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Behe-McWhorter Back Online

[Update 8.31.09: The McWhorter-Behe interview is back online at Bloggingheads; Robert Wright, who heads Bloggingheads, was incommunicado during the interview’s removal and on his return to wired reality decided to put the dialogue back up. For his explanation of what happened, go here: bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/22075] [Update 8.28.09: Michael Behe has just posted his take on the bloggingheads matter — behe.uncommondescent.com] Isn’t the Internet wonderful. Bloggingheads takes down the Behe-McWhorter discussion one day. A few hours later it’s back up: View on ExposureRoom

More coffee!! Darwinism and popular culture: If this is love, please hate me instead

This guy, David Loye, an American progressive, wants a kinder, gentler evolution, and tells us about the real Darwin:

“In the Descent of Man Charles Darwin wrote only twice of “survival of the fittest” — but 95 times about love! 92 times about moral sensitivity. And 200 times about brain and mind.”

Yes, but did Loye happen to notice all the racism in the book?

This transcript of a talk gives you some sense of Loye’s program for all of us for the century.

Also just up at The Post-Darwinist: Read More ›

Coffee!! Darwinism and pop culture: Pop fiction discovers the Discovery Institute

That shows, like nothing else, how the design debate is taking off. The previously faceless functionaries at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute get to be villains for the public at large, not just for threatened Darwinists, in a new anti-DI novel, The Book of God and Physics :

The Jesuits aren’t the villains in this clash between God and physics. Joven’s target is the real-life Discovery Institute, an American think-tank that promotes the theory of intelligent design. (Ross King, “Intelligent, By Design,” June 9, 2009)

I wonder when the film is coming out. Pass the cheese popcorn.

PS: I have met the Discos. They are actually nice people just doin’ a job, taking out the Darwin trash that the Darwinists can’t take out themselves – on account of their theory having degenerated into a popular cult.

Also just up at the Post-Darwinist: Read More ›

The Seen and Unseen in Science and Theology

Another interesting paper I have come across recently was published by the American Scientific Affiliation Hyung S. Choi , Knowledge of the Unseen: A New Vision for Science and Religion Dialogue, ‘Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith’ 53.2 (June 2001): 96-101. http://www.asa3.org/asa/pscf/2001/pscf6-01choi.html A few quotes: “While contemporary physics and cosmology take seriously the knowledge of invisible realities, the discussion of the unseen in religion has been largely neglected in the recent science-and-religion discussion. Neglecting the issue in theology is ultimately self- defeating since God is considered the Unseen. In light of contemporary understanding of the unseen in science, we contend that that there are significant parallels between scientific and theological claims concerning the unseen. The epistemic distinction between the seen Read More ›

Dawkins’ Latest Book Sees Criticism of Evolution in Same Vein as Holocaust Denial

The TimesOnline (go here) has an extract from Dawkins’ latest book, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. Here’s an extract of the extract: …Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust. It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips . . . continue the list as long as desired. That didn’t have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, Read More ›

Dinnertime Design Detection

Last evening I was talking to a friend about how my dad had to learn morse code when he was in the navy, and he related a funny design detection story (not that he put it in those terms). My friend had a cousin (we’ll call him Bill), and when he was a teenager Bill developed a nervous tapping habit, or so everyone thought.  One evening Bill’s family had an older couple over for dinner, and Bill was tapping away when both guests got red in the face and exclaimed “Bill!  What are you doing?”  It turns out Bill had been learning morse code and tapping on the table for practice.  The problem:  He was practicing with four letter words, and no one knew until the family Read More ›

D Rad – Painting in the infrared colors

I learned about this bug back in 2001 and fell in love with it.  Here is partly why: Painting in the infrared colors Olga Glazunov – Chaskor, August 27, 2009  The bacterial protein has the capacity for absorption and emission in the infrared spectral region, was successful (put into action) in mammalian cells.  This protein can be used as a nontoxic dye, which will improve the image of the human body, obtained on CT scanners, and thushelp in the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. Of the spectrum, which emits a glow derived protein—infrared region, i.e., with a wavelength longer 700nm, It is located outside the visible spectrum, and therefore not perceived by the eye, but can be recorded by special devices, Read More ›

fig2

Coupled Complex Specified Information

Imagine this paradoxical scenario: NASA decides to construct a new space station and a new space shuttle. It assigns to a team of engineers the job of designing the station and to another team the job of designing the shuttle, without any specifications about the relations between the two projects and the mandate that they must not exchange information (the projects are top secret). The teams finish their work and the systems are launched into the space. Would you bet one cent that the shuttle will succeed to dock to the station to exchange materials and astronauts? Sure not because when two complex systems must interface in a complex manner (as the station and the shuttle when they are coupled Read More ›

