Monthly Archives: March 2010
Contest Question 23: YOU rank order the Top Ten ID media stories of 2009
| March 27, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Uncommon Descent Contest |
Every year, for some years now, the folk at Access Research Network have rank ordered the Top Ten intelligent design stories of the year. Due to volume, this last year, they were broken out into science news, media news, and 2009 resources. The Top Ten media news picks are here. Right now, we are talking… more
The Templeton Prize for Regress in Religion
| March 26, 2010 | Posted by William Dembski under Culture, Religion, Science |
The Templeton Prize used to encourage progress in religion. Truly impressive people like Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Stanley Jaki, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn once received this prize (go here for past winners). In the last decade, however, the Prize has been continually given to people inhabiting the Templeton Foundation’s inner circle, who promise to keep contemporary science… more
Does the Evidence Support Evolution, or does Evolution Support the Evidence?
| March 26, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
For all their disagreements, evolutionists strongly agree that evolution is a fact, just as gravity is a fact. There is no question that evolution occurred. And since evolution is as certain as gravity, those who do not assent must not be rational, or they must have ulterior motives. If there are scientific questions about evolution… more
The Fundamental Question
| March 26, 2010 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
At his blog Santi Tafarella, a self-avowed agnostic, asks some interesting questions, no? “How do you know that matter precedes mind at the beginning? That would make contingent matter either eternal or self created, right? How can that be? Why, at the beginning, is self existent matter any less mysterious (ontologically) than self existent mind? … more
Documentary Film “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” Screening and Debate at Imperial College, London
| March 25, 2010 | Posted by Clive Hayden under Culture, Darwinism, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science |
A debate which took place last month at the Imperial College of London concerning the documentary film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (following a screening of the film) is available for your perusal here. Film Screening and Debate Details: “Unbelievable?”, a Premier Christian Radio program (hosted by Justin Brierly), screened the film at Imperial College London,… more
Junk DNA: The Real Story
| March 25, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
By now you have probably heard about so-called junk DNA. In recent decades the genomes of a growing number of species have been mapped out. Not surprisingly, scientists did not understand how many of these DNA sequences worked. For instance, repetitive sequences are common, but what do they do? As these data accumulated evolutionists increasingly… more
Are Falk, Miller, Dawkins, Ayala Socially Guilty? — Highlights of Pellionisz and Sternberg
| March 24, 2010 | Posted by scordova under Intelligent Design |
We have been occasionally graced at UD by visits of DNA researcher Andras Pellionisz who wrote: the issue of “Junk” DNA itself is much more vital for human kind, since hundreds of millions are dying of “Junk DNA diseases” while the urgency of plunging into active research is overlooked because on ANY ideological grounds. Those… more
Jumping to Design Conclusions
| March 24, 2010 | Posted by David Coppedge under Intelligent Design |
An archaeologist has been studying stone spheres in Costa Rica and has concluded they were designed. According to PhysOrg, he doesn’t know who made the spheres, when they were made, or why they were made. Why is he jumping to a conclusion of intelligent design? He should be considering natural explanations. There are plenty of… more
Evolution: A One-in-a-Billion Shot
| March 24, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
It is no surprise that there are scientific problems with evolution. Its predictions are continually turning out to be false. It undoubtedly ranks number one in faulty expectations. For instance, one of its primary predictions, common descent, has badly failed. The reconciliation of the molecular and the visible, morphological, features has been a major problem… more
More coffee!!: Intellectual freedom in Canada: Ann Coulter visit
| March 23, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Intellectual freedom |
Controversial American lawyer and commentator descended on Canada, facing predictable demands from current and future tax burdens (= university admin and students who know a “free” breadbasket when they see one) that she be charged with/censored for hate speech. More here. Latest here: Coulter files human rights complaint in Canada. I hope exposing the shakedown… more
Design Principles in bird feathers and avian respiration
| March 23, 2010 | Posted by David Tyler under Intelligent Design |
Scientists with an interest in developing design concepts and principles found in the natural world are not instinctively attracted by exhortations to expel design from Biology. However, developing a coherent academic framework that does justice to the design principles being studied has not attracted the attention it deserves. Consequently, many scholars in this field have… more
Design Principles in the flight autostabilizer of fruit flies
| March 23, 2010 | Posted by David Tyler under Intelligent Design |
Anyone attempting to swat a fly will become aware of its remarkable aerodynamic capabilities. Its speed of response and ability to change direction abruptly far exceed our own powers as pursuers. The flight of insects has received considerable attention from researchers and some recent work was stimulated by the recognition of a gap in knowledge.… more
“Emergence” of the Internet
| March 23, 2010 | Posted by Granville Sewell under Intelligent Design |
Barry’s post on emergence has inspired me to re-link to my Feb 2008 Human Events article, which deals with the ultimate example of emergence in Nature (this is one of the essays in my new Discovery Institute Press book, In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design ): In a 2000 Mathematical Intelligencer article,… more
Evolution and Evolvability: A New Kind of Science
| March 23, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
The basic idea behind evolution is rather simple: in times of difficulty not everyone survives, or at least not everyone reproduces. Those who are faster, bigger, taller, stronger, smarter, or whatever it is that makes for successful reproduction, will do just that. And those who lack the requisite capabilities will not reproduce, or not reproduce… more
Competing Worldviews Only?
| March 22, 2010 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
Evolutionary biologist Allen MacNeill, who appears frequently in the comments sections of our posts, makes the following comment to my previous post: Teleology must exist in any functional relationship, including those in biology. The question is not “is there teleology in biology”; no less an authority on evolutionary biology than the late Ernst Mayr (not… more
Two recent articles in the UK Press
| March 22, 2010 | Posted by Steno under Intelligent Design |
I have been informed about a couple of articles in the UK press recently. Guardian 19th March 2010 – Why everything you’ve been told about evolution is wrong: What if Darwin’s theory of natural selection is inaccurate? And from last year in Timesonline – The Selfish Genius: How Richard Dawkins Rewrote Darwin’s Legacy by Fern… more
The Genome of a Microbial Eukaryote: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
| March 22, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
New research is confirming the evolutionary conundrum of early complexity. The research shows that a microbial eukaryote, Naegleria gruberi, shares a large number of genes in common with other eukaryotes. And why is this a problem? Evolutionists have resorted to many incredible just-so stories of convergence. From intricate spider web designs to entire vision systems,… more
The Medium is Not the Message
| March 21, 2010 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
March madness is upon us. In that vein, I ask you to consider the following sentence: “A basketball is round and orange.” You read this sentence through a medium, probably a computer screen. This means I had an idea, and I wrote out on my computer screen a representation of the idea in symbols (Latin letters… more
Contest Question 22: YOU rank order the Top Ten ID science stories of the year
| March 20, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Uncommon Descent Contest |
How would you have rated the stories differently?
more
The Evolution of Venomous Proteins
| March 20, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Imagine a Star Trek movie in which two strikingly similar planets are discovered. The planets are in different corners of the universe, yet their coastlines, mountain ranges, inhabitants and cultures are amazingly alike. Or again, imagine a new, yet fully-formed, planet is discovered. The planet was not there a few years earlier, but there it… more