The American Humanist Association has launched a new website directed at kids. Few websites on the internet are so ripe for parody. The website perpetuates the common myth that there exists a dichotomy between science on the one hand and belief in a Creator on the other. What about those of us, like myself, who enjoy science and have a scientific education, but who also think there are robust intellectual grounds on which to base belief in a Creator? The website makes no attempt to hide the connection between atheism and Darwinism. Of course, Darwinism must stand or fall with the scientific evidence irrespective of the theistic or atheistic beliefs of its adherents — but it does strike me as Read More ›

In my prior post Timaeus responds to nullasalus and asks some profound questions.  What follows is all Timaeus: nullasalus: Let me step back from evolution for a minute, and see if I can make my point in a more indirect way. You are aware, of course, that many TEs have attacked ID and creationism for postulating “god of the gaps” explanations, i.e., allowing science to explain certain phenomena wholly in terms of natural causes, but then, in certain cases, saying, “Science has not come up with a natural-cause explanation for this, so God must have done it.” I am sure you know this drill very well: this sort of argument is a “science-stopper” so it’s bad for science, and it’s bad Read More ›

Some of you may have already seen that Thomas Nagel’s new book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, has been subject to a blistering review in the liberal US weekly, The Nation. On the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s excellent Religion & Ethics website, I have commented on this review, Nagel’s thesis, and the attempt by naturalists to present a politically correct face that avoids Nagel’s critique.

As I pointed out in my earlier post, Stephen Barr believes God plays dice with the universe, but he’s OK with that because the dice are loaded.  Barr affirms the standard Darwinian line that life came about through a random undirected process, and at the same time Barr says God directed the process at a deeper level of reality so that a process that appears random to us is in reality directed by God. To be consistent Barr would have to disagree with Stephen Jay Gould.  Gould asserted that if one were to rewind the tape of life and play it over, things would almost certainly turn out very differently.  If Gould was right, the randomness of Darwinism would be Read More ›

Science Daily reports on an interesting new piece of biologically-inspired technology: Drawing heavily upon nature for inspiration, a team of researchers has created a new artificial lens that is nearly identical to the natural lens of the human eye. This innovative lens, which is made up of thousands of nanoscale polymer layers, may one day provide a more natural performance in implantable lenses to replace damaged or diseased human eye lenses, as well as consumer vision products; it also may lead to superior ground and aerial surveillance technology. Click here to read the rest.

At Evolution News & Views, Michael Behe reviews the latest work from Richard Lenski’s long-term experiments with E. coli: Readers of my posts know that I’m a big fan of Professor Richard Lenski, a microbiologist at Michigan State University and member of the National Academy of Sciences. For the past few decades he has been conducting the largest laboratory evolution experiment ever attempted. Growing E. coli in flasks continuously, he has been following evolutionary changes in the bacterium for over 50,000 generations (which is equivalent to roughly a million years for large animals). Although Lenski is decidedly not an intelligent design proponent, his work enables us to see what evolution actually does when it has the resources of a large number of organisms over a substantial Read More ›

Ann Gauger posted an amusing facebook dialogue on the blog of the Biologic Institute: “Sometimes it might be a good idea to actually read what ID proponents write before critiquing it.” Click here to read the rest.

After critiquing Libby Anne’s atheism and faulty epistemology in my previous post, I propose to complete my examination of her philosophy by critiquing her views on ethics, and in particular on human persons and the morality of abortion. Readers will recall that a few days ago, Libby Anne put up a post that subsequently went viral, describing how she had lost faith in the pro-life movement. What I aim to show in this post is that her views on ethics (and in particular, on abortion) are riddled with contradictions, and that her philosophical understanding of the pro-life ethic is very poor. I shall also address the question of how a non-religious person might go about trying to determine what is Read More ›

Christians have traditionally believed that the design of living things is evidence of God’s handiwork.  For millennia they agreed with the psalmist who gave thanks to God for the obvious and exquisite design of his body:  “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.  I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made . . .”  Psalm 139:13-14.  Honest atheists do not dispute the Christian belief that living things appear to be designed.  Even world famous arch-atheist Richard Dawkins concedes this point, writing that “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”  Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker.  Dawkins does not mince Read More ›

Evolutionists now understand how the eye evolved. While skeptics have been claiming something doesn’t come from nothing, evolutionists have been busy tracking down the details. As one paper explains, “the gap in understanding of the molecular evolution of eye components is all but closed.” That is amazing. For understanding eye evolution at the molecular level is the holy grail, or at least a holy grail. As we have discussed before, vision is profoundly complicated and it is not clear how it could spontaneously arise as evolutionists believe it did. And vague speculation, with cartoon illustrations, of light sensitive patches magically morphing into a series of increasingly sophisticated eyes do not help much. What is needed is a plausible explanation of how such Read More ›

Kudos to Daniel Sarewitz for his must-readcomment on the problem of bias in scientific research where he discusses mounting evidence that bias in science is not random. If it were then multiple studies would serve to cancel it out. Instead false positive results persist and to make matters worse, science’s attempts at internal controls, such as conflicts of interest disclosure, are not keeping up with the problem. Sarewitz points out that industry teams, who seek actually to implement scientific findings, are consistently unable to confirm what were thought to be “landmark” findings. As John Ioannidis has put it, “claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.”  Read more

Over at his “step-by-step” post Upright BiPed muses over the irony of Elizabeth Liddle calling herself “skeptical” and naming her blog “The Skeptical Zone” when she clings to conclusions driven by her deeply held ideological predispositions in the teeth of logic and evidence and with a dogmatic fervor that would make a medieval churchman blush.  The dictionary defines “skeptical” as “an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object.”  That last phrase is the key.  When a person says they are skeptical, they may mean they are generally skeptical or particularly skeptical.  UB obviously believes that a person who takes on the mantle of skepticism is using the word in the former sense, Read More ›

The deep sea harp sponge has a series of vertical vanes that maximize surface area for passive suspension feeding. As onereport explains:  Read more

The Central Dogma has had an enormous impact on the way genetics research has developed over the past 50 years. Basically, the dogma states that DNA genes encode mRNA, and mRNA allows proteins to be constructed, and proteins do all the work needed for cells to function. There is a linear logic here that fits into a view of the genome that is static throughout its life and provides a blueprint for life. This is how Franklin and Vondriska introduce their paper: “Arguably the greatest postmodern coup for reductionism in biology was the articulation of the central dogma. Not since “humors” were discarded from medical practice and logic and experiment instituted as the cornerstones of physiology (which they remain today) Read More ›

Who is Libby Anne? That’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it? I’ll let her introduce herself: As a brief introduction, I was raised in a large homeschooling family influenced by the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements. I grew up an evangelical Christian, though with some fundamentalist aspects. I found my beliefs challenged in college and am today an atheist and a feminist. I am in my mid-twenties, married to a wonderful man… and busily raising young children… I am also in graduate school getting my Ph.D. in a humanities field. (I’ve omitted the names of family members, out of respect for their privacy.) Libby Anne has a Web site called Love, Joy, Feminism. I would recommend that readers take the time Read More ›