Category: Evolutionary biology
Theistic Evolutionists – How Do You See (Intelligent) Design?
| May 15, 2011 | Posted by nullasalus under Darwinism, Evolution, Evolutionary biology, theistic evolution |
Recently, I made a post regarding what I thought was an encouraging moment at Biologos, where a guest writer frankly speculated about how God could work through evolution. In the comments section, some discussion was had about just how rare or common such views are among TEs. Since I’ve already made the call for non-theists… more
An Encouraging Moment at Biologos
| May 11, 2011 | Posted by nullasalus under Design inference, Evolutionary biology |
Submitted without further comment, for now, is this quote from Part 2 of a review of Jerry Coyne’s “Why Evolution Is True”. With emphasis added: Later, he claims “Darwinism tells us that, like all species, human beings arose from the working of blind, purposeless forces over eons of time” (p. 224). There are at least… more
Options in evolution: Teilhard de Chardin’s evolution – “Poetry and not philosophy”
| April 21, 2011 | Posted by News under Evolutionary biology |
It’s often said that many European non-Darwinian evolutionists are fans of the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). Here’s something to know, however: The Catholic thinker most identified with evolution, the French Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin … des not loom as large on the Catholic intellectual landscape as he did a generation… more
Born again evolutionary biologist critiques Gauger-Axe paper
| April 14, 2011 | Posted by News under Biology, Chemistry, Evolutionary biology |
In “Protein evolution in BIO-Complexity”(Todd’s Blog , April 13, 2011), Todd C. Wood comments on the recent BIO-Complexity paper by Ann Gauger and Doug Axe. He finds their work puzzling because they proceed as biochemists rather than evolutionary biologists, and summarizes: In the larger scheme of things, I am sensing a discouraging pattern to BIO-Complexity publications.… more
Natural selection proves a harsh mistress anyway
| April 13, 2011 | Posted by News under Evolutionary biology |
Paul Nelson has fun at Evolution News and Views with diagrams and “ontogenetic depth”: Understanding Ontogenetic Depth, Part I: Naming Versus MeasuringI was supposed to do this a year ago — well, long before that, too — but a glacier passed me on the interstate, and then I ran out of gas, got so depressed… more
Backgrounder: Some challenges offered for Lynn Margulis’s endosymbiosis theory
| April 11, 2011 | Posted by News under Evolution, Evolutionary biology |
Recently, well-known biologist Lynn Margulis has been in the news, letting Discover Magazine know that Darwinism is vastly overrated as a theory of evolution. That said, here are a couple of challenges noted for her own theory of endosymbiosis (some life forms evolved by swallowing others (bacteria might have swallowed mitochondria when the latter was… more
The Nature of Nature — sticky
| April 2, 2011 | Posted by William Dembski under Biology, Culture, Darwinism, Design inference, Evolution, Evolutionary biology, Evolutionary psychology, Informatics, Intellectual freedom, Intelligent Design, Mathematics, Mind, Multiverse, Natural selection, Neuroscience, Origin Of Life, Philosophy, Physics, Science |
THE NATURE OF NATURE is now finally out and widely available. If you haven’t bought it yet, let me suggest Amazon.com, which is selling it for $17.94, which is an incredible deal for a 7″x10″ 1000-page book with, for most of us, no tax and no shipping charge (it costs over $10 to ship this… more
So, who are “Darwinists”, anyway?
| March 25, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Evolutionary biology |
I have asked University of Toronto’s best known evolutionary biology standard bearer, Larry Moran to explain. He says he is a “pluralist,” not a Darwinist, and partial to genetic drift as a mechanism of evolution. Sounds sensible in principle. I hope he’ll expand on the theme here. If he agrees, in principle, we’ll print it. more
Dear E. O. Wilson: Gr8 you got it str8 about humans vs. ants. Keep on keeping on. – Yr Pastor
| March 25, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism, Evolutionary biology |
Earlier this year, sociobiologist E. O. “Dear Pastor” Wilson disowned his “inclusive fitness” (kin selection) theory, developed from his study of ants and bees. According to his theory, among life forms that live in groups, many members may give up the chance of reproducing their selfish genes so that the group as a whole is… more
Natural Selection Redux
| March 23, 2011 | Posted by DonaldM under Biology, Darwinism, Evolution, Evolutionary biology, Natural selection, Science |
PaV’s recent post Darwinn Step Aside – Survival of the ‘Quickest’ got me thinking again about natural selection and the role it supposedly played in evolution. The conventional wisdom among Darwinists, including Darwin himself, is that NS is a mechanism. The very title of Darwin’s famous tome suggests as much – On The Origin of… more
File this under: “Science is open to new ideas”
| March 22, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Evolutionary biology |
David Tyler asks, Are evolutionary biologists really ready for the Extended Synthesis? Here, he discusses the sad story of efforts to reform the discipline three decades ago: The background to the 1982 paper was the burgeoning disquiet with Neo-Darwinism. Gould and Eldredge led the way with their assault on gradualism in the fossil record. Brooks… more
“On some things there is not a debate.” He then hung up.
