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Intelligent Design

Darwinism, Metaphysics And A Godless World

(The following piece makes reference to the late philosopher of science David Hull’s ‘God Of the Galapagos’.  Hull died peacefully earlier this week at the age of 75)

Much has been said about how in The Origin of Species, the problem of suffering in nature tinted Darwin’s view and convinced him of a world that bore none of the expected hallmarks of a loving God (Ref 1). Indeed in a letter to a friend Darwin reflected on the “misery in the world” and expressed his aversion towards the female digger wasp that, ghastly as its feeding habits were, could not have been the product of a,”beneficent and omnipotent God” (Ref 1, p.12). So it is that we begin to understand biophysicist Cornelius Hunter’s assertion that much of Darwin’s own theory was based not on scientific premises but instead on a personal expectation of what God’s creation should look like (Ref 1, p.13). Darwin was disenchanted with Christianity and he wrote as much in the autobiographical account of his younger years (Ref 2, p.57). But he was also deeply affected by the ugliness of nature and what this meant for the existence of a benevolent God. As he wrote:

“A being so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the universe, is to our finite minds omnipotent and omniscient, and it revolts our understanding to suppose that his benevolence is not unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time? Read More ›

Another Darwinian “Prediction” Bites the Dust

I’m including some quotes from a Science magazine feature that is just out. I just posted the other day about results that conflict with Darwinian expectations/predictions. We’ll just add this to the list. You know, you really have to be a true believer to keep insisting that your idea is correct when almost invariably every true prediction made using your idea turns out to be wrong. I’m beyond even being surprised any more. Here goes:

“It was the most radical of a flurry of recent discoveries of human genes that evolution has strongly favored, a process called positive selection. Four years ago, researchers thought that they would find hundreds of examples in which an advantageous mutation spread rapidly in a particular population. That prediction, based on the first scans of human genome sequence data, did not pan out, and by last year, some researchers were ready to give up.

A growing number of researchers now think it is rare for a particular mutation to spread rapidly to most people within a population, as was the case with the EPAS1 gene.”

The bottom line to all of this is that population genetics is dead. (Have I said that before?!) Notice, though, how the Darwinists talk about it amongst themselves:
‘”In only a handful has there been much progress in identifying the causal mutations and extracting these biological insights about their function,” Sabeti wrote in the 12 February issue of Science (p. 883). Says McVean: “That’s why the whole field—the program of trying to find selective sweeps—kind of ground to a halt.”‘

Never able to admit that they might be wrong, they had to begin all over again in a new and different way.

“Yet McVean and others were convinced that positive selection had shaped much of the genome but lay beneath the radar of methods used to detect it. . . . “It’s very likely that many traits that are different between populations are coded by different alleles; any one may not be so strong,” says population geneticist Pleuni Pennings of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany.

Consequently, earlier this year Pritchard and his colleagues proposed an alternative to strong selection on single new mutations. In Current Biology, they argued that selection on more than one gene at once could allow a new trait—such as increased height—to sweep more rapidly through a group.

Detecting such polygenic selection is one of the new frontiers. . . .”

Notice that they are “convinced”. They just know. Isn’t this wonderful?
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Our Earthly Classroom

A Review of Peter Forbes’ The Gecko’s Foot: Bio-inspiration: Engineering New Materials from Nature

ISBN-13:978-0-393-06223-6

Bio-inspiration is a relatively new field of science that is trying to replicate the phenomena and designs of nature in ways that are of benefit to man. The manner in which a gecko’s foot allows it to climb glass, the way in which the wings of a butterfly sparkle in the sunlight and the complex methods of flight used by insects have all inspired technologists to emulate nature. More recently the cellular world with its molecular machines has provided a source of ideas for nano-technological design. This ‘nanorealm’ that is the cell has become the last frontier of natural exploration. Bioinspiration has likewise brought together disparate disciplines of science to tackle some of the major challenges of engineering and medicine – proteins that stick onto silica chips, for example, that may one day help in finding a cure for cancer. Read More ›

On Guard Conference in Denton Texas

Denton Bible Church, in Denton, TX, will be hosting the “2010 On Guard Christian Apologetics Conference” on November the 5th and 6th.

