Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Solving the Origin-of-Life Problem

There are three main approaches to current origin-of-life studies – metabolism-first, replication-first, and membrane-first. The problem with each of these approaches is that they ignore the reality of irreducible complexity in self-replicating system.
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It came from outer space: Have British scientists found proof of alien life?

Diatom shells have been found in the Earth’s stratosphere at a height of 27 kilometers. Since there have not been any violent volcanic eruptions in the last three years, the presumption is that they came from space, and probably from inside a comet, according to Professor Milton Wainwright (University of Sheffield, England), who is the lead author of a new paper titled, Isolation of a Diatom Frustule Fragment From the Lower Stratosphere (22-27 km) – Evidence For A Cosmic Origin (Journal of Cosmology, 2013, Vol. 22, pp. 10183-10188). Here’s how the report’s Abstract summarizes the discovery: Sampling of the stratosphere at heights between 22 and 27 km was carried out in the UK on 31st July 2013 using balloon-borne equipment Read More ›

Geneticist and science philosopher Gerard M. Verschuuren asks, “Can Darwinism survive without teleology?

Either natural selection can create or it cannot. Actually, it cannot. It can only filter. In which case, Darwin’s theory, as he envisioned it, is false; the universe could not throw up that many almost-working designs accidentally. Read More ›

Selection after something exists is not the same as selection before something exists, except…

Selection after something exists is not the same as selection before something exists, except in confused, illogical thinking of Darwinists. This is the heart of the problem that Behe’s Irreducible Complexity poses for Darwinism. I once offered a Darwinist $100 if he could figure out the 40 letter password I’d written on a piece of paper and filed away. Even though it would have increased his survival advantage to figure out the password, did he figure it out? No. Did he write and evolutionary algorithm to figure it out? No. There was no free lunch for him. 🙂 The point of this exercise was to show that even though finding a solution to a problem gives one advantage, it does Read More ›