01Jun 2020 by Post
“Creationists Aren’t Scientists. They Don’t Get Published.”

“Creationists Aren’t Scientists. They Don’t Get Published.”

Apologetics
A useful aspect of modern scientific research is the peer review process. Scientists write articles on the status of their research and submit them to peer-reviewed scientific journals to be published for others to read and use. If their research is accepted, the research is given attention by the public, which helps the scientist gain credibility and financial support for further research. Before an article can be accepted, however, a handful of independent scientists who are knowledgeable about the subject read and critique the article. If their recommendations are not implemented by the scientist(s), the paper will likely be rejected for publication by the journal. In order for scientists to get their research funded, they have to prove to their supporters that they are making progress and accomplishing the goals…
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30May 2020 by Post

Why “Humanize”? A New Effort to Defend the Unique Dignity of Human Beings

animal rights, animal welfare, animals, Artificial Intelligence, Center on Human Exceptionalism, China, COVID-19, Culture & Ethics, Darwin Day in America, David Klinghoffer, Discovery Institute, Evolution, Evolution News, facial recognition, Falun Gong, human exceptionalism, Human Zoos, Humanize, humans, John West, La Bella Principessa, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Egnor, quality of life, social credit, Steven J. Buri, The Biology of the Second Reich, Tom Shakely, transhumanism, triage, Uyghurs, Walter Bradley Center, Wesley Smith
Hello. My name is Wesley J. Smith and I am honored to be chairman of Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. I am writing to you here to introduce the CHE’s new blog, which we call Humanize. Humanize will complement and supplement the important work of the Center for Science & Culture and its invaluable Evolution News site.  Why did we choose “Humanize” as the name for the site? The once self-evident truth of human exceptionalism is under intensifying attack, as readers of Evolution News know well. Indeed, one of the tragic trends in thinking about evolution has been to blur the distinction between humans and animals. History warns us not to regard this lightly. Recent documentaries by Discovery Institute Vice President John West, Human Zoos and The Biology of…
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29May 2020 by Post

Applied Intelligent Design: Engineers Know Engineering When They See It

American Chemical Society, biologists, Biomimetics, biomimicry, butterfly wings, China, coral, Duke University, engineers, fish scales, geckos, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Tech, Intelligent Design, Johns Hopkins University, leaf, leaves, Life Sciences, materials science, Michael Varenberg, Nanjing Tech University, nanowires, New Scientist, polymers, Teflon, telescopes
Engineers of all types (e.g., mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, civil, software) are focused on how to get things to work. They need to pull together all that is known about materials and properties, and organize them to perform a function. They need to meet design requirements: a company or government says “Here is what we need to do; how can we get it done within the limits of cost and time available?” Knowledge of engineering principles grows as the needs of a society grow, often becoming more sophisticated, pushing the boundaries of know-how. Engineers are trained to see design and judge good design. Human engineers must also navigate intellectual property laws, because many engineers want to patent their designs and protect them from theft. There’s a lot of angst going on…
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29May 2020 by Post

The Four Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask

Evidence for God
[embedded content] Whereas our “adversary the devil,” the father of lies, seeks to keep humanity in a cloud of darkness and doubt,1 our omnibenevolent “God is not the author of confusion but of peace,”2 comfort,3 and illumination.4 “[T]he Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning…brought us forth by the word of truth” (James 1:17-18). God’s unchanging, rock-solid Truth, brings enlightenment and stability to a dark and chaotic world. Even after seeing the light and obeying the Truth, we as Christians sometimes lose our spiritual bearings and find ourselves among the rocks and thorns (Luke 8:13-14). We can feel like we are drowning in a quagmire of doubt and despair, with blurred vision and hearts that are questioning all sorts of things which God settled…
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28May 2020 by Post

“Nobody Expects the Darwinist Inquisition”? I Do

academic freedom, BioEssays, biologists, bullies, censorship, Center for Science & Culture, cosmos, Darwinism, Darwinists, Dave Speijer, Discovery Institute, Evolution News, Facebook, free speech, ideology, Inquisition, Intelligent Design, John Zmirak, nihilism, The Stream, Twitter, Worldview
As a reader and supporter of Evolution News, you must have noticed the same thing I have. It’s an ominous sight to observe the two waves approaching each other. On one side is an intensifying drive to police social media, where countless people get most of their information. On the other are biologists who (according to a Darwinist scientist!) spend a fifth of their time fretting about how to “combat intelligent design,” as we reported here the other day. One prominent scientific journal, BioEssays, has already brought the waves together. They have called for Internet censorship of intelligent design, identifying Discovery Institute by name as being in need of special attention by the censors. If giants like Facebook and Twitter don’t follow through on the threat, then says biologist Dave…
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27May 2020 by Post

Evolving a Self-Replicating Molecule Is a “Purple Unicorn”

