15Jan 2020 by Post

In Just Eight Minutes, New Video Punctures Evolution’s Circular “Homology” Argument

biogeography, biologists, biology, circular reasoning, Darwin's Doubt, Darwinism, David Gelernter, Discovery Institute, DNA, embryology, Evolution, evolutionists, free speech, high school, homology, Jerry Coyne, Long Story Short, Miller and Levine’s Biology, Pearson Education, Stephen Meyer, strengths and weaknesses, textbook, vestigial organs, video, Why Evolution Is True, Yale University
The biology textbook my daughter uses in high school, Miller and Levine’s Biology, is in wide use. It’s the one from Pearson with the parrot on the cover. On page 468, it employs a circular argument beloved by evolutionists: the argument from homology. The same argument features in many different textbooks. And it is regularly cited by biologists in scolding the public about their Darwin doubts. “Long Story Short” Here is a really brief, cute, and effective new video from Discovery Institute that addresses and deftly punctures this argument. Just eight minutes long! It’s part of a freshly launched occasional series, “Long Story Short,” that compresses key points in the debate between Darwinism and intelligent design into a very welcome format: concise, accessible, and funny. As the narrator explains, “One of…
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09Jan 2020 by Post

Reflections on Our Ancient Past

Africa, ancient past, BIO-Complexity, bottleneck, coalescence, de novo creation, Denisovans, DNA, genetic diversity, Homo erectus, Human Origins, methodological naturalism, Neanderthals, Ola Hössjer, population genetics
This past October, Ola Hössjer and I published a paper, “A Single-Couple Human Origin Is Possible.” Writing in the journal BIO-Complexity, we described a model that used standard population genetics methods but refined in a new way to permit calculation of larger data arrays deeper in time. Using this model we were able to demonstrate that an initial couple could indeed give rise to the modern human population. That paper discussed the possibility of a first couple, but it did not distinguish between two alternatives. The single couple could have had a de novo origin, meaning to start from the beginning. This alternative is one most scientists choose to ignore since it does not fit with methodological naturalism (MN), the philosophical position that only “natural” explanations are allowed in science.…
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26Nov 2019 by Post

Human Origins: Not a Simple Question

Adam and Eve, allele frequency spectrum, Andrew Jones, Atheism, BIO-Complexity, chimps, Copenhagen, Darwinism, Discovery Institute Press, DNA, entomologists, Francisco Ayala, genetics, HLA-DRB1, hominins, Human Origins, insects, Jay Richards, linkage disequilibrium, Neo-Darwinism, Ola Hössjer, onychophorans, Science and Human Origins, theism
Photo source: Pixabay via Pexels.com. I have come to a conclusion. Perhaps if I had thought about it more carefully at first I would not be surprised. But it has only recently occurred to me that a great deal of the disturbance about evolution — yes, no, theistic, atheistic, guided, unguided, young earth, old earth, Darwinist , near-neutralist, whatever! is about human origins. Where did WE come from? Are we descended from primates or not? And what did God have to do with it? Nobody except specialist scientists would care if a little tree frog was descended from a lobe-finned fish, or was instead specially created with his special poison glands, unless it also had implications with regard to our origin. Not many would care except evolutionary biologists and entomologists…
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18Nov 2019 by Post

BioEssays Editor: “‘Junk’ DNA… Full of Information!” Including Genome-Sized “Genomic Code”

adenine, Advanced Science News, Andrew Moore, BioEssays, Biological Information: New Perspectives, cytosine, DNA, ENCODE, Evolution, Francis Crick, function, genome, genomic code, Giorgio Bernardi, guanine, Intelligent Design, isochores, Junk DNA, Leslie Orgel, narrative gloss, overlapping codes, proteins, selective pressure, thymine, viral genomes
How many times have we heard it claimed that the vast majority of the human genome is “junk” and therefore could not have been designed? Even in the face of overwhelming evidence from the ENCODE project and numerous other studies showing that most of our genome has biochemical function, most evolutionists still maintain that our genomes are largely junk. But a few brave scientists, including some rare evolutionists, have been willing to buck that trend.  In a new article at Advanced Science News — “That ‘Junk’ DNA… Is Full of Information!” — Andrew Moore, the Editor-in-Chief of the respected biology journal BioEssays, comments on a new BioEssays paper. The paper finds that our DNA contains overlapping layered “’dual-function’ pieces of information,” including a “genomic code” that spans virtually the entire…
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15Nov 2019 by Post

“Genomic Perfection” Versus “Cellular Survival”

cell, cellular survival, cleaning robots, DNA, DNA integrity, DNA lesion, DNA repair, environmental mutagens, genome, genomic perfection, Intelligent Design, mutations, passenger mutations, quality control mechanisms, Science (journal), WALL-E
Here is a thought-provoking hypothesis in this week’s Science about “genomic perfection” versus “cellular survival.” From “Cellular survival over genomic perfection“ (open access): The high number of passenger mutations, equivalent to 1000 to 10,000 per genome, in normal cells raises questions regarding why DNA quality control mechanisms have failed to limit mutagenesis. Perhaps a somewhat counterintuitive perspective can be considered: If DNA quality control pathways monitor and preserve DNA integrity too strictly, it could be detrimental to cellular survival. The repair of DNA lesions has a cost: It requires time and cellular resources. If every DNA lesion in a cell were repaired, avoiding mutations altogether, the cellular cost associated with performing that repair would have to increase in direct proportion to the amount of damage. In conditions of high DNA damage — through exposure to…
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