An interesting discussion, still absolutely open, has taken place in the last few days between Gordon Davisson and me on the thread: What? Only an “extremely occasional” mutation is beneficial? But Darwinism… ? Some very good friends, like Dionisio, Mung and Origenes, seem to have appreciated the discussion, which indeed has touched important issues. Origenes has also suggested that it could be transformed into an OP. Well, I tought that it was probably a good idea, and luckily it did not require much work. 🙂   So, here it is. Gordon Davisson’s posts are in italics. It’s a bit long, and I am sorry for that! I thank in advance Gordon Davisson for the extremely good contribution he has already Read More ›

In Burkina Faso, Africa: . . . and, in the Netherlands: Let me add, in Japan: See if you can spot the pattern WmAD highlights in the introduction to NFL and elsewhere: . . . (1) A designer conceives a purpose. (2) To accomplish that purpose, the designer forms a plan. (3) To execute the plan, the designer specifies building materials and assembly instructions. (4) Finally, the designer or some surrogate applies the assembly instructions to the building materials. (No Free Lunch, p. xi. HT: ENV.) Are we getting a feel for what design as process and as artifact looks like? Is it reasonable to argue that functionally specific, complex organisation and/or linked information (FSCO/I) is credibly produced by blind Read More ›

Stacy Trasancos, a homeschooling mother of seven with a Ph.D. in chemistry and an M.A. in Dogmatic Theology who is an Adjunct Professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary, has penned a thoughtful essay over at the Catholic One Faith blog titled, Does Science Prove God Exists? Her answer, in a nutshell, is that while science can provide inductive support for the existence of a Creator, only theology can provide deductive arguments for God’s existence. In any case, we shouldn’t need to prop up our belief in God with scientific arguments. Dr. Trasancos rejects the view that some scientific conclusions are compatible with God’s existence, while others are not. Christians, she says, should start from the fundamental notion that God Read More ›

In recent posts, I have been discussing some important points about the reasonable meaning of homologies and differences in the proteome in the course of natural history. For the following discussion, just to be clear, I will accept a scenario of Common Descent (as explained in many recent posts) in the context of an ID approach. I will also accept the very reasonable concept that neutral or quasi-neutral random variation happens in time, and that negative (purifying) selection is the main principle which limits random variation in functional sequences. My main points are the following: Given those premises, homologies through natural history are certainly an indicator of functional constraints, because they mean that some sequence cannot be significantly transformed by random variation. Another way Read More ›

From Tim Requarth at Aeon, But within modern organisms there is another clue to life’s origins, one that is more obscure than DNA but just as universal – the way cells harvest energy by shuffling around electrically charged molecules. This process goes by the mouthful ‘chemiosmosis’, and was first proposed in 1961 by the eccentric British biochemist Peter Mitchell. Chemiosmosis lacks the coded rigour of DNA, but that primal messiness might be exactly what makes it so revealing. Energy, Russell thinks, must have preceded anything resembling DNA or RNA, so the origin of chemiosmosis could help to reveal how the first organisms arose. Chemiosmosis takes place deep in our body’s cells, most of which harbour hundreds or thousands of microscopic Read More ›

Over at his blog at coldcasechristianity.com, homicide detective, ex-atheist and Christian apologist Jim Warner Wallace has written an interesting post (July 30, 2015) in which he identifies no less than eight attributes of an object which point to its being a product of intelligent design: I believe there are eight attributes of design we employ when reasonably inferring the existence of a Designer. To make them easier to remember, I’ve assembled them in an acronym (DESIGNED): D- Dubious Probability (Given Chance) Is random chance an insufficient explanation for the formation and assembly of the object we are examining?E -Echoes of Familiarity Does the object resemble other structures we know (with certainty) were designed by intelligent designers? S- Sophistication and Intricacy Read More ›

In a 1977 paper published in theJournal of Theoretical Biology, Hubert Yockey used information theory to evaluate the likelihood of the evolution of a relatively simple protein. Yockey’s model system was cytochrome c, a protein consisting of about one hundred amino acids. Cytochrome c plays an important role in the mitochondria’s electron transport chain (ETC) which helps to convert the chemical energy in carbon-carbon and carbon-hydrogen bonds, in the food we eat, to an electrochemical potential energy in the form of hydrogen ions (or protons) stored within the mitochondria’s inner membrane. Like water pressing against a dam and turning its turbines to generate electricity, the high-concentration hydrogen ions drive the ATP synthase “turbine” to create the high-energy ATP molecule. Like Read More ›