Denton Bible Church is delighted to bring a powerhouse group of speakers to the Dallas/Fort Worth/Denton area for this year’s apologetics conference entitled, “On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision.” The name of this year’s conference is taken from the title of one of William Lane Craig’s newest books addressing the subject of apologetics in the local church. We have invited some of the greatest defenders of the Christian faith to speak at this year’s conference on a wide variety of subjects including the historical reliability of the New Testament, the evidence for the resurrection, scientific challenges to the theory of Evolution, and the battle of Worldviews.

Speakers include William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, Sean McDowell, Paul Nelson (whose address is titled “The Power and Promise of Intelligent Design in Biology”), Mike Licona, Craig Hazen,  and others.

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The Panda’s Thumb Goes After Casey Luskin Yet Again

Casey Luskin, Program Officer in Public Policy and Legal Affairs for the Discovery Institute, has recently published an article entitled ZEAL FOR DARWIN’S HOUSE CONSUMES THEM:HOW SUPPORTERS OF EVOLUTION ENCOURAGE VIOLATIONS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE in the Liberty University Law Review. Luskin continues to be a favorite target of the anti-ID crowd over at The Panda’s Thumb, and this article is no exception. The task of misrepresenting Luskin fell to attorney Timothy Sandefur, who frequently contributes to the Panda’s Thumb blog site.

Luskin clearly lays out the intent of the article in the very first paragraph and writes:

The common stereotype in the controversy over teaching evolution holds that it is the opponents of evolution who are constantly trying to “sneak religious dogma back into science education.”1 While perhaps in some
instances this caricature is not entirely undeserved,2 the mainstream media and legal community pay scant attention to incidents where proponents of Darwinian evolution transgress the boundary between church and state erected by the Establishment Clause. By documenting ways that evolution advocates encourage violations of the Establishment Clause—in some instances, explicitly advocating state endorsement of pro-evolution religious viewpoints in the science classroom—this Article will show the impropriety of the common “Inherit the Wind stereotype.”3

Apparently this clear of a statement isn’t good enough for Sandefur who sniffs:

It will come as no surprise to anyone that Luskin’s argument is flimsy, his evidence illusory, his readings of the case law distorted, and the overall effect essentially a fun-house mirror version of First Amendment law.

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An ID Perspective on the Paper from Michael J. Murray and Jeffrey P. Schloss

As explained earlier by idnet.com.au, Michael J. Murray and Jeffrey P. Schloss have contributed a paper at PNAS answering an argument in a previous paper, also published at PNAS, by John C Avise. idnet.com.au did a fine job explaining the details of the argument, I intend on focusing on the paper from Murray and Schloss in a kind of exegetical manner.

In a recent issue of PNAS, Avise (1) presents a helpful survey of suboptimal features of the human genome that are best understood as products of evolution, but in venturing to offer theological commentary on intelligent design (ID) and religious belief in general, he errs on three counts.

Those three counts are:

First, the central claims of ID have been abundantly critiqued on strict empirical grounds (2), leaving no need for recourse to his theological objection that imperfections are unworthy of deity. Laplace’s dictum about the role of God in explanations of nature—“I have no need of that hypothesis”—has become the guiding principle for science. Arguing that the presence of “genetic evil” undercuts appeals to divine agency is superfluous and detracts from rather than advances scientific discussion.

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Electrical Communication in Bacteria

A recent article describes an interesting idea – do bacteria in the ocean have an electrical power/signalling grid? From the article: Then the researchers did something they knew would make the bacteria unhappy: They started removing the oxygen from the water. If the bacteria were swapping materials, as Nielsen had suspected, those living below the surface of the mud would have gradually noticed that their oxygen supply was being cut off; they would have registered chemical changes in the sediment that could be detected by sensors. But instead, Nielsen and colleagues witnessed something far more rapid. Almost as soon as the researchers began removing the oxygen, the subsurface bacteria stopped consuming hydrogen sulfide in the mud. More important, this metabolic Read More ›

More Questions for Evolutionists

In this Nature Alert article, we find out that sponges, present as early as 635 million years ago in the fossil record, have 18,000 genes, among which are genes for apoptosis, that is, cell death. Now here is a creature that has “a simple body plan lacking organs, muscles and nerve cells.” Let’s remember that the number of human genes, prior to whole genome analysis, was thought to be at least 100,000. With early genomic results in, this number was revised downward. Today it stands at 25,000—and shrinking! (There are arguments for lowering it still) So the lowly sponge—no nerves, no muscles, simple as you can get—has around 65% the number of genes as humans. Well, all of this presents Read More ›

Survival of the Fittest or Altruistic Suicide?

