Darwinism

A friend wants me to know about this latest BioEssays editorial, wailing about the use of teleological language in biology (= it happened so that). As in: …It is that innocent little word ‘to’ that transforms the meaning, giving enzyme Y the essence of ‘will’ – ‘to’ being short for ‘in order to ‘, or ‘with the purpose of’. Purpose can only be exercised by a supernatural entity in this situation.  So? Who’s that problem for? You? Me? The author? Darwin? Get ready to front zillions in taxes and maybe court cases, stopping people expressing themselves in a normal way, for one purpose only: to front Darwinism.

Having seen what the Texas schools Darwin lobby had to say about self-organization (no, we can’t talk about that in class because students might confuse it with ID), I couldn’t help wondering what they will have to say about say about, oh, convergent evolution. Maybe it’s just because I gotta write about that today, and need to hear the good word from Brother Charlie again, to keep me on the straight and narrow. Or not. But all that got me thinking, who are these people? Well, I asked around, and whattan earful! Apparently, they are a set of people around a former Texas governor , who treat the school system as a private playground for rich people. Makes complete sense. Read More ›

Coffee!! Intelligent design and evidence I note where the folks at ENV have been talking about Mike Behe’s still-spun flagellum = a bacterial motor assembly that cannot have been the result of chance. Read the discussion by all means, but first, pause a moment, and ask: So? So what? What kind of agenda does one need to have, that a big problem arises if the flagellum is not the result of chance? What kind of science – I use the word loosely here – is at stake? What would design stop us from doing that we should otherwise do? Now, as for evidence, this much I know is true: Few people actually pay any attention to it. The Darwinist has Read More ›

Gosh, if you go with the history … But this is now. Templeton award winner Francisco Ayala graces Baylor March 24/25 7:30 PM, Thursday 24 March, “Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion,” public lecture.  1:30 PM, Friday 25 March, “The Molecular Clock of Evolution,” technical lecture. Prof. Ayala is a world renown geneticist, a former Catholic priest, and a high profile advocate for the compatibility of science and religion. In a series of books he has eloquently laid out the arguments for evolution, and particularly for natural selection, and detailed the history of the resulting debates that ensued from Darwin’s first publication of “On the Origin of Species”, which will be the subject of his talk on Thurs night. Dr. Read More ›

In response to my profile of Cap’n “I don’t read the stuff I review” Zen, whoever he may be, a friend – with some experience dealing with these types  – kindly writes to say, … many members of the militant atheist set will often write “canned” reviews of a book with either minimal reading or no reading whatsoever. Most actual users of Amazon will give such “reviews” a negative vote. However, the goal of these writers is not so much to provide their particular slant on the book as it is to try to crowd out serious or thoughtful reviews on a topic they dislike. To further this end, they post a link to their reviews on various “science” (read Read More ›

Kathryn Applegate writes a long post at Biologos purporting to refute a short observation of mine here at UD, namely, my post about Craig Venter challenging Richard Dawkins over common descent. Most of her post does not merit response, but I will note the following: (1) Yes, I did carefully view the video in question. (2) To talk about a “bush of life” is to deny, or at least question, common descent: the geometry of a bush is fundamentally different from the geometry of a tree, which has one main trunk; a bush, by contrast suggests multiple “origins.” (3) In line with the last point, Venter agrees that life on earth is all of the same genetically based type (we’re Read More ›

Escapes trampling by troll competitors – Tells reporters: “Real thinkers don’t read books” Here, at Amazon, the indispensable Nature of Nature (a compendium of the pro- and anti-ID writings of many of the world’s best champions on either side), has attracted a “review” by one, Colonel Zen, who allows us to know that he actually has not read the book. Well, I haven’t read this … and at their vanity press price am unlikely to, but I’d take bets. I say “review”, not review because if the Colonel has not read the book, it is not a review, by definition. If you would like to go to the linked site and join the commenters by pointing out that fact, please Read More ›

In the Early Edition of PNAS, there’s an article about the fly’s evolutionary tree. While not having access to the article, the supplemental information is available online.

In the abstract the authors note that:

. . . we use micro-RNAs to resolve a node with implications for the evolution of embryonic development in Diptera. We demonstrate that flies experienced three episodes of rapid radiation—lower Diptera (220 Ma), lower Brachycera (180 Ma), and Schizophora (65 Ma)—and a number of life history transitions to hematophagy, phytophagy, and parasitism in the history of fly evolution over 260 million y.

If you connect to the link below, and then scroll to the last page (p. 8), you’ll see the graph which compares the actual species diversity (clade size) versus the age of the fly grouping, and which includes dark lines indicating the “expected” relationship between “clade size” and “age”. The dark line is at a 45-degree angle, in conformity with the notion of Darwinian gradualism: that is, as organisms slowly evolve (a radiation outward from the major form), they slowly diverge morphologically, one from the other. So, the greater amount of time, the greater amount of diversity in a particular family of flies.

Clade Size vs. Age for Diptera Families pnas Mar 14 2011

But what the graph demonstrates is that the diversification happened suddenly, and over a short period of time.

