Intelligent Design

Back in 2003 NATURE (vol 423, pp 139-144) published an article by Richard Lenski, Charles Ofria, Robert Pennock, and Christoph Adami titled “The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features.” The abstract reads: A long-standing challenge to evolutionary theory has been whether it can explain the origin of complex organismal features. We examined this issue using digital organisms—computer programs that self-replicate, mutate, compete and evolve. Populations of digital organisms often evolved the ability to perform complex logic functions requiring the coordinated execution of many genomic instructions. Complex functions evolved by building on simpler functions that had evolved earlier, provided that these were also selectively favoured. However, no particular intermediate stage was essential for evolving complex functions. The first genotypes able to perform Read More ›

Playing off the title of Dr. Dembski’s new book, I’m going to cite three articles that are summarized at PhysOrg.com just this past week. I don’t have access to any of them, but let’s just take a look at what these summaries report. I think it’s quite interesting.

First, there is this article, DNA study sheds new light on horse evolution, that informs us that ancient species of zebras and horses are actually much more related to the modern day versions than previously thought. Here’s what they say:

The study used bones from caves to identify new horse species in Eurasia and South America, and reveal that the Cape zebra, an extinct giant species from South Africa, were simply large variants of the modern Plains zebra. The Cape zebra weighed up to 400 kilograms and stood up to 150 centimetres at the shoulder blades.

“The Plains zebra group once included the famous extinct quagga, so our results confirm that this group was highly variable in both coat colour and size.”

while concluding that:

“Overall, the new genetic results suggest that we have under-estimated how much a single species can vary over time and space, and mistakenly assumed more diversity among extinct species of megafauna,” Professor Cooper says.

This now means that the already tiny portion of “intermediate forms” that RM + NS produces in reduced in size. And perhaps greatly. This weakens what Darwin would call the “principle of divergence” and weakens the notion of gradualism that is implicit in his theory.

Next, there is this article: Introns: A mystery renewed.

Here we read:

“Remarkably, we have found many cases of parallel intron gains at essentially the same sites in independent genotypes,” Lynch said. “This strongly argues against the common assumption that when two species share introns at the same site, it is always due to inheritance from a common ancestor.”

which now calls into question prior notions of “proof” of common descent, and, I would think, requires a new look at how transposons operate.

Read More ›

Al Gore in Slate responding to climategate: “The physical relationship between CO2 molecules and the atmosphere and the trapping of heat is as well-established as gravity, for God’s sakes. It’s not some mystery.…” Now where have I heard the “as well established as gravity” mantra before?  Hmm.  It’ll come to me in a moment.

Here is an interview with me at Hot Apple Cider, an anthology of writing in various genres by Canadians who are devout Christians. I have an article in there, on neuroscience, faith, and health. If you think HAC  is mostly amateur devotionals,  jeremiads, and hellfire tracts, you will be very surprised. That sort of thing bores us silly, so we don’t pass it on. Also, for whatever reason (a desire to take a year end loss for some complex corporate tax reason?), Amazon is selling Hot Apple Cider for US$5.71. A good gift for literature students and essential for anyone whose pursuit of Canadian Studies comprises a bit more than the usual 20 minutes in Grade Seven. Or whatever.

If you scramble about 90% of a protein sequence—randomly replacing amino acids with different ones—would the protein still work? That is what evolutionists are implying in order to make sense of their theory. The problem is that evolution’s explanations for de novo genes are unlikely and very unlikely. In the case of the T-urf13 de novo gene, the two choices seem to be (i) a one in ten million shot that protein coding sequences just happened to be lying around waiting for use or (ii) only about 10% of the T-urf13 sequence really matters and you can scramble the rest with no effect.  Read more

From this article: Science is about probability, not certainty. And the persisting uncertainties in climate science leave room for argument. What is a realistic estimate of how much temperatures will rise? How severe will the effects be? Are there tipping points beyond which the changes are uncontrollable? Does this mean we can wait for a retraction of all of the NYT’s “Evolution is a fact, fact fact!” histrionics?  I’m not holding my breath.

Can the methods of Intelligent Design be brought to bear to detect anthropogenic influence in temperature records? Core to the climate debate is the danger of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. We hear of “tipping points” promising coast lands drowning in glacial melt. Defining “very likely” as > 90%, the IPCC’s Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report holds that:

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.

