Here’s a neat article on front-loading: The Front-loading Fiction Posted by Rob on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 5:49:41 PM SOURCE: The Procrustean — A Blog of Townhall.com In responding to an email about “front-loading” as a Deistic solution to the universe that does not require an interventionist (theist) God, I replied that I have some philosophical problems with the phrase “front-loading”. It is a concession to Deism that doesn’t have to be made. Trying to describe a “front-loaded algorithm” highlights the problem with the philosophical solution. Historically, the argument for front-loading came from Laplacian determinism based on a Newtonian or mechanical universe–if one could control all the initial conditions, then the outcome was predetermined. First quantum mechanics, and then chaos-theory Read More ›

h/t to fBast: “Ooooh, stop the presses! New thread, somebody? See: Origin of Nerves traced to Sponges, it seems that sponges don’t have nerve cells, but they know how to grow ‘em. This smacks very loudly of front-loading.”
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Abstract:

“We are pretty confident it was after the sponges split from trunk of the tree of life and sponges went one way and animals developed from the other, that nerves started to form,” said Bernie Degnan of the University of Queensland. “What we found in sponges though were the building blocks for nerves, something we never expected to find.” Read More ›

It seems like every other day there’s an article where scientists are discovering the presence of genes thought to have arisen late in evolution to be already present in ancient forms, so-called “living fossils”. In this case what we see in this particular “living fossil”, the shark, is the presence of genetic activity that is associated with ‘digit formation’ in limbed animals. Previously, scientists thought that there was some late phase additional activity which, we may say, was ‘added onto’ fin development. Here’s a quote: “We’ve uncovered a surprising degree of genetic complexity in place at an early point in the evolution of appendages,” said developmental biologist Martin Cohn, Ph.D.” As I say, these types of articles seem commonplace, yet Read More ›

I just wanted to bring this article in Science to the attention of this blog. The results are very intriguing–“these gene “inventions” along the lineage leading to animals were likely already well integrated with preexisting eukaryotic genes in the eumetazoan progenitor.” It seems that the very primitive looking sea anenome is a very sophisticated animal. [As an aside, though Darwinists will be quick to deny this—it’s very easy to deny anything (in fact, I deny that I’m writing this right now!)—this is completely contrary to what Charles Darwin himself expected; viz., that such complex regulatory functions developed in so short a period of time. Since it is soft-bodied, it doesn’t fossilze that well; but there is a well-preserved fossil in Read More ›

Some scientists grow more conservative with age; others, more radical. Carl Woese (age 82) represents a vivid example of the latter group. His latest paper, “Life is physics: evolution as a collective phenomenon far from equilibrium,” co-authored with fellow U of Illinois scientist and frequent collaborator Nigel Goldenfeld, includes more heterodox ideas per page than just about anything I’ve read recently. (The paper is forthcoming in the Annual Reviews series.) For instance (p. 12): IS EVOLUTION RANDOM? We would be remiss in ending this article if we did not briefly mention the fascinating question: is evolution random? More precisely, does variation precede but not cause adaptation—the central tenet of the modern synthesis—or do environmental changes alter the stochastic nature of Read More ›

as, it is worthy of further consideration (which is not the same as an endorsement). I headline a comment: [[Kojonen develops his case further: I will . . . argue in this book that the teleological order of biological organisms can still, in a rationally permissible way, be understood as a sign of the divine reality, even in an evolutionary cosmos. [ –> a if not necessarily the main thesis] . . . . According to [American Botanist, Asa] Gray (1860), evolution actually “leaves the question of design just where it was before,” because the biological design argument does not in any way depend on whether God created living organisms directly, through miracles, or through a secondary cause such as Read More ›

In a day when first principles of reason are at a steep discount, it is unsurprising to see that inductive reasoning is doubted or dismissed in some quarters. And yet, there is still a huge cultural investment in science, which is generally understood to pivot on inductive reasoning. Where, as the Stanford Enc of Phil notes, in the modern sense, Induction ” includes all inferential processes that “expand knowledge in the face of uncertainty” (Holland et al. 1986: 1), including abductive inference.” That is, inductive reasoning is argument by more or less credible but not certain support, especially empirical support. How could it ever work? A: Surprise — NOT: by being an application of the principle of (stable) distinct identity. Read More ›

