Intelligent Design

Many RNA-binding proteins have modular structures and are composed of multiple repeats of just a few basic domains that are arranged in various ways to satisfy their diverse functional requirements. Recent studies have investigated how different modules cooperate in regulating the RNA-binding specificity and the biological activity of these proteins. They have also investigated how multiple modules cooperate with enzymatic domains to regulate the catalytic activity of enzymes that act on RNA. These studies have shown how, for many RNA-binding proteins, multiple modules define the fundamental structural unit that is responsible for biological function. Bradley M. Lunde, Claire Moore & Gabriele Varani  Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 8, 479-490 (June 2007) | doi:10.1038/nrm2178 http://www.nature.com/nrm/journal/v8/n6/abs/nrm2178.html This paper is yet another of Read More ›

Jonathan Wells, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, will be speaking today (Friday, May 25), on the icons of neo-Darwinism and the role of DNA in living things, at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara. The full-size event poster is here.

The tenure denial of Guillermo Gonzalez by Iowa State University has been much discussed on this blog of late. The tenure of Hector Avalos, religious studies professor and militant atheist at Iowa State University, however, has yet to be broached here. So let’s do it. Avalos conducted a witch hunt of Guillermo Gonzalez back in 2005 (go here). He just posted on PZ Myers’ blog a response to the Discovery Institute (go here). Here is an interesting quote from it: I may not be an astronomer, but my article, “Heavenly Conflicts: The Bible and Astronomy,” passed the editorial review of Mercury: The Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 27 no. 2 (March/April, 1998), pages 20-24. There, I critiqued Read More ›

Last month I pointed out the unwitting admission by some Darwinists that Darwinism is useless to modern medicine (and for that matter modern science). [see: Darwin dissed by doctors, and a design revolution continues at MIT]. This month I’m pleased that world’s most prestigious scientific journal, Nature, has published a letter from a biophysicist who has (perhaps unwittingly) shown that the design revolution continues, and Darwinism is slipping into total irrelevance. Look at biological systems through an engineer’s eyes Physiologists have successfully analysed a large range of biological systems using this ‘device-oriented’ approach. For more than a century, medical students have used it to learn that the kidneys filter blood to make urine; the lungs transport oxygen from air to Read More ›

I just put up an alphabetized list of topics covered by British physicist David Tyler, who blogs on a number of issues raised in the science literature that impact the intelligent design controversy – along with some of my own compilations (animations of life inside the cell, columnists discussing the issues, et cetera.). This is a one-stop shop if you are trying to track down information in the growing controversy, that is written from a design perspective. Here are some examples of items you might want to look up: Animal evolution (Tyler) multicellular animals and need for complex information Cambrian era (Tyler) Ancestors largely missing Cambrian era(Tyler) Comb jellies well developed Cell development (Tyler) and complex specified information Chimpanzees(Tyler) Common Read More ›

Life’s capabilities continue to astound. Another assumption of mainstream science is overturned: Now we find that some kinds of fungi can grow very nicely, thank you, in very high radiation environments, and even appear to thrive, using radiation as an energy source.
I wonder; in what sort of environment did these organisms evolve to account for this remarkable ability?

From a report on a study by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine:

“Scientists have long assumed that fungi exist mainly to decompose matter into chemicals that other organisms can then use. But researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found evidence that fungi possess a previously undiscovered talent with profound implications: the ability to use radioactivity as an energy source for making food and spurring their growth.
“The fungal kingdom comprises more species than any other plant or animal kingdom, so finding that they’re making food in addition to breaking it down means that Earth’s energetics—in particular, the amount of radiation energy being converted to biological energy—may need to be recalculated,” says Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of microbiology & immunology at Einstein and senior author of the study, published May 23 in PLoS ONE.”

It seems that certain fungi, specifically those containing melanin, the same stuff that give us those nice cancerous tans, thrive in high radiation environments. In their discussion the researchers note:
Read More ›

Scientists have now found that the Hox genes necessary for tetrapod development is present in a primitive fish (a paddlefish). Here’s part of what they write: “Tetrapods have a second phase of Hox gene expression that happens later in development. During this second phase, hands and feet develop. Although this second phase is not known in zebrafish, the scientists found that it is present in paddlefish, which reveals that a pattern of gene activity long thought to be unique to vertebrates with hands and feet is in fact much more primitive. This is the first molecular support for the theory that the genes to help make fingers and toes have been around for a long time—well before the 375-million-year-old Tiktaalik Read More ›

