25May 2020 by Post

Does The Cambrian Explosion Disprove Darwinism?

2. Does God Exist?, Apologetics, Christianity, Darwin, Evidence, Evolution, God, JesusIsNotAFakeNews, naturalism, Origin, Philosophy of Science, Ryan Leasure, The Cambrian Explosion, The Origin of Species
By Ryan Leasure In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin argued that “all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form.”1 Darwin suggested that this primordial life form gradually developed into new life forms, which subsequently developed more life forms, eventually producing all the complex life forms we see today. In short, Darwin asserted that all life descended from a common ancestor. And starting from that original ancestor, he believed nature selected the fittest species which would survive, reproduce, and last for generations. At the same time, nature would sift out the weaker species. Darwin famously pictured the history of life as a tree. The first life form was the trunk, and all subsequent life forms are the branches. He was certain that the…
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25May 2020 by Post

Behe Vindicated Again: Sherpas Climb Everest Easier, Because Darwin Devolves

altitude, brown bears, climbing, Daisheng Song, Darwin Devolves, Darwinism, Evolution, genes, genetic information, genome, Han Chinese, hemoglobin, Himalayas, Intelligent Design, interfertility, loss of function, lowlanders, Michael Behe, Mount Everest, mount improbable, natural selection, Nepalese, oxygen, Phd2, PNAS, polar bears, positive selection, seal meat, Sherpa, super-athletes, Tibetans, Wikipedia
How can Tibetans survive high altitudes that leave lowlanders gasping? The answer is found in broken genes. A new paper on the Tibetan genome vindicates what Michael Behe said in Darwin Devolves: evolution breaks things, but sometimes, like in the case of polar bears, the result can allow organisms to thrive in specific environments. Yes, this follows on the heels of last week’s Behe vindication; see here. A team of 16 scientists, writing in PNAS, sought to understand the genetic basis for Tibetan high-altitude adaptation in more detail. Tibetans and Nepalese, many of whom serve as guides for lowlanders wanting to conquer Mount Everest, routinely carry heavy burdens at altitudes above 14,000 feet, the average elevation on the Tibetan plateau. In its entry on Sherpa people, Wikipedia notes, Many Sherpa…
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23May 2020 by Post

Listen: Lee Spetner Takes Aim at Natural Selection and Population Genetics

earth, Evolution, ID The Future, Ira Berkowitz, Jerusalem, Lee Spetner, Not by Chance, Podcast, population genetics, species, The Evolution Revolution
On a classic episode of ID the Future, Ira Berkowitz interviews MIT PhD Lee Spetner in Jerusalem. Together they explore key arguments from Spetner’s books Not by Chance and The Evolution Revolution. Spetner takes on natural selection, discussing what it can and cannot do. He also reviews aspects of population genetics and the constraints the Earth’s history imposes on evolving new species. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Photo: Coaster from Darwin’s Café Bar, Salzburg, Austria, by Nathan Jacobson. The post Listen: Lee Spetner Takes Aim at Natural Selection and Population Genetics appeared first on Evolution News.
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17May 2020 by Post

Why Neo-Darwinism Is Less than a Theory

antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Evolution, gain, ID The Future, information, Ira Berkowitz, Jerusalem, Lee Spetner, MIT, Neo-Darwinism, Not by Chance, physicists, Podcast, propaganda, The Evolution Revolution, Thomas Malthus
On a classic episode of ID the Future from Jerusalem, Ira Berkowitz interviews MIT PhD physicist Lee Spetner. Together they explore key arguments from Spetner’s books Not by Chance and The Evolution Revolution. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Spetner explains why he considers neo-Darwinism less than a theory and offers a surprising take on Thomas Malthus. Spetner also argues that, contrary to Darwinist propaganda, the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria demonstrates a loss of information rather than a gain. Photo: Detail of Darwin statue, Natural History Museum, London, by Rept0n1x (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons. The post Why Neo-Darwinism Is Less than a Theory appeared first on Evolution News.
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11May 2020 by Post

