26Mar 2020 by Post

Ancestor of All Animals in 555-Million-Year-Old Ediacaran Sediments?

annelids, arthropods, bilaterian animals, Buddenbrockia plumatellae, burrowing, Cambrian Explosion, Cambrian News, China, cnidarians, Deuterostomia, Ediacaran animals, Evolution, Germany, habitus, Helminthoidichnites, Ikaria wariootia, incertae sedis, microbial mats, mortichnia, Nephrozoa, PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Protostomia, Scyphozoa, South Australia, UC Riverside, University of California, Xenacoelomorpha, Yilingia spiciformis
For my series of articles about alleged Ediacaran animals predating the Cambrian explosion there is a new candidate that deserves a closer view: New research on Ediacaran fossils was just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a team of scientists from UC Riverside (Evans et al. 2020), and it has already made global news headlines including, “Ancestor of all animals identified in Australian fossils” (University of California 2020) and the even more sensational, “Fossil hunters find evidence of 555m-year-old human relative” (Davis 2020). What did those scientists discover and are their far-reaching conclusions really justified?  Grains of Rice The authors of this study looked at fossil layers from the National Heritage Nilpena site in the Flinders Range of South Australia, which are slightly older than…
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25Mar 2020 by Post

Are Humans “A Plague on the Earth”?

Center for Science & Culture, Charles Darwin, Culture & Ethics, Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, David Attenborough, Discovery Institute, Douglas Axe, Evolution, evolutionists, John West, morality, natural selection, plague, Sir David Attenborough, spirituality
Back in January in Dallas, Discovery Institute organized its major conference on science and faith, before a huge and appreciative audience. We are releasing videos of presentations from the Dallas conference, including today, John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science & Culture, on “Darwin’s Corrosive Idea.” This is well timed. I can’t help but think that how we respond to the present health crisis has a lot to do with how we, as individuals, saw reality before we gave a moment’s thought to the coronavirus. As Dr. West summarizes here, “Ideas really do have consequence.”  In the case of Darwin’s idea of unguided evolution and of a planet of life formed from blind, merciless material processes alone, West notes a range of consequences and impacts, on how we…
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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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22Mar 2020 by Post

In Argentina, Doctor Sentenced to Prison for Refusing to Terminate Pregnancy

abortion, adoption, animal personhood, ape, Argentina, BioEdge, bioethics, Culture & Ethics, doctor, gynecology, habeas corpus, Hippocratic Oath, human exceptionalism, human life, Leandro Rodriguez Lastra, legal impossibility, medical conscience, Medicine, moral impossibility, orangutan, pregnancy, rape, Rodríguez Lastra, Sweden, zoo
In Sweden, midwives can be fired and deemed unemployable for refusing abortion. In Ontario, Canada, doctors can face professional discipline for refusing to administer (or refer for) euthanasia. Ditto to refusing an abortion in Victoria, Australia. In California, a Catholic hospital is being sued — with the explicit blessing of the courts — for refusing to allow a transgender hysterectomy. But now in Argentina, the right to obtain an abortion has been declared so fundamental that an objecting M.D. can be held criminally culpable for refusing to terminate a pregnancy. An Impossibility? That would seem to be a moral and legal impossibility. But Argentina just elevated the “medical conscience” controversy to a whole new level of concern — from the potential of not “only” having one’s professional license revoked, but…
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21Mar 2020 by Post

Listen: Kirk Durston on Fantasy Science and Scientism

Atheism, biophysics, Evidence, experimental science, fantasy science, historical sciences, ID The Future, inferential science, Kirk Durston, materialism, mathematics, multiverse, philosophy, Physics, Earth & Space, Podcast, proteins, testing
On a new episode of ID the Future, Kirk Durston, a biophysicist focused on identifying high-information-density parts of proteins, completes a three-part series on three categories of science: experimental, inferential, and fantasy science. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Fantasy science makes inferential leaps so huge that virtually none of it is testable, either by the standards of experimental science or by those of the historical sciences, which reason to the best explanation by process of elimination. One example of fantasy science, according to Durston, is the multiverse. As he argues, that is an imaginative story largely untethered from evidence and testing, but told using math instead of literary devices. Scientism, “atheism dressed up in a lab coat,” can lead to fantasy science of this kind because it commits…
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21Mar 2020 by Post

