Listen: Biochemist Michael Behe Puts Coronavirus in a Helpful Scientific Perspective

Andrew McDiarmid, chimpanzee, Clorox wipes, coronavirus, Evolution News, Facebook, human genome, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Lehigh University, Medicine, Michael Behe, Neil Shubin, Podcast, Social media, virosphere, viruses
What to do during a full-country shutdown? Sit at home and stare at increasingly toxic Facebook and other social media, as I’m sorry to say I did for too long on Sunday? Fortunately there’s an alternative to blithe reassurances and doomsday handwringing: Michael Behe! On a new episode of ID the Future with host Andrew McDiarmid, the Lehigh University biochemist and intelligent design advocate puts coronavirus in an objective scientific perspective. I found that oddly comforting, and I think you will, too. He explains what a virus is, what makes this one special, how viruses originated (no one knows), what he meant in a post at Evolution News about a “storm” in the virosphere, and more. 8 Percent Virus? Meanwhile, as Andrew McDiarmid notes, evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin has a…
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With a Hopeful Message About Life’s “X Factor,” Episode 5 of Secrets of the Cell Is Well Timed

accidents, Charles Darwin, Culture, Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Michael Behe, philosophers, philosophy, scientists, Secrets of the Cell, theology, X Factor
Michael Behe is a biochemist, leading proponent of intelligent design, and a wise guide to understanding the wonders of life with its mysterious “purposeful arrangement of parts.” The new series from Discovery Institute, Secrets of the Cell with Michael Behe, concludes today with a last consideration of the “X Factor” that appears to lie behind the wonderful, irreducible complexity of biology. That “X Factor,” he explains, is an intelligence inconceivably beyond our own: Secrets distills the argument for intelligent design in five-to-eight minute episodes, five in all. I’m sure ID has never been presented more accessibly, in a way anyone can easily understand. Share Secrets of the Cell with your family, friends, and social media network! What a remarkable thing that the design of the universe was almost universally appreciated,…
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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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Darwinism and Intelligent Design in Poland 

Adam Cenian, Andrzej Myc, behavior, biology, creationism, Darwin on Trial, Darwin's Black Box, Darwinism, Discovery Institute, En Arche Foundation, eugenics, Evolution, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Fundacja En Arche, Grzegorz Malec, Icons of Evolution, Intelligent Design, marriage, Marxism, Michael Behe, Michael Denton, morals, Phillip E. Johnson, Poland, Polish, relationships, restaurants, Signature in the Cell, slavery, steak tartare, Stephen Meyer, University of Warsaw, vodka, Vodka (restaurant), Warsaw, World War II
On January 29, 2020, I arrived in Warsaw, Poland, in the middle of a blizzard. Fortunately, most of the snow had cleared away by January 31, when I lectured at an event celebrating the release of a new Polish translation of my book, Icons of Evolution.  The event was organized by Fundacja En Arche (the En Arche Foundation, or roughly, the Origins Foundation). Although its critics call it a “creationist” organization, Fundacja En Arche is not about biblical creationism (whether young Earth or old Earth). Instead, it focuses on the scientific and philosophical issues of Darwinism and intelligent design. I told the staff that the foundation reminded me of Discovery Institute twenty years ago.  A major part of En Arche’s work so far has been translating into Polish books such…
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“Safe to Question” — Another Graduate of Summer Seminars on Intelligent Design Shares Her Story

Ann Gauger, application, biological complexity, biology, Bruce Gordon, Daniel Reeves, deadline, engineers, graduate students, Guillermo Gonzalez, Intelligent Design, Iron Curtain, John West, mathematicians, Michael Behe, origins of life, Paul Nelson, philosophers, physicians, physicists, professors, Research, Soviet Union, Stephen Meyer, Summer Seminars on Intelligent Design, tipping point, undergraduates, William Dembski
Behind every Iron Curtain is a private network of dissenters, who come out into the light when the curtain falls. That was the case with the old Soviet Union. And so it is in the tightly policed world of evolutionary biology with its “great evolutionary firewall,” guarding against expressions of fundamental doubt about neo-Darwinian theory. Discovery Institute is populating a community of dissenters in academia with the annual all-expenses-paid Summer Seminars on Intelligent Design, to be held this year from July 10 to 18 in Seattle. The application deadline is March 4. Intended for current undergraduate and graduate students plus a few teachers and professors, the Seminars run on two parallel tracks:  The C.S. Lewis Fellows Program on Science and Society; and  The CSC Seminar on Intelligent Design in the…
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Michael Behe on the Design Idea That Won’t Go Away (and Shouldn’t)

