Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Excerpt from new ID book: Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell

Anderson: To my surprise, Dawkins responded rather glibly that we have a pretty good idea how life started. Yes, there are some challenges, he acknowledged, but... Read More ›

A striking admission that Michael Behe was right

What he is saying is precisely Behe’s point in Darwin Devolves. Cell evolution is mostly about destroying complex equipment that hinders immediate survival. (The question of how the equipment came to be so complex beforehand is separate from the question of what life forms actually do when they evolve.) Read More ›

Doctor Ivette Lozano from Dallas, Texas on treating patients with HCQ Cocktails

Inimitable: Food for thought. U/D: When it reaches the pharmacy . . . U/D May 19, another Lozano interview: And, oh yes, breaking 1: Mr Trump is praising — yes, I am NOT using, “touting” — a promising vaccination. Announcement by the firm, here. Breaking, no 2, courtesy Daily Mail as usual: Of course, the now standard, it’s risky is in the subheads. U/D: Video: Compare our Texas Doctor’s remarks. And then, there is the latest from Dr Raoult: Whose report do you believe, why? END

Orthomyxo Schools Upright Biped

Several times now Orthomyxo has sneered at the idea that the genetic code is anything more than “chemical reactions.”  In an exchange with Upright Biped, UB defended the position that the code, while certainly operating through chemical reactions, is just as certainly governed by a staggeringly complex semiotic information system.  We pick up the debate with UB responding to Ortho by outlining how the system works: I told you the critical physical condition of the system (described as such in the literature) that allows the system to function as it does, in a material universe determined by inexorable physical law. The gene system must have the physical freedom to specify itseIf, as well as any variation of itself. In case Read More ›

At Forbes: Wolfram’s new theory “isn’t even science” yet. But wait…

We can tell what’s wrong with science today when we try to take Siegel’s dead-serious explanation of what he thinks a theory in science is and apply it to: Darwinian evolution theory Read More ›

Jonathan Bartlett on Elon Musk’s myths of the mind

Bartlett: What I found most interesting about the conversation, however, is not the technology itself but the (secular) mythology embedded in Musk’s lengthy descriptions of what he thinks his device can do… Read More ›

An example of interwoven protein code (HT, Wiki!)

Here, in human mitochondrial DNA — note the BLUE code start and the RED code stop; all HT to Wiki publishing against known ideological interest: Complex interwoven code is of course doubly functionally specific, so it is exponentially harder to account for, other than by exceedingly sophisticated and creative intelligently directed configuration. Indeed, when I had to write machine code, I thanked my lucky stars 2114’s and 2716’s were by then affordable RAM and EPROM chips, and proceeded from there. (BTW, a neighbour who was an engineer in an earlier era spoke of how people flew across North America just to see 1 MB of live RAM, in a video memory, a million dollar cost in itself.) We know v Read More ›

Guillermo Gonzalez: Earth’s position makes space exploration easier

Gonzalez: In the larger context of the Milky Way galaxy, our Solar System is in the best location to initiate interstellar missions. In summary, we here confirm and expand upon recent studies that argue that the Earth and the Solar System are rare in the degree to which they facilitate space exploration. Read More ›

At Quanta: Bacteria are now seen as very complex too

Cepelewicz: The very existence of organelles in these bacteria, coupled with intriguing parallels to the more familiar ones that characterize eukaryotes, has prompted scientists to revise how they think about the evolution of cellular complexity — all while offering new ways to probe the basic principles that underlie it. Read More ›