Darwinism

Anika Smith, of the Discovery Institute, brings us exciting new information: SEATTLE, WA – Despite Darwinist’s attempts to suppress the debate over evolution, a new book about the controversial theory of intelligent design made Amazon.com’s list of the year’s Top 10 bestselling books in science, just as the world marks 150 years since Charles Darwin published his own theory in his landmark book On the Origin of Species. Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperOne) by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer is entering its fifth printing in as many months, and continues to sell strongly both online and in stores, reports the book’s publisher. According to Amazon.com, books on its 2009 list of best sellers are Read More ›

Intelligently Designed Nanotechnology

As Casey Luskin reveals in this episode of ID the Future, eminent biologists have said that they must continually remind themselves that what they see in biology evolved, and was not designed. But now engineers are turning to biology to replace human technology because biological pathways provide superior solutions to biomedical-technological needs. Is this trend more consistent with an evolved biosphere, or an intelligent designed one? Listen to this podcast and decide for yourself.

Listen here.

Yes, but sometimes people don’t see the forest for the trees. Read More ›

The following is a crude 1-minute silent animation that I and members of the IDCS Network put together. God willing, there will be major improvements to the animation (including audio), but this is a start. Be sure to watch it in full screen mode to see the details.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrIDjvpx7w4

The animation asserts that if harmful mutation rates are high enough, then there exists no form or mechanism of selection which can arrest genetic deterioration. Even if the harmful mutations do not reach population fixation, they can still damage the collective genome.

The animation starts off with healthy gingerbread men as parents. Each spawns ginger kids, and the red dots on the kids represent them having a mutation. The missing ginger limbs are suggestive of severe mutations, the more mild mutations are represented by ginger kids merely having a red dot and not severe phenotypic effects of their mutation. The exploding ginger kids represent Selection doing its thing and removing the less functionally fit from the population. The persistence of red dots on the ginger kids represents persistence of bad mutations despite any possible mechanism of selection.

Nobel Prize winner HJ Muller (of Muller’s ratchet fame) suggested that the human race can’t even cope with a harmful rate of 0.1 per new born. The actual rate has been speculated to be on the order of 100-300.

The animation uses a conservative harmful rate of 1 and argues (with some attempts at humor) that deterioration would thus be inevitable even with a harmful rate of 1 per new born.

I save discussion in the comment section the relevant but technical topics of truncation selection, sexual reproduction, recombination, synergistic epistasis, compensatory mutations, relief from Muller’s ratchet etc. These highly technical topics should be addressed and were not included in the animation. We can discuss them in the comment section.

However, the essential problem of mutation rates and deterioration is depicted by the animation. How this cartoon is illustrative of reality (when we consider the technicalities such as recombination, sexual reproduction, synergistic epistasis), can be discussed in the comment section.
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Getting Over Our Love for Darwin
By William A. Dembski
Posted Tuesday, November 03, 2009

http://www.texanonline.net/default.asp?action=article&aid=6474&issue

Charles Darwin published his “Origin of Species” in 1859. There he presented the classic formulation of his theory of evolution. Lady Ashley, reacting to the theory at the time, remarked, “Let’s hope that it’s not true; but if it is true, let’s hope that it doesn’t become widely known.” Lady Ashley’s second hope has failed: Darwin’s theory is everywhere and has now become textbook orthodoxy. This year, universities around the globe are celebrating the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” as well as the 200th anniversary of his birth.

But what about Lady Ashley’s hope that Darwin’s theory is false? Darwin presented a bleak picture of ourselves: we are mere modified apes; we are the “winners” in a brutal competitive evolutionary process, most of whose players are “losers,” wiped off the evolutionary scene before they could leave a legacy; the traditional Christian view that we are made in God’s image is simply a story we tell to convince ourselves that we’re special. 

Intelligent design supporters like me view Darwin’s theory as untrue and even as laughable: The theory purports to give a materialistic account of life’s development once life is already here, but it has a gaping hole at the start since matter gives no evidence of being able to organize itself from non-life into life. The fossil record, especially the sudden emergence of most animal body plans in the Cambrian explosion, sharply violates Darwinian expectations about the historical pattern of evolutionary change. The nano-engineering found in the DNA, RNA, and proteins of the cell far exceeds human engineering and remains completely unexplained in Darwinian terms.

