29Apr 2020 by Post

Are Cosmic and Planetary Fine-Tuning Constant?

A Fortunate Universe, aaas, catastrophes, Children of Light, cosmic fine-tuning, fusion, Geraint Lewis, Guillermo Gonzalez, habitability, heavy elements, Jay Richards, law of gravity, Luke A. Barnes, Michael Denton, Michael R. Wilczynska, natural constants, Paul Dirac, photosynthesis, physicists, Physics, Earth & Space, planetary fine-tuning, Science Advances, stars, The Privileged Planet, The Wonder of Water
Since Paul Dirac first wrote about the subject of cosmic coincidences in 1937, many physicists have marveled at the specific values of natural constants, such as G, the constant in the law of gravity (6.673×10-11 N m2 kg-2) — an extremely low number. This is an empirical value measured carefully in labs under controlled conditions; it is not derived from equations. One could imagine it taking a different value.  But it is balanced between two catastrophes. If stronger, stars would burn hotter, and photosynthesis would be impossible, and life, if it could exist at all under the crush of gravity, would have to take refuge underground. If gravity were weaker, opposite problems ensue: stars would be unable to start fusion and form heavy elements, and would slowly burn out by…
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28Apr 2020 by Post

Journal Prints “Intelligent Design”! But…

AAA proteins, ATP, ATPases Associated with diverse cellular Activities, blind watchmaker, centrosomes, computers, cytoplasm, Darwin-skeptics, Darwinian evolution, dynein, endoplasmic reticulum, Evolution, Golgi complex, homology, humans, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, J.C. Phillips, kinesin, Maxwell’s demon, Michael Behe, molecular machines, natural selection, proteins, Richard Feynman, Rutgers University, self-organized networks, slime molds, Stephen Jay Gould, worms
You’re not likely to see the phrase “intelligent design” in any typical science journal, except to mock it. A recent example by a doctrinaire evolutionist is, not surprisingly, intended to subvert the design inference for a molecular machine. Did his intention backfire? Read on. J.C. Phillips is a physicist at Rutgers University who has taken an interest in the concept of “self-organized criticality,” something that sounds as credible as “unguided excellence.” Phillips believes that unintelligent Darwinian natural selection moves molecular machines toward optimum performance. It’s kind of like how computers and other technology get more and more sophisticated the longer you leave them left outside to be buffeted by wind, rain, and ice storms. In his recent paper in PNAS, he takes on a marvelous walking machine, dynein, to illustrate…
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27Apr 2020 by Post

6 Ways Atheism Is A Science-Stopper

Apologetics, Atheism, Bible, Christianity, faith, Faithful Thinkers, God, Intellectual Faith, Luke Nix, Philosophy of Science, science, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Luke Nix Introduction: Science vs. Christianity? It is commonly claimed that Christianity is a science-stopper. What is usually put forth to justify this claim is that many Christians are content to look at nature and say, “God did it,” without looking further to discover how God did whatever “it” happens to be. For many Christians, questions about the origin and function of the natural world end with that answer. However, for many others, while they recognize that God did indeed do something, they seek diligently to discover how God did it. Christianity does not stop science, a lack of curiosity or concern (not necessarily a bad thing if those are not a person’s passion or pursuit) is what could stop science if no Christian exists who possesses that curiosity. Individual Christians can choose…
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25Apr 2020 by Post

What COVID-19 Reveals About Us: Four Categories of People Surfaced from the Pandemic

Bellator Christi, Brian Chilton, Christianity, Christians, COVID-19, Culture, life, society, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Brian Chilton COVID-19 has brought great panic across the globe due to the rapidity of its transmission and the danger it poses to seniors and those with compromised immune systems. However, COVID-19 has done more than just bring panic. It has also catalyzed several truths about American people, revealing a more troubling underbelly of the American way of life. COVID-19 may prove to be a sociologist’s dream as it has shown what we as American people are like, what we are truly like when a crisis transpires. Because of the virus, comments on social media reveal four types of responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The comments begin to repeat over time. From the overlapping discussions, we can discover four categories of people. As a caveat, this information merely comes…
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25Apr 2020 by Post

Michael Denton Explore the Miracle of Air and Sun

air, biochemistry, biology, Children of Light, cosmos, Discovery Institute, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Michael Denton, planetary fine-tuning, sunlight
A classic episode of ID the Future shines a light on Discovery Institute biochemist Michael Denton’s book, Children of Light: The Astonishing Properties of Sunlight that Make Us Possible. Denton explores the properties of sun and air. Download the podcast or listen to it here. In Children of Light, Denton shows how sun and air are crucial parts of the larger story of our fine-tuned place in the cosmos. Or as he puts it in the book, “Whatever the cause and whatever the ultimate explanation, nature appears to be fine-tuned to an astonishing degree for beings of our biology.” Photo credit: Ingmar H on Unsplash. The post Michael Denton Explore the Miracle of Air and Sun appeared first on Evolution News.
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24Apr 2020 by Post

