On Evolution, Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Charles Darwin, Darwininan theory, Divine Foot, Evolution, Faith & Science, free will, Genetics and the Origin of Species, Intelligent Design, Keith Stewart Thomson, Macroevolution, Microevolution, mind, Neal C. Gillespie, Richard C. Lewontin, spirit, Ted Peters, Theodosius Dobzhansky, William A. Dembski, Zombie Science
On February 10, 2020, Lutheran theologian Ted Peters published an online article titled “Fighting over Evolution. Why?“ He concluded that “a culture war is raging, to be sure. But, this is not a war between science and faith.” I agree completely — if by “science” we mean empirical science. Empirical science searches for the truth by proposing hypotheses and comparing them with the evidence. If a hypothesis is consistent with the evidence we tentatively take it to be true. If it is inconsistent with the evidence we revise it or reject it as false. In reality, things can get a bit more complicated. But this is science at its best. A Different Meaning Yet “science” has taken on a different meaning in the modern world. For many people, “science” is…
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Say Happy Birthday to Charles Darwin

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Today, February 12, is Charles Darwin’s birthday. For the past two decades, secularists and atheists have celebrated “Darwin Day” almost like a religious holiday. Tonight, for example, the American Humanist Association will hold an event where they promise you can “Discover how Darwin’s apostles… launched a campaign for truth.” I’m not kidding — they really do refer to “Darwin’s apostles”! Meanwhile, the official Facebook page for Darwin Day posts statements like this: “Using scientific logic, we can be as sure of God’s nonexistence as we are of the nonexistence of the aether, phlogiston or werewolves!” The Cult of Darwin While some continue to worship in the cult of Darwin, here is some good news in time for Darwin’s birthday: The number of prominent scientists around the world who are leaving Darwin behind…
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Michael Behe on the Design Idea That Won’t Go Away (and Shouldn’t)

Charles Darwin, Darwin's Black Box, Del Ratzsch, Evolution, evolutionary mechanism, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Jonathan Witt, Michael Behe, molecular machines, Podcast
On a new episode of ID the Future, Jonathan Witt catches up with Darwin’s Black Box author and biochemist Michael Behe at the 2020 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, where the two discuss an idea that many wish would just go away, but hasn’t. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Charles Darwin himself told us how his evolutionary theory could be overturned: identify a biological system that couldn’t possibly have evolved by “numerous success successive slight modifications.” It’s to Darwin’s credit that he put his theory in “empirical harm’s way,” to quote philosopher Del Ratzsch. But as Witt and Behe note, Darwin also cleverly placed the burden of proof on his opponents, an arguably dubious maneuver given that his proposed evolutionary mechanism has never once been observed…
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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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Looking Forward to Darwin Day? Check Out the Trailer for Behe’s Secrets of the Cell

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For Darwin Day, February 12, we are a launching a new five-part series with biochemist Michael Behe, Secrets of the Cell. You can see the splendid trailer now: It was Dr. Behe’s insight that the view of evolution as driven by unguided, purposeless processes alone can’t survive an up-close encounter with the “black box,” unknown to Charles Darwin, the cell. Celebrate Darwin’s birthday by coming here, to Evolution News, next Wednesday and sharing the secrets of life, in a beautiful and accessible new series, widely with your friends and family. The post Looking Forward to Darwin Day? Check Out the Trailer for Behe’s <i>Secrets of the Cell</i> appeared first on Evolution News.
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Important Medical Effects but Modest Mutations

