Monthly Archives: May 2009
“Junk DNA”: Seems Vital
| May 21, 2009 | Posted by PaV under Intelligent Design |
I’m just posting this to give people an update on what researchers are finding. More and more, so-called “junk DNA” is proving to be essential for life. Here, transposons, considered, generally, to be the “junkiest” of the “junk”, is found to have a rather central role in the development of a pond critter. Here is… more
Prebiotic Earth Scenarios Founded On Tarry Barbecue Mess
| May 21, 2009 | Posted by Robert Deyes under Intelligent Design |
A Nature review that begins with the pronouncement that an experiment “has quashed” major objections to the RNA world of prebiotic origins (Ref 1) is bound to raise a few eye-brows. It is a bold pronouncement indeed and one that must be accompanied by a water-tight set of evidences. In his review of the work… more
Snow Rollers – Human or Natural?
| May 20, 2009 | Posted by DLH under Intelligent Design, Science |
There is a fascinating post about Snow Rollers: Roll ‘em Roll ‘em Roll ‘em…keep that snow a rollin! at WattsUpWithThat.com See: Are there ways to distinguish between a “SnowMan” and a “Snow Roller”? more
Winner: Contest Question 1 winner: Does the multiverse help science make sense – or simply destroy science?
| May 20, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
This contest was posted 6 May 2009, and closed today. The Uncommon Descent Contest Question 1 winner is #27: To claim the prize, a free copy of Expelled, #27 John A Designer must send me a snail address at [email protected] Here is the entry: more
A Dialog Between God and Evolution
| May 20, 2009 | Posted by Baylor Bear under Intelligent Design |
Michael D. Thomas, Ph.D. is a Professor and Director of the Division of Spanish and Portuguese at Baylor and is an ordained pastor. On his BLOG, he has a dialog between God and Evolution I found fun. There are some other ID posts on his site that are worth perusing. more
I keep having to remind myself that science is self-correcting …
| May 20, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Ethics |
I have often been wearied by legends in their own lunchroom huffing that science differs from other endeavours because it is “self-correcting.” To which I reply: Aw come off it, fellas. Any system that does not go extinct is self-correcting – after it collapses on its hind end. This is true of governments, businesses, churches, and not-for-profit… more
Religion dressed up as science?
| May 20, 2009 | Posted by idnet.com.au under Intelligent Design |
A review of a book titled “The Universe: Order without design” appears in New Scientist. The summary of current ideas has a mythic sound to ordinary readers “a tiny piece of inflating “false vacuum” decays into a fireball, and stars and galaxies congeal out of the cooling debris”. Read it and see what you think.… more
Human evolution: The spin machine in top gear
| May 19, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
For a fascinating misreading of what the recently announced Messel Pit fossil really shows, go here: Scientists have found a 47-million-year-old human ancestor. Discovered in Messel Pit, Germany, the fossil, described as Darwinius masillae, is 20 times older than most fossils that explain human evolution. That fossil doesn’t “explain” human evolution; it complicates the picture.… more
RNA Worlds
| May 19, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
I know this is old news by now (I was teaching an ID-intensive last week at Southern Evangelical Seminary, so I’m only now getting caught up), but the following paragraphs in ScienceNews struck me: RNA molecules are formed from three components: a sugar, a base and a phosphate group. In past research, chemists developed each… more
DARPA’s search for “physical intelligence”
| May 19, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Check out the following at fedbizopps.gov (click here): Solicitation Number: DARPA-SN-09-35 Notice Type: Special Notice Synopsis: Added: May 05, 2009 11:23 am Special Notice DARPA-SN-09-35: Physical intelligence (PI); Proposers’ Day Workshop, DATES: June 9th and June 11th, 2009; REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 29, 2009; TECHNICAL POC: Dr. Todd Hylton, DARPA/DSO, Email: [email protected]; URL: www.darpa.mil/dso/solicitations/solicit.htm In anticipation… more
Human evolution: New find reduces certainty
| May 18, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
Further to Uncommon Descent Contest Question 3: Human evolution – What do we actually know? (13 May 2009), this article in Wall Street Journal by Gautam Naik (May 15, 2009) boosts the finding of the skeleton of an ancient primate from 47 million years ago as a “landmark discovery.” Why? Some 50 million years ago,… more
“The Unbearable Lightness of Chimp-Human Genome Similarity” by Rick Sternberg
| May 18, 2009 | Posted by scordova under Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
Walter ReMine once said to me, the supposed 99.5% identity between chimps and humans is like taking two books, creating an alphabetical listing of all the unique words in each book, and then comparing the lists of unique words derived from each book. It would be really easy then to use these lists to argue:… more
PZ Myers throws down a gauntlet to ID
| May 16, 2009 | Posted by DonaldM under Intelligent Design |
Yesterday, Intelligent Design critic and creationist basher, P.Z. Meyers, posted what he considers to be a real scientific challenge for ID proponents on his Pharyngula blogsite. The main thrust of his challenge is outlined in this Youtube video: embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt So, has Myers indeed stumbled upon a true significant challenge for ID? … more
“Theistic evolutionists”: What they can expect after they have surrendered
| May 15, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
Here is a true story about “theistic evolution,” by Carol Iannone: [Theistic evolution, as normally propounded today = accept on faith that God dun it and holler yer guts fer Jesus to feel good - because the evidence suggests there is no God]. Why any theist should do that today is incomprehensible to me, because… more
The Tragic Tale of Memes
| May 15, 2009 | Posted by Clive Hayden under Intelligent Design |
Ladies and Gents, Schemes and Themes, and all Things in Between, it has been revealed to me by Memes, which I know now are truly called Themes, the true and tragic tale of Memes. In a very distant galaxy called Gleams, on a planet known as Dreams, a terrible war erupted among the parties of… more
Stirring the Soup
| May 14, 2009 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
Scientists say this time the soup is good here. more
Interview with Turkish Darwin doubter Adnan Oktar
| May 14, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
On March 2, 2009, the controversial* Turkish intellectual Adnan Oktar responded to my questions about doubting Darwin in Turkey. Turkey is of increasing interest in Western circles because of its application for membership in the European Union. And materialist atheists have been freaking out in the pop science press about Darwin doubt in Turkey. Modern… more
The Third Side by Thomas Vaughan May 14-30 in Houston
| May 13, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Thomas Vaughan has written a play that takes a critical look at both intelligent design and evolution. It opens this Thursday and extends for two weeks. It’s being produced by Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company (go here). The writer’s notes are as follows and include a generous remark about me. I’m grateful to Thomas Vaughan for… more
Uncommon Descent Contest Question 3: Human evolution – What do we actually know?
| May 13, 2009 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
You can earn free stuff by answering the question below this entry: One of the causes of “just-so” storytelling about human evolution is the fact that, until comparatively recently, people did not write things down or manufacture a lot of objects. People like Pascal Boyer can write books like Religion Explained, secure in the knowledge… more
Richard Lewontin in The New York Review of Books
| May 13, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Richard Lewontin, in reviewing several books that celebrate Darwinism, writes …There remains, nevertheless, a substantial population whose commitment to a fundamentalist Christian belief in divine creation of the earth and its inhabitants has driven them to political action. Having been convinced that the separation of church and state is here to stay, they have adopted… more