Intelligent Design

In New Scientist we find the following article: Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers’ eyes. It’s the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait. This is in reference to the E. coli culture in Richard Lenski’s lab that after 20 years and 44,000 generations became able to digest the citrate in their agar. Nevermind that E. coli can normally digest citrate in anaerobic conditions and that being able to digest citrate in aerobic conditions is a very common ability in many different bacterial species. Also nevermind that aerobic citrate metabolism has been reported in E. coli Read More ›

There’s an interesting story in today’s Washington Times (go here) on Louisiana’s new science policy (shortly to be signed into law by Governor Jindal) advocating that both strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory be taught in the public school science curriculum. The other side (ACLU, NCSE, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, etc.) are claiming that such a “strengths and weaknesses” or “teach the controversy” approach to teaching evolution is a thinly veiled attempt to bring religion into the classroom. After all, so they claim, there is no legitimate controversy over evolutionary theory (it’s as well established as gravity!), so those who would question it can only do so because they are creationists wanting to inject religion into Read More ›

In the month of June we have: Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution (Hardcover) by Karl Giberson, released June 10, 2008. Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul (Hardcover) by Ken Miller, released June 12, 2008. Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World by Reverend Michael Dowd (pictured above), released June 19, 2008.

Michael Ruse writes: “Ken Miller’s new book, Only a Theory, Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, is everything we have come to expect from him — informed, witty, and above all deeply serious about matters of concern to us all. He takes so-called intelligent design theory apart, piece by piece, showing it for the sham that it is. In its stead, Miller makes a very strong argument for the truth and beauty of evolutionary thinking and begs that we not keep this wonderful science from our children.” “He takes so-called intelligent design theory apart…” I presume he does this in the same manner that he unspun the bacterial flagellum, with unsupported speculation that doesn’t withstand even the most simplistic Read More ›

I am currently transcribing Canadian civil rights lawyer and journalist Ezra Levant‘s talk at a lunch at the Canadian Bar Association offices. In Canada’s increasingly illiberal regime, Levant has been charged with “hate crime” for publishing the Danish “Mohammed” cartoons.

Among the innovations he addresses is “pre-crime” – first introduced in Tom Cruise’s Minority Report, and fundamental, I suspect, to the materialist justice systems that will govern us if it is really true that Darwin loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives. It means that you can only plead guilty once you are charged.

You cannot fail to be guilty because the crime you are accused of has not yet occurred but the system says it must occur.

In Canada, it is the law now. Here is how the law works, in Ezra’s words:

It is illegal to publish anything that is

“likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt. So [Canadian commentator Mark] Steyn is charged with this and I am charged with it.”

Let’s go through that for a second, as lawyers, and look at the words.

likely to expose That’s future tense.

Not “that you did expose them” but likely

I loved Tom Cruise’s movie, Minority Report where he played a police officer in the future where they had psychics thinking that crimes would happen. Just before the crime happened, the police swooped in and arrested the guy and said, “You were gonna kill him but we stopped ya! You’re charged with a pre-crime.”

With a pre-crime … Well, how do you plead when you are charged with a pre-crime?

[ … ]

And so when I was charged under Alberta’s Section 3, … I pled guilty.

Just think of the many applications for pre-crime in your neck of the woods.

For more, go here.

Also, just up at Mindful Hack:

Real Buddhism scholar to “neural Buddhists”: The Buddha does not infinitely morph and would never drop two grand for “meditation gear” Read More ›

Ken Miller compares ID proponents to “welfare queens” (go here) and Karl Giberson denounces ID proponents for “smearing” theistic evolutionists, citing this blog (go here).

Besides displaying desperation, these people have no evident sense of irony. Miller has for years been dipping his hand into the public till, which continues to underwrite sales of his textbooks.* And Giberson, in defending Miller and Francis Collins, seems to forget that they are ones charging ID proponents with threating America’s soul and future (go here).

So, it’s okay to for theoevos to cast ID in apocalyptic terms, but it’s not okay for IDers to call them on it. Give me a break. As Denyse O’Leary has put it, theistic evolution is a solution to a problem that no longer exists. Bankruptcy is hard. Get used to the pain.

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*Here are some quotes from seven of Miller’s biology textbooks, textbooks underwritten with your tax dollars. As you read these quotes, ask yourself where is the “theo” in Miller’s “theoevo.” Read More ›

From Mike Behe’s Amazon blog an article on Kenneth Miller’s book Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul

Once More With Feeling
11:11 AM PDT, June 16, 2008

Dear Readers,
Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University, has written a new book Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, in which he defends Darwinism, attacks intelligent design, and makes a case for theistic evolution (defined as something like “God used Darwinian evolution to make life”). In all this, it’s pretty much a re-run of his previous book published over a decade ago, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution. So if you read that book, you’ll have a very good idea of what 90% of the new book concerns. For people who think that a mousetrap is not irreducibly complex because parts of it can be used as a paperweight or tie clip, and so would be easy to evolve by chance, Miller is their man. Despite the doubts of many — perhaps most — evolutionary biologists of the power of the Darwinian mechanism, to Miller’s easy imagination evolving any complex system by chance plus selection is a piece of cake, and intermediates are to be found behind every door. A purer devotee of Darwinian wishful thinking would be hard to find.

