Intelligent Design

So says conservation biologist Ross Pomeroy at RealClearScience: Think about it. As you travel back in time though your family history, the number of ancestors you have roughly doubles with every generation. Using the most conservative estimate of generation time — 32 years — in the year 1152, you had as many as 134,217,728 potential ancestors. And since genes are scrambled with every generation, it’s very likely you share little to no genetic relation to most of them. They might as well be strangers!… DNA testing companies often take this ambiguity and fill in the blanks with impressive stories that you can show your friends and relatives. Though fascinating, these tales share more in common with astrological horoscopes than historical Read More ›

From Mashable: The geometric wonders are by Kerby Rosanes, an illustrator from the Philippines, who wields an ink pen and plastic compass like a straight-edge wizard. More of Rosanes’ work can be found on his Society6 page and Instagram. See also: At PBS: Puzzle of mathematics is more complex than we sometimes think Follow UD News at Twitter! More of Rosanes’ work can be found on his Society6 page and Instagram.

Recently, I was astonished when I came across an article titled, Are We in a ‘Sixth Great Extinction’? Maybe Not, by Ross Pomeroy, an editor of RealClearScience and a zoologist and conservation biologist by training. The author’s candor and intellectual honesty are refreshing: The notion that humans are erasing species off the face of the Earth at near unprecedented levels is a perennial story that has been blared in the media for more than two decades. In the year 2000, the United Nations’ Millennium Ecosystem Assessment estimated that species are going extinct 1,000 times faster than they naturally do, and that this rate could increase to 10,000 times. These rates translate to between 17,000 and 140,000 species going extinct each Read More ›

From stalwart of science New York Mag: But scientists are coming to realize that this might not be quite right. A pair of new studies challenge many of the popular assumptions about the psychological effects of wintertime, suggesting that we should look at the season in a new, brighter light. The weather might be gray and chilly, but the latest science says we humans are better at dealing with this than we usually give ourselves credit for, both in terms of our mood and the basic functioning of our brains. The first study is a massive investigation published recently in Clinical Psychological Science involving 34,294 U.S. adults. It casts doubt on the very notion that depression symptoms are worse in Read More ›

Stacy Trasancos, a homeschooling mother of seven with a Ph.D. in chemistry and an M.A. in Dogmatic Theology who is an Adjunct Professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary, has penned a thoughtful essay over at the Catholic One Faith blog titled, Does Science Prove God Exists? Her answer, in a nutshell, is that while science can provide inductive support for the existence of a Creator, only theology can provide deductive arguments for God’s existence. In any case, we shouldn’t need to prop up our belief in God with scientific arguments. Dr. Trasancos rejects the view that some scientific conclusions are compatible with God’s existence, while others are not. Christians, she says, should start from the fundamental notion that God Read More ›

My previous post about information jumps, based on the example of the Prickle 1 protein, has generated a very interesting discussion, still ongoing. I add here some more thoughts about an aspect which has not been really analyzed in the first post, and which can probably contribute to the discussion. I will give here only a very quick summary of the basic issue, inviting all those interested to check my first post: Homologies, differences and information jumps and the following discussion, amounting at present at more than 500 posts. So: OK. This is more or less the essence of the first post. The following discussion has touched many aspects, but I will not mention them all here, because I am confident Read More ›

This is philosopher and photographer Laszlo Bencze’s view: I have just finished my fifth reading of Robert J. Spitzer’s book, New Proofs for the Existence of God. In this book Spitzer set himself the task of exploring how far natural theology can take us towards understanding God. The first part of the book deals purely with science, particularly cosmology. In it he discusses the Big Bang; the extreme fine tuning of the of the universe which makes possible the existence of stars, planets, and life; General Relativity; string theory; and quantum physics. This part of the book reads like a science text. In the second part of the book he takes a purely philosophical approach using only the tools of Read More ›

From Sean Pitman (2016): Late last year there was an interesting debate on Premier Christian Radio, “Unbelievable” with Justin Brierley between Stephen Meyer and Charles Marshall over Meyer’s latest book,Darwin’s Doubt. Marshall, a UC Berkeley paleontologist, had published a review of the book in the journal Science a few months earlier and this was Meyer’s chance to respond to Marshall’s less than positive critique. For those interested, the radio debate is available by clicking on the following: (Link) What follows here is my own summery, followed by my own personal take, on the debate: More. See also: Listener’s guide and video series on the book Follow UD News at Twitter!

