Darwinism

As some UD readers may be aware, I earn my living in the aerospace research and development field, with a specialty in guidance, navigation and control (GN&C). When asked what I do for a living, I usually respond, “Well, it’s basically rocket science.” This brief audio file, which our aerospace engineers have studied with much interest, elucidates the essential principles of missile guidance algorithms. Upon reflection, I realized that Darwinian logic is indeed rocket science! After listening to the brief lecture provided above, the similarities between Darwinism and rocket science should be obvious to any unbiased observer.

For those UD readers who are not familiar with it, I recommend visiting ARN. On the right-hand side of the home page you will see a section entitled “The ID Report.” Here, UD’s very prolific author and commentator, Denyse O’Leary, posts on a regular basis. So do other authors, and one of my favorites is Roddy Bullock of idnetohio. In this recent ARN essay, Roddy does an excellent job of summing up UD’s mission statement. Below is an excerpt. I encourage UD readers to check out Roddy’s contributions at ARN whenever they become available. Naturalism, the unscientific crutch for unguided, purposeless Darwinism, turns scientific inquiry on its head. Suddenly a philosophy that presumes only unintelligent causation becomes gatekeeper to the Read More ›

I saw a film recently that I think would interest anyone who is concerned about the moral implications of Darwinism, and who also believes that art can help us to reflect upon moral issues. The film is Germany Year Zero (Germania Anno Zero, 1947), by Roberto Rossellini, shot in the ruins of Berlin in the aftermath of World War II with non-professional German actors (albeit dubbed in Italian). Like the near-contemporaneous films of Vittorio De Sica (Shoeshine, Bicycle Thieves), Germany Year Zero paints a compelling portrait of the chaos and poverty afflicting the civilian population—especially children—immediately following the war. What makes Germany Year Zero of exceptional interest, however, is the way in which it builds to an almost unbearably sad Read More ›

Over at ARN, David Tyler has a blog post entitled We must “understand that there is no serious scientific challenge to evolution.” It references an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The article was authored by Eugenie Scott and Nicholas Matzke of the National Center for Science Education, an organization whose sole purpose appears to be the promotion of Darwinian orthodoxy in publicly funded education, and the suppression of any and all scientific dissent from any aspect of the “theory,” by any means available.

David Tyler:

Eugenie Scott and Nicholas Matzke, from the National Center for Science Education, offer their analysis of how ID is making “a serious challenge not in the world of science, but in the world of public educational policy.” It is a paper that reworks the NCSE position without contributing any new ideas to the debate.

These authors reveal an unqualified confidence that evolutionary theory has the answers. It is “replete with explanations for complex biological structures.” It “continues to make progress in explaining such fascinating structures”. They assert that there is “no serious scientific challenge to evolution.” Underpinning theory are “fertile and unifying evolutionary principles.”

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Has Charles Darwin got a new bulldog? In an interview with Alison St. John, who is hosting the Tom Fudge talk show on KPBS in San Diego, Randy Olson once again gives his classic spiel touting ‘Flock of Dodos’, which Alison depicts as a “delightful odyssey”, and which Randy heartily agrees. Go here for the interview. In comparing his quest to humorously, but factually chronicling the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution controversy, Randy cites both science and his work as ‘story telling’ (no argument there, with regards Darwinian theory), but inserts the caveat that the works of scientists, “are constrained by this ugly little thing called the truth”. ‘Flock of Dodos’ circumvents this constraint, in my opinion. As he’s done in Read More ›

Discovery Institute and FRC present: Washington DC Event – Darwin’s Dangerous Idea The Disturbing Legacy of America’s Eugenics Crusade. There is live video available for those who wish to see the event remotely. Dr. John West of the Discovery Institute shows the connection between Darwin’s ideas and America’s Eugenics Crusade.

A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences makes the startling claim that all flagellar genes “originated through the successive duplication and modification of a few, or perhaps even a single, precursor gene” (see abstract below). While consistent with Darwinian evolution, such excessive hyperevolution was too much even for the hyperevolutionists at the Panda’s Thumb (go here), who are now distancing themselves from its conclusion. What’s going on here? How could people publish such a ridiculous result, and in PNAS of all places? Let me suggest the following hypothesis: Liu and Ochman, the authors of the piece, are really ID advocates who are pulling a Sokal-style hoax, pushing the envelope to see how extreme they can Read More ›

I asked Walter ReMine to write up his recent experiences debating Haldane’s Dilemma:

Evolutionist withholds evidence on Haldane’s Dilemma
By Walter ReMine

For many years I have publicly claimed Haldane’s Dilemma is a major unsolved problem for evolution. A problem so severe it threatens macroevolution as a “fact” and evolutionary genetics as an empirical science. The problem, briefly, is that evolutionary geneticist, J.B.S. Haldane (1957), discovered an important argument that limits the speed of evolution. Under his calculations, an ape-human-like population, given a generous ten million years, could substitute no more than 1,667 beneficial mutations — which, according to evolutionary geneticists, are each typically a single nucleotide. All the human adaptations within that time would have to be explained with this small number of substitutions. For more information, see here: http://tinyurl.com/3dtzjq.

The issue at the moment is: Evolutionists are withholding key evidence.

