Incoming Baylor University President to honor Intelligent Design professor 12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, April 1, 2010 By GROMER JEFFERS Jr. | The Dallas Morning News | gjeffers@dallasnews.com   A change in leadership certainly makes a difference. Past recent administrations at Baylor University in Waco have maintained sensible policies protecting scientific integrity against those who would force their dogmatic religious beliefs on unsuspecting students paying top dollar for higher education. The previous administrations have resisted efforts by some professors in the so-called “Intelligent Design” movement who sought to distort the principles of modern science to include religious teachings tantamount to creationist fundamentalism. Dr. Bob Marks is one of these professors in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department who has caused friction Read More ›

 The Science and Technology Policy Program of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy Rice University in conjunction with the Institute for Urban Research Rice University cordially invite you to attend SCIENCE vs. RELIGION What Scientists Really Think a conversation and book signing with author Elaine Howard Ecklund, Ph.D. Director, Religion and Public Outreach, Institute for Urban Research, and Assistant Professor of Sociology, Rice University Wednesday, April 7, 2010 7:00 pm Presentation Doré Commons James A. Baker III Hall, Rice University Books will be provided for sale courtesy of Brazos Bookstore.   In the wake of recent controversies over intelligent design and the ethics of stem cell research, the antagonism between science and religion might seem more unbridgeable Read More ›

The Paseos Por La Naturaleza (A Walk Through Nature) series in Spanish continues with an examination of the atheistic brand of religion that pervades the scientism movement. The neo-atheist Peter Atkins has been one of the modern day crusaders of this movement with his scathing allegation that science presents the only reliable means by which to understand nature and the world around us. Many are those who today revolt against such a position. The Paseos Por La Naturaleza series aims to further strengthen the global influence that the Intelligent Design movement already enjoys and raise awareness of important academic resources that are today challenging orthodox Darwinism and revitalizing the call for a fresh perspective on scientific discourse. The fourth installment can Read More ›

recent molecular data supports the theory of mutation-driven evolution rather than neo-Darwinism.

Masotoshi Nei
Member National Academy of Sciences
Selectionism and Neutralism

Not only is the notion of Darwinism challenged by ID proponents and creationists, but it is also challenged by non-Darwinian theories of evolution. The competing schools of thought are the Mutationists and the Neutralists. Dawkins describes some of the history of the Mutationists versus the Darwinists:

It is hard to comprehend now but, in the early years of this [20th] century when the phenomenon of mutation was first named, it was not regarded as a necessary part of Darwinian theory but an alternative theory of evolution!

Richard Dawkins
Blindwatchmaker

Darwinism so dominates evolutionary thinking that most presume evolution must proceed under the influence of selection. Not so. In fact the absence of selection is also a mechanism of evolution! In the words of yet another member of the National Academy of Sciences:

many genomic features could not have emerged without a near-complete disengagement of the power of natural selection

Michael Lynch
The Origins of Genome Architecture, intro

Read More ›

Those textbook diagrams showing the supposed evolution of vision reveal a real blind spot, for there are big problems with this evolutionary narrative. For instance, the biochemistry, even in primitive eyes is numbingly complex. The notion that it evolved is nowhere motivated by the scientific evidence.  Read more

Allen MacNeill has jumped into the Sam Harris thread and raises some interesting points.  I am always pleased to find areas of agreement with our (sometime) opponents, such as Allen.  Therefore, I am going to close the comments to the Sam Harris thread and let Allen lead this thread off.  Let me hasten to add that by giving Allen this post, I am not necessarily endorsing his views.   All that follows is Allen’s: Read More ›

Here is the actual text of Judge Sweet’s opinion that DLH brought to our attention below:

Association for Molecular Pathology v. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, __ F.Supp.2d __ (S.D.N.Y. 2010): 

The question thus presented by Plaintiffs’ challenge to the composition claims is whether the isolated DNA claimed by Myriad possesses “markedly different characteristics” from a product of nature.  In support of its position, Myriad cites several differences between the isolated DNA claimed in the patents and the native DNA found within human cells.  None, however, establish the subject matter patentability of isolated BRCA1/2 DNA.

The central premise of Myriad’s argument that the claimed DNA is “markedly different” from DNA found in nature is the assertion that “[i]solated DNA molecules should be treated no differently than other chemical compounds for patent eligibility,” Myriad Br. at 26, and that the alleged “difference in the structural and functional properties of isolated DNA” render the claimed DNA patentable subject matter, Myriad Br. at 31.  Read More ›

Yesterday, another hack writer caught up with me, for an interview, and wanted to know: so why do you fight Darwinism … ?

Yuh, I know. Why bother fighting the huge Darwinist tax burden. Of course, Darwinism is false, but so? People’s careers are wrecked if they oppose it.

