Darwinism

[Note: Even though I own the domain name overwhelmingevidence.com, I cannot take credit for these songs — I wish I could, but I can’t.]

OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE
(to the tune of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”) Read More ›

[From the 14Oct05 review in Science of Andreas Wagner’s new book:] Wagner does a wonderful job of outlining the parameters of the debate [over robustness, or how organisms achieve stability under perturbation]. He recognizes two basic difficulties. One is a catch-22: the more robust a system becomes, the less variable it is (by definition), and the less raw material there is available for selection to act on. A possible — but as yet unsubstantiated — solution to this dilemma is that environmental variation is always present. Thus, so long as selection acts to reduce environmental noise, genetic robustness might be expected to evolve in parallel. A more basic conundrum is that robustness must involve non-additive genetic interactions, but quantitative geneticists Read More ›

The following story, based largely on my interview with the local reporter on the Dover case (Lauri Lebo), doesn’t get an A for coherence or nuance, but I’m glad she got this point right: Dembski wrote, “In the words of Vladimir Lenin, What is to be done? Design theorists aren’t at all bashful about answering this question: The ground rules of science have to be changed.” Dembski said the remarks should be taken in historical context. “Science does not spring from Zeus’ head like Athena,” he said. He defends the movement to change the definition of science because the scientific method, which limits research to the natural world, has evolved in the past and will likely change in the future. Read More ›

The Wars Over Evolution By Richard C. Lewontin New York Review of Books Volume 52, Number 16 · October 20, 2005 The Evolution-Creation Struggle by Michael Ruse Harvard University Press, 327 pp., $25.95 Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution by Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd University of Chicago Press, 332 pp. $30.00 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18363 “… Maybe God is lurking out there somewhere but He doesn’t leave any residue in our test tube, so we will be tempted to assume He doesn’t exist. This is a philosopher’s worry that does not, as far as I can tell, correspond to the way people really acquire their views of reality. Some may have had mountaintop conversions at some point in Read More ›

From: Kenneth Miller [mailto:Kenneth_Miller@Brown.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: Some other questions…

Dear Friend,

You are one of scores of people who have written messages to me as a result of my scientific testimony at trial in Harrisburg, PA. I hope you will forgive the fact that I cannot possibly reply to each of you individually. While I appreciate your comments and respect you right to hold views with which I disagree, I thought it might be helpful to make a few things clear. Read More ›

Agreeing Only to Disagree on God’s Place in Science
By GEORGE JOHNSON

September 27, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/science/27essa.html?ei=5070&en=a8b05baabb3ce5f6&ex=1128484800&emc=eta1&pagewanted=print

… On matters scientific, Dr. Dawkins, who came from Oxford, and Dr. Conway Morris, a Cambridge man, agreed: The richness of the biosphere, humanity included, could be explained through natural selection. [I’ve corresponded with Conway Morris; he regards natural selection as an engine that powers evolution but not as what gives it direction. –WmAD] Read More ›

In today’s Washington Post, one reads: If Darwin was right, for example, then scientists should be able to perform a neat trick. Using a mathematical formula that emerges from evolutionary theory, they should be able to predict the number of harmful mutations in chimpanzee DNA by knowing the number of mutations in a different species’ DNA and the two animals’ population sizes. “That’s a very specific prediction,” said Eric Lander, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., and a leader in the chimp project. Sure enough, when Lander and his colleagues tallied the harmful mutations in the chimp genome, the number fit perfectly into the range that evolutionary theory had predicted. COMMENT: Darwin’s theory Read More ›

The Dover Area School District trial about the teaching of ID starts today, and you can expect a lot of press coverage concerning it. Yesterday evening, the BBC interviewed me and Robert Boston of Americans United for Separation the Secularization of Church and State regarding Dover (it was a telephone debate). Boston was following the script of the Secular Coalition for America to a tee: ID is biblical creationism with biblical references omitted (so what do you do with Plato, Aristotle, and Antony Flew?); ID has no presence in the scientific community (so what do you do with the recent peer-reviewed publications?); yeah, but 99.9% of publications reject ID (but just moment ago you said it was 100%); etc. Dealing Read More ›

Although it is widely known that Charles Darwin was a man of independent means (approximately US$10,000,000 in current money), recent historiographical studies have unearthed a new source of that money. Previously, it was thought that his wealth all derived from a shrewd marriage and wise investments. It has now come to light that a significant portion of that wealth derived from ownership of a wool factory, wool being the commodity that Darwin used to pull over the eyes of the scientific community.

The September 17th issue of the New Scientist features ten articles on “The World’s Ten Biggest Ideas.” These include the “Big Bang,” “Science,” and “Evolution.” Who did the article on evolution. You guessed it: Read More ›

I’ve already adverted to the 38 Nobelists who decided to go after ID to discredit it before the Kansas State Board of Education (go here; and here for their amazingly candid letter). The questions you should be asking yourself are these:

• Why did Elie Wiesel (or whoever put him up to it) put so much energy into getting these Nobel winners to sign that letter? Read More ›

Peter Ward imagines he is offering a devastating argument against teaching ID by asking us to consider the pedagogical value of teaching a flat earth (“Advocates of Intelligent Design Would Dumb Down Students”). Question: Is it possible to teach Darwin’s Origin of Species without considering ID as Darwin’s proper foil and counterpart? Answer: NO. Question: Is it possible to teach Newtonian mechanics without considering the flat earth as Newton’s proper foil and counterpart? Answer: YES. Read More ›

Thanks to a loyal ID supporter, the fledgling corporation conceived on this blog earlier this week, namely, Darwinalia, has now entered the computer gaming industry. Darwinalia’s new game is titled “Panda-Monium.” To play it, go here. A more sophisticated commercial version will be available soon. [UPDATE: Paul Myers has just posted at The Panda’s Thumb a short note about Panda-Monium titled “I think we’re getting under someone’s skin” (go here). Presumably he means my skin. Get a life, Paul. No, I’m not upset with you and the members of your select little club. I’m laughing at you. And I will continue to laugh at you.]

Here’s an old paper, but one well worth looking at if you haven’t seen it already: “The Spurious Foundations of Genetic Engineering” by Barry Commoner. It goes without saying that the “spurious foundations” here are the same as those for neo-Darwinism.

I’m planning a new product line of Darwin paraphernalia — Darwinalia®. The first item is set to go — “Darwin in a Vise” (already advertised on this blog here). Read More ›