Evolutionary Theory as Magical Thinking

ancient Greeks, Argument from Pique, Aristotelian tradition, atomists, automatism, Baruch Spinoza, bio-logic, Charles Darwin, Christian de Duve, Christianity, Darwin and the Victorian Crisis of Faith (series), Darwin’s Unfinished Business, Erasmus Darwin, Evolution, Faith & Science, freethinking, Life Sciences, logos, magical thinking, moral sensibility, nous, philosophers, Simon Powell, supernatural, Thomas Malthus
Charles Darwin himself exemplified the Argument from Pique, alluded to in past entries in this series, to a tee. Source
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Darwin and the Swinging 1860s

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Charles Darwin, Darwin and the Victorian Crisis of Faith (series), Evolution, faith, Faith & Science, First Cause, First Vatican Council, Flower Power, Germany, Higher Criticism, information, Kulturkampf, Otto von Bismarck, Pope Pius IX, Roman Catholic Church, Secularism, Victorian England
The threat which such thinking posed to theistic beliefs was not lost on the Roman Catholic Church when Pope Pius IX convened the First Vatican Council of 1869. Source
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Real-World Data and the Lesson of Chloroquine Resistance

A Mousetrap for Darwin, biological systems, Casey Luskin, CCC, chloroquine complexity cluster, chloroquine resistance, coordinated mutations, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Laurence Moran, Michael Behe, mutation rate, mutations, PfCRT, Plasmodium falciparum, PNAS, proteins, Robert L. Summers, Sandwalk, The Edge of Evolution
The take-home lesson is that evolution, on its best day, is an embarrassingly anemic process. Source
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No “Hopeful Monster,” Flower Demonstrates Evolution by Subtraction

APETALA3-3, Aquilegia coerulea, biology, Biston betularia, Chaetodipus intermedius, Charles Darwin, Colorado, Colorado blue columbine, Current Biology, Darwin Devolves, Evolution, evolutionary biologists, genetic information, Harrison Tasoff, hopeful monster, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Wells, Life Sciences, Michael Behe, petals, positive selection, saltation, Scott Hodges, sepals, spurs, Stephen Meyer, UC Santa Barbara, Zachary Cabin, Zombie Science
Evolutionary biologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, noticed something peculiar about the columbines in a region of Colorado. Source
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Origin of Life Is Not Reducible to Physics

Anthropic Principle, biology, can opener, entropy, Eugene V. Koonin, Evolution, genes, handwaving, Intelligent Design, learning, natural selection, Neural Networks, origin of life, physics, second law of learning, Second Law of Thermodynamics, Theodosius Dobzhansky, thermodynamics, Thomas Malthus, universe, vitalism, Vitaly Vanchurin
This continues an evaluation of a proposal that treats natural selection as a law of physics that is applicable to the entire universe. Source
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Evolution Is Not Like Physics

Animal Algorithms, asymmetric information flow, biology, Boyle’s Law, Casey Luskin, Darwin's Doubt, E = mc2, Eigen catastrophe, Elliott Sober, Eric Cassell, Ernst Mayr, Erwin Schrödinger, Eugene V. Koonin, Evolution, Granville Sewell, gravitation, Isaac Newton, Kirk Durston, National Academy of Sciences, National Institute for Biotechnology Information, naturalism, neo-Darwinian theory, No Free Lunch, physics, Physics, Earth & Space, PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, punctuated equilibria, Richard Weikart, RNA, Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer, thermodynamics, vitalism, Vitaly Vanchurin, William Dembski, Yuri I. Wolf
A new theory of evolution extends Darwinian processes, making them into physical laws based on “learning theory.” Source
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Will Earth BioGenome Project Vindicate Darwin?

agriculture, Big Data, bioindustry, biology, Canis familiaris, chihuahua, China, conservation, Darwin's Dilemma, Darwinism, Earth BioGenome Project, ecology, eukaryotes, Evolution, genomes, Intelligent Design, Life Sciences, Mark Blaxter, mastiff, Medicine, Paul Chien, phylogenetics, PNAS, sequencing, species, Sweden, United States
Compare the latest project to sequence everything to other megaprojects that may or may not answer evolutionary questions. Source
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A Darwin Day Exhibit Backfires

academic freedom, biology, English, Evolution, free speech, Germany, Günter Bechly, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Lehigh University, memory hole, Podcast, Ray Bohlin, Revolutionary: Michael Behe and the Mystery of Molecular Machines, State Museum of Natural History, Stuttgart, Uncategorized, Wikipedia
Hear the story of how leading German paleo-entomologist and Darwinist Günter Bechly became convinced of intelligent design. Source
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New Study in Nature Showing “Non-Random” Mutation Spells Trouble for Neo-Darwinism

Arabidopsis thaliana, biology, cabbage, Darwin-skeptics, DNA, Evolution, gene-coding DNA, genome, Intelligent Design, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Life Sciences, mustard, mutation, mutation rate, Nature (journal), non-random mutation, proteins, random mutations, Research, thale cress, waiting-time problem
The study was able to directly measure mutations after they occurred in the plant but before mutations could have been affected by natural selection. Source
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