Scientists Discover Parallel Codes In Genes
“These parallel codes were probably exploited during evolution to allow genes to support a wide range of signals to regulate and modify biological processes in cells.” says Shalev Itzkovitz at The Weizmann Institute of Science.
You know for many years I’ve been taking care to avoid saying men evolved from apes because the pedant dominated science establishment is quick to point out that we and apes descend from a common ancestor and anyone who thinks we evolved from apes clearly doesn’t understand evolution. So now we have arguably the most recognized living name in paleontology, Richard Leakey, blurting out the proverbial “I’m so stupid I don’t know what common ancestry means”. What are we to make of that? I’m sure our good pedant friends in the science establishment, through Panda’s Thumb or some member blog, will let us know upon reading this. HT to Larry at I’m From Missouri.
Cardinal Schoenborn suggests that Darwinists are every bit as dogmatic as the Catholic Church has been accused of being. February 8, 2007 Cardinal: Schools Quiet Evolution Debate By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 12:28 a.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) — An influential Roman Catholic cardinal whose comments on evolution are closely followed condemned a court decision Wednesday that barred a Pennsylvania school district from teaching ”intelligent design” in biology class. Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna said in a lecture that restricting debate about Darwin’s theory of evolution amounts to censorship in schools and in the broader public. ”Commonly in the scientific community every inquiry into the scientific weaknesses of the theory is blocked off at the very outset,” Schoenborn said Read More ›
SciPhi guy Jason Renie has put up a free online Audiobook, actually a set of four interviews with proponents and detractors of ID. The other two Interviews are with Michael Shermer and Nick Matzke. Go here.
Comments I just posted at the site:
“First let me applaud Jason Rennie for some interesting dialogues. In his opening remarks, his pro ID perspective shows, but in the interviews he remained largely neutral. That kind of interview approach works well in this type of controversy, where emotions run high. Personally, if it were I interviewing Michael Shermer, I fear I would have become unrestrained, and challenged him on many of the points he made. But for this kind of objective comparison, Rennie’s approach is best. Read More ›
Design errors stemming from slightly incompatible versions of the same computer-aided design program will cost Airbus two years and $6 billion in lost profits (go here). Airbus engineers, working with programs simulating real, tangible objects and physical laws which are nearly perfectly understood cannot manage to model the correct length of wires for its lighting without making small errors that result in catastrophic setbacks. Meanwhile, climatic scientists have nevertheless created absolutely perfect models for the world’s weather patterns extending 100,000 years back and forwards in time (and yet they still can’t tell you if it’s going to rain on the weekend). Likewise, Darwinists have conclusively shown that living creatures, far more complex than the new Airbus plane, are the result Read More ›
Here’s a piece about ID in the UK that came out a few days ago. Note especially the comments after the article. The Ego and the ID Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 30/01/2007 Why I hate this intelligent design story. It’s simply IDiotic, writes Richard Fortey Scientists have found themselves trapped into appearing to be unreasonable in their pursuit of rationality. A snare has been cleverly set by the proponents of Intelligent Design in their quest to prove that Charles Darwin got it wrong. The vast majority of scientists feel nothing but distress that the teaching of Intelligent Design has been promoted in a number of our schools, particularly the faith schools apparently beloved by Tony Blair. Fundamentalists of both Islamic Read More ›
The ‘POINT OF VIEW’ article on p. B20 of the 19Jan07 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education is entitled, “Why Can’t We Discuss Intelligent Design?†The author is J. Scott Turner, Associate Professor of Biology at SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry. The by-line states, “His latest book, The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges From Life Itself, was published by Harvard University Press this month.†(Go here for the Amazon.com listing.) Turner’s thesis is that academics should stop trying to silence those who broach the subject of intelligent design, but rather be willing to discuss what Turner feels is “a wrongheaded idea.†His reasoning is straightforward: calling intelligent design “the latest eruption of a longstanding strain of anti-Darwinist Read More ›
Rubbish like this should steel us to work doubly hard to put these people out of business.
Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism & Intelligent Design
Cambridge House Press, Inc. (release date 02.28.07)
By Barrett Brown, Jon P. AlstonBook Description
What is creationism? Is it science, theology, both, neither? Who’s behind it? What does it mean for Western Civilization? And why should you give a damn in the first place? National Lampoon veteran Barrett Brown and Professor of Sociology Jon P. Alston, Ph.D, answer these questions — and perhaps one or two others — in a superbly unorthodox, serenely offensive and splendidly hilarious look at the forces behind the most talked-about pseudo-theory in modern history.
In Flock of Dodos, the reader will discover ominous parallels between Billy Joel’s greaser anthem Uptown Girl and chief intelligent design proponent William Dembski, the wholly non-Christian origins of the United States, the goofy history of the creation science movement, secrets of a happy marriage to anti-feminist icon Phylis Schafly,stunning evidence that William Jennings Bryan might not have been all that bright, the the three interesting things that occurred in 2004, and the true nature of the millennia-old Conspiracy of Nonsense that threatens the very fiber of Western Civilization. Read More ›
Increasinginly I find that those with doctorates in the natural and engineering sciences are asking, “What can I do to help in the fight against Darwinism?†For some this will involve research bearing directly on Darwinian theory. But there is also another way to help. Many in the media and the public still do not know that there is scientific dissent from Darwinism. They have no idea that MANY scientists are skeptical of neo-Darwinian theory. So one way you can help is to put your head on the chopping block and voice your skepticism of Darwinism (if you do, trust me, Darwin’s dogmatic defenders will try to chop off your head). This is why Discovery Institute created their statement “A Read More ›
I was reviewing recently Stuart Kauffman’s critique of the Darwinian selection mechanism and thought I would share the upshot of it here, especially in light of the recent discussion at UD concerning Haldane’s Dilemma: If selection could, in principle, accomplish “anything,†then all the order in organisms might reflect selection alone. But, in fact, there are limits to selection. Such limits begin to demand a shift in our thinking in the biological sciences and beyond. We have already encountered a first powerful limitation on selection. Darwin’s view of the gradual accumulations of useful variations, we saw, required gradualism. Mutations must cause slight alterations in phenotypes, But we have now seen two alternative model “worlds†in which such gradualism fails. The Read More ›
It’s amazing what passes for science these days (as well as what doesn’t): The first evidence that beauty is infectious is published today by scientists who have shown that when women see a rival smiling at a man, he becomes more attractive as a result. . . . Why has nature designed women to be so in thrall to the opinion of others? Selecting a mate and raising children is what life is all about, according to the cold eyed view of evolutionary biologists. As a result, it pays to get as much information on a man as possible, including what other women think of him. “Using information from others can only improve your decision about a mate,†said Dr Read More ›
I read this Huffington post which notes that the U.S. leads Europe by quite a margin in those who reject orthodox evolution as scientific fact. They go on to an unsupported conclusion that this means the U.S. must be trailing in scientific and engineering accomplishments. Au contraire, mon ami, au contraire! Read More ›
Over at Respectful Insolence, Dr. David H. Gorski (a.k.a. Orac), goes off on a rant about how medical doctors, in this case Uncommon Descent contributor and surgeon Dr. David A. Cook, aren’t qualified to evaluate claims made by evolutionary biologists. Yet Dr. Gorski, also a surgeon, somehow believes himself qualified to evaluate evolutionary claims made by other medical doctors. Spare me. Practice what you preach, Dr. Gorski. If medical doctors aren’t qualifed to evaluate evolution claims then YOU should STFU too. Got that? Write that down. 🙄
Truth in advertising would have random mutation and natural selection renamed to reflect what’s really happening. Read More ›
