01Dec 2019 by Post

Michael Egnor on Scientific Consensus and Apocalypse Now

civilizational ruin, consensus, Emily Kurlinski, Evolution, ID The Future, materialism, Michael Egnor, overpopulation, scientific experts, starvation, Thomas Malthus
On a new episode of ID the Future, host Emily Kurlinski talks with Michael Egnor, professor of neurosurgery at Stony Brook University, about the dire warnings, stretching back at least to Thomas Malthus near the turn of the 19th century, that overpopulation would lead to starvation and civilizational ruin. Download the podcast of listen to it here. Egnor discusses this and other scientific claims once widely embraced by scientific experts and later shown to be off base. The lesson, he says, is that when someone tells you to believe something simply because it’s “the scientific consensus,” reserve judgment. Consensus, says Egnor, is “a political concept, not a scientific one.” And when much of the scientific community is held captive by a dogmatic adherence to materialism, any claimed consensus is all the…
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30Nov 2019 by Post

Q&A with Michael Behe: What’s Wrong with Theistic Evolution?

DiscoveryU, Evangelical Christians, Evolution, faith, Faith & Science, Francis Collins, Intelligent Design, Michael Behe, science, The Language of God, theistic evolution
We now reluctantly conclude the past week’s series of Q&A sessions with biochemist Michael Behe, highlighting his 41-part video course for DiscoveryU, “Michael Behe Investigates Evolution and Intelligent Design.” Here’s another challenge he often gets: Why doesn’t Professor Behe go along with famed Evangelical Christian scientist Francis Collins, and others, in opting for theistic evolution? Dr. Behe observes that in reading Dr. Collins’s book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, he found it notable that Collins “does not even try to address the problems for evolution that I and other intelligent design proponents have brought up.” So that is one reason. Behe, like Collins, is a scientist not a theologian. The science of ID, and the scientific problems with Darwinian evolution, are the focus of his video…
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29Nov 2019 by Post

Fact and Fiction: Ohio Bill Stirs Needless Alarm

Christians, Columbus Dispatch, Discovery Institute, Education, Evolution, First Amendment, free speech, homework, House Bill 164, Jews, legislation, Ohio, Ohio House of Representatives, pedagogy, religious expression, Science Education Policy, strengths and weaknesses, Timothy Ginter, U.S. Constitution, Washington Post, WKRC
Lately, media sources have sported provocative headlines about a bill in Ohio. The Washington Post asks: “Does the bill just passed by the Ohio House allow students to be wrong in science class without penalty if they cite religious reasons?” Meanwhile the Columbus Dispatch worries: “Science Deniers Get Boost from Proposed Ohio House Bill.” The actual legislation, I’m afraid, is much less dramatic.  This proposed law largely echoes the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment on free speech (including on religious matters). Here’s the part that has received the most media attention: Sec. 3320.03. No school district board of education, governing authority of a community school established under Chapter 3314. of the Revised Code, governing body of a STEM school established under Chapter 3326. of the Revised Code, or board of trustees…
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28Nov 2019 by Post

Q&A with Michael Behe: New Examples of Irreducible Complexity

bacterial flagellum, biochemistry, biology, DiscoveryU, Evolution, icons of ID, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Michael Behe, video course
“What have you done for me lately?” So jokes biochemist Michael Behe, paraphrasing a question he often gets. In other words, Professor Behe, we know about the iconic bacterial flagellum. But are there other, newer examples of irreducible complexity? Yes, there are. In a Q&A session to highlight his 41-part DiscoveryU video course on ID, “Michael Behe Investigates Evolution and Intelligent Design,” Dr. Behe explains that in fact research in biology brings to light previously unknown irreducibly complex wonders — the most sophisticated showing “design building upon design,” as he puts it — by the month or even the week. His details a few. Find more information about the video course here! The post Q&A with Michael Behe: New Examples of Irreducible Complexity appeared first on Evolution News.
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27Nov 2019 by Post

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…
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24Nov 2019 by Post