Decoding D’Arcy Thompson – Part 1

When I was a Zoology undergraduate at Oxford my teachers often referred to D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s book “On Growth and Form”. They acknowledged it as a work of undoubted erudition, but somehow they evaded any impact it might have on our studies. That was reserved for Darwin, and Darwin alone. Returning to “on Growth and Form” after several decades it is possible to better comprehend what Thompson was trying to say. In his own words: The fact that I set little store by certain postulates (often deemed to be fundamental) of our present day biology the reader will have discovered and I have not endeavored to conceal. But it is not for the sake of polemical argument that I have Read More ›

Wired

Wired.com has a new article about why ID isn’t science because it’s been falsified. Usually the tactic against ID is that it isn’t a science because it isn’t falsifiable. I reckon use whatever club is closest at hand when you’re interested only in beating ID instead of being consistent. The article states: “You look at cellular machines and say, why on earth would biology do anything like this? It’s too bizarre,” he said. “But when you think about it in a neutral evolutionary fashion, in which these machineries emerge before there’s a need for them, then it makes sense.” “In which these machineries emerge before there’s a need” for the machineries. I don’t see how that makes any sense. Evolution Read More ›

The Human Mutation Rate and Its Implications

Every time human DNA is passed from one generation to the next it accumulates 100–200 new mutations, according to a DNA-sequencing analysis of the Y chromosome.

This number — the first direct measurement of the human mutation rate — is equivalent to one mutation in every 30 million base pairs, and matches previous estimates from species comparisons and rare disease screens.

The British-Chinese research team that came up with the estimate sequenced ten million base pairs on the Y chromosome from two men living in rural China who were distant relatives. These men had inherited the same ancestral male-only chromosome from a common relative who was born more than 200 years ago. Over the subsequent 13 generations, this Y chromosome was passed faithfully from father to son, albeit with rare DNA copying mistakes. Read More ›

William Lycan Defends Dualism

A new day is dawning when philosophers of William Lycan‘s stature start questioning materialism and making conceptual room for dualism: I mean to have shown here that although Cartesian dualism faces some serious objections, that does not distinguish it from other philosophical theories, and the objections are not an order of magnitude worse than those confronting materialism in particular. There remain the implausibilities required by the Cartesian view; but bare claim of implausibility is not argument. Nor have we seen any good argument for materialism. The dialectical upshot is that, on points, and going just by actual arguments as opposed to appeals to decency and what good guys believe, materialism is not significantly better supported than dualism…. Yet, I am Read More ›

DNA’s use in computer chip design

Interesting that DNA can exhibit such fine-grained usefulness in engineering design when, by Darwin’s lights, it is cobbled together by a sloppy unguided evolutionary process. It would seem that when the instruments we use are more refined than the things we are designing, the instruments themselves are likely to be the product of design. Building circuit boards using DNA scaffolding By Darren Quick There have been a few breakthroughs in recent years that hold the promise of sustaining Moore’s Law for some time to come. These include attaching molecules to silicon and replacing copper interconnects with graphene. Now IBM are proposing a new way to pack more power and speed into computer chips by using DNA molecules as scaffolding for Read More ›

Behe and McWhorter on Bloggingheads

Their chat is here. I don’t think Bloggingheads science regulars Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer (who complained publicly and behind the scenes about my Bloggingheads segment with Ron Numbers) are going to like this.

Cambrian Explosion Caught on Film

Illustra's new film "Darwin's Dilemma" delivers a knockout punch to Darwinism on Sept. 15. Darwin has tried to dodge the Cambrian explosion for 150 years; how can he survive this? Read More ›