Science and Culture Today Discovering Design in Nature
Month

September 2023

Wallace notebooks
Wallace notebooks
Photo: Wallace's notebooks, at the Linnean Society, London, by John Cummings / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0).

Alfred Russel Wallace’s Case for an “Overruling Intelligence”

When Wallace broke with Charles Darwin in 1869, it was over the nature of human beings. Read More ›
miguel-bruna-qKlUdr1qOR8-unsplash
Photo credit: Unsplash.

A Paradigm Crisis for Physicalism

This crisis has converged with two other currents of change with the surprising result that alternatives to physicalism are now taken seriously. Read More ›
Mustang
Image credit: Photos by Clark, via Flickr (cropped).

Paper Digest: Application of Animal Forms in Auto Styling

The preeminence of design in nature and the utility of mimicking natural designs is a concept championed by the intelligent design community. Read More ›
ichthyosaur
Photo: Replica of birthing ichthyosaur fossil, Stephen O'Connor via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fossil Friday: Ichthyosaur Birth, Another Evolutionist Just-So Story Falls Apart

This is not how good science is supposed to work but is rather typical for pseudoscience that shields itself against empirical falsification. Read More ›
chicken embryo
embryonic development
Photo: Chicken embryo, by Ben Skála (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Life Without Purpose — The Fundamental Flaw

The fundamental flaw in the conventional approach to understanding life is that we think we can fully understand the whole by looking at the individual parts. Read More ›
Tripedalia cystophora
Photo: tk, by Jan Bielecki, Alexander K. Zaharoff, Nicole Y. Leung, Anders Garm, Todd H. Oakley(altered), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Can a Brainless Jellyfish Learn? How About Individual Cells? Do Molecules Communicate?

Cells are intelligent, in a way. But that fact is a much better argument for intelligent design than for the idea that the human intellect is insignificant. Read More ›
2012-namaqua-sandgrouse-male 2
Photo credit: Yathin sk, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Four Troublesome Trend Lines for Evolution

Taken as a totality, they make “zero sense in the context” of classic evolutionary theory. Read More ›
headache
Photo credit: Sander Sammy via Unsplash.

Another Headache for the RNA World Theory

Before a trial and error process like natural selection can even get started, self-replicating molecules must have a minimal accuracy rate. Read More ›
Tower-of-Babel
Image: Tower of Babel, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, via Wikimedia Commons.

Jay Richards on Babel, Berlinski, and “Science After Darwin”

Something really came undone in the Covid era. Now, the phrase “science says” or “doctors say” prompts a smirk from about half the population.  Read More ›
light dimmer
Photo credit: A light dimmer, by Betsssssy, via Flickr (cropped).

Former “Junk DNA,” STRs Found to Be “Rheostats” that “Precisely Regulate Gene Expression”

Rheostats are “often used as power control devices, for example to control light intensity (dimmer), speed of motors, heaters, and ovens.” Read More ›

© Discovery Institute