Earlier this year in the case of Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2107, 2111 (2013), the court wrote: Genes form the basis for hereditary traits in living organisms. See generally Association for Molecular Pathology v. United States Patent and Trademark Office, 702 F. Supp. 2d 181, 192-211 (SDNY 2010). The human genome consists of approximately 22,000 genes packed into 23 pairs of chromosomes. Each gene is encoded as DNA, which takes the shape of the familiar “double helix” that Doctors James Watson and Francis Crick first described in 1953. Each “cross-bar” in the DNA helix consists of two chemically joined nucleotides. The possible nucleotides are adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G), Read More ›

Evolution is, as evolutionists like to say, a fact. But that conclusion comes from philosophical and theological reasoning. From a strictly scientific perspective evolution is problematic. Virtually every area of scientific evidence challenges evolution. Consider for example the introns—segments of DNA within genes in the higher organisms. When introns were discovered evolutionists, in typical fashion, figured that introns were non functional, biological junk. They reasoned that introns had been randomly inserted into genomes for no particular reason, and now they appear throughout the higher organisms in the usual common descent pattern. Even if all that was true (which it isn’t) it wouldn’t help, for introns fundamentally contradict evolutionary theory.  Read more

“Take the coins and dice and arrange them in a way that is evidently designed.” That was my instruction to groups of college science students who voluntarily attended my extra-curricular ID classes sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ at James Madison University (even Jason Rosenhouse dropped in a few times). Many of the students were biology and science students hoping to learn truths that are forbidden topics in their regular classes… They would each have two boxes, and each box contained dice and coins. They were instructed to randomly shake one box and then put designs in the other box. While they did their work, I and another volunteer would leave the room or turn our backs. After the students Read More ›

O Brother Where Art Thou is in my top five all time favorite movies. In this particular clip both Everett and Pete want to be the leader of the three-man “gang.” So they take a vote . . . O Brother Clip. I was reminded of this when I read one of Mark Frank’s comments to my last post. In that post I pointed out that over at The Skeptical Zone, Elizabeth Liddle says this: Chance is not an explanation, and therefore cannot be rejected, or supported, as a hypothesis. But Ronald A. Thisted, PhD, a statistics professor in the Departments of Statistics and Health Studies at the University of Chicago, says this: If the chance explanation can be ruled Read More ›