Intelligent Design

20 January 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5759, pp. 374 – 377 SCIENCE Sampling the Antibiotic Resistome Vanessa M. D’Costa, Katherine M. McGrann, Donald W. Hughes, Gerard D. Wright Microbial resistance to antibiotics currently spans all known classes of natural and synthetic compounds. It has not only hindered our treatment of infections but also dramatically reshaped drug discovery, yet its origins have not been systematically studied. Soil-dwelling bacteria produce and encounter a myriad of antibiotics, evolving corresponding sensing and evading strategies. They are a reservoir of resistance determinants that can be mobilized into the microbial community. Study of this reservoir could provide an early warning system for future clinically relevant antibiotic resistance mechanisms.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=697

Behe covers several sections in detail but here is the overall summary at the end:

The Court’s reasoning in section E-4 is premised on: a cramped view of science; the conflation of intelligent design with creationism; the incapacity to distinguish the implications of a theory from the theory itself; a failure to differentiate evolution from Darwinism; and strawman arguments against ID. The Court has accepted the most tendentious and shopworn excuses for Darwinism with great charity and impatiently dismissed arguments for design. Read More ›

As long as I’m on the subject of overwhelming points of similarity vs. underwhelming points of difference, a few points of similarity between man and chimp in no particular order, off the top of my head: Read More ›

It has come to my attention that because the genetic code isn’t quite universal some people think that is grounds for calling into question how many more than one common ancestor there might be. Read More ›

In every case where a machine is observed and its origin can be determined it is the result of intelligent agency.

When observations have been repeated billions of times by billions of people like this without a single exception it is a law of nature, not hypothesis and not mere theory. Read More ›

[From a colleague:] I understand the importance of the political struggle—not because the truth of neo-Darwinism or ID (or a “third way”) can be settled by the courts, but because Darwinian metaphysics is doing real moral and political mischief in our society, and therefore must be opposed in whatever manner is practicable. From that point of view, Dover was indeed unfortunate. However, let us not lose sight of the fact that a scientific theory that requires a judge to enforce its teaching cannot be said to be in good INTELLECTUAL health. By proclaiming it illegal to “disparage or denigrate” neo-Darwinism, Judge Jones adopted the principle of the Inquisition, and in so doing rendered both himself and that state-enforced theory ridiculous. Read More ›

Dee: The two black holes in Intelligent Design
James H. Dee, LOCAL CONTRIBUTOR
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Source: http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/02/2dee_edit.html

Anyone reading this page must know that ID (Intelligent Design) is a much-disputed and assiduously marketed competitor to evolution.

Scientists in every field (and now a federal judge in the Dover, Pa., school board case) have firmly rejected the concept, as has the science adviser to President Bush. But its advocates — who seem to have among their number U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the president and Gov. Rick Perry — carry on undeterred. Read More ›

My initial posting prompted some excellent and thought-provoking comments and challenges, so I thought I would address some of them here in Q&A form since these topics should be of special interest to readers of this blog.

Comment: “If you could hypothetically adjust one of the cosmological constants to destroy all life then there’s no guarantee that you wouldn’t have a new form of life evolve…”

Response: As it turns out, when these constants are adjusted in either direction by the slightest amount, the process of the universe derails so catastrophically that life of any kind would be impossible. Read More ›

http://www.greer-heard.com

Michael Ruse: Darwinist talks with Points about ID and evolution in the classroom

03:36 PM CST on Sunday, January 29, 2006

Do you think there is anything at all to the intelligent design argument from irreducible complexity?

No. I think it’s “creationism lite” tarted up to look like science to get around the constitutional separation of church and state. Read More ›

Jonathan Sarfati has a piece at Answers in Genesis titled “ID theorist blunders on Bible: Reply to Dr William Dembski.” In it he remarks (quoting me):

Misrepresenting the Church Fathers
Dr William Dembski [WD]: “Let me concede that young earth creationism was largely the position of the church from the Church Fathers through the Reformers.”

This makes a pleasant change from progressive creationist Hugh Ross, who has long claimed that most of the church believed in long creation days. See the articles under Church Fathers and Reformers for documentation.

WD: “(though there were exceptions, such as Origen and Augustine).”

This is simply not true. Read More ›

“This high degree of organization of prokaryotic [organisms that lack nuclei] genomes is a complete surprise, and this finding carried many implications that biologists might not have considered before,” said Bernhard Palsson, a professor of bioengineering at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering and adjunct professor of medicine and co-author of the analysis. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060130154134.htm Ask yourself why, if evolution is all it’s cracked up to be, biology keeps encountering “complete surprises” like this. Ask yourself, as well, why a professor of bioengineering rather than a straight biologist is finding these complete surprises. Could it be that engineering (the field that studies design) offers better insights than a materialist, reductionist biology that attributes the emergence of biological complexity to blind material forces?

The dodos have come to Kansas
Filmmaker’s documentary a sold-out premiere in his hometown
By ROBERT W. BUTLER

The Kansas City Star
Posted on Tue, Jan. 31, 2006
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/13751749.htm

Randy Olson is no dodo. But he knows one when he films one.

And he also knows that using a stupid bird to tout his movie about the combatants in the evolution-intelligent design shout-fest would raise a ruckus.

“It’s working perfectly,” Olson, the self-described “polite Michael Moore,” said of his dodo-driven publicity campaign. “Really driving people crazy.”

Olson’s feature-length documentary “Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus,” will have its world premiere Thursday at the Glenwood Arts Theatre in Overland Park. It’s already sold out. He expects a lively reception. Read More ›

Viewpoint: Two Notions of Intelligence in Design
By Lloyd Eby

World Peace Herald Contributor
Published: January 30, 2006
Source: http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20060130-090253-1504r

WASHINGTON — Some critics of intelligent design (ID) ask, “How can the designer of biological species be intelligent, given that so many species have come into existence and then disappeared. How can an intelligent designer design some of the mistakes and monstrosities found in nature, such as disease causing bacteria or malaria-carrying mosquitoes?” As one such critic put it, “Really, where is the intelligence there? Even if you can make the case that God ‘predesigned’ everything, I doubt you can make the case for intelligence in the design.” Read More ›