Read More ›

I remember my two meetings with Van Cliburn with great fondness. He was, and still is, an extraordinary musical and pianistic talent who, at the tender age of 23 in 1958, warmed the Cold War. Most of you probably don’t remember this. Visit the following links for a little history: here, here, and here. As many UD readers know, I am both a classical pianist and a software engineer. As a result my involvement in two endeavors, artistic and analytical, design in both nature and human experience screams with such force that I cannot deny it. The Tschaikovski piano concerto was not the result of random errors filtered by natural selection; it was the result of human creativity — a Read More ›

Tim Russert died today. He gave journalism a good name. Combining gentleness and toughness, he asked the right questions and persisted till he got straight answers. He was a Mensch. During the Iowa caucuses, my wife asked to take a photo of him with our daughter. He interrupted a phone call to oblige (see his right hand below). My daughter cried today at his passing. He will be missed.

Leaves have been found to regulate temperature to “around 21.4° Celsius plus or minus 2.2 degrees,” during photosynthesis. That appears to me to be a design to increase or optimize photosynthesis.

ID Hypothesis: Trees, and other biotic systems regulate leaf temperature to increase or optimize photosynthesis. There will be temperature and/or humidity sensors and transpiration regulation systems to achieve this temperature control.
Corollary: Net primary productivity would be substantially lower without such temperature regulation.
Global Warming Impact: This finding may invalidate tree ring temperature proxies in extrapolating to past temperatures to evaluate climate change.
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Goldilocks tree leaves
by Susan Milius, June 11th, 2008,

Sweating in the heat or huddling in the cold keeps temperatures favorable
JUST RIGHTTree leaves can do plenty to keep their temperatures just right for photosynthesis. Read More ›

Theistic evolutionists hold that Darwinian evolution is God’s way of bringing about the diversity of life on earth. They used to be content to criticize ID on scientific grounds. But that’s no longer enough. They are now charging ID with undermining the very fabric of civilization and even the Christian religion itself. Ken Miller’s most recent book, just out, makes this point in the title — Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul. From the title, you’d think that Darwin is the Messiah and that until his ideas about evolution gained acceptance, our souls were in jeopardy. Miller has called himself an Orthodox Christian and an Orthodox Darwinian (cf. the 2001 PBS Evolution Series). But one has Read More ›

Muller received the Nobel Prize for “for the discovery that mutations can be induced by x-rays”. He studied the effects of mutation on populations, and indirectly spawned ideas which were elaborated in the book Genetic Entropy by Cornell geneticist John Sanford.

The theory of genetic entropy has the potential to overturn Darwinism on empirical grounds alone. Darwinism argues for inevitable progress, genetic entropy argues the opposite.

The thesis of genetic entropy can be explored by considering the amount of mutation in the human genome at present. Muller offers his thoughts:

it would in the end be far easier and more sensible to manufacture a complete man de novo, out of appropriately chosen raw materials, than to try to fashion into human form those pitiful relics which remained…

it is evident that the natural rate of mutation of man is so high, and his natural rate of reproduction so low, that not a great deal of margin is left for selection…

it becomes perfectly evident that the present number of children per couple cannot be great enough to allow selection to keep pace with a mutation rate of 0.1..if, to make matters worse, u should be anything like as high as 0.5…, our present reproductive practices would be utterly out of line with human requirements.

Hermann Muller quoted by John Sanford
Appendix 1, Genetic Entropy

“u” is the mutation rate. As John Sanford observes, Darwinian selection cannot keep pace with reality. Deterioration of the genome seems to be in evidence, and the efficacy of Darwinian mechanisms has been essentially falsified with respect to the human genome. Here is an excerpt of Sanford commenting on Muller’s work:

Muller calculated that the human fertility rate of that time (1950) could not deal with a mutation rate of 0.1. Since that time, we have learned that the mutation rate is a least 1,000-fold higher than he thought. Furthermore, fertility rates have declined sharply since then.

John Sanford

Walter ReMine was kind enough to point me to a more modern day version of Muller’s concerns: Why have we not died 100 times over? by Kondrashov (also from Cornell).
Read More ›

We often hear from Darwinists that “the theory of evolution is as well tested as the theory of gravity”. Strangely though, we never hear physicists saying that the theory of gravity is as well tested as the theory of evolution. 😆 Anyhow, I was just reading yet another Darwinian Narrative on the genetic similarities and differences between man and chimp but how we don’t really know which differences are the important ones. In point of fact, we don’t really know if the DNA differences are even significant. The only thing we really know is that a chimp is a chimp because its mother was a chimp. Beyond that, it’s nothing but guesswork. Then I thought about how this compares to Read More ›

Multiple mutations needed for E. coli

An interesting paper has just appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli”. (1) It is the “inaugural article” of Richard Lenski, who was recently elected to the National Academy. Lenski, of course, is well known for conducting the longest, most detailed “lab evolution” experiment in history, growing the bacterium E. coli continuously for about twenty years in his Michigan State lab. For the fast-growing bug, that’s over 40,000 generations!
Read More ›