A friend writes*, breathlessly, that Facebook has disabled Jerry Coyne’s page, and he’s mad about it and has some conspiracy theories of who’s responsible/behind such “immoral” and “unenthical” acts against him! Wow. Here’s Coyne: Oy gewalt!. For reasons that completely elude me, Facebook has disabled my account. And by “disabled,” I don’t mean a temporary suspension like the one-day one … When I look at the items that are considered banning offenses, I don’t see that I’ve committed any. Bet you didn’t, Jerry. Have you been downgraded to a prole? I have not published any “hate speech”, nor have I received a “warning” from Facebook. I haven’t impersonated anyone else or posted content that violates Facebook Terms. More. So? Jerry, Read More ›

Friend Kirk Durston offers a five-part series on the corruption of 21st century science here: Part I: Should you have blind faith in what science has become today? This post will be the first in a series dealing with the corruption of 21st century science. As a scientist, I am increasingly appalled and even, just this past week, shocked at what is passing as 21st century science. It has become a mix of good science, bad science, creative story-telling, science fiction, scientism (atheism dressed up as science), citation-bias, huge media announcements followed by quiet retractions, massaging the data, exaggeration for funding purposes, and outright fraud all rolled up into what I refer to as 21st century science. In some disciplines, Read More ›

If you have been in the habit of using Twitter to get notice of new UD News posts, please note that the account was falsely reported for spam. Note: This message from UD News could not be reported on Twitter: Service note: Re Twitter: Account falsely reported for spam.http://is.gd/OqeOCb Falsely reported?: If you signed up, you would get UD News posts (now and then MercatorNet, or stuff my friends wrote that I found interesting, usually re freedom of speech). No sales, no rankings manipulations, etc. Just News hitting: Tweet! I guess this is what some people do when they run out of arguments after they run out of rent money. See also: Darwin’s Doubt: Fake Steve Meyer Facebook pages a new Read More ›

Scolds science writer John Farrell at Aeon: The Vatican still refuses to endorse evolutionary theory- – setting a billion believers at odds with modern science He; right, you know. We Catholics haven’t done near enough for the Other Billion — who belive in Darwin and in every a-crock-alypse going, especially the ones that prevent poor countries from getting where we are.  (Ifyou are even legally reading this, you are better off than most.) More from Farrell: Many in the Roman Catholic hierarchy agreed, but for different reasons. Teilhard incurred the particular displeasure of Rome because he suggested that the Bible’s account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and their Fall from grace as the ultimate origin and Read More ›

Yesterday, I posted A succinct case for Intelligent Design, which featured a 123-word critique of unguided mechanisms for evolution – in particular, neo-Darwinism – as an explanation for the genes, proteins and different kinds of body plans found in living things. The passage, which was taken from Dr. Stephen C. Meyer’s book, Darwin’s Doubt (Harper One, 2013), read as follows: “This book has presented four separate scientific critiques demonstrating the inadequacy of the neo-Darwinian mechanism, the mechanism that Dawkins assumes can produce the appearance of design without intelligent guidance. It has shown that the neo-Darwinian mechanism fails to account for the origin of genetic information because: (1) it has no means of efficiently searching combinatorial sequence space for functional genes Read More ›

DDD # 18 is a particularly contemptible form of ad hominem, which Mark Frank and Elizabeth Liddle do us the service of demonstrating in the combox to this post. In the post Dr. Torley refers to Darwin’s Doubt by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, which explains many of the shortcomings of various Darwinian narratives. Frank and Liddle tag team for a DDD #18: Mark Frank: [Meyer] explains perceived weaknesses in his understanding of evolutionary theory but gives no reason why design is a better alternative. Liddle: Exactly. His understanding of evolutionary theory is weak, and actual evolutionary theory is a better alternative. Follow this link and take a look at what scientists who actually know what they are talking about have Read More ›

A friend posts this picture on Facebook with the caption “Oops.” My reply: Don’t be so closed-minded. You act as if there is a Platonic form of “Cheese Danish.” We live in a post-modern world, and you need to adjust your thinking to the times. “Cheese Danish” is merely a social construct, and you are obviously trying to impose your preferred Cheese Danish narrative based on your privileged Northern European, Caucasian, heteronormative, patriarchal, male views as a means of imposing the existing power structure over the Starbucks staffer who has bravely broken the shackles of historical Cheese Danish normative oppression.