In Biology, Intelligent Designs that Amaze, Amuse, and Entertain

Alticini, An Uplifting Story, bottlenose dolphins, catapult, dandelions, Darwinism, dolphins, Evolution, fish stocks, flea beetle, flea beetles, Francis Collins, Illustra Media, infrared cameras, infrared radiation, Intelligent Design, International Society for Photonics and Optics, Keith Moorad, killer whales, leaf beetles, Lehigh University, Life Sciences, Michael Behe, National Institutes of Health, night vision goggles, origami, parachute, Pensoft, PNAS, toothed whales, U.S. Navy, Zookeys
A parade of amazing designs from the living world has passed through these pages over the years, and it shows no sign of stopping. Here are some entertaining examples from recent news. Jump Like a Flea, Beetle Flea beetles, or Alticini, are high-jump champions among the coleopterans (beetles) in the insect world. There are some 9,900 species of flea beetles, a “hyper-diverse group” that inhabits environments from deserts to rainforests all over the world. The Pensoft blog shows a picture of one, saying, “Exceptional catapulting jump mechanism in a tiny beetle could be applied in robotic limbs.”  The fascinating and highly efficient jumping mechanism in flea beetles is described in a new research article in the open-access journal Zookeys. Despite having been known since 1929, the explosive jump — which is also the reason behind the colloquial name of this…
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08May 2020 by Post

Why Building Animals Is Hard

cats, Center for Science & Culture, comments, development, Discovery Institute, evo-devo, Evolution, Intelligent Design, lectures, memories, Summer Seminars, Zoom
While out lecturing around the country — in May 2020, just a fond memory; only my cats hear me lecture in person now, everyone else tunes in on Zoom — I’m often asked, “So what are the Discovery Institute Summer Seminars like, anyway?” You can see for yourself by going here. This lecture represents material I have presented for the past few years, under the heading of “evo-devo,” or “evolution and development.” I am revamping my evo-devo lectures from top to bottom, so making this talk available to anyone interested will take nothing away from future Summer Seminar students. Comments welcome — please send them to cscinfo@discovery.org, and I will take them seriously. Photo credit: Wolfgang Hasselmann via Unsplash. The post Why Building Animals Is Hard appeared first on Evolution News.
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08May 2020 by Post

Stephen Meyer, Eric Metaxas: Gain and Loss and the Origin of Life

abiogenesis, Adolf Hitler, agnosticism, Atheism, Brian Miller, Charles Thaxton, Darwin's Doubt, Douglas Axe, Eric Metaxas, Evolution, Günter Bechly, Intelligent Design, James Tour, Jews, materialism, Nazi Germany, origin of life, Petra Moser, Richard Sternberg, Roger Olsen, Stanford University, Stephen Meyer, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, United States, Ur-text, Walter Bradley
Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany “revolutionized U.S. science and innovation,” as Stanford University historian Petra Moser and others have pointed out. Hitler’s loss was our gain. Something not entirely dissimilar is the case in the history of the intelligent design movement and its own revolution. On his radio show today, Eric Metaxas talked with Darwin’s Doubt author Stephen Meyer about the reissue of the expanded version of the Ur-text of intelligent design, a 35th anniversary edition of The Mystery of Life’s Origin. Dr. Meyer contributed a new chapter, as did James Tour, Brian Miller, and other scientists who have come to doubt purely materialist accounts of how the first life arose. Steve points out to Eric that “Some of our very best scientists are refugees from top-level institutions in the mainstream science establishment.”…
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06May 2020 by Post

Message from the Molecules — They Say “Intelligent Design”

biology, chauvinism, Chemistry, computer engineering, cosmology, Darwin's Black Box, Evolution, Foresight (book), Intelligent Design, Marcos Eberlin, mass spectrometry, mathematics, Michael Behe, molecules, Nobel laureates, physics
Biology, cosmology, physics, mathematics, computer engineering, chemistry… You could have an interesting argument among proponents of intelligent design about which field of science will ultimately clinch the argument for ID. Famed chemist Marcos Eberlin claims the honor will go to chemistry. Chauvinism, you say? Perhaps. You could take that up with the three Nobel laureates who endorsed his recent book, Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose. “The molecules speak for themselves,” says Dr. Eberlin here. “The molecules will speak louder and louder and louder and finally we will have to surrender to the message that the molecules are sending to us. They say clearly, ‘Intelligent design is the source of life.’” Eberlin’s specific field is mass spectrometry, which, as he has explained to me, is the powerful…
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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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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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