Category: Design inference
Food, sex, and memory in one-celled algae, once again
| October 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Animal minds, Design inference, Intelligent Design |
Recently, we looked at the claim that diatoms (one-celled algae with glassy shells) demonstrate the ability to make choices. That seems hard to account for in the absence of a brain (though the researchers were convinced they saw it happen). Our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon writes to clarify a point about the diatoms: The […]
Researchers: Diatoms demonstrate “behavioral biology”
| October 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Animal minds, Cell biology, Design inference, Intelligent Design |
From ScienceDaily: Unicellular diatoms are able to adapt their behavior to different external stimuli based on an evaluation of their own needs. This was discovered by scientists of the Friedrich Schiller University and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, together with partners from Belgium. The algae depend on nutrients in order […]
Cell behaviour can show “purposeful inefficiency”? What next?
| October 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Design inference, Intelligent Design |
We thought “purposeful efficiency” was enough to get a researcher fired, but read on: From ScienceDaily: The steps cells take in response to challenges are more complex than previously thought, finds new research published in the journal eLIFE. The study investigates a system relevant to cancer, viral infection, and diabetes as well as Parkinson’s and […]
“Undeniable” author Doug Axe on the recent “directed evolution” Nobel for chemistry
| October 10, 2018 | Posted by News under Chemistry, Design inference, Intelligent Design |
Doug Axe, Intro of recalls current CalTech winner Frances Arnold: In a conversation in her office one day, I said that I wanted to do work on protein evolution. She was skeptical, for pragmatic reasons. “Is that the kind of work that people will want to fund?”, she asked. I smile recalling that, but up […]
Plants use flashes of fluorescent light to warn leaves against insects
| September 17, 2018 | Posted by News under Design inference, Ecology, Intelligent Design, Plants |
From ScienceDaily: In one video, you can see a hungry caterpillar, first working around a leaf’s edges, approaching the base of the leaf and, with one last bite, severing it from the rest of the plant. Within seconds, a blaze of fluorescent light washes over the other leaves, a signal that they should prepare for […]
Nathan Lents is still wrong about sinuses but is still writing about them
| September 13, 2018 | Posted by News under Design inference, Naturalism |
He is the author of a “bad design” book, Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes: Earlier this year writers for Evolution News posted responses to Dr. Lents, who teaches at John Jay College and wrote a recent book, Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to […]
Prime numbers are not “nearly as scattershot” as previously thought
| September 11, 2018 | Posted by News under Chemistry, Design inference, Intelligent Design, Mathematics |
From researchers at Princeton: The seemingly random digits known as prime numbers are not nearly as scattershot as previously thought. A new analysis by Princeton University researchers has uncovered patterns in primes that are similar to those found in the positions of atoms inside certain crystal-like materials. The researchers found a surprising similarity between the sequence of […]
Warning: Watching this video may cause you to lose the ability to see randomness
| September 4, 2018 | Posted by News under Design inference |
From David Nguyen: Why Tumor Biologists Should Never See Randomness But Only Degrees of Disorder See also: What is Randomness? Part 1, with David Nguyen
The standard genetic code is “optimized” to reduce costly errors
| August 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Design inference, Genetics, Intelligent Design |
An interesting new paper on how the genetic code minimizes the impact of mistranslations: Statistical and biochemical studies of the standard genetic code (SGC) have found evidence that the impact of mistranslations is minimized in a way that erroneous codes are either synonymous or code for an amino acid with similar polarity as the originally […]
Decidedly unDarwinian admissions re proteins
| August 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Design inference, Intelligent Design, Physics |
Philip Cunningham writes to note for us such moments in the literature: Abstract: (open access) Why life persists at the edge of chaos is a question at the very heart of evolution. Here we show that molecules taking part in biochemical processes from small molecules to proteins are critical quantum mechanically. Electronic Hamiltonians of biomolecules […]
Researchers: Program for limb development may have been in “in the bilaterian common ancestor”
| August 8, 2018 | Posted by News under Design inference, Evolution, Genetics, Intelligent Design |
What? Doug Axe draws attention to a new paper at Evolution News and Science Today which suggests that “the genetic program for limb development predates limbs.” Abstract: Cephalopod mollusks evolved numerous anatomical innovations, including specialized arms and tentacles, but little is known about the developmental mechanisms underlying the evolution of cephalopod limbs. Here we report that […]
Researchers: Jumping genes time their activity, await opportunity
| July 30, 2018 | Posted by News under Cell biology, Design inference, Genetics |
From ScienceDaily: Researchers have developed new techniques to track the mobilization of jumping genes. They found that during a particular period of egg development, a group of jumping-genes called retrotransposons hijacks special cells called nurse cells that nurture the developing eggs. These jumping genes use nurse cells to produce invasive material (copies of themselves called […]
If we are alone in the universe, shouldn’t that make us feel more special?