Hey, that idea was actually invented a long time ago, but don’t let that deter us from this: The human universe: Could we become gods? … But perhaps the most curious of all is the idea that the universe isn’t real, and we live in a computer simulation created by a superior intelligence. In fact, according to Nick Bostrom, the philosopher who developed the idea, this is the most likely explanation for our existence. Whatever the plausibility of this claim, it begs a tantalising question: could we ever create such a simulation? Could we become the gods of an artificial universe inhabited by creatures so smart they are able to question their own place in their universe? [subscribe wall follows Read More ›

… think we should maybe start space colonies (and spread the misery)? From Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Startalk: Neil deGrasse Tyson explores the future of humanity with one of the men forging that future: billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors. Join us as Neil and Elon talk about NASA funding, getting humans excited for the colonization of Mars, and why Elon feels it’s important to not be stuck here on Earth. You’ll also find out why sustainable production and consumption of energy is critically important, but flying cars may not be such a good idea. Meanwhile, back in the studio, guest engineer Bill Nye schools Neil and Chuck Nice about SpaceX’s major innovations and how they’ve improved Read More ›

Here. Many of the benefits of mindfulness are little more than hype. Mindfulness is better than medication for treating depression. Mindfulness helps students combat negativity, focus on their homework and pay more attention in class. Mindfulness helps long-haul airline travellers avoid air rage over delays and bad service. Mindfulness gives hedge fund managers a competitive advantage. That’s what the headlines say about mindfulness. But is it really a wonder drug for the 21st century? More and more people are realizing that much (not all) of hopes placed in mindfulness are little more than hype. First, if mindfulness meditation proves a legitimate treatment, it could be harmful if used wrongly. The same is true of drugs, surgery, nutritional supplements, psychotherapy, or Read More ›

Wave enough hands (and pom poms) and Air TV thinks you are only a step from a major discovery. This from commentator Steven Hayward: Ironically the best evidence for the abuse of climate science by the political class comes from a very sober commentary in Nature magazine this week about how climate scientists are concerned that the upcoming UN climate summit in Paris next December won’t reach a serious agreement (they’re right about this), but especially how the politicians are ignoring what scientists are telling them and the dilemma this supposedly causes climate scientists: Climate science advisers should use the time before Paris to reassess their role. Do they want to inform policy-makers or support the political process? The climate Read More ›

Recently, I’ve been reading Dr. Stephen C. Meyer’s excellent book, Darwin’s Doubt (Harper One, 2013). Towards the end of the book, I came across a paragraph that struck me as the best case I’ve ever seen for Intelligent Design, in 200 words or less. “This book has presented four separate scientific critiques demonstrating the inadequacy of the neo-Darwinian mechanism, the mechanism that Dawkins assumes can produce the appearance of design without intelligent guidance. It has shown that the neo-Darwinian mechanism fails to account for the origin of genetic information because: (1) it has no means of efficiently searching combinatorial sequence space for functional genes and proteins and, consequently, (2) it requires unrealistically long waiting times to generate even a single Read More ›

Koonin: “We don’t know evolution is true.” I like Eugene Koonin. As we have pointed out many times on these pages, he is refreshingly candid about the utter bankruptcy of the “chance dunnit” origin of life hypothesis. To be sure, he has a Loony Tunes answer for that difficulty (the multiverse dunnit). That’s OK. We can argue about that another day. At least he admits the truth in regard to the key question — if we are talking about the probablistic resources available on this planet in the last four billion years, “chance dunnit” is a non-starter. Thanks to UD News, we now know that Koonin is equally candid about the sheer idiocy of assertions like this: The statement that Read More ›

Most people have heard of genes, but few understand how they work. The textbooks say that the human genome has almost 30,000 genes and that a gene typically is used to create a protein molecule. But in fact it is difficult to speak of a gene as a thing. For example, proteins are usually not simply constructed from a given stretch of DNA that we would call a gene. Instead, proteins are constructed from several different stretches of DNA. In other words, our “genes” are often a collection of smaller segments that are separated in our DNA. These different DNA segments, which are given the uninteresting name of exons for “expressed regions,” are first copied, and then the copies are combined or Read More ›

I recently spent some time answering questions in a comment thread here at Uncommon Descent. It seems that people appreciated me taking the time to do this. Unfortunately, this is not something that I typically have the time to do. So, I thought I’d try an experiment. I have created a Google Moderator page, where you can submit and upvote questions you’d like to see me answer. https://www.google.com/moderator/#15/e=21afd2&t=21afd2.40 Some ground rules: Don’t be abusive or insulting: I will simply pull the plug on the experiment. Don’t ask non-research questions: I’m here to talk about my research, not where I grew up. Don’t ask questions about research unrelated to mine: I’m sure biogeography is a wonderful subject, but its outside of my area. Read More ›