23Jan 2020 by Post

“We Are Not of Our Own Devising” — Wells, Nelson Pay Tribute to Phil Johnson

berkeley, biology, California, Charles Darwin, common descent, Evolution, ID The Future, John Mark Reynolds, Jonathan Wells, Pajaro Dunes, Paul Nelson, Phillip E. Johnson
A new episode of ID the Future comes from a Berkeley, California, symposium honoring the recently deceased Phillip Johnson. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Biologist Jonathan Wells recalls how he met Johnson and the huge influence the latter had on Wells’s own research and writing. Then philosopher of biology Paul Nelson reminisces on Johnson’s keen intellect, his eye for hidden assumptions, his awareness that “we are not of our own devising,” and on the mountain range of new knowledge opening up to us in biology, one that scientists knew little about even thirty years ago and that Nelson says points strongly away from Darwin’s idea of common descent. Photo: John Mark Reynolds, Phil Johnson, and Paul Nelson, Pajaro Dunes, California, June 1998, by Suzanne Nelson. The post…
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21Jan 2020 by Post

Science as a Jealous God — Free Weekend Conference in Seattle for College Students

Artificial Intelligence, Baylor University, Brian Miller, C.S. Lewis, Center for Science & Culture, Charles Darwin, coercion, colleges, conference, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Culture & Ethics, Darwinism, Discovery Institute, earth, ethics, Evolution, humankind, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, intimidation, jealous god, John West, National Review, natural world, science, scientism, Seattle, seminar, society, students, travel stipend, universities, values, Walter Bradley Center, Wesley J. Smith
Science, rather than opening minds and setting us free from drudgery, is increasingly a tool of coercion and intimidation. If you’re a college student, consider joining us at Discovery Institute on March 6-7 for a free weekend seminar, “Science, Scientism, and Society.” Scientism is a word that designates the impulse to turn science into a jealous god — not a method for exploring the natural world and responsibly harnessing its resources, but the exclusive source of knowledge about all things, including values and ethics.  More information and a simple online application are here. January 30 is the deadline to apply for this important, enlightening, and fun event, organized by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) and held in Discovery Institute’s offices in Seattle. ISI will provide a travel stipend for students…
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20Jan 2020 by Post

Westminster Conference on Science and Faith, April 3-4 in Philadelphia: Design and the Designer

biology, Burke Museum, Center for Science & Culture, Chemistry, cosmology, Dallas, Daniel Reeves, Early Church, East Coast, Evolution, Faith & Science, foresight, Intelligent Design, John West, Marcos Eberlin, Melissa Cain Travis, orphan genes, Paul Nelson, Philadelphia, Stephen Meyer, Westminster Conference on Science and Faith
Here in Seattle, the University of Washington recently opened a spectacular and expensive ($106 million) new building for its natural history museum, the Burke Museum. A friend visited there yesterday — I have not yet had a chance to do so — and sent along photos. We were both struck by how the exhibits lay it on thick with regard to evolution as an unguided process. Large signs seem aggressive in advertising the curators’ position: “EVOLUTION ISN’T PLANNED,” declares one display. Another insists that life is “SHAPED BY NATURE,” and, by implication, by nothing else. The culture invests great energy and wealth to bombard us with messages like these. That’s the case even as, at deeper and deeper levels, science reveals evidence of a plan, foresight, a deliberately shaping force working…
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18Jan 2020 by Post

ID Inquiry: Robert J. Marks on Information and Intelligent Design

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On a classic episode of ID the Future, hear an installment in our ID Inquiry series, in which ID scientists and scholars answer your questions about intelligent design and evolution. Download the podcast or listen to it here. Robert J. Marks discusses information and how it relates to intelligent design. Dr. Marks is the director of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence and co-author of Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. Got a question for an ID scientist? Contact us here. Photo: Robert J. Marks at the launch of the Walter Bradley Center, by Nathan Jacobson. The post ID Inquiry: Robert J. Marks on Information and Intelligent Design appeared first on Evolution News.
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17Jan 2020 by Post

BioLogos and the Search for Truth

Adam and Eve, Ann Gauger, apology, BioLogos, chimpanzees, Christianity Today, Darrel Falk, Darwin's Doubt, Deborah Haarsma, Dennis Venema, DNA, enzyme, Evangelical Christians, Evolution, Evolution News, Human Origins, humans, Intelligent Design, Joshua Swamidass, mutations, nylonase, retraction, science, scripture, Seattle, Stephen Meyer, truth-seeking, vitellogenin
BioLogos Foundation’s president, Deborah Haarsma, issued a statement recently that merits comment. BioLogos is the organization known for seeking to draw Evangelical Christians to the theory of unguided Darwinian evolution. Now Haarsma has announced on the group’s behalf an institutional desire to clean house. Truth Matters In “Truth-Seeking in Science,” she wishes to leave no uncertainty about one thing: BioLogos wants to find out the truth and communicate it to others. Dr. Haarsma writes, “We are committed to seeking out the truths in both of these revelations [Scripture and nature],” “I want to flesh out what truth-seeking looks like in science,” “how we are implementing truth-seeking,” “Part of truth-seeking…is a healthy willingness to change your viewpoint,” “A scientist doesn’t discover truth all on her own,” “we are living out our…
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17Jan 2020 by Post

Did Cloudinids Have the Guts to Be Worms?

