… what about Dolly the sheep? New vaccines? The chess computer? New antibiotics? Alternative energy sources? Yes, all these discoveries are exciting, but, as Horgan notes, they depend on existing science. They do not forge new frontiers in our understanding of our world.
Science journalist John Horgan created a minor stir a decade ago with his […]

Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers
New Scientist has received an unprecedented amount of interest in this story from readers. If you would like up-to-date information on any plans for clinical trials of DCA in patients with cancer, or would like to donate towards a fund for such trials, please visit the site set up by […]

There is a new paper on Irreducible Complexity by renowned mathematician Gregory Chaitin: The Halting Probability Omega: Irreducible Complexity in Pure Mathematics Milan Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 75, 2007.

Ω is an extreme case of total lawlessness; in effect, it shows that God plays dice in pure mathematics.

On the surface Chaitin’s notion of Irreducible […]

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Gil

In 1981 Dennett and Hofstadter edited a compilation of essays entitled The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul . The book is a compilation of essays by Dawkins, Morowitz, Searle, Alan Turing, and several other big names on the nature of mind and intelligence. Since ID implies a mind of […]

I just pulled out my 1972 edition of Jacques Monod’s “classic” work, Chance and Necessity, subtitled A Philosophy for a Universe without Causality.
From the back cover:
The outstanding French biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize, here explains to the layman his revolutionary approach to genetics and its far-reaching ethical and philosophical implications.
For some time now, the […]

The ‘POINT OF VIEW’ article on p. B20 of the 19Jan07 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education is entitled, “Why Can’t We Discuss Intelligent Design?” The author is J. Scott Turner, Associate Professor of Biology at SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry. The by-line states, “His latest book, The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: […]

On another forum I wrote:
It seems to me that the arts, and music in particular, present a real problem for Darwinism. How would such an ability come about in a step-by-tiny-step fashion and what would be the survival value of the transitional intermediates, or even the end product? (Never mind what mutations would be required […]

Just recently, I had occasion to write to a Christian university student who is sympathetic to the idea that the universe shows evidence of intelligent design, but afraid to defend that view for fear of ruining his academic career. So he wants to do Christian evangelism instead, on the theory that evangelism will help in […]

Australian ID critic Robyn Williams recently interviewed Melbourne neuroscientist John Reid, who is also a self-proclaimed expert in overpopulation and how to deal with it. Eric Pianka was the talk of this blog last year for recommending Ebola as the instrument of choice for reducing the world’s population by 90 percent (use UD’s search feature […]

The big publishers of scientific journals are, not surprisingly, concerned about how open access to information on the internet is cutting into their profits. Apparently they are now hiring PR people to try to keep their market share, and the PR people are counseling that the very concept of open access needs to be undermined. […]

Irreducible Complicity: Disappointing Darwin by Roddy Bullock
Question: What do you call a person who hypothesizes an unseen intelligent being and searches outer space for confirming material evidence?
Answer: A scientist.
Question: What do you call a person who hypothesizes an unseen intelligent being and searches inner space for confirming material evidence?
Answer: A religious nut.

Evolution Pundit Glenn Davidson’s Website

Rubbish like this should steel us to work doubly hard to put these people out of business.
Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism & Intelligent Design
Cambridge House Press, Inc. (release date 02.28.07)
By Barrett Brown, Jon P. Alston
Book Description
What is creationism? Is it science, theology, both, neither? Who’s behind it? What does it mean for Western Civilization? […]

Do you believe in ‘individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace’? These are some of the CATO Institute’s principles, and if you agree, then you may well agree with Andrew J. Coulson’s latest pronouncement regarding mandated school policies, not the least of which is prohibiting the mere mention of alternate scientific theories of […]

Some of the claims by ID proponents have not been adequately explored because of the cost issues involved in doing large-scale whole-genome sequencing of numerous individuals. Not even Warren Buffet has the trillions of dollars needed to accomplish such a massive amount of gene sequencing. At least not today, but maybe in the future!
The human […]

Biology’s next revolution
by Nigel Goldenfeld and Carl Woese
Nature 445, 369 (25 January 2007)
For those without access to Nature click here for a copy of the article. This link added on 5/11/2007.
The emerging picture of microbes as gene-swapping collectives demands a revision of such concepts as organism, species and evolution itself.