Dr. Dan treats a Coronavirus Patient

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Podcast: Play in new window Dr. Dan Eichenberger, MD, is back to shoot more sanity into a sensationalized situation.  As Christians, we are commanded to obey what our government wants us to do in this situation.  But that doesn’t mean we have to buy into the fear caused by a media that is hyping this entire coronavirus issue.  The media is skewing stats and reporting half-truths.  Dr. Dan corrects the misinformation and gives us a first-hand account of treating a coronavirus patient himself. Here are some of the questions and issues Frank and Dr. Dan discuss: Why is the media not reporting the death rate? What is the death rate? How contagious is this compared to other viruses? You’re treating a coronavirus patient right now. What drugs are working? We…
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20Mar 2020 by Post

The Biggest Myth So Far in Cosmos 3.0 — Baruch Spinoza as Science Hero

Albert Einstein, aliens, ancient Greeks, Aristotle, Baruch Spinoza, Bible, Christiaan Huygens, Christianity, Cosmos 3.0, Evolution News, extraterrestrial life, Faith & Science, Galileo Galilei, geometry, Giordano Bruno, harmonic law, Herwart von Hohenburg, historical errors, Johannes Kepler, Judaism, Michael J. Crowe, Michael Maestlin, National Geographic Channel, nature, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Physics, Earth & Space, planetary motion, Plato, René Descartes, Saint Augustine, The Assayer, Two Books, Unbelievable?
The third season of Cosmos has released four episodes so far, with more to come this Monday, on Fox and the National Geographic channel. Evolution News has commented already, here, here, here, and here. After watching these episodes, I have concluded that the most consequential historical error to correct as yet concerns the treatment of Spinoza in episode one. The series designates Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) as the next greatest persecuted hero of science after Giordano Bruno (as depicted in Cosmos 2.0; see my video discussion, “Unbelievable Mythbusting: Giordano Bruno Was a Martyr, Yes, but Not for Science”). Although Bruno was burned to death in 1600 for his religious (not scientific) views, the attempted murder of Spinoza, if it occurred, was likely due to a disputed business transaction (not science or…
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19Mar 2020 by Post

The Passing of Jon Buell

Alzheimer’s disease, Charles Thaxton, Christian Worldview, Country Inn & Suites, Dallas, Discovery Institute Dallas, Discovery Institute Press, Foundation for Thought and Ethics, Intelligent Design, Kitzmiller v. Dover, Linda Buell, Linda Montgomery, materialist biology, Never Before in History, Of Pandas and People, origin of life, Pam Bailey, Phillip E. Johnson, relativistic ethics, revisionist historicism, Roger Olsen, Sex and Character, The Design of Life, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Walter Bradley
I learned with sadness this week that my good friend and colleague Jon Buell passed away on Saturday, March 14. I had been Jon’s academic editor for the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE), a Dallas publisher of books aimed at un-indoctrinating high school and college students. He hired me in 1997 and I stayed on in that position until my family’s move from Texas to Iowa in 2012. We didn’t produce a lot of books at FTE, but it was quality work and it articulated without apology a broadly Christian worldview against a materialist biology, a relativist ethics, and a revisionist historicism. In short, FTE served as an antidote to the PC and progressivist culture. Given how this culture has unfolded and seemingly prospered since FTE’s founding by Jon…
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18Mar 2020 by Post

Unguided Origin of Life: “Completely Impossible but Must Have Happened”

Charles Thaxton, Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, Discovery Institute, Evolution News, Faith & Science, Intelligent Design, John West, Jon Buell, origin of life, Robert J. Marks, Robert Shapiro, Roger Olsen, Stephen Meyer, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Walter Bradley, Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence
“It’s completely impossible, but it must have happened.” That’s how philosopher of science Stephen Meyer summarizes most responses from proponents of unguided chemical evolution when challenged on the origin of life. In January, Meyer led a panel discussion with the authors of the foundational intelligent design text The Mystery of Life’s Origin at the Dallas Conference on Science & Faith. You can see the entire interaction now, as Discovery Institute begins launching videos of the presentations from the hugely successful event: The occasion for the panel was the release of a new and greatly expanded 35th-anniversary edition of the book, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: The Continuing Controversy. You’ll enjoy the discussion between Meyer and Walter Bradley, Charles Thaxton, and Roger Olsen. It’s introduced by materials scientist Walter Bradley, and…
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17Mar 2020 by Post

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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