Sex Chromosomes Refuse to Fit One Origins Theory

angiosperms, biology, Evolution, flowers, Genome Biology and Evolution, Intelligent Design, Life Sciences, Ophrys apifera, sex, sex chromosomes
Doesn’t everyone like sex? Of course they do — and the designer made the sexual organs of angiosperms, namely, flowers, to be the most spectacularly beautiful structures in biology, so he evidently likes sex too.  An invited review (open access) in Genome Biology and Evolution explores the “incredible diversity of sex chromosome systems,” but especially how their evolutionary origins refuse to fit any one theory. See, “Sex chromosome evolution: So many exceptions to the rules.” From the abstract: Despite many convergent genomic patterns exhibited by independently evolved sex chromosome systems, and many case studies supporting these theoretical predictions, emerging data provide numerous interesting exceptions to these long-standing theories, and suggest that the remarkable diversity of sex chromosomes is matched by a similar diversity in their evolution. Photo: Ophrys apifera, also known…
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24Apr 2020 by Post

Philosophy is more Certain than Science

AFR, Apologetics, app, cross examined, cross examined official podcast, CrossExamined, crossexamined podcast, Frank Turek, google play, iTunes, philosophy, Podcast, podcasting, Radio, Radio Show, science, Spotify, stitcher, Weekly Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window How can philosophy be more certain than science?  How can morality be more certain than science?  That goes against the common wisdom.  Join Frank as he uses COVID 19, as an illustration, to show we know philosophy and morality at least as well if not better than we know scientific truths.  Since science is built on philosophy in at least nine ways, science is only as good as our philosophy.  Frank also addresses questions on why God created us knowing we would sin, and how to deal with doubts. Subscribe on iTunes:  rate and review! Thanks!!! Subscribe on Google Play: Subscribe on Spotify: Subscribe on Stitcher: Free CrossExamined.org Resource Get the first chapter of "Stealing From God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case" in…
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24Apr 2020 by Post

Push to Replace Earth Day with “Nature Rights”

anti-humanism, boat basin, Common Dreams, conservation, Culture & Ethics, Deep Ecology Movement, Earth Day, ecosystem, environmental harm, Environmentalism, human benefit, Lake Erie, litigation, nature rights, pollution, regulation, Science (journal)
Earth Day, celebrated this past Wednesday, launched the modern environmentalist movement in 1970. Since then, the movement has moved way beyond the principles of conservation, remediation of polluted areas, and protecting species to embrace an anti-humanism that seeks to throttle our thriving in the name of “saving the earth.” The Deep Ecology Movement is one example. Proving the old maxim that the revolution always consumes itself, two environmental activists have now urged abandoning Earth Day as a “failure” in favor of pushing the “rights of nature.” From “Abolish Earth Day,” published in Common Dreams: Embedded within Earth Day is the pursuit of comfort: the feeling that a benevolent authority exists to protect human and ecological life. People want to believe that laws — federal environmental regulations — protect them, and…
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23Apr 2020 by Post

An Astronomer Considers the Origin of Life, with Sobering Results

abiogenesis, astronomers, biologists, biology, calculation, Chemistry, Drake equation, Erlenmeyer flask, Evolution, Fischer Scientific, inflation, inflationary universe, metaphysics, meteorites, monomers, Nature (journal), nucleotides, origin of life, Physics, Earth & Space, reagents, RNA molecules, RNA world, silver atom, snowflakes, Tomonori Totani, tooth fairy, universe, University of Tokyo
Live Science reports: Is life a gamble? Scientist models universe to find out Scientists suspect that the complex life that slithers and crawls through every nook and cranny on Earth emerged from a random shuffling of non-living matter that ultimately spit out the building blocks of life. Even so, the details to support the idea are lacking. But researchers recently got creative in figuring out the probability of life actually emerging spontaneously from such inorganic matter — a process called abiogenesis. In the study, Tomonori Totani, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Tokyo, modeled the microscopic world of molecules across the epic scale of the entire universe to see if abiogenesis is a likely candidate for the origin of life. He was essentially looking at whether there were…
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22Apr 2020 by Post

Is Earth Just A Pale Blue Dot?

2. Does God Exist?, Apologetics, Atheism, atheist, beginning of the universe, Bible, Christianity, Creation, Does God Exists, earth, God, JesusIsNotAFakeNews, objections, Ryan Leasure, Skeptics, theology, universe
By Ryan Leasure  In his book Pale Blue Dot, the late astronomer Carl Sagan had this to say about the above photograph taken aboard Voyager I: Because of the reflection of sunlight… Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light as if there were some special significance to this small world. But it’s just an accident of geometry and optics… Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. Sagan reiterates what is commonly known as the Copernican Principle, or the Principle of…
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