Read More ›

Recently, Bantay, a commenter on a post addressing the origin of language, quoted

…because Darwinists need to chase their tails by denying precisely what language itself affirms (meaning, order, and purpose)”

and asked

Does that mean that when Dawkins speaks, it is meaningless, orderless and purposeless?

Well, let me try to unpack that a bit.

Conversation with friend

Recently, I was on a road trip with a friend who wanted me to listen to this wow! CD by a dynamite Catholic preacher, who was into Thomism. (Thomism, sometimes neo-Thomism, is an attempt to use the teachings of medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas to counter materialism, Darwinism, etc.)

He made clear he was not talking about (nonsense like) intelligent design or creationism when he offered “proofs for God” going back to ancient times. I listened carefully, and then my friend asked me what I thought.

I sensed I’d better not just make social noise (= Isn’t he wonderful! Isn’t he profound! Take that,atheists!). So I thought about it, then said,

He is a good preacher, but I believe his arguments will have no impact whatever today, and at present are merely a distraction. Here is what I learned, writing The Spiritual Brain:

The Darwinist does not believe in the reality of the mind, and as a result, arguments from reason and logic are dismissible, because they are simply the natural selection of your successful genes operating on your neurons to produce delusions that cause you to pass on your genes. Tht is why people continue, through the generations, to find them persuasive. As materialist cognitive psychologist Steve Pinker, has said, “Our brains are shaped for fitness, not for truth.”

To get some sense of how this plays out, Read More ›

Okay, it’s not Stephen King, but no scholar ever is. Recently, the journal Synthese had to put a disclaimer on an article written by a Darwin lobbyist about Baylor scholar Frank Beckwith (philosophy and church-state studies*). I am happy to say that, as of this date, his has become the most downloaded article. That is a positive sign for academic life in general, just when we thought they’d fall clear down to China, and out into space. But there is, after all, a bottom somewhere. here is the first story on the subject (what happened), here is a backgrounder, and here are some reflections. * In previous posts, I had assumed he was a law prof, and will correct that Read More ›

Reading further into Suzan Mazur’s Altenberg 16: An Expose of the Evolution Industry, I learned something interesting: Scientists and philosophers who explore self-organization in evolution  also battle the armies of Fortress Tenure (trolls commanded by tax burdens). Mazur notes that zoologist and natural philosopher Stan Salthe, visiting scholar at Binghamton University says “his skepticism about natural selection has made him “poison” in some science circles.” He’s not by any means the only one whose name comes up. Materialist atheist philosopher Jerry Fodor (MIT) joked that he was in the Witness Protection Program for his skepticism of evolutionary psychology.[!] Meanwhile, Stuart Newman of New York Medical College warns, Unless the discourse around evolution is opened up to scientific perspectives beyond Darwinism, the Read More ›

In “Evolution Drives Many Plants and Animals to Be Bigger, Faster (ScienceDaily, Mar. 9, 2011), we learn: For the vast majority of plants and animals, the ‘bigger is better’ view of evolution may not be far off the mark, says a new broad-scale study of natural selection. Organisms with bigger bodies or faster growth rates tend to live longer, mate more and produce more offspring, whether they are deer or damselflies, the authors report. Researchers working at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center compiled and reviewed nearly 150 published estimates of natural selection, representing more than 100 species of birds, lizards, snakes, insects and plants. The results confirm that for most plants and animals, larger body size and earlier seasonal timing Read More ›

Going through Suzan Mazur’s Altenberg 16, after reading Bill Dembski’s post yesterday on genome mapper Craig Venter “coming out” as a disbeliever in the sacred teaching of common descent – in the very presence of Darwin’s high priest Dawkins* – I couldn’t help recalling New Zealand journalist Suzan Mazur’s effort to get a reaction from National Center for Science Education (the Darwin in the schools lobby), and its outcome: … when I called Kevin Padian, president of NCSE’s board of directors and a witness at the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover trial on intelligent design, to ask him about the evolution debate among scientists — he said, “On some things there is not a debate.” He then hung up.- Suzan Mazur, Read More ›

Dawkins pal Jerry Coyne has noticed the ID Community’s reb, and in “Moshe Averick: another creationist rabbi”, he makes clear what he thinks of clergy who have actually noticed the unseen world: Perhaps I was wrong to assume that rabbis have higher respect for science, and less tolerance for theological bullshit, than do Christian preachers or Muslim imams. Let us take it as a given that no rabbi, whatever his learning, can have a high respect for truth if something he says displeases Jerry Coyne. That’s just the way the universe is. Having pointed out that our “maverick” is nobody’s fool (used to trade on the Chicago Exchange floor), Coyne invites his trolls to go after Averick’s comment about the Read More ›

Interesting story at Evolution News & Views about an exchange between Craig Venter (of human genome fame) and Richard Dawkins (of neo-atheist fame). Venter denies common descent, Dawkins can’t believe that he would even question it. For the exchange, which also includes Paul Davies, go here (start at the 9 minute mark). Origin-of-life researchers such as Ford Doolittle and Carl Woese have questioned for some time whether there even is a tree of life. Venter is now following in their train. What’s significant is not so much whether Venter is right (I think he is), but what his dissent from Darwinian orthodoxy suggests about the disarray in the study of biological origins. If common descent is up for grabs, what isn’t? Read More ›