Intelligent Design

One of my favorite biologists is Gunter Wagner. He makes the claim in Genome Biology and Evolution that evolvability and modularity are highly associated. While not proof of a requirement, I think that Wagner is on the right track. In fact, this sort of research can actually bridge the gap between Intelligent Design and Evolutionary biology. The main critique ID has for evolutionary biology is that the haphazard mutation/selection paradigm does not create organisms. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they didn’t evolve in some way, but it does rule out the haphazard mechanisms. As I pointed out in 2008, there is a difference between “parameterized” evolution and “open-ended” evolution. Parameterized evolution requires information about the most likely productive ways to Read More ›

The theory of evolution has made many predictions about what we should find in biology. Those predictions have routinely failed and that tells us there is something wrong with the idea. One such prediction is that the genomes and their protein products, from different species, should form a common descent pattern. The graphic shows an example of this prediction from a high school textbook written by evolutionist George Johnson. In that example Johnson informs his young readers that the hemoglobin protein “reveals the predicted pattern.” That was a misrepresentation of the evidence at the time, and since then the failure of this prediction has only grown worse. Another more recent, but related, prediction is that evolution is largely driven by Read More ›

Yesterday (January 20) was Martin Luther King Day (h/t Joe). Dr. King was a great individual, who changed the course of history. In this post, I’d like to briefly discuss his views on creation, evolution and Intelligent Design. Dr. Martin Luther King’s views can be summarized as follows: 1. Like many of his theological contemporaries in the 1950s, Dr. King accepted Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, as a biological theory. He believed that human beings had animal ancestors, and he believed that churchmen who resisted Darwin’s theory were “misinformed.” 2. Dr. King also believed that Darwin’s theory had been warped and distorted by Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel into an ethical and sociological theory of inexorable human progress, built on Read More ›

Over at The Skeptical Zone, Dr. Elizabeth Liddle has written a thought-provoking post, which poses an interesting ethical conundrum about the morality of creating sentient beings. Dr. Liddle’s post was titled, Getting some stuff off my chest…., and its tone was remarkably conciliatory, as the following extracts reveal: I don’t think that science has disproven, nor even suggests, that it is unlikely that an Intelligent Designer was responsible for the world, and intended it to come into existence. I don’t think that science has, nor even can, prove that divine and/or miraculous intervention is impossible. I think the world has properties that make it perfectly possible for an Intelligent Deity to “reach in” and tweak things to her liking – Read More ›

When aircraft fly the air pressure on the underside of the wing is greater than on the topside. This pressure difference provides the needed lift force on the wings. It also causes the air at the end of the wing to move upward and then around in a circle, resulting in a strong vortex that trails the wing tips as the aircraft flies (see photo). Birds also have trailing vortices but they are far more complex given the complicated shape of the wing and the bird’s flapping motion. And so while it is tempting to think that the familiar V-formation used by migrating birds is for aerodynamic efficiency, evolutionists have long since been skeptical because of the tremendous precision that Read More ›

The New Republic has just published Professor Jerry Coyne’s critical review of David Bentley Hart’s latest work, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss, despite the fact that Coyne openly admits to not having read Hart’s book, although he says he intends to. For a literary magazine like The New Republic, I have to say that this marks a new low. Let me declare up-front that I haven’t read Hart’s book, either. I am, however, familiar with much of Hart’s thinking, because I’ve made the effort to understand him on his own terms. Jerry Coyne’s review, titled, The ‘Best Arguments for God’s Existence’ Are Actually Terrible, rests on a complete misunderstanding of what Hart is saying in his book, and Read More ›