Darwin lovers are quick to reject such complaints.  Read More ›

My review of Michael Flannery’s edition of Darwin’s co-theorist Wallaces’s World of Life  in Touchstone has been published. Having followed the intelligent design controversy for a decade, I have noticed a recent key change. This year, being the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, should have continued Charles Darwin’s century and a half of triumph. Yet his followers’ accolades are greeted with increasing incredulity, among both serious scientists and the general public. For example, serious scientists and thinkers convened last year at Altenberg, Austria, to consider alternatives to Darwin’s theory of evolution, and a recent Zogby poll showed that most people still don’t believe it, after countless years and dollars spent to convince them. Darwinism Read More ›

Science 6 November 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5954, pp. 784 – 787 DOI: 10.1126/science.326_784  On the Origin of Religion          Elizabeth Culotta “How and when did religion arise? In the 11th essay in Science’s series in honor of the Year of Darwin, Elizabeth Culotta explores the human propensity to believe in unseen deities. No consensus yet exists among scientists, but potential answers are emerging from both the archaeological record and studies of the mind itself. Some researchers, exploring religion’s effects in society, suggest that it may boost fitness by promoting cooperative behavior. And in the past 15 years, a growing number of researchers have followed Darwin’s lead and explored the hypothesis that religion springs naturally from the normal workings of the Read More ›

People increasingly ask me about Francis Collins’s opposition of ID and what to make of it. The short answer is, “Though a Christian, Collins is a thorough-going Darwinist, implacably opposes ID, asserts that it has been discredited scientifically, yet gives little evidence of understanding ID’s main arguments and refuses to engage proponents of ID in public discourse.” For the longer answer, see the following replies to Collins by ID proponents: Biography of Collins: http://www.discovery.org/a/10491 Jonathan Wells, “Darwin of the Gaps: A Review of The Language of God by Francis S. Collins” http://www.discovery.org/a/4529 Jonathan Witt, “Random Acts of Design and Francis Collins” http://www.discovery.org/a/3795 [originally at:] http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=19-08-032-f   David Klinghoffer, “Facing Darwin and the Deity” http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/012/542pbkmy.asp Denyse O’Leary, multi-part review http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/2006/11/book-review-language-of-god-and.html   Read More ›

I am pleased to report that The Spiritual Brain is going into Polish translation. Maybe this is hopeful. For a long while we couldn’t sell TSB abroad because some commentators said the book was “too religious”. I have no idea why. The book isn’t especially religious unless … you mean if any book threatens materialists … ? But wouldn’t people want to know why materialism probably isn’t true? Well, I guess Poles do, and good for them. Given that Darwinism is the creation story of atheism, one question it all raises for me – and this was raised by a relative a decade ago – why is Darwinism even public business? Who cares why the tyrannosaur died? Whether Neanderthal man Read More ›

Sometimes, when discussing the much misunderstood Scopes Trial, I have referred to the textbook from which Scopes was teaching, Hunter’s Civic Biology, which seems to have been an amalgam of civics and biology, with a dose of eugenics thrown in, and smug assertions about “highest” or “lowest”. Bad idea. Enough already with total subject confusion, ecological misunderstanding, and useless social conflict. Here’s an interesting site where Ron Ladouceur gives us a tour of exotic textbooks of our storied past. I am glad my own biology teachers focused on the cell theory of life, the germ theory of disease, and the life and times of the endangered ribbon snake (= ecology). There is only so much students will take away when Read More ›

Jason Rosenhouse has written a blog about Michael Ruse and William Dembski. His complaint against Ruse, among other things, is that Ruse is too cordial, too civil with ID supporters, Dembski especially.

And while I may dislike and disagree with Ruse’s thinking, it is his actions over the last several years that I loathe and detest. I hate the way he has been doing everything in his power to prop up the ID folks. I hate that he persuaded a presitgious university press to publish a book co-edited by William Dembski, which featured four essays defending “Darwinism” that seemed tailor made to make evolution look bad. I hate that he contributes essays to anthologies designed to celebrate ID promoters and that he tells debate audiences that Dembski has made valuable contributions to science. Go here for relevant links and further details.

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On the other hand, if this is what you’ve got to do to sell the product, maybe it ain’t so great … SOURCE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hUNBhRiKCI

November 9, 2009 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. St. Pius V University (Rome) In Response to Pope Benedict XVI’s Call for Both Sides to be Heard The 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” in November 2009 will be the occasion for a unique conference at Pope Pius V University in Rome presenting a scientific refutation of evolution theory. According to Russian sedimentologist Alexander Lalamov, “Everything contained in Darwin’s Origin of Species depends upon rocks forming slowly over enormous periods of time. The November conference demonstrates with empirical data that such geological time is not available for evolution.” Recently returned from a ground-breaking geological conference in Kazan, sedimentologist Guy Berthault will present the findings of several sedimentological studies conducted Read More ›

Anika Smith has reported at Evolution News and Views an attack which appears to be original to Darwinists. Although the attackers are, as yet, anonymous, the apparent motivation was to obfuscate a conference featuring leading Intelligent Design proponents scheduled this weekend at Douglas County Event Center in Castle Rock, Colorado. Earlier this month the Shepherd Project Ministries’ website was breached using a “brute force attack” to break the password. The hackers then deleted webpages containing information about an upcoming conference featuring Discovery Institute speakers Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and John West. “No question whatsoever about [what] they were targeting,” said Shepherd Project Executive Director Craig Smith. “That was brazen. We were a little stunned, to be perfectly honest. Read More ›