Let’s read the Nature abstract: Nature (2019) Article | Published: 15 May 2019 Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome Julius Fredens, Kaihang Wang, Daniel de la Torre, Louise F. H. Funke, Wesley E. Robertson, Yonka Christova, Tiongsun Chia, Wolfgang H. Schmied, Daniel L. Dunkelmann, Václav Beránek, Chayasith Uttamapinant, Andres Gonzalez Llamazares, Thomas Read More…
The Design of Life
Intelligent design book by mathematician William Dembski and biologist Jonathan Wells
Logic & first principles, 1: Analogy, Induction and the power of the principle of identity (with application to the genetic code)
One of the commonest objections we meet when we discuss design inferences — especially concerning the genetic code, is that a claim is “just an analogy” (with implied conclusion that analogies are weak or fallacious). This then extends to inductive arguments used. This common error must be corrected and (as will be shown) the principle Read More…
Full Vid: DI/Denton, privileged species
Here: [youtube VoI2ms5UHWg] Let us watch and ponder, then discuss. END Posts
Mutations Degrade Inherited Intelligence
The remarkable “powers” of evolution are now shown to degrade (aka “mutate”) the human genes essential to intelligence. Remarkably, they found that some of the same genes that influence human intelligence in healthy people were also the same genes that cause impaired cognitive ability and epilepsy when mutated, networks which they called M1 and M3.
Robustness untangles ‘Evolution’
(it’s designed to) These are some thoughts prompted by the recent article Arrival of the Fittest: Robustness and flexibility are basic design principles. We design modules so that they are robust against minor damage, bad inputs and changes in other parts of the code. This aids ‘evolvability’ of the whole by untangling the knots so Read More…
How Keith’s “Bomb” Turned Into A Suicide Mission
Keith brought in an argument he claimed to be a “bomb” for ID. It turned out to be a failed suicide mission where the only person that got blown up was Keith. (Please note: I am assuming that life patterns exists in an ONH, as Keith claims, for the sake of this argument only. Also, Read More…
ID Foundations 23: Dr Stephen Meyer on The Design Inference on Complex [often, Functionally] Specified Information and the Origin of Cell-based Life (OoL)
This lecture by Dr Stephen Meyer of Discovery Institute, with Q & A may be a good refresher and focus for thought on OoL, HT WK: [youtube NbluTDb1Nfs] WK — a useful blog to bookmark and monitor to see trends and issues — gives a helpful bullet point outline, in part: intelligent design is concerned Read More…
ID Foundations, 22: What about evolutionary trees of descent and homologies? (An answer to Jaceli123’s presentation of a typical icon of evolution . . . )
As has been noted, sometimes people come to UD looking for answers to questions about what they have been taught regarding “Evolution”; typically in the context of indoctrination under the Lewontinian ideological a priori materialism that he outlined thusly in his infamous 1997 NYRB article: [T]he problem is to get [the general public] to reject Read More…
Getting me an Education
Larry Moran has decided to educate me about junk DNA. I appreciate the level of detail he has provided. I am not an expert in this field. I do however have a brain and, as a physicist, a vastly superior brain (I joke, sort of). I am not an IDiot, nor am I a larey Read More…
Are pseudogenes evidence of code libraries? (a speculative suggestion)
Intelligent Design is relatively new in its present form. Proponents often argue that there are features of biology that look like engineering, and in particular, that the programming of life, the DNA software that goes along with the cellular hardware, is analogous to the programming of computers. However, we haven’t yet been able to fully Read More…
Is Craig Venter’s Synthetic Cell Really Life?
Bioethicist Gregory Kaebnick, Ph.D., has an interesting take on the recently announced synthetic cell created by a team of researchers led by J. Craig Venter at the J. Craig Venter Instititute (JVCI). In a recent article in The Scientist entitled Is the “Synthetic Cell” about Life?, Kaebnick writes: …the technical accomplishment is not quite what Read More…
How were RNA gene repeats, “essential” to DNA repair, formed?
RNA replications have now been discovered to be “essential” to DNA error correction systems. If they are “essential”, how could they arrive by random mutation and “selection”? On what basis does neoDarwinism predict error correction in the first place? From Intelligent Design, methodology one expects to see evidence of design in complex biochemical systems. From Read More…
Editing the Tape of Evolutionary History Yet Again
The late Stephen J. Gould once wrote “Replay the tape [of evolution] a million times from a Burgess [the Burgess Shale fossils]beginning, and I doubt that anything like Homo sapiens would ever evolve again. It is, indeed, a wonderful life.” (Gould, Stephen J. [Professor of Zoology and Geology, Harvard University], “Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale Read More…
Oddities Living in the Deep Blue Sea
We all know that our planet is awash with wonderful and beautiful life forms, none more so than we find in our oceans. This photo essay from the Fox News Website provides a glimpse into the strange world of creatures that inhabit the deepest parts of the seas. Truly remarkable. Here is but one example Read More…
Cambridge ‘Dissent over Descent’ Lecture
My apologies for not posting more here recently. I now have a blog on my university’s website dedicated to the future of the university, where I have done a bit of posting. But mostly I have been trying to finish a new book on science as an ‘art of living’ for new series by the Read More…