In desperate attempt to perpetuate the illusion that complex biological novelty can easily emerge in the biosphere, Darwinists have resorted to defining species in a way that allows new “species” to emerge with ease. They argue members of a species become new species when they lose the ability or incentive to interbreed, even when no significant novelty is involved. Here is a true statement: emergence of radically different and new organs would imply no interbreeding but the converse is not true even though it is promoted by Darwinists as if it were true: no interbreeding implies emergence of radically different and new organs For example, see how this university website advertises newly acquired inability as macroevolution: Speciation. Individuals of a Read More ›

One of the great things about UD is the insights that often come up in the comment boxes, by design and inadvertently. And here (at 147 in the Chemist speaks out thread) we have ecs2 responding to the same “he said it” clip I highlighted yesterday. He then continues later in the thread, in response to NM at 150. Let us watch: _________________ NM: >>“Sigh. You really have no idea at all about this stuff, do you? Here’s the issue. Picture, in your head, all 5000 mammal species currently living on the planet. Now think of how many individuals are in each species — some are almost extinct, some have populations of billions. Now think about how each of these Read More ›

  Functionally specific, complex information and associated information [FSCO/I]  — especially, digitally coded FSCI [dFSCI] — are seen as two of the strongest signs of design as cause. For instance, when you see this post, you do not wonder or debate the odds of different letters being strung by chance [e.g. e in English is typically about 1/8 of the text], you intuitively immediately know that this is best explained as the work of an intelligent, purposeful agent acting towards a goal and based on his knowledge of the language, codes and topic in question. And, analytically, we can substantiate that intuition. That brings us to a significant comment exchange in the current hybridisation as explanation for origin of complete Read More ›

I was recently engaged in correspondance with someone who told me that the theory of ID isn’t scientific because it doesn’t make scientific predictions. We’ve all heard it, right? Indeed, most of you are probably bored to tears having had to address, and respond to, this argument over and over, seemingly to no avail. As with so many things in this discussion, the constantly re-iterated response seems to repeatedly fall on deaf ears. So, I took a few moments to ‘brain storm’ and jot down those scientific predictions, made by ID, which immediately came to mind. This is what I came up with: Predictions In Astronomy/Cosmology ID predicts that the Universe had a beginning. ID predicts an increase (and not Read More ›

 I have been listening to a few lectures by Christians who are convinced that the standard models of evolution explain all of biology including life’s origin. They say that evolution also explains all of cosmology. For them, this gives them, the evolutionary creationists, “a better god” than any model that requires a lesser form of “interventionist god”.  To quote loosely from a conversation between two of these good willed gentlemen.  “If we think of the cosmos as a game of billiards. The ID proponents have their god taking in turns and using the cue. Chance and nature are given a turn, then god comes in and sinks a ball. Finally after a long game, the eight ball is sunk, and we have Read More ›

FOREWORD This is – and will perhaps always be – a work in progress. Patrick and others originated this area of the website when they grew weary of refuting the same old shop worn anti-ID arguments over and over again. Their work was ad hoc and progressive, but in the end they had developed an impressive resource. In the fall Read More ›

The big mistake in Origin that Darwinists won’t admit is gradualism. Darwin explained that according to his theory we should expect to observe a continuum of living species each with only the slightest of variations between them. He postulated that we don’t observe this because the fittest species take over and the insensibly slight variants die off leaving species that are fully characteristic of their kind which then makes possible taxonomic classification by those characters. It’s in the full title in the latter half “The Preservation of Favored Races”. That left Darwin with explaining the fossil record which is indisputably a record of saltation. Species in the fossil record appear abruptly fully characteristic of their kind, persist unchanged for an Read More ›

I blogged on this almost a year ago here: Front loading passes peer review in Cell Cycle Cell Cycle has a policy of making articles availabe without subscription after one year passes from initial publication. It’s been just over a year. The full paper is at: http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/cc/article/shermanCC6-15.pdf