How might Iowa State University President Geoffrey apply pugilistic ideology in his June 6th decision concerning tenuring of Christian Professor Guillermo Gonzalez? Dr. Moore offers his expert opinion. Read more MOORE…

In an April 2, 2007 post, I noted the similarity between my second law argument (“the underlying principle behind the second law is that natural forces do not do macroscopically describable things which are extremely improbable from the microscopic point of view”), and Bill Dembski’s argument (in “The Design Inference”) that only intelligence can account for things that are “specified” (=macroscopically describable) and “complex” (=extremely improbable). I argued that the advantage of my formulation is that it is based on a widely recognized law of science, that physics textbooks practically make the design argument for you, all you have to do is point out that the laws of probability do (contrary to common belief!) still apply in open systems, you Read More ›

I had an interesting conversation today with a tenured scientist who is on faculty at a research university. He was recently invited to defend ID at a public forum at the university. He declined to do it. Here’s why. Although he is a proponent of ID, he has never taught it in his classes. He is afraid that if he defends it on campus, even in a public forum arranged by one of the science departments, he will be branded as “having taught ID on campus.” This, he fears, will be used against him down the line — and he is right. He therefore told the department chair that tried to get him to speak at the forum that he Read More ›

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a balanced article on Iowa State’s refusal to tenure Guillermo Gonzalez. Advocate of Intelligent Design Who Was Denied Tenure Has Strong Publications Record By RICHARD MONASTERSKY At first glance, it seems like a clear-cut case of discrimination. As an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University, Guillermo Gonzalez has a better publication record than any other member of the astronomy faculty. He also happens to publicly support the concept of intelligent design. Last month he was denied tenure. Read More

One of my favorite ID proponents, Frank Tipler, was recently interviewed on the Sci Phi show. To hear the 28-minute interview, visit: Frank Tipler on Sci Phi show. Some of Tipler’s ID-related work has appeared in prestigious journals like Nature. One of Tipler’s recent ID-related papers appeared in the journal Reports on Progress in Physics in 2005. Tipler lays out the physics in that technical article which he describes for the layman in his new book The Physics of Christianity. In addition, Tipler published some of his ID-related work on the Arxiv server. His most recent article is Intelligent Life in Cosmology [March 2007]. Here are some quotes: Teleology has been completely rejected by evolutionary biologists. This rejection is unfortunate, Read More ›

A friend writes to say, “Guillermo [Gonzalez] has three (not two) papers exceeding 100 citations each. An updated list is attached that includes a few more of his publications. This is really impressive.” (If you are just joining us today, Guilllermo Gonzalez is the gifted ID-friendly astronomer who was recently denied tenure under suspicious circumstances at Iowa State University.)

From the screen capture my correspondent attached, I assume he means, for example, papers like GONZALEZ G ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS, Title: Spectroscopic analyses of the parent stars of extrasolar planetary system candidates, cited 153 times.

He also draws my attention to the AA (Atheists and Agnostics) meeting posted on the ISU Web site, attacking Gonzalez by name.

Now, I am all for vigorous debate at a university and despise political correctness, but note that the university itself also has the spin machine whining 24/7 on the site, announcing that a poisoned environment was never an issue.

I guess one page doesn’t know what the other is doing. But so much for the claim that there was no underlying anti-ID component. I would love to see that tested in court, and maybe I will.

The major lesson from all this, I think, is that Read More ›

Here is a quote from Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason (I took it from the excerpt from his book in the current Time Magazine): In order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum. We must create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public’s ability to discern the truth. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the rule of reason. In writing this, Gore Read More ›

Recently, I reported on an experiment with fruit flies that showed that the flies are not robotic, but can engage in spontaneous behavior.

In a recent Daily Telegraph article, Roger Highfield explains:

“The point here is that the people claiming that free will doesn’t exist say that one day we will be able to show exactly why a murderer must necessarily have acted the way he did by looking closely at his brain. We can show that you cannot even do this in fly brains, as a matter of principle.”

That’s the key, of course. It is a matter of principle (actually, fact) that flies do not behave like robots.

Also,

These results caught computer scientist and lead author Alexander Maye from the University of Hamburg by surprise: “I would have never guessed that simple flies who otherwise keep bouncing off the same window have the capacity for nonrandom spontaneity if given the chance.”

Great fly graphics too.

I am not sure, however, that the researchers have discovered in flies what humans mean by free will. Read More ›