Charles Darwin, Darwin's Black Box, Del Ratzsch, Evolution, evolutionary mechanism, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Jonathan Witt, Michael Behe, molecular machines, Podcast
On a new episode of ID the Future, Jonathan Witt catches up with Darwin’s Black Box author and biochemist Michael Behe at the 2020 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, where the two discuss an idea that many wish would just go away, but hasn’t. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Charles Darwin himself told us how his evolutionary theory could be overturned: identify a biological system that couldn’t possibly have evolved by “numerous success successive slight modifications.” It’s to Darwin’s credit that he put his theory in “empirical harm’s way,” to quote philosopher Del Ratzsch. But as Witt and Behe note, Darwin also cleverly placed the burden of proof on his opponents, an arguably dubious maneuver given that his proposed evolutionary mechanism has never once been observed…
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Looking Forward to Darwin Day? Check Out the Trailer for Behe’s Secrets of the Cell

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For Darwin Day, February 12, we are a launching a new five-part series with biochemist Michael Behe, Secrets of the Cell. You can see the splendid trailer now: It was Dr. Behe’s insight that the view of evolution as driven by unguided, purposeless processes alone can’t survive an up-close encounter with the “black box,” unknown to Charles Darwin, the cell. Celebrate Darwin’s birthday by coming here, to Evolution News, next Wednesday and sharing the secrets of life, in a beautiful and accessible new series, widely with your friends and family. The post Looking Forward to Darwin Day? Check Out the Trailer for Behe’s <i>Secrets of the Cell</i> appeared first on Evolution News.
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Coming on Darwin Day, a New Video Series — Secrets of the Cell with Michael Behe

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To reach ever-wider audiences of the skeptical and the unconvinced, whether in academia or the general culture, is the central mission of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. What better occasion for that could there be than Darwin Day, February 12? The birthday of the great man is an occasion each year for atheists and materialists to promote once again the theory of purposeless, unguided evolution. The cell is what biochemist Michael Behe has called a “black box,” its spectacularly complex, superbly designed contents unknown to Darwin himself. When the box was opened by modern science, it was the turning-point moment for the articulation of intelligent design theory. A revolution followed, fundamentally challenging how scientists discuss the history of life.  Revolutionary Behe With that in mind, this coming Darwin…
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A Forest, Not a Tree? Nelson Asks Why Universal Common Descent Needn’t “Pay” for Failures

biologists, Brian Miller, Evolution, evolutionists, failed predictions, forest, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Michael Behe, Michael Denton, naturalism, orchard, Paul Nelson, Podcast, scientific theories, Teilhard de Chardin, theistic evolution, Tree of Life, universal common descent, universal genetic code
Philosopher of biology Paul Nelson recalls the expectation, a scientific standard when he was an undergrad, that all living things would turn out to share a universal genetic code. How could they not if, as Darwin argued, there is only a single, universal tree of life? On a classic ID the Future podcast with host Brian Miller, Dr. Nelson discusses the implications of this failed prediction. Download the podcast or listen to it here. The question is a weighty one since it has emerged that there is no universally shared code, but, instead, many variants. When evolutionists realized this, they performed a sidestep, supposing that since the prediction flopped, it must be the case that the code can itself evolve. But this deft move allows universal common ancestry a luxury…
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The Long View: Michael Behe Pays Tribute to Phillip Johnson

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On a new episode of ID the Future we continue a series of messages from a November 2019 symposium in Berkeley, California, presented in honor of the late Phillip Johnson, who played a crucial role in the flowering of the intelligent design movement. Download the podcast or listen to it here. On today’s episode Lehigh University biology professor Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box, The Edge of Evolution, and Darwin Devolves, tells about his earliest memories of Phillip Johnson and speaks about the long history of science: how ancient science pointed to purposeful design in life, and how current science is coming full circle. Considering this long view, the conclusion of design is as strong as or stronger than it has ever been. Photo: Phillip and Kathie Johnson at…
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