This year’s Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum pits Alister McGrath against Daniel Dennett (last year’s pitted me against Michael Ruse):
The Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum in Faith and Culture is a pilot program of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The Forum is designed to provide a venue in which a respected evangelical scholar and a respected non-evangelical scholar […]

Increasinginly I find that those with doctorates in the natural and engineering sciences are asking, “What can I do to help in the fight against Darwinism?” For some this will involve research bearing directly on Darwinian theory. But there is also another way to help. Many in the media and the public […]

On a listserve which shall remain nameless a botanist yesterday was casting about for a good representative of a colonial protozoan. Having read up on the model organism Dictyostelium discoideum (common name “social amoeba”) a couple years ago and blogging on it then I immediately suggested it and described why it is a model […]

An article in the February 2007 Scientific American titled Molecular Lego talks about bis-amino acids and bis-peptides. These are synthetic amino acids and peptide chains formed from them.

The 1/29/07 issue of Time Magazine is captioned “Mind & Body Special Issue”, and starts out with a discussion of the brain’s geography, an endeavor well studied and categorized by now, but which is far overshadowed by the mystery of ‘consciousness’, often tagged as the ‘ghost within the neural machine’. Steven Pinker writes the centerpiece […]

As I was watching the Democratic response to President Bush’s State Of The Union speech tonight Senator Jim Webb played the United States Marine card three times (for himself, his brother, and his son all Marines). I take it personally when someone does that.

I was reviewing recently Stuart Kauffman’s critique of the Darwinian selection mechanism and thought I would share the upshot of it here, especially in light of the recent discussion at UD concerning Haldane’s Dilemma:
If selection could, in principle, accomplish “anything,” then all the order in organisms might reflect selection alone. But, in fact, there […]

What are the speed limits of naturalistic evolution? We know from experience it takes time to evolve a species. Would naturalistic evolution be fast enough in geological time to turn a cow into a whale, an ape-like creature into a human? What are the speed limits of evolution?

In the Haldane thread, DaveScot responded to a comment I made with this:
On Haldane’s Dilemma, I’ve determined the evolutionist argument goes like this: Orthodox evolution theory is a fact, not a theory. Therefore Haldane’s Dilemma must be wrong.
I propose a corollary to DaveScot’s proposition:
Orthodox evolution theory is a fact, not a theory. Therefore the fossil […]

Intelligent design to feature in school RE lessons

Alexandra Smith
Tuesday January 23, 2007
EducationGuardian.co.uk
Teenagers will be asked to debate intelligent design (ID) in their religious education classes and read texts by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins under new government guidelines.

Wikipedia suppresses Haldane’s Dilemma by Walter J. Remine
The key figure — a limit of 1,667 beneficial mutations to explain human evolution — was brushed aside (by falsely blaming it on creationists, instead of acknowledging that it arises solely from evolutionary theory, evolutionary genetics, and J.B.S. Haldane). This key figure was repeatedly expunged from the […]

My grandfather hunted arrowheads, and he found them, hundreds of them.  I was awed by his collection, and one of my most prized possessions is a frame containing 48 of his best specimens that I inherited from him.  Nearly two decades after his death that frame is still hanging on the wall in the room […]

The theme of silent mutations that are not so silent has been addressed here at UD before (e.g., go here). Here’s a piece that elaborates on the significance of this recent finding:
Silent No Longer: Researchers unearth another stratum of meaning in the genetic code
By Ivan Amato
The more scientists study the genetic code, the […]

In another forum, Denyse wrote:
Bear with a simple lay hack here a moment: Why must we know a designer’s intentions in order to detect design?
If the fire marshall’s office suspects arson, do the investigators worry much about WHY?
Surely they investigate, confirm their finding, and turn the information over to other authorities and interested parties, without […]