| July 26, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Design inference, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design, Philosophy |
Instead of meaningless? How exactly did we get from “Alone” to “Meaningless” via eloquence from tenured pundits? Where do we buy return tickets? A blogging neurologist asks this obvious question. From Steven Novella at The Ness: Until, however, we detect actual aliens or their signals, the rest of the factors in the equation are likely […]
Is ID-friendly bioengineer a heretic or just a minority reporter?
| July 24, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Design inference, Intelligent Design |
From Denyse O’Leary at Salvo, a look at Matti Leisola’s book, Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design Matti Leisola, a gifted Finnish bioengineer, started out as a good Darwinist. But he could not avoid the massive pushback from the evidence of design he found in nature. A specialist in enzymes and rare sugars, […]
How do cells interpret the “dizzying” communications pathways in multicellular life forms?
| July 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Design inference, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
From ScienceDaily: Wnt is ancient pathway, whose evolutionary appearance dates back to the emergence of multicellular animals. It plays pivotal roles in cell to cell communication and governs several aspects of embryonic development and tissue homeostasis. When dysfunctional, Wnt signaling can be at the origin of many diseases, in particular several cancers. With 10 receptors […]
Atheists sense design in nature?
| July 22, 2018 | Posted by News under Atheism, Design inference, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design |
From Clay Routledge at National Review: As I discuss in my new book, Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of Invisible World, the decline of any particular religion does not reflect a decline in people’s orientation toward supernatural questions, curiosities, and beliefs. Most people still believe in God or a universal spirit. The majority of […]
Auto mechanic: Berra’s blunder splutters … yet again?
| July 16, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Design inference, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity |
Some things can’t change. From a piece at ENST, A Classic Evolutionist’s Error, Berra’s Blunder Revs Up Again Tim Berra had tried to compare biological evolution to the evolution of the Corvette. In his book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, Johnson aptly pointed out the intuitively obvious difference: Of course, every one of those Corvettes […]
Researchers: Extreme fluctuations in oxygen levels, not gradual rise, sparked Cambrian explosion
| July 6, 2018 | Posted by News under Cambrian explosion, Design inference, Intelligent Design |
Explanations of the dramatic Cambrian explosion of life forms (540 million years ago) are a cottage industry, with arguments about oxygen a staple of the discussion. See, for example, Maverick theory: Cambrian animals remade the environment by generating oxygen Did a low oxygen level delay complex life on Earth? There was only a small oxygen […]
“Bad design” of the human mouth enables us to speak
| July 6, 2018 | Posted by News under Design inference, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
From Philip Lieberman at The Scientist: In On the Origin of Species, Darwin noted “the strange fact that every particle of food and drink which we swallow has to pass over the orifice of the trachea, with some risk of falling into the lungs.” Because of this odd anatomy, which differs from that of all […]
External testicles as poor design? The few mammals that don’t have them turn out to have lost them, say gene researchers.
| June 29, 2018 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Design inference, Intelligent Design, Naturalism |
From ScienceDaily: In almost all adult mammals, testes are located either in a scrotum or in the lower abdomen. But testes initially develop deep inside the abdomen at a position close to the kidneys, as seen in mammalian embryos. The final testicular position is the result of a descent process that occurs during animal development. […]
