Evolutionnews.org just published an article by me titled “Design Inference vs. Design Hypothesis.” Here is an excerpt: The logic of the design inference moves from a marker of intelligence (specified complexity) to an intelligence as causal agent responsible for that marker. The direction of this logic can, however, be reversed. Thus, instead, one can postulate an intelligence operating in nature and therewith formulate predictions and expectations about what one should find in nature if that postulate is true. The logic in this case takes the form of hypothetical reasoning, where a hypothesis is put forward and then its consequences are drawn out and the explanatory fruitfulness of the hypothesis is seen as a way of advancing science and giving credibility Read More ›

Gallup has updated their origins survey:

Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings?
1) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process,
2) Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process,
3) God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.

They found:

since 1982 . . .
the 46% who today choose the creationist explanation is virtually the same as the 45% average over that period — and very similar to the 44% who chose that explanation in 1982. The 32% who choose the “theistic evolution” view that humans evolved under God’s guidance is slightly below the 30-year average of 37%, while the 15% choosing the secular evolution view is slightly higher (12%).

See: In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins Read More ›

Part of me feels like letting the TSZ thread go to a full 1,000 comments, but then my sense of responsibility to UD’s bandwidth budget kicks in. So, let us continue the discussion of the topics from the thread on TSZ issues and Jerad’s concerns continue here. To prime the pump, let me clip two posts in the thread: ______________ >>912 JeradSeptember 30, 2012 at 4:07 am KF (911) – ooo, spooky Are you unable to see that when those individual configs come in clusters that are functionally distinct, it is relevant to think about the relative statistical weights of the clusters? Hitting a cluster would have a higher probability than hitting a single configs but only because a cluster Read More ›

Where is the best place to find low-cost, easy-to-produce, natural, robust and non toxic antibiotics? Easy, in our own bodies. Nature so often provides the solutions we are looking for and, as an aside, that is why the preservation of species from extinction is so important. In this case the solution is natural antibiotics which University of California at Berkeley researchers have confirmed to exist in the tails of certain proteins called cytokeratins. These proteins help our eyes, for example, ward off infections. The eye’s cornea is remarkably free of pathogens and the research reveals something about how these wonderful proteins work. Once again, however, the research was not motivated by evolutionary theory.  Read more

Let’s take again that quotation out of Richard Dawkins’ “The Greatest Show on Earth (pp. 332-333)”, published as many ages ago as the year 2009, quoted at http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/09/in_debate_brita_1064521.html Leaving pseudogenes aside, it is a remarkable fact that the greater part (95 percent in the case of humans) of the genome might as well not be there, for all the difference it makes. Now, what here Dawkins calls a “remarkable fact”, turns out only three years later to be known (such that even he agrees, as the above link shows) to be totally false. It’s not even close; it’s as large an error as one could make in a propositional statement. Not only that, but, this totally false statement is in an Read More ›

At PhysOrg.com, here’s something hot off the press. Here are some delicious quotes from the PO blurb: Researchers, led by Dr David Ferrier of The Scottish Oceans Institute at the University of St Andrews, found that some modern-day animals like sponges, comb jellies and placozoans (a flat, splodge of an animal with no head, tail, gut or limbs) may have actually evolved by losing some genes and perhaps became simplified from a more complex ancestor, from which the entire animal kingdom evolved. Dr Ferrier and his team studied key genes, known as Hox and ParaHox, which are renowned for building the bodies of nearly all modern-day animals. They control where ribs develop in humans or where wings develop in flies, Read More ›