Fine tuning

Here’s an interesting assessment of non-Darwinian microbiologist Michael Denton’s work: in The Miracle of the Cell he concentrates on one example of fine-tuning after another… Biologists may have once held simplistic notions about the origin of life, back in the heady days following the iconic Miller-Urey experiment. They may have thought they were on the right track toward explaining life when the double helix was discovered in the 1950s. It might have seemed that the cell was simple enough to explain by a few accidents here and a handful of lucky chemical reactions there. Research since then has put that false hope to rest. Denton’s most famous work was his 1985 book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. It was both Read More ›

Maybe some of us (yer news writer, for one) have been unkind to Avi Loeb, the Harvard astronomer who continues to insist that space debris Oumuamua is an extraterrestrial lightsail. Anyway, at 29:06 in this vid, Loeb says “nature does not produce such things.” We’re told Loeb is using a design filter like design theorist William Dembski’s explanatory filter. Interesting use of design detection. Anyway, Loeb has a book coming out, in which he makes his case: Obviously, if you believe that there are many extraterrestrials out there, it makes much more sense to believe that the universe is fine-tuned for life than that it is all just a big cosmic accident. Are we being too hard on the guy? Read More ›