04Jul 2020 by Post

On Independence Day, Remember Thomas Jefferson’s Embrace of Intelligent Design

Bill Gates, Charles Darwin, Declaration of Independence, DNA, Founders, George Gaylord Simpson, human rights, Independence Day, Intelligent Design, John Adams, nature, Thomas Jefferson, United States, Watson and Crick
On Independence Day, it’s appropriate to review the sources of our rights as citizens. There is one source that is more basic than any other, yet that receives less than the attention it deserves. I refer to the idea that there is an intelligent creator who can be known by reason from nature, a key tenet underlying the Declaration of Independence — as well as, curiously, the modern theory of... Source
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02Jul 2020 by Post

Mistakes Our Critics Make: Protein Rarity

amino acid sequences, antibodies, chemical activities, Dan Tawfik, DNA, Douglas Axe, English, HisA enzyme, Intelligent Design, Journal of Molecular Biology, Niagara Falls, proteins, RNA, sentences, wheelbarrow, β-lactamase enzyme
In previous articles, I demonstrated how substantial quantities of biological information cannot emerge through any natural process (see here and here), and I described how such information points to intelligent design. Now, I am addressing the mistakes typically made by critics who challenge these claims (see here, here, here, and here). See my post yesterday, here, on misapplying information theory.  A second category of errors relates to arguments against the conclusion that the information content of many proteins is vastly greater than what any undirected process could generate. Most of the critiques are aimed at the research of Douglas Axe that estimated the rarity of amino acid sequences corresponding to a section of a functional β-lactamase enzyme. Many of the attacks result from the skeptics’ failure to properly understand Axe’s…
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28Jun 2020 by Post

Stephen Meyer Unmasks the Coding of Human DNA

Center for Science & Culture, DNA, human DNA, Intelligent Design, Intelligent Design YouTube Festival, movie producers, Science Uprising, Seattle, software, software industry, Stephen Meyer, YouTube videos
From June 16-30, we are holding an Intelligent Design YouTube Festival by highlighting 15 Center for Science & Culture YouTube videos that have received more than 100,000 views each. Here is video #13. It’s another episode of “Science Uprising,” this one presenting Steve Meyer’s information argument in a succinct but powerful form. Notice the footage from the Center’s home town of Seattle — and the natural tie-in to the software industry. If you’d like us to create more videos like this one, please consider becoming one of our “movie producers” by donating to our video production fund. The post Stephen Meyer Unmasks the Coding of Human DNA appeared first on Evolution News.
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12Jun 2020 by Post

Origin Stories — RNA, DNA, and a Dose of Imagination

abiogenesis, breakdown, building blocks, Cambridge University, components, cross-reactions, cytidine, deoxyadenosine, deoxyinosine, DNA, early Earth, Engineering, Evolution, Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell, genes, genetic alphabet, intelligence, Intelligent Design, naturalism, origin of life, polynucleotides, prebiotic environment, primordial soup, RNA, RNA world, self-driving cars, self-replication, silicon, unguided natural processes, uridine
Editor’s note: Eric Anderson is an attorney, software company executive, and co-author of the recently released book, Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell.  A new paper in Nature seeks to shed light on life’s origins from non-life on the early Earth, that is, on abiogenesis. Several outlets have picked up the story, including New Scientist. Phys.org explains that the research, led by Cambridge scientists, “shows for the first time how some of the building blocks of both DNA and RNA could have spontaneously formed and co-existed in the ‘primordial soup’ on Earth.” My purpose is not to question the research protocol or the results. No doubt the work is impeccable and the results as described. I am willing to assume that the researchers recreated early Earth conditions and demonstrated…
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03Apr 2020 by Post

The “Why” of the Fly “Y”: Reflections on “Junk” DNA

Alison Nguyen, axioms, Carmen Sapienza, chromosomes, DNA, Doris Bachtrog, Drosophila melanogaster, Emily Brown, euchromatin, Evolution, Francis Crick, fruit fly, genetics, heterochromatic proteins, heterochromatin, Junk DNA, Leslie Orgel, nucleus, organism, phenotype, repetitive sequences, Richard Dawkins, RNA, The Selfish Gene, transposable elements, W. Ford Doolittle, Y chromosome
In April 1980, almost exactly forty years ago, the journal Nature published a pair of highly influential articles on the topic of what has become known as “junk” or “selfish” DNA. Both reflected the key concept of The Selfish Gene, the highly influential 1976 book by Richard Dawkins, namely, that organisms are merely DNA’s way of making more DNA. The first was authored by W. Ford Doolittle and Carmen Sapienza and titled “Selfish genes, the phenotype paradigm and genome evolution.”1 The second was authored by Leslie Orgel and Francis Crick and titled “Selfish DNA: the ultimate parasite.”2 Together they posited an easy-to-grasp way to conceive of “excess” nucleotides along chromosomes — repetitive sequences in general and transposable elements in particular. In short, it was proposed that most such DNA elements…
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01Apr 2020 by Post

