posted by News under Biology, Intelligent Design, Peer review, Science |
Physicist Sokal perpetrated the first hoax paper over two decades ago, to prove a point. From Stephanie Pappas at LiveScience: Mitochondria: totally real cell organelles that convert sugars, fats and oxygen into usable energy for cells. Midi-chlorians: completely made-up and widely derided microscopic life-forms that give Jedi warriors their ability to use the Force in […]
Design Disquisitions: H. Allen Orr on Darwin’s Failure
| June 28, 2017 | Posted by Joshua G under Biology, Darwinism, Food for thought, Natural selection, speciation |
Did Darwin really explain the origin of species? My quote of the month is now up on my blog. This is an interesting one as it comes from an evolutionary biologist and critic of ID. I also focus on comments of a similar nature that have been made in more recent years. Surprise, […]
Design Disquisitions: Peter S. Williams on Intelligent Design
| May 22, 2017 | Posted by Joshua G under Audio, Biology, Complex Specified Information, Darwinism, Design inference, Evolution, Food for thought, ID, Irreducible Complexity, Naturalism, Origin Of Life, Philosophy, Podcasts, Science |
In the latest post at Design Disquisitions I focus on the excellent work on ID by British philosopher Peter S. Williams. He has published several papers, and has many high quality articles and media presentations on the subject. His work was instrumental in initiating my change of mind from theistic neo-Darwinism to design. Highly recommended stuff! Peter […]
Design Disquisitions: Updated YouTube Playlists
| May 11, 2017 | Posted by Joshua G under Biology, Courts, Darwinism, Evolution, Food for thought, General interest, Media, Naturalism, Science, Video |
For the last year or so I have been accumulating quite a number of YouTube playlists. Recently I’ve been trying to get it a little more organised and cleaned up, so I thought I would point readers to it as a resource. At the moment I have just under 40 individual playlists. I have created […]
Design Disquisitions: On Perry Marshall’s ‘Evolution 2.0’ & Confusions About Design
| April 30, 2017 | Posted by Joshua G under Biology, Cell biology, Creationism, Engineering, Evolutionary biology, ID, Naturalism |
This week’s article at Design Disquisitions is about Perry Marshall’s ‘Evolution 2.0’ thesis and his criticisms of intelligent design. This article responds to some of his recent writings on his blog and his interaction with Stephen Meyer a few weeks back. Bottom line is, his philosophy of science has significant problems and he has some […]
Design Disquisitions: A Dialogue Between Peter S. Williams & Denis Alexander
| April 23, 2017 | Posted by Joshua G under Biology, Christian Darwinism, Complex Specified Information, Darwinism, Design inference, Food for thought, ID, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Philosophy |
Biology program without the Darwin worship
| April 10, 2017 | Posted by News under Biology, science education |
Aimed, one guesses, at people who already have a religion or don’t think they need one. From a group of instructors at Wake Forest University: BioBook Basic Edition and its linked resources are available free to everyone. Click on the Table of Contents tab to browse topics. Registered users must log in here or in […]
Design Disquisitions: Critic’s Corner-Elliott Sober
| April 6, 2017 | Posted by Joshua G under Biology, Darwinism, Evolution, ID, Philosophy, Science |
Over at Design Disquisitions I have a new ‘Critic’s Corner’ post. This one focusses on the work related to ID and evolution by Elliott Sober, a prominent ID critic and philosopher of science. I’ve always seen Sober as a more sophisticated critic of ID. This will be a handy resource for finding pretty much everything that […]
Design Disquisitions: Jeffrey Koperski on Two Bad and Two Good Ways to Attack ID (Part 2): Two ‘Good’ Ways
| March 20, 2017 | Posted by Joshua G under Biology, Convergent evolution, Darwinism, ID, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Natural selection, Naturalism, Peer review, Philosophy, Probability, Science, theistic evolution |
Part two of my series looking at Jeffrey Koperski’s paper ‘Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Good Ones’ is now up on my blog. This one is quite in depth, but a couple of interesting issues come up along the way. I examine the concept of soft and hard anomalies in scientific […]