Among other things, her editor had demanded that I account for the fact that humans share 98% of our DNA with chimps.

I asked her a simple – and, to me, obvious – question: Let’s kidnap a guy off the subway in Toronto. Yes, that is a felony offence, but maybe we can manage the whole thing discreetly and get the charges dropped, if he agrees that it was all a private matter anyway …

(would help if he was a friend or relative – of course, we could, at worst, be charged with wasting police time …)

But now! We’ve got him! We will put a chimp from the local zoo of similar age beside him (securely buckled in, because we would not want anything bad to happen to our man).

If both are more than 30 years old, and are normal specimens, how many people will believe that they are 98% identical? Read More ›

The Laetoli trackways from Tanzania were first reported in 1979 and immediately attracted attention because they provided evidence of bipedalism. The tracks were preserved in volcanic ash dated at 3.6 million years. Many at the time thought they looked exactly like human footprints, but few of the researchers were willing to adopt this interpretation. The debate has been extensive and inconclusive, but some positive leads have recently been published. Evidence is now available to answer the question: did the makers of the trackways walk like humans or like apes? “In particular, debates over the origins and evolution of bipedalism revolve around whether early bipeds walked with energetically economical human-like extended limb biomechanics, or with more costly ape-like bent-knee, bent-hip (BKBH) Read More ›

Evolutionists say evolution is a fact, every bit as much as gravity is a fact. That is remarkable. We see and even feel gravity everyday. Evolution, on the other hand, entails rather dramatic, one-time, events that were supposed to have occurred long ago, when no one was around to witness them. How could we be sure of such a theory? There must be some extremely powerful and compelling scientific evidence for evolution to make it a fact as gravity is a fact. That is what one would think. But, surprisingly, there is no such evidence. When evolutionists try to explain why evolution is a fact, it is a tremendous anticlimax. Consider this example from evolutionist Massimo Pigliucci:  Read more

Judge Robert W. Sweet has turned the biotech patent industry into turmoil.

See: After Patent on Genes Is Invalidated, Taking Stock By ANDREW POLLACK, March 30, 2010

Although patents are not granted on things found in nature, the DNA being patented had long been considered a chemical that was isolated from, and different from, what was found in nature.

But Judge Sweet ruled that the distinguishing feature of DNA is its information content, its conveyance of the genetic code. And in that regard, he wrote, the isolated DNA “is not markedly different from native DNA as it exists in nature.” . . . Read More ›

I had an exchange recently that brought up the subject of life on comets and its implications for ID. As I reviewed the work on comets, it brought up some surprising connections that I had not seen before. I thought it was worthy of a blog, though somewhat old material. The correspondent complained that comets carrying bacteria do not explain the origin of life. It wasn’t comets. This is like Carl Sagan saying we came from some other place. Well where did that other place come from! I tend to agree with you, comets don’t really solve the origin of life. They merely move it to a distant place. I was as surprised as you that comets had fossilized life Read More ›

I watched the video of atheist Sam Harris trying to prove that science can form a basis for morality (posted by Dr. Dembski below), and it got me to thinking.  Everyone knows the moral law. It is, as Budziszewski writes, that which we can’t not know. Therefore, like everyone else, Mr. Harris knows that his moral impulses are not arbitrary, that they are grounded on something both necessary and objective. But his atheistic metaphysical premises lead to the inescapable conclusion that just the opposite is true, because if his premises are correct, he is compelled to believe that his moral impulses are contingent and subjective, that they are mere accidental byproducts of the interaction of chance and mechanical law.

If one’s premises lead to a conclusion that one knows to be untrue, one has a choice. One can either reject those premises and try to find better ones more congruent with the facts, or one can cling to those premises in the teeth of the facts. If one chooses the latter option, it will become necessary to tell lies to oneself in an effort to reduce the dissonance that must inevitably result from that choice. Here we see Mr. Harris tenaciously clinging to premises that have been falsified by his own experience and telling himself (and everyone else who will listen) whoppers to reduce his dissonance. Let’s consider the obvious lies Mr. Harris tells himself. Read More ›

LINK About Sam Harris: Adored by secularists, feared by the pious, Sam Harris’ best-selling books argue that religion is ruinous and, worse, stupid — and that questioning religious faith might just save civilization.

Katherine Pollard’s Scientific American article from last year, about what makes humans different from chimpanzees, is an unfortunate example of the banality of evolution. Charles Darwin’s theory, updated to account for a variety of surprise evidences, is taken as fact and this leads to a remarkable level of credulity. Whatever we find in biology, it must be the product of evolution. This leads evolutionists away from a whole range of possible investigations and interesting questions. Instead, they drone on with the same, tired, evolutionary explanations that are so predictable. Here are a few passages of note from Pollard’s article:  Read more