Monthly Archives: May 2010
The Cerebral Linguistic Toolbox That Blows The Mind
| May 31, 2010 | Posted by Robert Deyes under Intelligent Design |
“Depending on the type of grammar used in forming a given sentence, the brain will activate a certain set of regions to process it, like a carpenter digging through a toolbox to pick a group of tools to accomplish the various basic components that comprise a complex task” (1). This was the descriptive offered by… more
A Compass That is Never Right
| May 31, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
What good is a compass that is never right? Evolution certainly is not that bad, but it is telling how often Darwin’s idea, mandated to be a fact, is so far off base. Consider for example the kangaroo genome, which turned out to be similar to the human genome. As one evolutionist explained: Read more more
BEACON comes home with the bacon!
| May 30, 2010 | Posted by William Dembski under Darwinism, Education, Evolution |
BEACON (Bio/computational Evolution in Action CONsortium), based at Michigan State University, has just received a $25M grant from the NSF. For details, go here. Below is the rogues gallery of BEACON consortiates (recognize anyone?): It’s gratifying to see our tax dollars being spent so well. more
See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil
| May 30, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Just as Charles Darwin dealt with difficulties with his theory of evolution in Chapter 6 of Origins, so too Denis Alexander deals with objections in Chapter 6 of his book Creation or Evolution. And just as Darwin’s logic was often questionable, so too is Alexander’s. The chief problem is Alexander’s rather selective presentation. For an… more
A New Model for Evolution: A Rhizome
| May 29, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Evolutionists have a problem. Their theory doesn’t fit the facts, yet it must be true. They have to constantly change their story, all the while insisting it is a fact. Like a Heraclitean flux, it is constantly changing and yet always called the same thing. Evolutionists are continually surprised by the science, yet they euphemistically… more
‘Sceptics’ — but not about science?
| May 29, 2010 | Posted by Steve Fuller under Creationism, Culture, Global Warming, Intelligent Design, Medicine, Philosophy, Religion, Science |
I did an interview recently with the Sceptics’ Society of Birmingham (UK) on the relationship between science and religion, which may be of interest to people here. The interview was conducted over Skype, which explains some of the alien sounds, especially from my end, even though my interlocutor and I were separated by a mere… more
DNA Rules of the Road and Incredulity
| May 28, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Every biology student learns of two massive machines that operate on the DNA molecule. There is the transcription machine that makes a single-stranded copy of a gene, and there is the replication machine that makes a double-stranded copy of the DNA double helix. The former is the first step in the protein synthesis process while… more
Coffee!!: Caught up in the conspirazoid ramblings of the anti-Christian lobby?
| May 28, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
A fellow hack phoned me the other night to advise that I am a minor feature in a Canadian book called The Armageddon Factor by one Marci McDonald. The book makes me out to be vastly more important than I am in the intelligent design controversy. This is, of course, in the cause of insisting that… more
Horizontal Gene Transfer and the Evolution of Evolution: You Can’t Make This Up
| May 27, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
What do bacterial resistance to antibiotic drugs and the universal genetic code have in common? They both have been explained by horizontal gene transfer, a mechanism that evolutionists are increasingly using to explain the origin of the species. And what’s wrong with that? First, it makes evolution superfluous and second, it makes evolution ridiculous. Read… more
Oakes’ Inconsistent Positions
| May 26, 2010 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
In my post below I described as “fabulous” Ed Oakes’ “Atheism’s Just So Scenarios,” and I stand by that description. That said, Oakes never fails to befuddle me when it comes to the topic of evolution. Oakes is a brilliant and insightful writer, whom I almost always enjoy reading. Consider his take on “Just So… more
Oakes: Nietzsche, the Only Honest Atheist
| May 26, 2010 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
Ed Oakes has a fabulous essay over at FT. A taste: Today, one can hardly find more puffed-up braggarts than those noisy New Atheists currently mounting their soapboxes in Hyde Park, and who seem to labor under the assumption that they are doing the human race a favor by attacking belief in God. In fact, as… more
The Human Epigenome Project: Darwinian-Free Science
| May 26, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
About twenty five years ago Lars Olov Bygren discovered that feast and famine years can affect not only those who endure them, but their progeny as well. Bygren was not the first to observe that environmental influences can be transmitted to subsequent generations. And as with the earlier discoveries, even in recent decades such empirical… more
Signature of Controversy: New Book Responds to Stephen Meyer’s Critics
| May 25, 2010 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Critics of intelligent design often try to dismiss the theory as not worth addressing, as a question already settled, even as being too boring to countenance. Then they spend an amazing amount of energy trying to refute it. On this episode of ID the Future, Anika Smith interviews David Klinghoffer, editor of the new digital book Signature… more
Biological Innovations and the Fact of Evolution
| May 24, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Evolutionists insist that evolution is a fact even though there is much debate about how it occurred. But if they debate the question of how evolution occurred, that means it is an open question. And does this not, in turn, mean that whether evolution occurred is also an open question? No, evolutionists assure us, there… more
Martin Gardner, Fundamentalism, and Adam’s Navel
| May 24, 2010 | Posted by Paul Nelson under Intelligent Design |
The enormously influential mathematics and science writer, skeptic, and encourager of many, Martin Gardner, has died at the age of 95. I came to know Gardner through a mutual friend, the late science writer and skeptic Bob Schadewald (1943-2000), who occasionally visited Gardner at the latter’s home in North Carolina. [Here’s a tiny but relevant… more
Coffee!! Thicker foreheads: Meet thickets of Darwinism
| May 24, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Animal minds, Darwinism |
In “Men developed thicker foreheads and jaws due to fighting, over women” Richard Alleyne, science correspondent for Britain’s Telegraph, who presumably knows better, advises us (14 May 2010): Winning a mate used to depend only on physical prowess and men with the strongest jawline and thickest skulls were better able to survive onslaughts from love… more
Cricket Songs and Evolution in the Details
| May 24, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
Male crickets attract females with their chirping, but some males are incapable of chirping. Now, new research shows that those silent males are affected by their singing comrades. Specifically, silent males that develop in the presence of abundant male song tend to be larger, with more reproductive potential, than male crickets growing up in a… more
Non-Darwinian Evolutionary Theories listed by Martin Cadra
| May 24, 2010 | Posted by scordova under Darwinism, Evolution, Evolutionary biology |
Pagels and others (like Nei) have argued that the majority of biological features could not have emerged from Darwinian means. If they are right, it stands to reason that if evolution is true, it has to be mostly non-Darwinian. At UD we have explored various non-Darwinian theories of evolution by scientists like Jukes, King, Kimura,… more
Francis Beckwith Replies to UD Critics
| May 23, 2010 | Posted by Thomas Cudworth under Intelligent Design |
Over on Biologos, Francis Beckwith has posted a third and a fourth instalment of his “Intelligent Design and Me” series. He has dedicated these instalments to some of his critics, naming some UD people specifically, and also discussing the views of Jay Richards of the Discovery Institute. I’m grateful that Dr. Beckwith has seen fit… more
Nuclear Power: A New Movement You Won’t Believe
| May 23, 2010 | Posted by Cornelius Hunter under Intelligent Design |
I am going to tell you something unbelievable. It will sound like hyperbole or a parable contrived to make a point. It isn’t—it is true. You have heard of the many crazy things people believe but, believe it or not, there is a group that is certain that there is a way for the four… more