Acuticocloudina, bilaterian animals, bilaterian worms, Cambrian Explosion, Cambrian News, Cambrian Small Shelly Fauna, Chengjiang biota, China, Cloudina, cloudinids, cloudinomorphs, cnidarian, Conotubus, Costatubus, Darwinian evolution, Dickinsonia, digestive tract, Ediacaran biota, Ediacaran Period, Ediacaran Small Shelly Fauna, Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary, Evolution, Feiyanella, Germany, GUT, James D. Schiffbauer, Multiconotubus, Nature Communications, Nevada, polyp, Rajatubulus, Saarina, sessile filter feeder, Sinotubulites, skeleton, University of Missouri, Wood Canyon Formation
In my Evolution News article “Why Dickinsonia Was Most Probably Not an Ediacaran Animal” (Bechly 2019), I promised last year to follow up on other alleged Ediacaran animals. Now is a good moment to come back to this, because a new study has just been published in the journal Nature Communications by Schiffbauer et al. (2020), who identify a problematic Ediacaran shelly fossil as a bilateral animal most likely related to annelid worms. The crucial evidence is the alleged preservation of a digestive tract, which would also represent the oldest fossil record for this organ system (Stann 2020). The new fossil is considered to be a close relative of the genus Cloudina, which is a globally distributed Ediacaran index fossil first described by Germs (1972). It represents one of the…
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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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10Jan 2020 by Post

New Research on Animal Egg Orientation Shows “Unexpected” Diversity

Christian de Duve, eLife, embryo, embryonic development, Evidence, Evolution, evolutionary plasticity, evolutionary theory, evolutionists, genes, nucleic acids, proteins, unexpected, Urs Schmidt-Ott, Vital Dust, Yoseop Yoon, zygote
When the first cell of an animal — the zygote — divides, it usually has a front end, and a back end, and this orientation will influence how the embryo develops. This orientation is inherited from the egg, where certain gene products are deposited, often at the front end of the egg. These so-called anterior determinants signal the basic, front-back, orientation which is fundamental for the later embryonic development. But as is typical in biology, the specific genes involved often are not conserved across different species. As the summary of recent research explains: With very few exceptions, animals have “head” and “tail” ends that develop when they are an embryo. The genes involved in specifying these ends vary between species and even closely-related animals may use different genes for the…
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03Jan 2020 by Post

Himmelfarb and Her Haters

10 Books That Screwed Up the World, Adrian Desmond, Alfred Russel Wallace, Andrew Dickson White, Bea Kristol, Benjamin Wiker, Borneo, Bridgewater Treatises, Charles Darwin, Charles Gillispie, Charles Kingsley, City University of New York, Cornell University, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, Darwinists, Darwin’s Sacred Cause, Dyak headhunters, Edward T. Oakes, Encounter (journal), Ernst Mayr, Eugenics Record Office, Evolution, Francis Galton, George Will, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Harry Bruinius, history, Jacques Barzun, James D. Watson, James Moore, Jeffrey Shallit, Jewish Women, John William Draper, Julian Huxley, Leo Strauss, Mein Kampf, P.Z. Myers, Panda's Thumb, Uaupés River Valley, Victorian England
Editor’s note: Historian and Darwin skeptic Gertrude Himmelfarb died on Monday, December 30, 2019. While mourning the passing of this great scholar, we are pleased to republish Professor Flannery’s 2009 essay, below. See also Flannery’s tribute, ‘Farewell to Gertrude Himmelfarb, Brutally Honest Historian of the “Darwinian Revolution.’” “If you have no enemies, it is a sign fortune has forgot you.” — Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732  Noted physician Thomas Fuller was an expert on “eruptive fevers,” and so it seems fitting to open this essay with his wry but telling observation on enemies in public life, for perhaps no contemporary historian has spawned more “eruptive fever” over an analysis of the reigning secular creation myth demigod, Charles Darwin, than has the present subject of this essay. If Fuller is any judge,…
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01Jan 2020 by Post

#1 of Our Top Stories of 2019: Informed by Discovery Authors, Yale’s David Gelernter Rejects Darwinism

Ben Shapiro, Charles Darwin, Darwin's Doubt, David Berlinski, David Gelernter, Debating Darwin's Doubt, Discovery Institute Press, Douglas Axe, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Marcos Eberlin, Michael Behe, National Academy of Sciences, Paul Nelson, Richard Lenski, Stephen Meyer, The Claremont Review of Books, The Deniable Darwin, Thomas Nagel, Tom Wolfe, Yale University
Editor’s note: The staff of Evolution News wish you a Happy New Year! We are counting down our top ten stories of 2019. If you haven’t done so yet, please take a moment now to contribute to our work in bringing you news and analysis about evolution, intelligent design, and more every day of the year. There is no other voice, no other source of information, like ours. Thank you for your friendship and your support! The following article was originally published here on October 21, 2019. This is important. Yale University computer scientist David Gelernter is a polymath, a brilliant writer, artist, and thinker. Famed both for his specific scientific expertise, and for his cultural, political, and historical reflections, he’s also now a confessed Darwin skeptic. More than a…
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