From Trends in Genetics: Evolutionary theory predicts that factors such as a small population size or low recombination rate can limit the action of natural selection. The emerging field of comparative population genomics offers an opportunity to evaluate these hypotheses. However, classical theoretical predictions assume that populations are at demographic equilibrium. This assumption is likely to be violated in the very populations researchers use to evaluate selection’s limits: populations that have experienced a recent shift in population size and/or effective recombination rates. Here we highlight theory and data analyses concerning limitations on the action of natural selection in nonequilibrial populations and argue that substantial care is needed to appropriately test whether species and populations show meaningful differences in selection efficacy. Read More ›

Criminologist and former atheist Mike Adams summarizes the three foundational philosophical alternatives to the Cosmos:

First, we can say that it came into being spontaneously – in other words, that it came to be without a cause. Second, we can say that it has always been. Third, we can posit some cause outside the physical universe to explain its existence. The second option is no longer reasonable. Science has been leading inexorably to the conclusion that the universe is not infinite but instead had a beginning. . . . Reasonable people grasp intuitively that it makes far more sense to say that something came from something than to say that something came from nothing. Of course, admitting that the universe was caused by something rather than nothing comes with a price. Any cause predating the physical universe must therefore be non-physical in nature.

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If you live under the sort of enlightened regime that funds high education. From Prospect: Six years ago I submitted a paper for a panel, “On the Absence of Absences” that was to be part of an academic conference later that year—in August 2010. Then, and now, I had no idea what the phrase “absence of absences” meant. The description provided by the panel organizers, printed below, did not help. The summary, or abstract of the proposed paper—was pure gibberish, as you can see below. I tried, as best I could within the limits of my own vocabulary, to write something that had many big words but which made no sense whatsoever. I not only wanted to see if I Read More ›

From Science Daily: Could the food we eat affect our genes? Study in yeast suggests this may be the case “Cellular metabolism plays a far more dynamic role in the cells than we previously thought,” explains Dr Ralser. “Nearly all of a cell’s genes are influenced by changes to the nutrients they have access to. In fact, in many cases the effects were so strong, that changing a cell’s metabolic profile could make some of its genes behave in a completely different manner. “The classical view is that genes control how nutrients are broken down into important molecules, but we’ve shown that the opposite is true, too: how the nutrients break down affects how our genes behave.” The researchers believe Read More ›

From Paul Furber at Brainstorm: Wikipedia lost at least 300 million views in 2015, dropping it from the fifth most viewed website on the planet down to the tenth. This is a good thing for a number of reasons. It started as a good idea in 2001 — an encyclopaedia that anyone could edit. Unfortunately, it’s now a quagmire of bureaucracy, infighting, corruption and agenda-pushing. Try to edit any article that an established editor regards as their pet project and you’ll find your edits reverted in double quick time, regardless of whether you have reliable sources for your edit. Complain about this and you’ll get banned. You personally may be a reliable source, but that won’t matter: Wikipedia doesn’t even Read More ›

From Allen Greer at The Scientist: If inferences about animal emotions are fraught with anthropomorphism and language bias, surely evolutionary principles provide an unbiased way of thinking about animal emotions. But evolution can say only it is plausible that the precursors to human emotions did arise long before humans evolved. Just as certain bones can be identified all the way along the evolutionary tree from primitive fishes to humans so too can certain neuro-anatomical, chemical and physiological substrates associated with emotions in humans be traced well back in our ancestry. But while we can identify these “tangible” substrates in animals, the associated emotions they support, if any, remain a matter of irreconcilable opinion. If stimulation of a part of the Read More ›