The Magician’s Twin: A Conversation with Stephen Meyer, James Orr, and David Berlinski

C.S. Lewis, Cambridge University, causation, coding, David Berlinski, Faith & Science, Godlessness of the Gaps, Hoover Institution, information, Intelligent Design, Isaac Newton, James Orr, John West, laws of nature, materialism, mathematics, nature, Newton’s Gift, Peter Robinson, physics, Physics, Earth & Space, Repentance, Richard Dawkins, Stanford University, Stephen Meyer, The Magician’s Twin, universe
Citing C. S. Lewis, Dr. Meyer calls the drama of materialism’s unravelling a kind “repentance.” Source
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Astrobiologists Offer an “Information-Based View of the Biosphere”

astrobiologists, atmosphere, biosphere, complex specified information, DNA processors, evolutionists, Gaia, humans, information, information processing, Intelligent Design, life, Life Sciences, nucleotide operations, ocean surface, plate tectonics, PLOS Biology, processing speed, prokaryotes, supercomputers, Titan supercomputer, United Kingdom Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh, Universe Today, University of Edinburgh, volcanoes, water, yottabases, yottaNOPS
Even if their estimates need to be revised by a terabase or two someday, they have made it clear that our biosphere is awash in information. Source
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Couldn’t Life’s Information Have Accumulated Gradually? No, and New Long Story Explains Why Not

accuracy, biological information, chemical evolution, code, DNA, Evolution, genome, information, Intelligent Design, James Tour, Long Story Short, Lynn Helena Caporale, origin of life, researchers, self-replication, The Implicit Genome, YouTube videos
It turns out there are five separate qualities to life and its information that make this comforting rationalization impossible to uphold. Source
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Nature Reflects an Intelligent Design — But Also a Moral One

beauty, biochemical systems, C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Complexity, David Klinghoffer, Divine Hiddenness argument, divine image, evil, Faith & Science, fine-tuning, food, free choice, George Ellis, Good, humans, information, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, laws of nature, life after death, lifespan, living cell, Nancey Murphy, nuclear weapons, physics, physiological systems, Templeton Prize, universe
Human beings must have freedom of choice if our actions are to have any meaning beyond the impersonal and predictable outcomes governed by the laws of physics. Source
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Dreaming Animals and Human Exceptionalism

abstractions, American Kennel Club, animals, bird song, birds, cats, cuttlefish, David M. Peña-Guzmán, dolphins, dreaming, horses, human exceptionalism, information, jumping spiders, learning, Life Sciences, memory, Neuroscience & Mind, rapid eye movement, sleep, Smithsonian Magazine, spiders, symbols, Teresa Iglesias, thought, whales
Researchers have detected something like REM (rapid eye movement) sleep — which is associated with dreaming in humans — in jumping spiders. Source
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Introducing the Unknome, Biology’s Black Box

23andMe, Advanced Biology, Alireza Mashaghi, biochemistry, biology, central dogma, Complexity, DNA transcripts, genetics, genome, genomics, Harvard University, information, Intelligent Design, interactome, Leiden University, Life Sciences, metabolites, metabolome, molecular biology, mouse, neurons, omics, protein unfolding, proteins, proteomics, Public Library of Science, Science (journal), transcriptome, transcriptomics, unknome, Unknown Genome Project
Biology is becoming overwhelmed by new vistas of dynamic complexity. Attempts to get a handle on this complexity has ushered in the era of Omics. Source
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A Theoretical Biologist’s Mission Impossible: Banish Teleology While Retaining Meaning

academic politics, Chemistry, consciousness, Darwinian evolution, DNA, Evolution, genes, genetic code, information, Intelligent Design, Marcello Barbieri, materialism, Meaning, natural selection, paradigm, physics, private truth, public truth, teleology, University of Ferrara
The nonsense will cease eventually. But eventually is a long way off, if Barbieri’s dilemma is any guide. Source
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