Here: In my own view, the most interesting aspect of the recent Lenski paper is its highlighting of the pitfalls that Darwinian evolution must dance around, even as it is making an organism somewhat more fit. (1) If the “wrong” advantageous mutation in topoisomerase had become fixed in the population (by perhaps being slightly more advantageous or more common), then the “better” selective pathway would have been shut off completely. And since this phenomenon occurred in the first instance where anyone had looked for it, it is likely to be commonplace. That should not be surprising to anyone who thinks about the topic dispassionately. As the authors note, “Similar cases are expected in any population of asexual organisms that evolve Read More ›

Just recently, it came out that some Darwin lobbyists are attempting to get redress for the fact that the journal Synthese was forced to disclaim an unscholarly attack by one of their number on Baylor philosophy professor Frank Beckwith in one of Synthese’s guest-edited issues.

Indeed!

I can shed a bit of light on the affair. Read More ›

From Physorg, we learn that the spotted salamander is “the first known vertebrate to have an endosymbiont”, in the form of an alga conferring a benefit on the eggs by living inside them: Naturalists first noticed an association between spotted salamander eggs and green algae more than 100 years ago. This relationship was formalized by name in 1927 by Lambert Printz, who named the algal species Oophilia amblystoma. The genus name means “egg loving.” The nature of that symbiosis was not known until the 1980s, when experimentation revealed the salamander embryos do not develop as quickly or as fully in the absence of the green algae. Likewise, algae grown separately from the embryos but in the presence of water exposed Read More ›

From Rob Sheldon,

I think Stephen Barr’s “Modern Physics and Ancient Faith” (one of those Thomists who doesn’t like ID), addresses this issue. It works something like this – an ID person notices that the Big Bang is highly contingent, if one grain of sand were added to or removed from the Big Bang, we wouldn’t exist. So the ID guy says “Look at this fine-tuning. Why, this is evidence of design and a creator!” Then along comes the high energy physicist, and says, “No, this is exactly what you would expect if the Big Bang was followed a nano-nano-second later by an inflaton that expanded precisely 72 times. You, poor slob, were believing in a God-of-the-gaps, postulating God to fill that contingency when all along it was your ignorance of the inflaton that made you a believer. Now that we know about the inflaton, your assumption of an intervening intelligence is removed, and in such a manner all religion belief is and will be removed by increasing knowledge.”

So the sheepish George Murphy says, Read More ›

Some researchers are elated over whiteflies, whose eggs develop faster due to infection by certain bacteria,

“It’s instant evolution,” said Molly Hunter, a professor of entomology in the UA’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the study’s principal investigator. “Our lab studies suggest that these bacteria can transform an insect population over a very short time.” – “Instant Evolution in Whiteflies: Just Add Bacteria”, ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2011)

One outcome is more female whiteflies, for reasons presently unclear.

The fly is a pest, when present in large numbers, which the bacteria are believed to augment:

“Here in Arizona, it probably starts out on weeds in the spring, and then moves on to melons, and when melons are done, it moves in big numbers onto cotton and feeds on that all summer long,” Hunter explained. “In the fall, it moves on to vegetables, and so it just keeps going.”

Apart from bigger hordes in the short term, it is unclear where the evolution part comes in.

And, from New Scientist, we learn: Read More ›

In Free to Think: Why Scientific Integrity Matters (2010), Expelled’s Caroline Crocker recalls a conversation with a tutoring student’s mother, after a session teaching the textbook Darwin sludge:

“I want her to learn the truth!” Felicita exclaimed …Here I hesitated, “Listen, being vocal about this issue probably lost me three jobs and resulted in my being blacklisted from getting many others. Students are also being intimidated into following the party line. If I teach Maria both sides of the issue, I strongly advise that you instruct her not to Read More ›

From ScienceDaily we learn (Apr. 11, 2011), “A polyploidy event is basically the acquisition, through mutation, of a ‘double dose’ of genetic material,” explained Yuannian Jiao, a graduate student at Penn State and the first author of the study. “In vertebrates, although genome duplication is known to occur, it generally is lethal. Plants, on the other hand, often survive and can sometimes benefit from duplicated genomes.” Jiao explained that, over the generations, most duplicated genes from polyploidy events simply are lost. However, other genes adopt new functions or, in some instances, subdivide the workload with the genetic segments that were duplicated, thereby cultivating more efficiency and better specialization of tasks for the genome as a whole. Jiao also explained that, Read More ›

An interesting column by one, Howard Rich, the moral of which is not to rely on legacy media for news you actually need:

In the immediate aftermath of the tragic Tucson shooting earlier this year, the legacy press took it a step further — essentially implying that the new media was complicit in the attack on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by virtue of the “climate of hate” it helped create in America.

Obviously, the facts of the Tucson case quickly (and completely) debunked this theory — but not before a parade of liberal talking heads had spewed a torrent of reckless vitriol on new media outlets and the First Amendment freedom they exercise.

But is there something in it for them?

Fast-forward three months to April 6, when reporter Matthew Boyle of The Daily Caller published a report outlining the details of Read More ›

Christian evolutionary biologist Todd C. Wood has been dismissing ID-related research that attempts to determine the boundaries of Darwinism, demanding that ID researchers show what ID can do.

In this, he overlooks a simple fact: Today’s Darwinism functions as a sort of magic. It can do anything at all. Thus, no other mechanism, design or whatever, is needed.

In fact, no science can be done in the area of evolution until that ol’ Darwinian magic is discredited in favour of a rational evaluation of the probabilities of various proposed methods of evolution.

Otherwise, everything devolves into the usual witches’ cauldron of Darwindunit, complete with cackles from the broomsticks overhead.

