Two Recent Papers Buttress Michael Behe’s Thesis in Darwin Devolves

anti-malaria drugs, constructive evolution, Current Biology, devolution, Eric Anderson, Evolution, evolutionary tree, functionality, genetic information, ID The Future, introns, malaria, Medicine, Michael Behe, mutations, niche advantage, Plasmodium falciparum, Podcast, selective advantage, technical papers, Tree of Life, yeast
Evolution’s grand tree-of-life story requires constructive evolution, not more and more cases of organisms tossing parts overboard. Source
Read More

Did the New York Times Just Give a Covert Nod to Meyer’s “God Hypothesis”? 

Alfred North Whitehead, Cambrian Explosion, Carl Zimmer, Current Biology, Darwin's Doubt, Faith & Science, God Hypothesis, Intelligent Design, Johannes Kepler, Judeo-Christian tradition, New York Times, Order of Things, physics, Return of the God Hypothesis, Ross Douthat, Science (journal), Stephen Meyer
What’s different is that this time around, the discussion is far more favorable towards Meyer’s position. Here’s what columnist Ross Douthat says Source
Read More

Diatoms, an Evolutionary Mystery, Come into Nano-Focus

archaea, bacteria, beauty, Blaise Pascal, Caltech, Coscinodiscus, Cristobal Vila, Current Biology, diatoms, electron microscope, Engineering, eukaryotes, frustules, Germany, God Hypothesis, Gothic cathedrals, Intelligent Design, Izabela Zgłobicka, Life Sciences, light microscope, Michael Gross, microbes, Nature by Numbers, Nature Scientific Reports, photosynthetic algae, Poland, purpose, Zachary Aitken
The jewels of the microbial world, when seen with new nano-scale imaging techniques, look like Gothic cathedrals. Source
Read More

A Flea Circus of Small Animal Acrobats

animals, BBC, Cosmos (series), crustaceans, Current Biology, Darwinian theory, dragonflies, flea circus, Harikumar Suwa, Imperial College London, Intelligent Design, Italy, North Carolina, roundworms, Sandeep Eswarappa, spiders, tardigrades, The Conversation, The Scientist, University of Trento, UV light, water bears
Small animals amuse and amaze scientists who take a close look at them in action. Sometimes it requires a high-speed camera to analyze the trick. Source
Read More

Vindicated But Not Cited: Paper in Nature Heredity Supports Michael Behe’s Devolution Hypothesis

adaptation, Andrew Murray, Current Biology, Darwin Devolves, Darwinian mechanism, devolution, Evolution, function, gene loss, genes, Intelligent Design, John Maynard Smith, loss-of-function mutations, Michael Behe, mutations, natural selection, Nature Heredity, phenotypes, The Quarterly Review of Biology
The literature is looking at the same data that intelligent design proponents are looking at, making similar observations, and asking similar questions. Source
Read More

Darwin’s Desperation?

"survival of the fittest", appendix, beards, BioEssays, Brois Yeltsin, California Science Center, cell's, censorship, chimpanzees, choking, Christians, Communist Party, conferences, Current Biology, Darwin Devolves, Darwinian theory, Dave Speijer, Dover trial, dysteleology, epiglottis, Evolution, Glenn-Peter Sætre, Heretic, Intelligent Design, J.B.S. Haldane, Judge John E. Jones, Kremlin, lip-smacking, Matti Leisola, methodological naturalism, Michael Behe, Norway, peasants, Richard Dawkins, Richard Sternberg, Social media, speech, Stephen Jay Gould, Summers Seminars, Uncommon Descent, University of Oslo
They used to just ignore us. That worked for many years. Rare appearances of the loathsome words “intelligent design” in scientific journals were quickly squashed, as Richard Sternberg can attest. Occasional payouts to avoid lawsuits, like at the California Science Center, could be dismissed as inconvenient hush money, quickly settled and ignored by the press.  Meanwhile, Darwinism marched on, confident and triumphant. Largely unimpeded by any need for debate, evolutionary biologists and psychologists, safe in the accepted custom of methodological naturalism, could spin their just-so stories without fear of contradiction. The media were willing accomplices, keeping the public submissive and quiet, satisfied with the daily illusions pouring forth from the ministry of truth. See how wonderful, elegant, and powerful Darwin’s theory is at explaining everything — from human speech evolving…
Read More

Design in the First Animals

animals, aragonite, Cambrian Explosion, Cambrian News, cilia, Cladonema, Cnidaria, cognitive capacity, comb jellies, crabs, crustaceans, Ctenophora, ctenophores, Current Biology, Darwin's Black Box, Edward Pope, Evolution, fossil record, honeycomb, hydrodynamic coupling, Intelligent Design, jellyfish, lobsters, Michael Behe, mollusks, nacre, Porifera, Precambrian, Robert Hovden, Sarah P. Leys, sea gooseberries, shrimp, Swansea University, tablets, The Edge of Evolution, Tohoku University, University of Michigan, University of Tsukuba
It didn’t take long for animals to master physics and engineering. The first animal body plans were performing feats that fascinate — and baffle — research scientists. Ctenophores: Flashing Paddles Also called sea gooseberries and comb jellies, ctenophores (pronounced TEN-o-fours) are small centimeter-sized marine organisms with rows of cilia, called comb rows or ctenes, which function as paddles for swimming. Though gelatinous and transparent, comb jellies are unrelated to jellyfish (phylum Cnidaria); they have been classified into their own phylum, Ctenophora, characterized by eight of these comb rows. Scientists debate whether ctenophores are the earliest animals that appeared in the Cambrian explosion, as opposed to sponges (phylum Porifera). If so, they arrived with multiple tissues, a nervous system, and a digestive system. That’s a lot to account for without any…
Read More