Intelligent Design

Science 1, Evolution 0,  See more

Closing our religion coverage for the week: In a 2014 article in Christian Research Journal, “The New Theistic Evolutionists: BioLogos and the Rush to Embrace the ‘Consensus’ (not online), Luskin writes: Of course, when BioLogos claims “it is all intelligently designed,” they mean that strictly as a faith-based theological doctrine for which they can provide no supporting scientific evidence. Indeed, it’s ironic that BioLogos accuses ID of “removing God from the process of creation” when Collins writes that “science’s domain is to explore nature. God’s domain is in the spiritual world, a realm not possible to explore with the tools and language of science.” Under Collins’s view, God’s “domain” is seemingly fenced off from “nature,” which belongs to “science.” Since Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Although it’s widely known that modern humans carry traces of Neanderthal DNA, a new international study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that Neanderthal Y-chromosome genes disappeared from the human genome long ago. Apparently, 2.5 to 4 percent of DNA sequences are thought be from Neanderthals. Question: Has anyone tried doing that with any other discrete group? Why is not yet clear. The Neanderthal Y chromosome genes could have simply drifted out of the human gene pool by chance over the millennia. Another possibility, said Mendez, is that Neanderthal Y chromosomes include genes that are incompatible with other human genes, and he and his colleagues have found evidence supporting this idea. Indeed, one Read More ›

In the comments box at Miller’s Mendacity, Barry Arrington asks It is getting to the point that refuting the nonsense is almost beside the point. No one believes it, least of all those who say they do. As you’ve been saying for some time now, the really interesting story here is the psychological story. Why do people profess belief in the obviously false? Okay: Why do people profess belief in the obviously false? A couple notes: – The belief that randomness produces information (central to Darwinism) is obviously false. It’s never been demonstrated because it can’t be. It is assumed. It is assumed for the same reasons as the existence of a multiverse or a naturalist explanation for consciousness are assumed. Read More ›

At Patheos, the prophet RJS asks: Is ID Dead?, meaning of course that it is: A decade ago Intelligent Design with a capital I and a capital D was a hot topic. A major trial testing the teaching of the ID in Pennsylvania was decided in late 2005 and Stephen C. Meyer’s massive book Signature in the Cell was published in 2009. It was a common topic in evangelical churches – viewed as a way to combat the evil influence of evolution. Quite frankly, it was a topic I was ready to see disappear. The controversy was tainting most conversations about Christianity in my circles at the University. Today there are other points of contention and Intelligent Design has moved Read More ›

From a featurette on a New Zealand spider with really fast jaws at Mashable: The spiders are only found in New Zealand and southern parts of South America, with the quickest of the 14 species of trap-jaw spider closing their jaw more than 100 times faster than the slowest. … Not only are some of these trap-jaw spiders fast, four of the spiders boast a power output exceeding the known capacity of their muscles. It’s a finding which shows that a spider’s movements aren’t necessarily powered by their tiny muscles, according to the statement, but have perhaps developed structural mechanisms in their bodies which allow the storing of energy — thanks to evolution. More. Huh? What’s “thanks to evolution” doing in Read More ›

And that’s not a good thing for understanding numbers, says Priceonomics: Many analysts believe that the unthinking use of the average damages our understanding of quantitative information. This is because when people look at averages, they think it is “the norm”. But in reality, it might be highly impacted by just one huge outlier. Imagine an analyst who wanted to know the representative value for the cost of real estate on a block with five houses. Four of the houses are worth $100,000 and one is worth $900,000. Given these numbers, the average would be $200,000 and the median $100,000. In this case, and many others, the median gives you a better sense of what is “typical”. … The median Read More ›

