Intelligent Design

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which bills itself as “the nation’s largest association of atheists and agnostics, working to keep religion out of government,” ran an advertisement in The New York Times on July 4, 2013 (see page A7 of the paper edition), inviting Americans to “Celebrate our Godless Constitution.” Now, I’ll say a little more about the American Constitution in a moment, but before I do, I’d like to comment on the advertisement’s quotations from the writings of Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and the first four Presidents of the United States, in support of their cause. In the words of the FFRF press release accompanying the New York Times advertisement: “The ads quote U.S. Founders and Framers on their Read More ›

Genes in our DNA code for proteins, but those genes only account for a few percent of the entire genome. What is the rest of our DNA doing? Evolutionists thought it was mostly useless but, in fact, all kinds of functions have been implicated. Some of the DNA is transcribed in long segments but, unlike the coding genes, does not get translated into a protein. Instead, this large noncoding RNA (lncRNA) helps to regulate which protein-coding genes are transcribed. New research is helping to elucidate how lncRNA does its job. The findings are not only astonishing, they demolish evolutionary theory.  Read more

Abstract:   In Sewell’s discussion of entropy flow, he defines “Entropy-X”, which is a very useful concept that should clarify misconceptions of entropy promulgated by Wikipedia and scientists unfamiliar with thermodynamics. Sewell’s important contribution is to argue that one can and should reduce the “atom-entropy” into a subsets of mutually exclusive “entropy-X”. Mathematically, this is like factoring an N x M matrix into block diagonal form, by showing that the cross terms between blocks do not contribute to the total. Each of the blocks in the diagonal then correspond to a separately computed entropy, or “Entropy-X”.  This contribution not only clarifies many of the misunderstandings of laypersons, it also provides a way for physicists to overcome their confusion regarding biology. – Read More ›

Carl Sagan once responded to an evolution skeptic with a response that Sagan obviously had given some thought to. You can listen to the question and Sagan’s summary beginning at the [0:24] mark:  read more

HT: JGuy In a science journal Icarus, a journal dedicated to Solar System studies, we have this recent paper from Vladimir I. Cherbaka, Department of Mathematics, al-Farabi Kazakh National University and Maxim A. Makukov Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute, Observatory 23. The “Wow” signal in the terrestrial genetic code Abstract It has been repeatedly proposed to expand the scope for SETI, and one of the suggested alternatives to radio is the biological media. Genomic DNA is already used on Earth to store non-biological information. Though smaller in capacity, but stronger in noise immunity is the genetic code. The code is a flexible mapping between codons and amino acids, and this flexibility allows modifying the code artificially. But once fixed, the code might Read More ›

Can I find examples that can fit any of the four following descriptions? Are some even impossible in principle? [Assume first that the artifact in question has high improbability (like a set of a million coins or as stream of a million bits) or high Shannon entropy. Also assume by “disordered” I mean Kolmogorov simple or algorithmically simple or possessing low algorithmic entropy. Curiously (as far as I know), organization cannot be measured in terms of either Shannon entropy nor algorithmic entropy, it is a transcendent feature that can perceived almost only through subjective specification. Further, thermodynamic entropy isn’t even considered in any of these cases (and may not even be applicable)]. 1. ordered and organized 2. ordered but disorganized Read More ›

Why would a Biblical creationist be interested in the Design argument? Isn’t enough for a creationist to know “God did it?”. No! God also wants creationists to know the level of His genius, and that is where the Design argument has benefit for creationists. Design research will glorify the Creator in ways revealed theology cannot. To illustrate: a creationist could say “God created birds” but a Design theorist could say “God made birds and there is genius in the design of flight…” The Design theorist then shows the genius of the Creator rather than merely asserting “God did it”. Scripture doesn’t describe every design in the universe. There may be designs out there remaining to be discovered. Things a Biblical Read More ›

Every once in a while evolutionists distill their thoughts into pithy statements that profoundly summarize what it’s all about for them. Carl Sagan’s 1980 Cosmos video is chocked full of such statements, but non better than his classic opening line: “The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.” [Please click to see] Obviously that is a truth claim, but it does not come from science. Truth claims that do not come from science are nothing new. What is new, however, is the presentation of such truth asscience. And so while there is nothing wrong with evolutionists proclaiming what they believe. There is everything wrong with their insistence that it is what everyone else must believe as well. That Read More ›