Fast Track: Speeding Ben Shapiro and David Berlinski to You NOW

Ben Shapiro, Ben Shapiro Show, David Berlinski, Discovery Institute, drug trials, essentialism, Evolution, evolutionary science, Fast Track, Germans, human beings, Human Nature (book), interview, Jews, Nazis, philosophy, prescription medicines, science, social consequences, Sunday Special, USFDA
Wow, this is an amazing, hour-long conversation between Ben Shapiro and our Discovery Institute colleague David Berlinski. It’s today’s Sunday Special on the Ben Shapiro Show and you can watch it here on YouTube: Berlinski is wise and hilarious, and Shapiro a very fitting interlocutor. David’s new book, which forms the spine of the interview, is Human Nature, out now. I’ll have more to say on their interaction later. But in the spirit of the Fast Track program of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, hastening needed prescription medicine ahead of otherwise routine burdensome drug trial requirements, here are David and Ben right NOW, covering the philosophical and political attack on essentialism, why evolution is fundamentally at odds with a fixed nature to human beings (or dogs, or anything else…
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23Nov 2019 by Post

“Relentless and Devastating”: Mathematician Stephen McKeown on Berlinski’s Human Nature

Dallas, David Berlinski, Evolution, history, Human Nature (book), mathematics, quiddities, science, scientific knowledge, Stephen McKeown, University of Texas, wit, writers
More terrific endorsements for Human Nature! Here is mathematician Stephen McKeown on the latest from David Berlinski: Another tour de force by David Berlinski. Few writers indeed, about science or society, can boast such a thoroughgoing command of the significant ideas of the past century, the confident mastery of every centrally significant scientific theory. Yet if Berlinski derives obvious joy from the great theories that unify the world, he is never more memorable than when he vividly displays its irreducible particulars, holding the quiddities of place and person more clearly before our imagination than we might even see them ourselves. If Berlinski glories in science’s achievements, he is no less dismissive of those attempts to see pattern and abstraction born not of vision but of ignorance; and he repeatedly marshals…
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21Nov 2019 by Post

David Berlinski Joins Ben Shapiro on Sunday Special; Exhaustive Discussion of…Neutrino Mass?

Ben Shapiro, Culture & Ethics, David Berlinski, Evolution, human nature, Human Nature (book), Mass, neutrinos, Stephen Meyer, subscribers, The Ben Shapiro Show
David Berlinski’s latest, Human Nature, caught the attention of Ben Shapiro, who will discuss it and other matters with Dr. Berlinski for an hour on the Ben Shapiro Show’s Sunday Special, this Sunday, November 24. Here is a preview. Yes, as a colleague points out, it’s classic Berlinski: Don’t worry, what David says here about the neutrino and its mass — he’s only kidding! David B. and Ben Shapiro are a matchup that you’ll want to see, both brilliant personalities, but in such interestingly different ways. Stephen Meyer was on the Sunday Special this past March and he and Ben had a fantastic, fascinating conversation. In case you missed, it’s here. From past experience, the Sunday Special goes out to subscribers first, and is available on YouTube by the end…
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19Nov 2019 by Post

Drive Darwinists Nuts with This One Solution to Fake News

Ann Gauger, Central America, Charles Darwin, Darwinists, David Berlinski, David Gelernter, Debating Darwin's Doubt, Discovery Institute, Evolution, Evolution News, fake news, free speech, Google, Guillermo Gonzalez, Günter Bechly, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Wells, media, Michael Behe, Spanish, Stephen Meyer, Yale University
If you listen to the media, you’d think that science has refuted God, the debate over Darwin is closed, the solution to the origin of life is right around the corner, and humans are no more significant than cockroaches. If you are as sick of this kind of fake news as I am, I have good news. There is a solution, and you can be a part of it. The solution is this site — Evolution News & Science Today. How It All Started Discovery Institute started this news outlet back in 2004 to counter all the fake news in the debate over intelligent design. Since then, the audience for Evolution News has grown from a few thousand to more than a million users a year. In fact, according to Google, Evolution News is on track to reach…
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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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