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Evolutionary biology

Theology According to P.Z. Myers

Over on The Panda’s Thumb blog, Darwinian apologist P.Z. Myers recently posted a pejorative laden critique of a review article by Casey Luskin. Luskin was responding to a recent New York Times article on a study purporting to show how certain genes in fish might hold an important clue on how fins turned to feet. I won’t rehearse the articles here, you can read them in the links. Rather, I want to look a bit more closely at Myer’s critique of Luskin’s article and the supposedly “scientific” problems he has with Luskin. He begins by highlighting a quote from Luskin’s article where Luskin writes, “Hox genes are known to be widely conserved among vertebrates, so the fact that homology was Read More ›

Slate.com in a Dither Over non-Repeal of LSEA

Slate.com is all upset that repeal of the Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008 was was rejected yet again in a 3-2 vote in the State Senate. 19 year old Rice University Student Zack Kopplin has been leading the charge to get this “outrage” done away with once and for all, with help from the usual suspects. What’s interesting to note is the reason that one Senator, Elbert Guillory, D-Obelousas, who essentially cast the deciding vote, gave for his vote against repeal. Sen. Elbert Guillory, D-Opelousas, said he had reservations with repealing the act after a spiritual healer correctly diagnosed a specific medical ailment he had. He said he thought repealing the act could “lock the door on being able Read More ›

Getting me an Education

Larry Moran has decided to educate me about junk DNA. I appreciate the level of detail he has provided. I am not an expert in this field. I do however have a brain and, as a physicist, a vastly superior brain (I joke, sort of). I am not an IDiot, nor am I a larey moron (nor is he), and I like to see clear careful thought. I do not see this in a lot of the anti-ID polemics on the internet, nor in general presentations of evolution in the media. Thus, Larry’s latest posts are much more edifying to read. However, I still don’t agree with all the reasoning, and I don’t think he has told both sides of Read More ›

Why on Earth would a layman accept Darwinistic claims?

First, by “Darwinistic” I mean “atheistic-materialist neo-Darwinist”, which includes the view that even the origin of life can be explained by reference to chance and natural law. As Alan Fox points out, many of those here are “laymen” when it comes to evolutionary biology.  Most of us are not specifically schooled or trained in that arena – by “us”, I mean anyone who is interested in the debate about Darwinian evolution vs ID-inclusive evolution.  I, like many, have informed myself to a moderate degree about Darwinistic claims and the ID argument, but I’m certainly not a professional scientist, nor a philosopher with any formal academic training. IMO, a reasonable layman would be highly skeptical of claims that matter, chance & Read More ›

Is Human Intellect Degenerating?

Geneticist Gerald R. Crabtree reviews evidence showing genomic mutations are degrading the 2000 to 5000 genes needed for our intellectual and emotional function:

New developments in genetics, anthropology, and neurobiology predict that a very large number of genes underlie our intellectual and emotional abilities, making these abilities genetically surprisingly fragile. . . . Read More ›

Retroviruses and Common Descent: And Why I Don’t Buy It

Those of you who have been following this blog, as well as Evolution News & Views, for some time, will be aware that I have previously discussed, across multiple articles, the phenomenon of endogenous retroviral inserts into the genomes of primates. Those familiar with the debate over origins will also be familiar with the various arguments for common descent which are based upon these fascinating genetic elements. A friend recently asked me if I would compile my thoughts on the topic into a single article, and hence that is what I intend to do here. Since my previous articles on the topic (and since my progression from undergraduate to postgraduate status), my knowledge of the subject has increased and I Read More ›

In a Darwinian multiverse, Eugene Koonin could be both right and wrong an infinite number of times

In “The origin and early evolution of eukaryotes in the light of phylogenomics” (Genome Biology 2010, 11:209 ) Eugene V Koonin argues for endosymbiosis (organisms ingest other organisms, but the latter remain alive and provide a new function for the whole) to explain eukaryotes (complex cells, not bacteria):

Phylogenomics of eukaryote supergroups suggest a highly complex last common ancestor of eukaryotes and a key role of mitochondrial endosymbiosis in the origin of eukaryotes.

Sure but he’s also argued for the multiverse to explain that too. Read More ›

How Darwinists cope with being completely, utterly wrong

When suppression fails, they rewrite history. In “Darwin’s Theory of Descent with Modification, versus the Biblical Tree of Life,” Massey University molecular biologist David Penny admits that Darwin did not coin the expression “Tree of Life,” as in “Darwin’s Tree of Life”:

There is a strong urban myth that Charles Darwin introduced and/or advocated a “Tree of Life” for the classification of living organisms. This has recently been highlighted by Lawton [1], but dates back to at least Doolittle [2].

Yes, and the publicly funded smart set still worship faithfully, so why interfere? Surely not because that’s false? With Darwinism, what isn’t false?* NO, Penny is offering a strategy for co-opting non-Darwinian findings in the history of life as, really, inspired by Darwinism! He goes on, Read More ›