| March 11, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism, Evolution, Evolutionary biology |
Going through Suzan Mazur’s Altenberg 16, after reading Bill Dembski’s post yesterday on genome mapper Craig Venter “coming out” as a disbeliever in the sacred teaching of common descent – in the very presence of Darwin’s high priest Dawkins* – I couldn’t help recalling New Zealand journalist Suzan Mazur’s effort to get a reaction from… more
Craig Venter denies common descent — Dawkins incredulous
| March 10, 2011 | Posted by William Dembski under Darwinism, Evolution, Evolutionary biology, Origin Of Life |
Interesting story at Evolution News & Views about an exchange between Craig Venter (of human genome fame) and Richard Dawkins (of neo-atheist fame). Venter denies common descent, Dawkins can’t believe that he would even question it. For the exchange, which also includes Paul Davies, go here (start at the 9 minute mark). Origin-of-life researchers such as… more
The Epistemological Deficiencies of Barbara Forrest
| March 9, 2011 | Posted by DonaldM under Cosmology, Creationism, Darwinism, Design inference, Education, Evolutionary biology, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Religion, Science, science education |
Denyse O’Leary writes about Barbara Forrest’s fact-free attack on Frank Beckwith, which recently appeared in Synthese. While Denyse focused more on Beckwith’s response to Forrest’s scholarly article diatribe, it might be worth taking a closer look not only at Forrest’s article, but the entire issue of Synthese in which it is found. First Forrest. In… more
Bill Nye (“The Science Guy”) Weighs in on Science Education
| February 10, 2011 | Posted by DonaldM under Biology, Darwinism, Education, Evolutionary biology, Intelligent Design, Science, science education |
Dr. Cornelius Hunter recently posted on some findingsfrom the NCSE (the National Center for the Selling of Evolutioner, I mean, Science Education, on how many biology teachers are reluctant to teach evolution. Now, TV personality Bill Nye “The Science Guy” has given us his two cents worth on this controversy. In the interview he’s asked… more
Coffee!!: Why are polar bears white?
| October 7, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Evolutionary biology |
Conventional, and fairly obvious, wisdom would suggest that the bear avoids being noticed by its prey by blending in with the landscape and moving through the snow on silent feet. Evolving that way should be easy enough – the colour gene drops out, and … We readily assume that the prey is on land, casting… more
Sanford’s pro-ID thesis supported by PNAS paper, read it and weep, literally
| September 30, 2010 | Posted by scordova under Creationism, Darwinism, Evolutionary biology, Genomics |
Cornell Geneticist John Sanford argued that Darwinism is wrong because the rate of genetic deterioration is so high that natural selection could not arrest it. If natural selection cannot arrest genetic deterioration, how then could it be the mechanism for evolutionary improvement? Sanford predicted through his research that human genome is deteriorating. This was a… more
Responding to Merlin Part III – Merlin’s Delineation Between Darwinian and non-Darwinian Mutations and How It Falls Short
| September 7, 2010 | Posted by johnnyb under Darwinism, Evolutionary biology, Informatics, Intelligent Design |
This is a multi-part post in response to Merlin’s paper, “Evolutionary Chance Mutation: A Defense of the Modern Synthesis’ Consensus View”. See introduction and table of contents. Merlin spends a large part of the paper trying to establish what does and does not constitute a directed mutation. Merlin, I think, fails in her attempt to… more
Evolutionary psychology gets busted by the morality squad?
| September 1, 2010 | Posted by O'Leary under Evolutionary biology, Evolutionary psychology |
Caroline Crocker, of American Institute for Science and Technology Education (AITSE), writes me to comment, Scientific Integrity and Dr. Hauser Can being disorganized lead to scientific fame? Harvard University scientist Marc Hauser became famous for his work in cognitive evolution. As a psychologist who investigates the neurological basis for morality and works with primates and… more
The Panda’s Thumb Goes After Casey Luskin Yet Again
| August 12, 2010 | Posted by DonaldM under Biology, Cosmology, Darwinism, Design inference, Education, Evolution, Evolutionary biology, Intelligent Design, Legal, Peer review, Philosophy, Science |
Casey Luskin, Program Officer in Public Policy and Legal Affairs for the Discovery Institute, has recently published an article entitled ZEAL FOR DARWIN’S HOUSE CONSUMES THEM:HOW SUPPORTERS OF EVOLUTION ENCOURAGE VIOLATIONS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE in the Liberty University Law Review. Luskin continues to be a favorite target of the anti-ID crowd over at The… more