Bad Design, or Ultimate Engineering? Two Views of Biology

Abby Hafer, aging, anatomy, arteries, bad design, biology, constraints, decay, Duke University, engineered systems, Engineering, European Space Agency, Evolution, evolutionary biologists, evolutionary mechanism, foresight, Francois Jacob, fungi, genetic flaws, heart, Human Errors, human technology, Intelligent Design, Jerry Coyne, joints, lubrication, Nathan Lents, reproduction, Richard Dawkins, Steven Vogel, suboptimal design, survival, The Greatest Show on Earth, The Not-So-Intelligent Designer, The Origin of Species, theistic design, tinkering, unintelligent design
An intelligent designer can employ foresight to envision a solution well beyond anything in existence at the time, and then set about making that a reality. Source
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Can Evolution Explain Altruism or Heroism?

altruism, burning cars, Casey Luskin, Culture, Education, Evolution, evolutionary mechanism, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary utility, genes, group selection, heroism, human behavior, kin selection, kindness, Marvel Universe, Podcast, reciprocal altruism, Richard Dawkins, selfish genes, strangers, teamwork
Casey Luskin and I share separate recent examples of people who have run towards burning cars to save complete strangers. Source
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End of the Road for the Intelligent Design Debate?

biology, CELS 2021, Conference on Engineering in Living Systems, Derek Gatherer, DNA, emergence, Evolution, evolutionary mechanism, Intelligent Design, John Thomas, Michael Behe, Michel Morange, P. A. Braillard, Pam Mantri, proteins, Reductionism, Stephen Meyer, stigmergic teleology, synthetic biology, Systems Biology
A key question is how long biologists can argue that life looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but it is actually a cat. Source
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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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