It seems to be time to call in the energy audit police. Let us explain, in light of an ongoing sharp exchange on “compensating” arguments in the illusion of organising energy thread. This morning Piotr, an objector (BTW — and this is one time where expertise base is relevant —  a Linguist), at 288 dismissed Niwrad: Stop using the term “2nd law” for something that is your private misconception. You’ve got it all backwards . . . This demands correction, as Niwrad has done little more than appropriately point out that functionally specific complex organisation and associated information cannot cogently be explained away by making appeals to irrelevant energy flows elsewhere. Organisation is not properly to be explained on spontaneous Read More ›

Over the past few months, I noticed objectors to design theory dismissing or studiously ignoring a simple — much simpler than a clock — macroscopic example of Functionally Specific, Complex Organisation and/or associated Information (FSCO/I) and its empirically observed source, the ABU-Garcia Ambassadeur 6500 C3 fishing reel: Yes, FSCO/I is real, and has a known cause. {Added, Feb 6} It seems a few other clearly paradigmatic cases will help rivet the point, such as the organisation of a petroleum refinery: . . . or the wireframe view of a rifle ‘scope (which itself has many carefully arranged components): . . . or a calculator circuit: . . . or the wireframe for a gear tooth (showing how complex and exactingly Read More ›

Sometimes, we see a classic comment by objectors that reveals much about what we face. Accordingly, it is appropriate to headline the remark and a response (which I will use original post powers to augment slightly): Here is AS: Rebuttals of what? The simple fact is that religious dogmas are made up. They have no existence in reality beyond human imagination. The boot is one the other foot. If you have evidence of the objective reality of some religious concept, then, bring it on. Here is my response: _______________ >> AS: I saw Timaeus commenting [–> cf. here, especially], who is always worth a read. In your exchange with him you tossed this atheistical talking point, which drips with contempt Read More ›

KeithS has been requesting scientific evidence of a genuine barrier to macroevolution. The following is a condensed, non-technical summary of Dr. Douglas Axe’s paper, The Case Against a Darwinian Origin of Protein Folds. Since (i) proteins are a pervasive feature of living organisms, (ii) new proteins and new protein folds have been continually appearing throughout the four-billion-year history of life on Earth, and (iii) at least some macroevolutionary events must have involved the generation of new protein folds, it follows that if Dr. Axe’s argument is correct and neo-Darwinian processes are incapable of hitting upon new functional protein folds, then there are indeed genuine barriers to macroevolution, in at least some cases. The argument put forward by Dr. Axe is Read More ›

First of all, I want to apologize for shamelessly copying the title and structure of a recent post by VJ Torley. VJ, I hope you will pardon me: imitators, after all, are an undeniable mark of true success! 🙂 That said, let’s go to the subject of this post. I have discussed a little bit about biological function in my previous posts, and I have received many comments about that topic, some of them from very good interlocutors (I would like to publicly thank here Piotr and wd400, in particular). From my general experience in this blog during the last few years, I would like to sum up some of the more questionable attitudes and arguments which I have witnessed Read More ›

COMPLEXITY =/=> EVOLUTION Many Darwinists equate complexity with evolution. They see the fossil record of increasing complexity with time as precisely what defines Evolution. But is increasing complexity always a good thing? The history of computers is instructive. Your iPhone and laptop computer are constructed using base-2, principally because flip-flops and early binary circuits were easy to make, even the earliest electronic memory based on circular ferrites was two-state. This base-2 necessity led to an explosion in the study of Boolean Algebra and binary logic in the 1950’s, which demonstrated that everything you could do in base-10 could be done in base-2. By the late 50’s, the Russians were falling further and futher behind the US in computer technology, and Read More ›

In a comment in the oldies thread on Sunday evening, Chance Ratcliff raised a very instructive case study  for a search space that is well worth being headlined. Let us adjust a bit on the calc of the config space, and reflect: _____________ CR, 111, Oldies: >> An illustration might be of some help. For {{an 8-bit, 256 level}} gray scale image of 1024 [ –> 2^10] pixels squared, there’s a search space of {{  2^20,  256-level elements giving 256^(2^20) = 4.26 *10^2,525,222}} possible configurations. This [strike . . . ] provides a vast landscape of images over which it is possible to traverse. For example, there are a nearly inestimable amount of configurations that could yield a recognizable rendering Read More ›