23Nov 2021 by Post

Lessons Not Learned from the Evangelical Debate over Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve, Ann Gauger, Annual Review of Genetics, apes, beta-globin, BioEssays, BioLogos, chimpanzees, Christianity, common ancestry, CRISPR, Dennis Venema, Evangelicals, Evolution, evolutionary theory, Faith & Science, functionality, Genealogical Adam and Eve, gorillas, hominids, Human Origins, In Quest of the Historical Adam, Intelligent Design, Jesus Christ, Joshua Swamidass, Junk DNA, Kenneth Miller, Kitzmiller v. Dover, macaques, methodological naturalism, microRNA response elements, Nature (journal), Nature Reviews Genetics, Ola Hössjer, Paul Nelson, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pseudogenes, RNA (journal), Science Signaling, Springer, Theist Evolution, theology, william lane craig
To his credit, William Lane Craig is among those evangelicals who have been willing to question arguments against Adam and Eve. Source
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26Oct 2021 by Post

Non-Darwinian Adaptive Radiation Proposed

Adaptive Radiation, Amy McDermott, biology, Brian Miller, Casey Luskin, cichlids, Daniel Rabosky, Darwinian evolution, Evolution, founder effect, Hawaii, Intelligent Design, Jae Young Choi, Junk DNA, Metrosideros, MIT, Neo-Darwinism, New Zealand, oceanic islands, Ole Seehausen, PNAS, Research, University of Michigan, Whitehead Institute, Yuan Yuan
Is it possible that adaptive radiation is falling out of the Darwin trophy cabinet? A new proposal sounds amenable to intelligent design. Source
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22Oct 2021 by Post

Forbidden Question: Common Descent or Common Design?

Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Cadillac, cars, Casey Luskin, chimpanzees, chromosome 2, common ancestor, common features, Elon Musk, Evolution, evolutionary biology, evolutionary tree, Francis Collins, fusion event, Genome Research, Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design, historical sciences, Intelligent Design, Junk DNA, Matti Leisola, Science and Human Origins, Stephen Meyer, Tesla, University of Cambridge
Think of cars. A Tesla and a Cadillac share many features — but of course, none of that means that Teslas blindly evolved from Cadillacs, or vice versa. Source
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18Oct 2021 by Post

The Tragedy of Francis Collins’s Model for Science-Faith Integration 

abortion, Bible, Casey Luskin, China, Christianity, Christianity Today, Culture & Ethics, Darwin Day in America, Darwinian evolution, Downs syndrome, Ed Stetzer, ENCODE, Evangelical Christians, Francis Collins, gain-of-function research, George W. Bush, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Witt, Junk DNA, Karl Giberson, Kenneth Miller, Mark Galli, Medicine, Michael Behe, Michael Carome, National Institutes of Health, Obama Administration, pastores, premature babies, professors, pundists, Science (journal), The Language of God, The New England Journal of Medicine, University of Alabama-Birmingham, vaccination
The depiction of Francis Collins as someone who has developed a good model for integrating faith and science is in many respects a tragic myth. Source
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08Oct 2021 by Post

Recalling Francis Collins’s The Language of God

Bill Clinton, Center for Science & Culture, China, COVID-19, Darwinian evolution, David French, ENCODE, Evolution, Faith & Science, Francis Collins, John West, Junk DNA, National Institutes of Health, proteins, Religion News Service, The Language of God, The Origin of Species, theology, vaccinations, Wuhan
President Bill Clinton announced, in a speech Collins helped to write, “we are learning the language in which God created life.” Source
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27Aug 2021 by Post

Why Systems Biologists Now Assume Life Is Optimally Designed

"poor design", bioinformatics, biological structures, biologists, biosphere, Dan Graur, ENCODE, engineers, Eva Balsa-Canto, Evolution, fitness landscape, human body, Human Errors, human genome, Intelligent Design, Julio R. Banga, Junk DNA, knee, Living with Darwin, Nathan Lents, Nikolaos Tsiantis, optimality, pelvis, Philip Kitcher, scientific materialism, teleology, whales, Wikipedia
Purported examples of poor design usually represent opinions resulting from armchair critics’ limited understanding of the technical literature. Source
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07Dec 2020 by Post

Excerpt: Letter to the Journal of Chemical Education

A Mousetrap for Darwin, biochemical pathways, Darwinian theory, Darwinism, DNA, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Journal of Chemical Education, Junk DNA, letter to the editor, molecular machinery, philosophy journals, polymerase, random mutation, science journals, Scientific American, Skeptics, students
Unlike philosophy journals — or high school newspapers — many science journals are unwilling to publish responses by people attacked in their pages. Source
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01May 2020 by Post

Paper Shows that “Mutational Load” Arguments Don’t Refute ENCODE

Atheism, Dan Graur, deleterious mutations, ENCODE, Evolution News, fitness, functional, genome, Genome Biology and Evolution, Intelligent Design, Junk DNA, molecular evolution, mutations, predictions, Science (journal), University of Houston
When the ENCODE project first proposed, on the basis of direct empirical research, that 80 percent of the genome may be biochemically functional, a huge prediction of intelligent design was fulfilled. Evolutionary biologists saw the writing on the wall and were quick to fight back. Perhaps one of ENCODE’s staunchest critics has been Dan Graur, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Houston. He argued in 2017 in the journal Genome, Biology and Evolution that ENCODE’s empirically based conclusions could not possibly be correct because “Mutational load considerations lead to the conclusion that the functional fraction within the human genome cannot exceed 15%.” What exactly is “mutational load”? Mutational load is based upon the principal that populations of organisms can only tolerate a certain number of deleterious mutations before they reach a critical level…
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