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Intelligent Design

METHODOLOGICAL NATURALISM, REVISIONIST HISTORY, AND MORPHING DEFINITIONS

Whenever I tune in to any discussion on the subject of “methodological naturalism,” I often marvel at the extent to which Darwinists will rewrite history and manipulate the language in their futile attempt to defend this so-called  “requirement” for science. In order to set the stage, we must first try to understand what methodological naturalism could possibly mean.

First, we have what one might call the “soft” definition, characterized as a preference for identifying for natural causes, a position which makes no final judgment about a universal  line of demarcation between science and non-science. Second, we have the “hard” definition as used by all the institutional Darwinists. In the second context, methodological naturalism is an institutional “rule” by which one group of researchers imposes on another group of researchers  an arbitrary, intrusive, and non-negotiable standard which states that scientists must study nature as if nature is all there is.

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The Evolution of Serendipity

A key question for evolution has always been: How does biological variation arise? Darwin’s theory of evolution explained that natural selection killed off the less-fit variations, but how did the variation arise in the first place? In the nineteenth century the mechanisms of biological variation were not well understood and it was possible to imagine a sort of simple, perturbing force at work which gradually altered designs. This model did not match up very well with what Gregor Mendel was discovering about change in pea plants. About the same time that Darwin was working on revisions to his book Mendel was uncovering the fundamental laws of genetics. But Mendelian genetics would call for discrete jumps in biological variation rather than Read More ›

Prestin and Darwin’s Gardener

A fundamental, and often false, prediction of evolution is that functionally unconstrained DNA should not be conserved in distant species. As described here, everything from proteins to long stretches of DNA, though highly similar across different species, defy evolutionsts who search for a functional constraint, as required by their theory. And how do evolutionists respond? They claim that the mystery DNA must have a function, even though myriad tests have found none. If we cannot detect the function, then there must be a problem with the tests. There must be a function which otherwise is undetectable to us. It is a perfect example of how religious belief resists falsification as Antony Flew once illustrated in his gardener parable.  Read more

Yet Another IPCC Foul

  This is looking more and more like a farce: This is to be found in Chapter 13 of the Working Group II report, the same part of the IPCC fourth assessment report in which the “Glaciergate” claims are made. There, is the startling claim that: “Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state, not necessarily producing gradual changes between the current and the future situation (Rowell and Moore, 2000). It is more probable that forests will be replaced by ecosystems that have more resistance to multiple stresses caused by temperature Read More ›

Proteins That Regulate Protein Production

Most people understand that our genes are stored in our DNA but what is less commonly understood is how the cell determines which genes to use at any one time. The DNA in our cells contain tens of thousands of protein-coding genes whose proteins serve a great variety of purposes. They serve as railroad tracks, precision tunnels, enzymes to speed up reactions and environmental sensors to name just a few. And some proteins go back to the DNA and bind to the double helix, as part of a complex regulatory network that determines which genes to use to make new proteins. In other words, the cell determines which genes, to use to make new proteins, by using existing proteins. But Read More ›

Leaping Mt Improbable

The study of 101 phylogenies reveals a new interpretation of speciation. Nature Vol 463 21 Jan 10 p349 The hypothesis that speciation follows the accumulation of many small events that multiply or simply add together (gradualism as Dawkins promotes) is supported in only 8% and 0% of cases. 78% of phylogenies fit the simple model where new species emerge from single rare stochastic events that produce reproductive isolation sufficient to cause speciation. Species simply wait for the next sufficient cause of speciation to occur. Speciation is freed from the gradual tug of natural selection. There need not be an arms race between species. Gradual genetic and other changes may often be consequent to the event that promotes the reproductive isolation Read More ›

The All-Powerful and Infinitely Creative Darwinian Magic Wand: “Deep Time”

In another UD thread a commenter made the following observation and claim: Darwinists are not going to be surprised by very high function after 3.5 billion years of evolution. Ah yes, the ubiquitous and all-powerful Darwinian magic wand of “deep time,” which makes the impossible possible, the possible probable, and the probable inevitable — or so goes the completely unsubstantiated Darwinian fantasy that flies in the face of trivial logical scrutiny, basic reason, simple combinatorial mathematical evaluation, and empirical evidence (as elucidated in Behe’s Edge). Time is not the issue; it’s the probabilistic resources, which are clearly inadequate even if one makes unrealistically optimistic assumptions at every stage of the evolution of living systems. Forget natural selection; it’s completely irrelevant Read More ›

Update on Prior IPCC Snafu

Last week we linked to a report that the IPCC had published unsubstantiated anecdotes masquerading as peer reviewed science.  In a stunningly candid admission, they now admit they included the false “science” in a conscious effort to move policy makers.  The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders. Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the Read More ›

Yet Another False IPCC Report

Full article here. THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods. It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny — and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report’s own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

New Intron Research Reveals Same Old Contradictions

In eukaryotes the DNA genes are sometimes interrupted by non coding segments. These intragenic regions, or introns, are cut out of the transcribed DNA before the copy is sent to the ribosome for translation into a protein. Naturally evolutionists have always believed introns are a result of evolution, but their explanations are strained. As one recent paper explained, understanding why such introns exist and their evolutionary origins is “a problem that has proved a conundrum for the past 30 years.”  Read more

Rubisco is not an example of unintelligent design

The claim that Rubisco is poorly designed or unintelligently designed was appearing in textbooks in the 1990s. The idea has been picked up recently in a News & Views piece by John Ellis. He writes that Rubisco “is a relic of a bygone age” and his essay has the title: “Tackling unintelligent design”. “Rubisco is the most important enyzme on the planet – virtually all the organic carbon in the biosphere derives ultimately from the carbon dioxide that this enzyme fixes from the atmosphere. But Rubisco is also one of the most inefficient enzymes on the planet. It evolved when the atmospheric composition was different from that of today, and its failure to adapt significantly to the modern atmosphere limits Read More ›

Ribosome Checks for Translation Errors

There is a vast network of information flow in a typical cell, and along with that flow there is a vast network of error checking. Damage to DNA sequences is remedied, the transcribing of DNA is checked and corrected, and at the ribosome the translation process is checked and controlled. In fact, recent research has found that the ribosome not only carefully sets up the codon-to-amino-acid translation process for success, but if an error is made the ribosome detects it and takes action after the translation process.  Read more

Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy: Why is anyone surprised by this news?

Academic Freedom Update: California Science Center Engaged in Illegal Cover-Up This episode of ID the Future features an academic freedom update on the California Science Center’s cancellation last October of a screening of a pro-ID film, Darwin’s Dilemma, by a private group. How does a government agency try to evade its obligations to the First Amendment? By suppressing information. Listen in to learn about the evidence that the Discovery Institute has uncovered in its lawsuit against the Science Center. Go here to listen. Well, of course they cancelled it. I cannot imagine why anyone would doubt that outcome. Look, when I first started blogging – the only real news media today – I had to deal with the controversy over Read More ›

A New Plant Defense: Switch the Flowering Time

A new amazing strategy has been discovered to add to the list of defenses plants use against herbivores. It has long been known, for instance, that plants detect the secretions from caterpillars and respond with toxins and chemicals that slow the caterpillars’ digestion. Now a new defensive strategy has been discovered: the altering of the flowering time. This has been observed in a tobacco plant which produces new morning-opening flowers when attacked by larvae of the hawkmoth pollinator.  Read more