In The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero Willis Eschenback examines temperature records at Darwin, North Australia. Read More ›

From Blake Hounshell Percentage of Americans who believe in angels: 55 Percentage of Americans who believe in evolution: 39 Percentage of Americans who believe in anthropogenic global warming: 36 Percentage of Americans who believe in ghosts: 34 Percentage of Americans who believe in UFOs: 34

The EPA declares carbon dioxide a danger to public health. Be afraid. Be very afraid. No, not about global warming, but about fraudulent “science.” President Obama, White House Climate Czar Carol Browner, and their Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are not waiting for Congress to pass cap-and-trade. Shrugging off the Climate-gate scandal, today EPA administration Lisa Jackson issues a so-called “endangerment finding,” paving the way for onerous greenhouse gas regulations to be shoehorned into the 1970 Clean Air Act.

William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II, “Bernoulli’s Principle of Insufficient Reason and Conservation of Information in Computer Search,” Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. San Antonio, TX, USA – October 2009, pp. 2647-2652. Abstract: Conservation of information (COI) popularized by the no free lunch theorem is a great leveler of search algorithms, showing that on average no search outperforms any other. Yet in practice some searches appear to outperform others. In consequence, some have questioned the significance of COI to the performance of search algorithms. An underlying foundation of COI is Bernoulli’s Principle of Insufficient Reason1(PrOIR) which imposes of a uniform distribution on a search space in the absence of all prior Read More ›

New research out this week has resolved a long-standing, and important, quandary about the causes of global warming. While several models point to anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gases as the leading cause of global warming, the warming trends do not quite match the history of anthropogenic CO2. In fact, shrinking glaciers and other undeniable evidences of warming trace back to about the mid seventeenth century. But this predates the significant rise in anthropogenic CO2 that came later in later centuries. Now environmental researchers have solved the puzzle. While CO2 is undoubtedly an important factor in certain warming events, by far the most significant cause is the hot air emitted by evolutionists. In other words, anthropogenic theory rather than anthropogenic Read More ›

Terrific News about Steve Meyer making the cover of WORLD MAGAZINE as their person of the year for 2009.# Much deserved! Steve has considerable visibility in the ID movement, but I’ve known him over the years as well for his indefatigable work behind the scenes to make ID into a thriving intellectual and cultural force. Many of the initiatives and projects that have signally blessed the ID movement have been at his instance (for instance, it was his vision that propelled the video UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY OF LIFE, which has spawned a host of other videos). #Meyer is the second ID proponent to receive this award. Phil Johnson did in 2003.

As many of us commence our holiday festivities toasting the year’s end while earnestly drawing up personal lists of events that have shaped our lives, I would like to take a brief look at three achievements in the biological sciences- two historical and one more recent- that have struck me as nothing short of momentous in their significance. The first is the publication of a book which today continues to be an outstanding and extremely readable overview of the state of research in the genetics of animal embryology. The second is a landmark study that has brought into sharp focus the molecular mechanisms through which specific epigenetic factors modulate animal behavior. The third is the functional characterization of recBCD- a DNA-unwinding protein complex that plays a crucial role in bacterial recombination. I consider the scientists involved in each of these achievements to be pioneers- ‘podium grabbers’ who have performed medal-winning science in their respective fields of expertise. Read More ›

It is almost axiomatic in our culture that the pronouncements of Science are synonymous with Truth. This received wisdom is so prevalent that whenever media reports begin with the words “Scientists have found that…[fill in the blank]”, whatever follows is widely believed by the public to be unassailable fact. So revered is Science and so respected its methods, that the mere suggestion that something might be amiss is considered ignorance or heresy. And so the statements of Science are defended vigorously while the critics are dismissed as quacks and uninformed idiots. The prevailing attitude seems to be (to slightly bend the well-known quote from Richard Dawkins) “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in the findings of Science [emphasis and edit mine], that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”

For those of us who have long been engaged in the ongoing Evolution/Intelligent Design debate, we know that Read More ›

In a previous UD discussion I started about incompleteness I made the following affirmation: intelligence and life are not computable. A commenter kindly asked me to provide justifications for my claim. Since at UD usually I try to separate different topics in different discussions, to be more focused and reader-friendly as possible, so here is my answer in a dedicated thread. My answer unavoidably implies to investigate first what intelligence is then what life is (given the latter is an effect and the former is its cause). Read More ›