Viruses: An Intelligent Design Perspective

ACS Nano, Apollo moon landings, bacteria, bacteriophages, buckyballs, capsid, cell machinery, cell membrane, COVID-19, crystals, DNA, Elizabeth Pennisi, icosahedron, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Iqbal Pittalwala, lipid bilayer, Medicine, Michael Behe, molecular motor, nano-vehicles, polyhedron, protein, Purdue University, RNA, Roya Zandi, SARS-CoV-2, Science (journal), snowflakes, T4 virus, U.C. Riverside, U.C. San Diego, vaccine, viral genome, viruses
The COVID-19 virus is on a rampage in the world, killing thousands in the U.S. so far, shutting down whole countries’ economies, and possibly altering aspects of modern life for the future, after the virus has waned. What the complete impact will be is of course unknowable. In the meantime, though, questions arise about this and other, related sub-microscopic entities. Viruses seem so evil. What is their place in life? And like other aspects of nature, do they give evidence of intelligent design? Certainly, in a context of global anxiety, this is a subject that needs to be approached with sensitivity and humility. It isn’t the purpose of this article to adequately address great philosophical questions. That can wait for another occasion. But before such questions can even be considered,…
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27Mar 2020 by Post

More Hints of Order in the Genome

Abo1, Amir Bitran, ATP, biochemistry, Biozentrum, Caulobacter crescentus, central dogma, Chelsea R. Bulock, chromosomes, cohesin, cotranslational folding, Darwinian mechanism, DNA, E. coli, error catastrophe, genome, GGC, GGU, Intelligent Design, Junk DNA, Lego blocks, misfolding, mRNA, Nature Communications, Patricia Clark, PNAS, polymerase, polypeptides, Polδ, proofreader, proteins, RNA, South Korea, strand breaks, UNIST, University of Basel, University of Notre Dame, University of Seville, William Paley
Genomics has come a long way since the central dogma (the notion that DNA is the master controller that calls all the shots) and junk DNA (the expectation that much of the genome is non-functional). If scientists ditch those old dogmas and approach the genome expecting to find reasons for things, they often do. Synonymous Mutations To-may-to or to-mah-to? The British write flavour; the Americans write flavor, but generally each understands the other without too much difficulty. Genomes, too, have alternate ways of spelling things: GGU and GGC in messenger RNA both spell glycine. No big deal, thought geneticists; these “silent” mutations cause no change in the resulting protein. At the University of Notre Dame, however, biochemists are finding that the differences in spelling are not just background noise; they…
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24Mar 2020 by Post

Crisis in the Chemistry of Origins

biological information, biological molecules, biology, Charles Thaxton, chemical evolution, chemicals, Discovery Institute Press, DNA, Evolution, Francis Crick, James Watson, neo-Darwinian theory, nucleic acids, origins, prebiotic evolution, proteins, Roger Olsen, Stanley Miller, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Walter Bradley
Editor’s note: As an alternative to what you are getting pretty much everywhere else in the media at the moment, Evolution News is proud to offer inspiration, pointing to purpose and meaning in life. The profoundest mystery and thus the deepest inspiration is life itself. Discovery Institute Press has just published a greatly expanded edition of the 1984 classic of intelligent design science literature, The Mystery of Life’s Origin. Below is an excerpt from the original introduction by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, and Roger Olsen. Two monumental scientific reports appeared in 1953, both of which have subsequently received wide acceptance in the scientific community. One was the proposal by James Watson and Francis Crick of their double helical model for deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. According to their now-famous model, hereditary…
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10Mar 2020 by Post

Cosmos 3.0 Revisits Themes of the Past, with Familiar Historical Mythmaking

Alvin Plantinga, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, augustine, Baruch Spinoza, Book of Nature, Brian Miller, Carl Sagan, Christiaan Huygens, Christianity, coevolution, coronavirus, DNA, Fox Broadcasting Company, James Tour, Jews, mind, National Geographic Channel, naturalism, Neil deGrasse Tyson, origin of life, Physics, Earth & Space, public schools, Signature in the Cell, Spinoza: A Life, Steven Nadler, synagogue
With its ode to the superior rationality of the modern secular mind, last night’s debut of the third season of Cosmos 3.0 came amid a full-scale national panic attack about a virus. As David Klinghoffer commented here yesterday, the timing could be better. The first two episodes, with Neil deGrasse Tyson returning as host, have now aired on Fox and National Geographic. In contrast to Cosmos 2.0, the President of the United States does not introduce this remake. The overall theme of these episodes is our eventual exploration and colonization of other planets. All Neil, All the Time Episode 1 is titled “Ladder to the Stars.” We learn that this ladder is the DNA molecule. Very poetic. Great visuals. The episode begins with Carl Sagan admonishing us to follow the…
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04Mar 2020 by Post

Episode 4 of Secrets of the Cell — Broken Wolves and other Evolutionary Conundrums

biochemistry, biological information, broken wolves, creative power, DNA, Dogs, E. coli, Evolution, Evolution News, genes, genetic function, Intelligent Design, Michael Behe, mutations, polar bears, Richard Lenski, Secrets of the Cell, wolves
On a new episode of Secrets of the Cell with Michael Behe, the famed biochemist and intelligent design proponent briefly examines several evolutionary icons. These are living species that are considered by Darwinists as slam-dunk evidence of unguided evolution’s creative power, but that turn out to be just the opposite: Dogs, for one, in their great variety descend from wolves. Atheist biologist Richard Dawkins and others have pointed to man’s best friend as confirmation that evolution creatively builds new species. Behe explains, though, that when the cell’s secrets are considered — biological information at the DNA level — we discover that dogs are broken wolves. Of course that doesn’t make them any less loveable. They evolved largely by losing genetic functions through mutation. As Dr. Behe explains, “The mutations don’t…
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