The ID guys are only doing what everyone should be doing now, but few dare or have the sense to: Read More ›

Mobile DNA, Finding Treasure in Junk, by Haig H. Kazazian is available free for download at Barnes and Noble:

In Mobile DNA, leading geneticist Haig Kazazian thoroughly reviews our current understanding of the substantial role mobile genetic elements play in genome and organism evolution and function. He offers an accessible intellectual history of mobile DNA, rich and insightful perspectives on how investigators ask and answer research questions, and his predictions about future developments and research directions for this active field. Read More ›

Just up at ENV is Jay Richards’ “Catholics and Intelligent Design, Part 2” (April 14, 2011):

it’s easy to underestimate Aristotle’s influence in Roman Catholicism, due to his influence on the “Angelic Doctor” Thomas Aquinas. The Greek philosopher’s contributions are invaluable.iv Partially for this reason, however, we’ve sometimes failed to keep critical distance between the pagan philosopher and the faith itself. Traditional Catholics are much more likely to have an Aristotelian blind spot than, say, an Epicurean blind spot. Read More ›

Dembski’s CSI concept has come under serious question, dispute and suspicion in recent weeks here at UD.

After diligent patrolling the cops announce a bust: acting on some tips from un-named sources,  they have caught the miscreants in the act!

From a comment in the MG smart thread, courtesy Dembski’s  NFL (2007 edn):

___________________

>>NFL as just linked, pp. 144 & 148:

144: “. . . since a universal probability bound of 1 in 10^150 corresponds to a universal complexity bound of 500 bits of information, (T, E) constitutes CSI because T [i.e. “conceptual information,” effectively the target hot zone in the field of possibilities] subsumes E [i.e. “physical information,” effectively the observed event from that field], T is detachable from E, and and T measures at least 500 bits of information . . . ”

148: “The great myth of contemporary evolutionary biology is that the information needed to explain complex biological structures can be purchased without intelligence. My aim throughout this book is to dispel that myth . . . . Eigen and his colleagues must have something else in mind besides information simpliciter when they describe the origin of information as the central problem of biology.

I submit that what they have in mind is specified complexity, or what equivalently we have been calling in this Chapter Complex Specified information or CSI . . . .

Biological specification always refers to function . . . In virtue of their function [a living organism’s subsystems] embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the sense required by the complexity-specificity criterion . . . the specification can be cashed out in any number of ways . . . “

Here we see all the suspects together caught in the very act.

Let us line up our suspects:

1: CSI,

2: events from target zones in wider config spaces,

3: joint complexity-specification criteria,

4: 500-bit thresholds of complexity,

5: functionality as a possible objective specification

6: biofunction as specification,

7: origin of CSI as the key problem of both origin of life [Eigen’s focus] and Evolution, origin of body plans and species etc.

8: equivalence of CSI and complex specification.

Rap, rap, rap!

“How do you all plead?”

“Guilty as charged, with explanation your honour. We were all busy trying to address the scientific origin of biological information, on the characteristic of complex functional specificity. We were not trying to impose a right wing theocratic tyranny nor to smuggle creationism in the back door of the schoolroom your honour.”

“Guilty!”

“Throw the book at them!”

CRASH! >>

___________________

So, now we have heard from the horse’s mouth.

What are we to make of it, in light of Orgel’s conceptual definition from 1973 and the recent challenges to CSI raised by MG and others.

Read More ›

Bradley Monton, the atheist philosopher who is friendly to design, makes a number of his papers available here, including “Against Multiverse Theodicies”, “Mixed Strategies Can’t Evade Pascal’s Wager”, “Design Inferences in an Infinite Universe”, “God, Fine-Tuning, and the Problem of Old Evidence”, and “Is Intelligent Design Science? Dissecting the Dover Decision.”

Here’s his book, Seeking God in Science: An atheist defends intelligent design. Some illuminating comments on the book:

“This is a brave and important book. Monton does not defend ‘intelligent design’ as true – he thinks it is most likely false. Instead, he defends it as a hypothesis worth taking seriously. He argues convincingly that it can be formulated as a scientifically testable hypothesis, and that there is some important empirical evidence for it – not as much evidence as its supporters claim there is, but some evidence. Virtually all voices in this debate insist either that ID is not even worth taking seriously or else that it is manifestly the truth. It is refreshing to see a talented philosopher give the thesis its due and make a serious attempt to weigh the evidence for and against it, without the weight of the ‘culture wars’ hanging over every sentence.” – John T. Roberts, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill  Read More ›

In my last post I asked Mathgrrl the following direct and unambiguous question: “OK Mathgrrl. I will put it to you: Was Orgel’s concept of specified complexity coherent or meaningful?” I then made the following prediction as to her response: “My prediction: More dancing, evasion and obfuscation.” My prediction was confirmed. Mathgrrl placed two comments on the thread to that post and she did not even address the question posed. Mathgrrl is unwilling to engage in a good faith debate on these pages. Case closed.

In “Protein evolution in BIO-Complexity”(Todd’s Blog , April 13, 2011), Todd C. Wood comments on the recent BIO-Complexity paper by Ann Gauger and Doug Axe. He finds their work puzzling because they proceed as biochemists rather than evolutionary biologists, and summarizes: In the larger scheme of things, I am sensing a discouraging pattern to BIO-Complexity publications. As I quoted above, the journal is supposed to be about “testing the scientific merit of the claim that intelligent design (ID) is a credible explanation for life,” which is a great goal. But this is the fifth paper published by BIO-Complexity, and it’s the fifth paper that focuses on perceived inadequacies of evolution. So when are we going to test “the scientific merit of Read More ›