As Robert Barron notes: In a rambling and largely incoherent response to an interlocutor who wondered whether philosophy is still relevant, Nye denigrated the discipline, stating that philosophy never deviates from common sense, that it doubts the reality of sense experience, and that it engages in speculation about whether we might be part of an intergalactic ping pong match! To tumultuous applause, doubtless. The physical sciences can reveal the chemical composition of ink and paper, but they cannot, even in principle, tell us anything about the meaning of Moby Dick or The Wasteland. Biology might inform us regarding the process by which nerves stimulate muscles in order to produce human action, but it could never tell us anything about whether Read More ›

Canadian weekly Maclean’s recently featured an article by Brian Bethune titled, Did Jesus really exist? The article, which drew upon a book recently published by New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, titled, Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior, argues that the Gospel accounts of Jesus are largely based on unreliable memories and a highly distorted oral tradition. But Bethune does not stop there: citing the work of New Atheist Richard Carrier, he goes beyond Ehrman and maintains that Jesus may never have even existed at all. The issues raised by Professor Ehrman in his book are of immense philosophical significance, for they pertain to the trustworthiness of human testimony. If Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Salamanders and fish possess genes that can enable healing of damaged tissue and even regrowth of missing limbs. The key to regeneration lies not only in the genes, but in the DNA sequences that regulate expression of those genes in response to an injury. Researchers have discovered regulatory sequences that they call ’tissue regeneration enhancer elements’ or TREEs, which can turn on genes in injury sites. … Over the last decade, researchers have identified dozens of regeneration genes in organisms like zebrafish, flies, and mice. For example, one molecule called neuregulin 1 can make heart muscle cells proliferate and others called fibroblast growth factors can promote the regeneration of a severed fin. Yet, Poss says, what has not Read More ›

Readers of these pages are familiar with the logical fallacy known as Miller’s Mendacity.  From our glossary: Miller’s Mendacity is a particular type of strawman fallacy frequently employed by Darwinists. It invariably consists of the following two steps: 1. Erect the strawman: The Darwinist falsely declares that intelligent design is based on the following assertion: If something is improbable it must have been designed. 2. Demolish the strawman: The Darwinist then demonstrates an improbable event that was obviously not designed (such as dealing a particular hand of cards from a randomized deck), and declares “ID is demolished because I have just demonstrated an extremely improbable event that was obviously not designed.” Miller’s Mendacity is named for Brown University biochemist Ken Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Researchers recently discovered that alligators and related crocodilian species have a previously unknown second jaw joint that helps to distribute the extreme force of their bite, which is the most powerful of any living animal. The finding raises new questions about the evolution of our own meager-by-comparison jaws and could potentially lead to a better understanding of common jaw disorders. When we discovered that crocs had built this new jaw joint, it made us re-evaluate how mammals actually evolved our jaw joint and reinterpret what we thought we knew about where parts of our jaw joint came from,” said Casey Holliday, Ph.D., assistant professor of anatomy at the University of Missouri, who led the research. “It’s one of Read More ›

Commenting on recent theoretical physics debates in New York City, Columbia mathematician Peter Woit writes at Not even Wrong about what happens when multiverse theory is just assumed to be true: At 7 pm the American Museum of Natural History will host the 2016 Asimov Debate, with this year the topic Is the Universe a Simulation?. You can watch a livestream at that site. I confess that if this were a few days earlier, I would be convinced it was definitely a joke. But, it seems not, that instead this “has become a serious line of theoretical and experimental investigation among physicists, astrophysicists, and philosophers” and that it’s a “provocative and revolutionary idea”. One thing this is not is new. Read More ›

Here is the second preview session for the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism 2016 Online Conference. The actual conference will be held online on April 16th.

Evolutionists are going to need a bigger rug as Yale professor Andrew Xiao now has a new pile of stuff he is absurdly trying to ascribe to evolution. Xiao’s team has confirmed that in mammals the fundamental epigenetic signal—the methyl group—is sometimes attached to a second type of DNA base. DNA is made up of four types of bases (cytosine [C], guanine [G], adenine [A] and thymine [T]) and, as in the lower species, methyl groups are sometimes attached to adenine in mammals as well.  Read more