Mystery of Life’s Origin — Intelligent Design’s Original Edition, Greatly Expanded, on Sale Now!

abiogenesis, Alfred Russel Wallace, Allan Bloom, Anaxagoras, Brian Miller, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Charles Thaxton, chemical evolution, Claude Shannon, Dean Kenyon, DNA, Erasmus Darwin, Frankenstein, galvanism, Guillermo Gonzalez, Harvard University, Hubert Yockey, Intelligent Design, James Tour, Jonathan Wells, Joseph Hooker, Leslie Orgel, Lord Byron, Louis Pasteur, Luigi Galvani, Mary Shelley, Michael Polanyi, Miller-Urey experiment, origin of life, Percy Shelley, Plato, Reijer Hooykaas, RNA, Roger L. Olsen, San Francisco State University, Shannon information, Signature in the Cell, Socrates, spaghetti, specified complexity, Stephen Meyer, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, The Return of the God Hypothesis, uniformitarianism, Walter Bradley, William Dembski
Editor’s note: We are delighted today to offer a new book from Discovery Institute Press, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: The Continuing Controversy, a greatly expanded and updated version of the book that, in 1984, launched the intelligent design movement. The following is excerpted from Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer’s historical introduction to the work. Other brand new chapters on the “continuing controversy” about the origin of life are by chemist James Tour, physicist Brian Miller, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, biologist Jonathan Wells, and philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer. How does life emerge from that which is not alive? This mystery exercises a peculiar fascination, with the power to elicit remarkable feats of imagination. As the novelist Mary Shelley recalled, her invention of the story of Frankenstein traced back…
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Science Says: Evolution Explains the Appeal of Baby Yoda

Alison Gopnik, anthropology, baby, Baby Yoda, cheeks, elephants, Evolution, giant squid, Human Origins, Intelligent Design, Internet, Judith Burkart, newspaper, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, plumpness, puppies, Sarah Hrdy, storytelling, television, The Mandalorian, Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal’s weekend edition has many more opinion and “think” pieces and other soft news than the weekday version. In the mix, they almost never fail to include an article praising evolution. This is so consistent that I wonder if it’s a deliberate editorial policy. Sure enough: in last Saturday’s paper, Alison Gopnik exclaims, “Humans Evolved to Love Baby Yoda.” Well, evolution explains everything, so why wouldn’t it explain why TV viewers are going gaga for the munchkin-like character in The Mandalorian series. Primed as you are by years of having read similar articles by science writers, no doubt you are getting ready for an exercise in evolutionary storytelling. There will be a clever reference to pop culture, a citation of an article from a science journal and…
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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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ID Inquiry: Robert J. Marks on Information and Intelligent Design

Evolution, ID The Future, information, Intelligent Design, Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, Podcast, Robert J. Marks, scholars, scientists, Walter Bradley Center
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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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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Dallas Conference Youth Track — Intelligent Design for Kids

"survival of the fittest", biology, Center for Science & Culture, Charles Darwin, Charles Thaxton, Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, Daniel Reeves, Darwin Devolves, Discovery Institute Press, Douglas Axe, fitness, high school, Intelligent Design, intermediate school, John West, Michael Behe, middle school, molecular machines, nanotechnology, purpose, Roger Olsen, Stephen Meyer, teleology, The Borg, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Undeniable, Walter Bradley, Westminster Conference
I know that my own children, who are of middle and high school ages, have a rather, shall we say, incomplete understanding of the theory of intelligent design. Why would that be, considering that their dad is immersed in the subject? Well, in part because the science is challenging and the books for the most part are not written with kids, even smart kids, in mind. Nor are many of the lectures and videos you can listen to or watch.  Parents have brought this fact to our attention. So at last year’s Westminster Conference, in Philadelphia, we experimented with a separate youth track. It was such a wonderful success that we are doing the same thing at this month’s Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, January 25 in Denton, TX.…
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Dallas Conference Will Unveil Intelligent Design’s Original Edition

Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence, Brian Miller, Charles Thaxton, Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, Daniel Reeves, Darwin's Doubt, Discovery Institute Press, Douglas Axe, Faith & Science, Guillermo Gonzalez, Intelligent Design, James Tour, Jonathan Wells, Michael Behe, origin of life, original edition, Paul Nelson, Roger Olsen, Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Walter Bradley, William Dembski
We are just a couple of weeks out from the 2020 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith, Saturday, January 25 in Denton, TX. Until today, though, we have withheld one important piece of information about the event: it will be the launch of a wonderful new book from Discovery Institute Press. Actually, it’s an updated, expanded edition of a classic: The Mystery of Life’s Origin: The Continuing Controversy, the 1984 Ur-text or original edition of the modern theory of intelligent design, now with new supplementary essays by scholars extending the work. This is very exciting for us because the three co-authors, biochemist Charles Thaxton, materials scientist Walter Bradley, and geochemist Roger Olsen, will all be on hand for a panel discussion. To Spark a Debate The new edition includes the…
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Forty Parameters of the Designed Body

equilibrium, Goldilocks principle, Howard Glicksman, human body, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, Leonardo da Vinci, Life Sciences, Podcast, Steve Laufmann, Tod Butterfield, Vitruvian Man
On a classic episode of ID the Future, host Tod Butterfield interviews Steve Laufmann about Dr. Howard Glicksman’s 81-part Evolution News series, “The Designed Body.” Mr. Laufmann is a consultant in the field of enterprise architecture, dealing with the design of very large, very complex, composite information systems that are orchestrated to perform specified tasks in demanding environments. Hey, that sounds like the human body! Listen in as Laufmann reflects on the body’s fight against equilibrium, the Goldilocks principle, and more! Download the podcast or listen to it here. Image: Vitruvian Man, by Leonardo da Vinci [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. The post Forty Parameters of the Designed Body appeared first on Evolution News.
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Care for Appetizers? Electric Proteins, Spidey Sense, and More

anatomy, appetizers, Arizona State University, Barry Scott, Biomimetics, centipedes, cilia, electricity, electron transport, gene repression, genes, genomes, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Joubert syndrome, Junk DNA, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massey University, materials science, metabolism, Michael Behe, miRNA, orb webs, photosynthesis, physiology, Siam News, sliders, spiders, Stuart Lindsey, swimming, Tohoku University, University of North Carolina, University of Otago, X-ray crystallography, Zheng-Yi Chen
Welcome to the second day of the New Year! Like tasty sliders, these short news stories should get the juices flowing for big developments in 2020. Electric Proteins Dr. Stuart Lindsey at Arizona State University is an expert in single-molecule dynamics in biomolecules. Older methods of observing protein structure, such as X-ray crystallography, only gave single snapshots of the highly dynamic world, he says, where proteins rapidly change conformations and interact in complex ways. Electron transport has been well known in the cases of photosynthesis and metabolism. But a few years ago, his team was astonished to find that a run-of-the-mill protein conducted electricity. The protein was acting like a wire! Further observations revealed that all proteins conduct electricity — even the ones that had “weren’t designed to do this”—…
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#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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