Charles Darwin, CypA, Darwin Devolves, Darwinian processes, Evolution, FCT, function, Functional-Coded-elemenT, HIV, information, isoform, natural selection, New Scientist, Origin of Species, owl monkey, protein, random mutation, retroviruses, rhesus macaque, RNA, The Quarterly Review of Biology, TRIM5
I was asked to address a comment left by a viewer of one of Discovery’s YouTube videos. The comment is:1 Some monkeys have a mutation in a protein called TRIM5 that results in a piece of another, defunct protein being tacked onto TRIM5. The result is a hybrid protein called TRIM5-CypA, which can protect cells from infection with retroviruses such as HIV. Here, a single mutation has resulted in a new protein with a new and potentially vital function. New protein, new function, new information. A bit of Googling shows that the text was taken word-for-word from an old article (2008) on the New Scientist website2 (perhaps by way of intermediate copying). That was during a period when the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Origin of Species was…
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Coming on Darwin Day, a New Video Series — Secrets of the Cell with Michael Behe

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To reach ever-wider audiences of the skeptical and the unconvinced, whether in academia or the general culture, is the central mission of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. What better occasion for that could there be than Darwin Day, February 12? The birthday of the great man is an occasion each year for atheists and materialists to promote once again the theory of purposeless, unguided evolution. The cell is what biochemist Michael Behe has called a “black box,” its spectacularly complex, superbly designed contents unknown to Darwin himself. When the box was opened by modern science, it was the turning-point moment for the articulation of intelligent design theory. A revolution followed, fundamentally challenging how scientists discuss the history of life.  Revolutionary Behe With that in mind, this coming Darwin…
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A Forest, Not a Tree? Nelson Asks Why Universal Common Descent Needn’t “Pay” for Failures

biologists, Brian Miller, Evolution, evolutionists, failed predictions, forest, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Michael Behe, Michael Denton, naturalism, orchard, Paul Nelson, Podcast, scientific theories, Teilhard de Chardin, theistic evolution, Tree of Life, universal common descent, universal genetic code
Philosopher of biology Paul Nelson recalls the expectation, a scientific standard when he was an undergrad, that all living things would turn out to share a universal genetic code. How could they not if, as Darwin argued, there is only a single, universal tree of life? On a classic ID the Future podcast with host Brian Miller, Dr. Nelson discusses the implications of this failed prediction. Download the podcast or listen to it here. The question is a weighty one since it has emerged that there is no universally shared code, but, instead, many variants. When evolutionists realized this, they performed a sidestep, supposing that since the prediction flopped, it must be the case that the code can itself evolve. But this deft move allows universal common ancestry a luxury…
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The Long View: Michael Behe Pays Tribute to Phillip Johnson

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On a new episode of ID the Future we continue a series of messages from a November 2019 symposium in Berkeley, California, presented in honor of the late Phillip Johnson, who played a crucial role in the flowering of the intelligent design movement. Download the podcast or listen to it here. On today’s episode Lehigh University biology professor Michael Behe, author of Darwin’s Black Box, The Edge of Evolution, and Darwin Devolves, tells about his earliest memories of Phillip Johnson and speaks about the long history of science: how ancient science pointed to purposeful design in life, and how current science is coming full circle. Considering this long view, the conclusion of design is as strong as or stronger than it has ever been. Photo: Phillip and Kathie Johnson at…
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Science Says: Evolution Explains the Appeal of Baby Yoda

Alison Gopnik, anthropology, baby, Baby Yoda, cheeks, elephants, Evolution, giant squid, Human Origins, Intelligent Design, Internet, Judith Burkart, newspaper, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, plumpness, puppies, Sarah Hrdy, storytelling, television, The Mandalorian, Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal’s weekend edition has many more opinion and “think” pieces and other soft news than the weekday version. In the mix, they almost never fail to include an article praising evolution. This is so consistent that I wonder if it’s a deliberate editorial policy. Sure enough: in last Saturday’s paper, Alison Gopnik exclaims, “Humans Evolved to Love Baby Yoda.” Well, evolution explains everything, so why wouldn’t it explain why TV viewers are going gaga for the munchkin-like character in The Mandalorian series. Primed as you are by years of having read similar articles by science writers, no doubt you are getting ready for an exercise in evolutionary storytelling. There will be a clever reference to pop culture, a citation of an article from a science journal and…
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