Monthly Archives: January 2009
New UD FAQ Coming Soon!
| January 31, 2009 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
In November 2008 I recruited three of UD’s most insightful and prolific commenters – StephenB, GPuccio and Kairosfocus – to craft a revised “Frequently Asked Questions” section for our homepage. I am very pleased to announce that after three months of intense effort by these gentlemen, the new FAQ – which is entitled “Frequently Raised… more
Saving Darwin’s Soul: Does His 21st Century Fate Rest on Fighting 19th Century Battles?
| January 31, 2009 | Posted by Steve Fuller under Biography, Biology, Culture, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion, Science, The Design of Life |
This week marks the publication of the Darwin book that has so far received the most advance publicity in the UK, Darwin’s Sacred Cause: Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore (Allen Lane). Desmond and Moore, both together and separately, have written some of the best histories of… more
Human DNA repair process video – by chance?
| January 30, 2009 | Posted by DLH under Biology, Darwinism, Education, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Off Topic, Self-Org. Theory |
More details of DNA repair have been revealed. See: Human DNA repair process recorded in action (Video) (PhysOrg.com) — A key phase in the repair process of damaged human DNA has been observed and visually recorded by a team of researchers at the University of California, Davis. The recordings provide new information about the role… more
Just because Marxism has lost its sense of purpose, it doesn’t mean that ID must as well
| January 29, 2009 | Posted by Steve Fuller under Creationism, Culture, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion, The Design of Life |
A Book Review of John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York, Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present (Monthly Review Press, 2008). There are many interesting features of this book, authored by academic Marxists (or at least people who used to be Marxists) and published by a historically Marxist… more
Financial Times of London: If you must be wrong, why must you also be just plain stupid and out of date?
| January 28, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
Here’s an amazingly silly editorial from the Financial Times of London, January 16, 2009 (yes, that pink newspaper), warning against people who question Darwin worship: Many scientists and liberal politicians regard the rising creationist tide as a side-show that they can safely ignore. They are wrong, for several reasons. Wide areas of research, from biology… more
Hansen’s former boss at NASA declares himself an AGW skeptic
| January 28, 2009 | Posted by Dave S. under Global Warming, Off Topic |
The video below is U.S. Senator James Inhofe describing the letter he received from former NASA supervisor and senior atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon: embedded by Embedded Video For the EPW press release on this more
Mathematically Defining Functional Information In Biology
| January 28, 2009 | Posted by Dave S. under Intelligent Design |
Lecture by Kirk Durston, Biophysics PhD candidate, University of Guelph embedded by Embedded Video Click here to read the Szostak paper referred to in the video. HT to UD subscriber bornagain77 for the video and the link to the paper. more
Missile Guidance Systems and Darwinian Logic
| January 27, 2009 | Posted by GilDodgen under Intelligent Design |
Since I earn my living as a software engineer in aerospace research and development, and since one of my specialities is guidance, navigation and control (GN&C) software development for precision-guided airdrop systems, I thought the following might be of interest to UD readers. As I listened to the following explanation of how missile guidance systems… more
Is Evolution Biased?
| January 27, 2009 | Posted by PaV under Intelligent Design |
PLoS Biology has an article out today entitled: “Hotspots of Biased Nucleotide Substitutions in Human Genes”. I’ve mentioned this ‘biased’ substitution pattern before. What the authors see, they tell us, is a definite W->S substitution pattern in human genes (Weak to Strong = A:T->C:G) against an overall pattern of S->W; for the entire human genome.… more
David Attenborough in the News
| January 27, 2009 | Posted by Steno under Intelligent Design |
David Attenborough has a new series coming out for the Darwin celebrations on BBC 1 in the UK, and has been giving some interviews to the press. Today he claims that creationists have been sending hate mail to him for deny God. “They tell me to burn in hell and good riddance” he complains. Attenborough… more
Controversy Brewing over the Darwin 2009 Project at the University of Oklahoma
| January 25, 2009 | Posted by johnnyb under Intelligent Design |
This year, the University of Oklahoma is celebrating Darwin with the Darwin 2009 Project. It appears from the speaker list (at least for the names I am familiar with) that where this project touches on the mechanisms for evolution or the wider debate about its potential implications for other areas of life, this is going… more
Why do people so often only repent of Darwinism when they die?
| January 24, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism |
I am really going to miss Richard John Neuhaus, who slipped away January 8 (1936-2008), quite unexpectedly, and is NOT an example of the problem I am commenting on here. I got my February First Things earlier this week, knowing it was the last installment I would ever read of his “The Public Square,” and… more
Texas Mandates Teaching “The Trade Secret of Paleontology”
| January 24, 2009 | Posted by Dave S. under Intelligent Design |
Stephen J. Gould, perhaps the most famous paleontologist of the 20th century, wrote: The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches … in any local area, a species… more
Evolutionary psychology: So they really DON’T believe all that rot?
| January 23, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
I’ve been trying for years, to get hold of some evidence that anyone at all who thinks Darwinian evolution plausible actually stops short of the Big Bazooms theory of human evolution – something so completely ridiculous that no one who takes it seriously can be considered a contributor to rational thought. Apparently, some do stop… more
“Darwin’s Original Sin” audio lecture now up
| January 23, 2009 | Posted by Steve Fuller under Atheism, Biology, Creationism, Culture, Darwinism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Off Topic, Philosophy, Religion, Science, The Design of Life |
I have posted on my website an audio recording of the talk I gave this past Tuesday at the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture, kicking off their Darwin Year series. My talk was entitled ‘Darwin’s Original Sin: The Rejection of Theology’s Claims to Knowledge‘. If you scroll down to the bottom of this page… more
Lay off Graham Lawton (more on the New Scientist “Darwin was wrong” article)
| January 23, 2009 | Posted by Paul Nelson under Biology, Evolution, Origin Of Life |
A few relevant facts for those who shoot from the hip, without thinking: 1. Reporters and writers don’t contribute or control article headlines, a privilege their editors reserve to themselves. 2. Nor do reporters and writers have much (or any) say about what goes on the magazine cover. See the editors for that. 3. Graham… more
Darwin’s Predictions
| January 22, 2009 | Posted by DonaldM under Intelligent Design |
Cornelius G. Hunter, known for his books Darwin’s God and Darwin’s Proof as well as Science’s Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism, has just put up a new website about Darwian Evolution. Entitled Darwin’s Predictions, this site is “living document” in that Hunter intends to update the information as needed. more
Podcast: Why consensus doesn’t count in science
| January 22, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
Here’s a podcast on why consensus is meaningless in a field like science. But honestly, I don’t know why John West bothers to explain it. It shouldn’t need explaining. Consensus is meaningless in any field where being right means hitting a target. You can cure cancer? Who cares whether people who can’t cure cancer disagree… more
ID and the Science of God: Part VI
| January 22, 2009 | Posted by Steve Fuller under Biology, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion, Science, The Design of Life |
To test the real difference that theodicy makes to ID, Timaeus posed a thought experiment (see post 33) involving a team of scientists of various religious persuasions who conclude that the malarial cell is a designed entity. However, the scientists’ ability to infer why a deity would have created such a malignant cell is impeded… more
Miller Redefining Design
| January 22, 2009 | Posted by Patrick under Darwinism, Eyes Rolling, theistic evolution |
Originally written by uoflcard. I’d rather not distract from the main point of the other thread: HGT. So I created a separate thread for this topic, duplicating this info. There is ‘Design’ in Nature, Biologist Argues It is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read. A biologist says that the ID movement garners… more