26Nov 2020 by Post

Look: On Thanksgiving, Be Grateful for the Intelligent Design of Your Eyes

animals, Cambrian Explosion, Cambrian News, camera eye, Center for Science & Culture, Charles Darwin, compound eyes, COVID-19, Darwinists, Discovery Institute, Evolution, evolutionists, eyes, fossil record, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Wells, lockdown, photon, Rachel Adams, Thanksgiving, trilobite, vertebrate eye, vision, Zombie Science
COVID restrictions may have put a damper on the traditional Thanksgiving celebration. But even lockdowns can't stop us from giving thanks. Source
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07Sep 2020 by Post

Kimberella — Conflicting Evidence from Taphonomy

ammonium chloride, animals, bilaterians, bivariate analysis, bottom waters, Burgess Shale, Cambrian Explosion, Cambrian News, Chengjiang, death-masks, Ediacaran Period, Evolution, feeding traces, fossil record, hyporeliefs, Kimberella, Kimberella series, Konservat Lagerstätten, latex casts, limpets, Maotianshan Shales, motility, Precambrian strata, taphonomy, trace fossils
The fossilization of Kimberella specimens was most likely based on rapid burial with sand during storm events. Source
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27Aug 2020 by Post

Doctor’s Diary: Evolution in the Country of the Blind

anatomy, animals, apes, atheists, babies, birth canal, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, childbirth, chromosomes, Creativity, DNA, ductus arteriosus, earthquake, Ecuador, foresight, H.G. Wells, heteropalindromes, human evolution, human exceptionalism, Human Origins, humans, Intelligent Design, invention, Marcos Eberlin, Minnesota, orphan genes, oxygen, P.Z. Myers, parable, Periodic Table, phenotypes, Richard Dawkins, The Country of the Blind, Tree of Life
Fans of H. G. Wells are probably familiar with his 1904 short story, “The Country of the Blind.” Source
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23Jul 2020 by Post

In Carbon Isotope Excursions, Darwinists Lose Another Excuse for the Cambrian Explosion

animals, arthropods, biology, bioRxiv, body plans, Cambrian Explosion, Cambrian fossils, Cambrian News, Cambrian phyla, Canada, carbon, carbon isotope excursions, Darwin's Doubt, Darwinian tree, Ediacaran explosion, Ediacaran fossils, Evolution, fossil record, Gaskiers deglaciation, geochemistry, Newfoundland, Oman, oxygen, PNAS, Proterozoic Eon, Stephen Meyer, Uncategorized
The claim that a spike in carbon isotope concentrations led to the explosion of biological diversity in the Cambrian doesn’t hold up, as if it would have helped, anyway. Source
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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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07Mar 2020 by Post

Rats Are People, Too!

ambassador, Animal Welfare Act, animals, anthropocentrism, bioethicists, Culture & Ethics, human exceptionalism, humans, Jane Goodall, Kristen Andrews, lab rats, medical experiments, Medicine, mice, misanthropy, monkeys, Nuremberg Code, philosophy, rats, reduction, refinement, replacement, Susana Monsó
If animal-rights activists ever had their way, all uses of animals by humans would cease — no matter how beneficial to our welfare and thriving. That emphatically includes animal research in medical and scientific experiments.  Animal rights activists falsely claim that no value to humans comes from such experiments — a claim I have rebutted often. Not only does animal research save human lives and offer invaluable information about biology, but it has also been deemed a crucial human-rights protection. The Nuremberg Code specifically stated that animal studies must be conducted before human subject research. International laws and protocols have encoded this wisdom. Rats Are “Empathetic”? But animal rights activists keep fighting. The latest effort — by Kristen Andrews, a professor of philosophy, and Susana Monsó, a bioethicist — argues that…
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19Feb 2020 by Post

Galápagos Pilgrim: Paul Nelson on Biological Deign and History

Amblyrhynchus cristatus, Andrew McDiarmid, animals, Charles Darwin, cormorant, Discovery Institute, Evolution, flightless cormorant, Galápagos Islands, history, humans, Intelligent Design, marine iguanas, natural theology, philosophy of biology, pilgrimage, Podcast, Santiago Island, tameness, William Paley
Discovery Institute philosopher of biology Paul Nelson got back from his pilgrimage to the Galápagos Islands with some important lessons to share. He spoke with ID the Future host Andrew McDiarmid last week about his experiences. See, “Pilgrimage: On a Visit to Galápagos Islands, Paul Nelson Concedes, ‘Darwin Was Right!’”  Of course he was being “deliberately provocative” there, as he notes in a new podcast with McDiarmid. Download the episode or listen to it here. Andrew and Paul expand on the point that Darwin contributed a deeper understanding of history than design proponent William Paley possessed. In his own version of natural theology, Paley gave little sense that living creatures have histories, or that those histories make much of a difference. This was a shortcoming. But, like Charles Darwin before…
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07Feb 2020 by Post

Reader Seeks Intelligent Design in a Nutshell

animals, biological novelty, cosmic fine-tuning, Discovery Institute, DNA, Evolution, Evolution News, homology, Human Origins, humans, Intelligent Design, Long Story Short, molecular machines, natural selection, origin of life, origin of the universe, PragerU, Stephen Meyer, The Information Enigma, Videos
A reader writes to ask: I have always had a few nagging doubts about natural selection. I have watched a few videos and downloaded some books by key ID people but I have still not found **a brief summary** of the main evidence against natural selection and for ID. Most of the videos are WAY too long and meander all over the place. You really need to sharpen things up so we can see all the KEY points gathered in one place for everyone to access. “Meander all over the place”? Well, I hope not. And from my own experience I disagree. However, I appreciate the request for a really concise presentation of the evidence for ID and the evidence against the sufficiency of natural selection for explaining all biological…
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15Jan 2020 by Post

Save Animals, Not Sick People, from Death?

animal shelters, animals, California, cats, Culture & Ethics, doctor, Dogs, euthanasia, Gavin Newsom, governor, health care, Koret Shelter Medicine Program, lethal prescription, Medicine, patients, press conference, Sacramento Bee, UC Davis
Misplaced priorities are California’s specialty. Here’s an example: Governor Gavin Newsom wants to end euthanasia in animal shelters. From the Sacramento Bee story: Gov. Gavin Newsom wants California to stop euthanizing animals, and he’s ready to put taxpayer money toward the cause. “We want to be a no-kill state,” Newsom said during a press conference where he presented his 2020-21 budget. Specifically, Newsom’s budget calls for a $50 million one-time general fund allocation to the UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program to develop a grant program for animal shelters, with a goal of helping local communities “achieve the state’s policy goal that no adoptable or treatable dog or cat should be euthanized,” according to the budget summary. Ironically, as the governor works to save animals from death, California has not…
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