3D printer, Big Bang, biology, Cambrian Explosion, cell's, Charles Darwin, Eric H. Anderson, Evolution, Evolution & Intelligent Design in a Nutshell, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, origin of life, Podcast, purple unicorn, Richard Dawkins, self-reproducing molecule
On a new episode of ID the Future, Eric H. Anderson reads from his newly co-authored book Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell, written to provide a clear and simple introduction to the evolution/ID controversy, and a broad overview of the evidence for design in nature. That evidence includes cosmic fine tuning and the Big Bang, the origin of life, irreducibly complex machines, and the Cambrian explosion. Download the podcast or listen to it here. In this excerpt, Anderson tells of Richard Dawkins’s glib assurances that the mystery of the origin of life is one not far from being solved. Not so, Anderson says. Origin-of-life researchers haven’t found a pathway to a self-replicating biological entity, the beginning point for any sort of Darwinian evolution. And it’s not for lack of time, effort,…
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27May 2020 by Post

The COVID-19 War

Christianity, Christians, COVID-19, Dr. Dan Eichenberger, economy, God, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Politics
The United States incurred an unprovoked attack, and the enemy (COVID-19) has inflicted casualties. The President declared war and already invoked the Defense Production Act, essentially forcing private companies into the production of what the government demands. Since the war has been declared, the expectation is there will be casualties, both of those on the front lines and the innocent. No realistic individual can believe wars come without lives lost. Yet the war strategy is marred with ill-defined goals and no clearly defined end-game. The strategists of this war appear to be politicians, epidemiologists, scientists, and actuaries. The President declared war; however, he is not relying on the general principles of warfare necessary to win. Wars are never won by near-complete withdraw and a shutdown of a country’s economy, limiting…
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26May 2020 by Post

Lewontin’s Confession and Mamet’s Principle

atheists, Big Bang, black holes, censorship, Darwinists, David Mamet, free will, Harvard University, Intelligent Design, Jerry Coyne, materialists, mind, morality, nature, neuroscience, Richard Lewontin, Singularity, teleology
Jerry Coyne and his Darwinist/materialist/atheist brethren make public assertions that are nonsense on their face: they claim to be mindless meat machines, they deny the indisputable evidence for intelligent design in biology and for teleology in all of nature, they deny the obvious evidence for the supernatural in cosmological singularities such as black holes and the singularity at the origin of the Big Bang, and they deny the manifest corruption of modern science by materialism and arrogance and egotism. Materialists tout determinism and deny free will, despite the fact that determinism in physics has been quite decisively refuted and the fact that free will is well supported by neuroscience and that denial of free will negates the ability to make a truth claim of any sort (if a materialist’s opinion…
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25May 2020 by Post

Does The Cambrian Explosion Disprove Darwinism?

2. Does God Exist?, Apologetics, Christianity, Darwin, Evidence, Evolution, God, JesusIsNotAFakeNews, naturalism, Origin, Philosophy of Science, Ryan Leasure, The Cambrian Explosion, The Origin of Species
By Ryan Leasure In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin argued that “all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form.”1 Darwin suggested that this primordial life form gradually developed into new life forms, which subsequently developed more life forms, eventually producing all the complex life forms we see today. In short, Darwin asserted that all life descended from a common ancestor. And starting from that original ancestor, he believed nature selected the fittest species which would survive, reproduce, and last for generations. At the same time, nature would sift out the weaker species. Darwin famously pictured the history of life as a tree. The first life form was the trunk, and all subsequent life forms are the branches. He was certain that the…
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25May 2020 by Post

Behe Vindicated Again: Sherpas Climb Everest Easier, Because Darwin Devolves

altitude, brown bears, climbing, Daisheng Song, Darwin Devolves, Darwinism, Evolution, genes, genetic information, genome, Han Chinese, hemoglobin, Himalayas, Intelligent Design, interfertility, loss of function, lowlanders, Michael Behe, Mount Everest, mount improbable, natural selection, Nepalese, oxygen, Phd2, PNAS, polar bears, positive selection, seal meat, Sherpa, super-athletes, Tibetans, Wikipedia
How can Tibetans survive high altitudes that leave lowlanders gasping? The answer is found in broken genes. A new paper on the Tibetan genome vindicates what Michael Behe said in Darwin Devolves: evolution breaks things, but sometimes, like in the case of polar bears, the result can allow organisms to thrive in specific environments. Yes, this follows on the heels of last week’s Behe vindication; see here. A team of 16 scientists, writing in PNAS, sought to understand the genetic basis for Tibetan high-altitude adaptation in more detail. Tibetans and Nepalese, many of whom serve as guides for lowlanders wanting to conquer Mount Everest, routinely carry heavy burdens at altitudes above 14,000 feet, the average elevation on the Tibetan plateau. In its entry on Sherpa people, Wikipedia notes, Many Sherpa…
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