Like engineers carefully blowing up a bridge, cells have intricate, programmed suicide mechanisms. The signal is sent and an apparatus of destruction is activated. But suicide hardly fits the evolutionary narrative. Wasn’t this all about survival, reproductive advantages and leaving more offspring? Why would a cell evolve intricate and complex suicide machinery?  Read more

Noam Chomsky, Darwinism, and linguistics

Some have wondered whether Noam Chomsky was a friend to Darwinism. A friend in linguistics kindly writes, Chomsky made many anti-Darwinian comments, as in his “Language and Mind,” and his critique of B. F. Skinner’s “Verbal Behavior” made quite an impact. Chomsky also collaborated with Marcel-Paul Schützenberger who I believe was anti-Darwinian. But he’s distanced himself from ID-his anti-ID screed was noted. [ … ] Chomsky started out positive, as with his demand for explicitness and his model of transformational grammar, but his regime was dictatorial, he would take ideas and rename them never acknowledging their source, and so eventually he fell out of favor in linguistics. In linguistic circles it is said that his prestige issued from his radical Read More ›

Butterflies and Flashlights

I once met a fellow who was an aficionado of, believe it or not, flashlights. It seemed rather mundane until I saw all the neat designs using LEDs (light emitting diodes). These semiconductor devices have been greatly improved in recent years and are finding a wide range of uses. But as is so often the case, these technological advancements were there all along in the biological world. In this case, certain butterfly species have their own elaborate optical emission system in their wings. As one researcher put it, “Who knows how much time could have been saved if we’d seen this butterfly structure 10 years ago.”  Read more

Michael Behe Lecture Recommend

Check out this lecture by Michael Behe about his book, The Edge of Evolution. Two questions posed by members of the audience were of interest to me. Sean Carroll criticized Behe in a review of The Edge for not considering cumulative, sequential mutations, and Carroll used a specific example. Behe points out in the lecture that this specific example was addressed in his book, and that the subject of cumulative selection was addressed in detail. Behe goes on to speak about the resistance of “science” publications to print his rejoinders to his critics, and that the editors often say something like, “Your response would not be of interest to our readers.” Really? Pointing out flagrant misrepresentations — might I even Read More ›

What if its True?

Warning:  This post is intended for those who have an open mind regarding the design hypothesis.  If your mind is clamped so tightly shut that you are unable to even consider alternatives to your received dogma, it is probably better for you to just move along to the echo chamber of your choice.  Today, for the sake of argument only, let us make two assumptions:  1.  First, let us assume that the design hypothesis is correct, i.e., that living things appear to be designed for a purpose because they were in fact designed for a purpose.  2.  Second, let us assume that the design hypothesis is not a scientific hypothesis, which means that ID proponents are not engaged in a Read More ›

New book announcement: William A. Dembski and Denyse O’Leary slam “Christian Darwinism” in forthcoming book

In Christian Darwinism: Why Theistic Evolution Fails As Science and Theology (Broadman and Holman, November 2011), mathematician Dembski and journalist O’Leary address a powerful new trend to accommodate Christianity with atheist materialism, via acceptance of Darwinian (“survival of the fittest”) evolution. This trend includes “Evolution Sundays” at churches and endorsements by high administration officials like Francis Collins. Dembski and O’Leary say it all just doesn’t work. How can we accommodate self-sacrifice as the imitation of Christ with “altruism is just another way you spread your selfish genes!” How can we accommodate monogamy as the image of Christ and his church – for which he gave himself up – with “The human animal was never meant to be monogamous!”? In the Read More ›

Computational Intelligence and Darwinism

This UD post got me to thinking. I do that from time to time.

On the subject of computational intelligence I have some minor credentials, including a Silver Medal at the first Computer Olympiad in London, sponsored by David Levy of chess fame. You can access the final results of my research and efforts in computational artificial intelligence (AI) here:

If you have a computer with sufficient memory and disk space you can explore the only perfect-play endgame algorithm ever invented for the game of checkers (known as draughts in the UK).

It was my exploration into computational AI that initially caused me to have doubts about the creative powers of the Darwinian mechanism, which I now consider to be a transparent absurdity as an explanation for almost anything of any significance, and certainly not as an explanation for human intelligence.

Here’s why.
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