Toward a solution, evolutionary geneticist, Leonard Nunney, published a paper reporting his computer simulations. He claimed his computer simulations show rates of beneficial evolution much faster than the Haldane limit. Evolutionists now cite Nunney’s computer simulation as a refutation of my position.

Starting December 19, 2006, I sent emails to Prof. Nunney, expressing my interest in his paper, and requesting access to his simulation software. (I also emailed one of his colleagues, in his same evolutionary genetics department.) I received no answer. After several emails, across several months, I eventually reached Professor Nunney by phone on April 5th. He acknowledged he had received my emails, and said he had not responded because I “do not publish in peer-reviewed journals.” (his words)

I again requested his software for my examination of his published results and methods. He declined, saying he will not share his software with “people who do not publish in peer-reviewed journals.” (his words) Read More ›

Nick Matzke at PT describes a poster waved in protest at the recent Darwin vs. Design conference at Southern Methodist University. The poster read “Why do the ribosomes (protein synthesizing machinery) in our mitochondria match those of bacteria?” The intent behind this question was to suggest that we evolved from bacterial ancestors, whose remnants in us are the mitochondria and, presumably, their ribosomes, which the poster asserts “match” those of bacteria. Since I’m happy for the sake of argument to allow common descent, the more interesting question for me is what causal powers were required to produce ribosomes in the first place. But the poster, even taken on its own terms, is problematic. Eukaryotic, prokaryotic, and mitochondrial ribosomes are all Read More ›

The theme of descent and dissent, which has been a theme on this blog and in my book UNCOMMON DISSENT: INTELLECTUALS WHO FIND DARWINISM UNCONVINCING, has been picked up by Steve Fuller in his new book DISSENT OVER DESCENT: EVOLUTION’S 500-YEAR WAR ON INTELLIGENT DESIGN. AMAZON.UK description: “If you think Intelligent Design Theory (IDT) is merely the respectable face of Christian fundamentalism, and Evolution the only sensible scientific world-view, think again…IDT has driven science for 500 years. It was responsible for the 17th century’s Scientific Revolution and helped build modern histories of physics, mathematics, genetics and social science. IDT’s proponents take literally the Biblical idea that humans have been created in God’s image. This confident, even arrogant, view of humanity Read More ›

I posted a reference the other day to a peer-reviewed paper by two Finnish ID-supporters that I claimed supported ID. The paper highlighted that evolutionary methods work to the degree that they are directed. As is typical with our detractors, whenever a pro-ID paper by pro-ID scientists comes out in a peer-reviewed biology journal, they try their best to show that it doesn’t actually support ID. An example is the following post at PT by Steve Reuland: pandasthumb.org…the_proid_paper In reading Reuland’s critique, try to keep track of “rational design,” “directed evolution,” and “Darwinian methods.” Reuland conflates the last two. In so doing, Reuland completely misses the boat. So let me spell it out: DIRECTED EVOLUTION IS NON-DARWINIAN. DARWINIAN EVOLUTION IS Read More ›

Denyse O’Leary mentioned this review in one of her posts. Here it is. The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism Michael J. Behe. Free Press, $28 (336p) ISBN 978-0-7432-9620-5 http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6430603.html With his first book, Darwin’s Black Box, Behe, a professor of biology at Lehigh University, helped define the controversial intelligent design movement with his concept of “irreducible complexity.” Now he attempts to extend his analysis and define what evolution is capable of doing and what is beyond its scope. Behe strongly asserts, to the likely chagrin of young earth creationists, that the earth is billions of years old and that the concept of common descent is correct. But beginning with a look at malaria and the Read More ›

Now and again I’m asked to write the foreword to an ID book. Here’s a foreword I recently completed (I leave off the contributors and title so that Darwinists don’t sabotage the book before it sees the light of day): Read More ›

I don’t say much around here these days. In fact, I’ll be honest with you; the hard science which resides at the core of the debate over whether or not naturalistic mechanisms could have generated biological novelty or whatever else doesn’t especially interest me, so I pretty much leave it to others. Nor do I make it my mission to duke it out with anyone and everyone who opposes some position I hold with respect to ID. My time is just too precious, and many people won’t change their minds no matter what you tell them. But occasionally I come across statements just too flagrantly moronic to let them slide. Such is the case with this cheap shot a “guest contributor” at The Panda’s Thumb takes at something Dr. Egnor says (Egnor’s statement provided within the quote):
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I asked Jonathan Wells to put together the following brief update on evo-devo.

A March 30 press release from the University of Bath quoted evolutionary biologist Ronald A. Jenner as saying: “Since its inception, some workers feel that evo-devo hasn’t quite lived up to its early expectations.”

This is an understatement, since evo-devo has not provided an experimentally confirmed explanation of even a single case of macroevolutionary change. Yet Jenner’s sober assessment contrasts sharply with the extravagant boasting of Darwinist Sean B. Carroll: “Evo Devo reveals that macroevolution is the product of microevolution writ large… We now have a very firm grasp of how development is controlled. We can explain how tool kit proteins shape form, that tool kit genes are shared by all animals, and that differences in form arise from changing the way they are used.” (Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo, Norton 2005, pp. 291, 295)

Maybe Jenner and Carroll should talk… Read More ›