Anika Smith

Over at Biologic Institute, Director Douglas Axe highlights a new paper that brings clarity to the origin of life debate. The paper’s title is a diplomatic statement of its main conclusion: Lack of evolvability in self-sustaining autocatalytic networks constrains metabolism-first scenarios for the origin of life. It becomes clear on reading the paper that the word constrains is here being used euphemistically Dr. Axe explains what this means for Darwinian explanations of the origin of life. At the time, my work was focusing on the profound differences between the simple catalysis caused by small molecules and the elaborately orchestrated and stunningly efficient catalysis achieved by enzymes–the catalysts of life. Kauffman was equating complexity with the sheer numbers of chemical species Read More ›

It’s that time of year! ID the Future just kicked off a series of podcasts for Academic Freedom Week, taking a look back over the academic freedom stories in the media last year and a look ahead to the current struggles for academic freedom in the debate over evolution and intelligent design. Leading off was today’s interview of ARN Executive Director Dennis Wagner, who discussed with Casey Luskin the expelling of Ben Stein from the University of Vermont, the censorship of Michael Behe’s Bloggingheads.tv interview, and the lawsuit against the California Science Center over their cancellation of the pro-ID film, Darwin’s Dilemma. Stay tuned to the entire series of podcasts this week at IDtheFuture.com.

Florida has all the fun. Fresh on the heels of the Signature in the Cell event in Tampa, we have learned from our friends at the C. S. Lewis Society that Discovery Senior Fellow David Berlinski will be speaking at a couple events this week, including “The Deniable Darwin: Has Science Buried Religion?” this Thursday, Feb 4th at 3:30 pm. The presentation will take place at Florida International University’s Graham Center Room 140. Following that, there will be Darwin vs. Design “Pizza Bash” featuring Dr. Berlinski and Dr. Tom Woodward this Saturday: Pizza Kick-off: On Saturday, Feb 6th at 6:00 pm, at the First Alliance Church of Ft. Lauderdale (900 SW 31st Ave.) Dr. Tom Woodward and the C. S. Read More ›

Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell is stirring up a thoughtful debate over at Biologos’ blog, Science and the Sacred, where Darrel Falk and Francisco Ayala both reviewed Meyer’s book. Today, Meyer’s response to Falk is posted: In 1985, I attended a conference that brought a fascinating problem in origin-of-life biology to my attention–the problem of explaining how the information necessary to produce the first living cell arose. At the time, I was working as a geophysicist doing digital signal processing, a form of information analysis and technology. A year later, I enrolled in graduate school at the University of Cambridge, where I eventually completed a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science after doing interdisciplinary research on the scientific and Read More ›

Discovery Institute is proud to announce a series of Academic Freedom Day events at the University of Arkansas happening on February 11 (Darwin Day Eve!). First, there’s a free screening of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed starring Ben Stein. Q & A about the movie with Casey Luskin, Program Officer in Public Policy and Legal Affairs at Discovery Institute, will follow. Time: 5 pmLocation: University of Arkansas Union TheatreFollowing that is a lecture, “The Positive Scientific Case for Intelligent Design and Why it’s being Expelled from Academia,” by Casey Luskin. Time: 7 pmLocation: University of Arkansas Union Theatre

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is now available on DVD in the United Kingdom in a newly expanded edition with 44 minutes of never-before-seen interviews.Interest in intelligent design is growing in Britain. Earlier this month, Stephen Meyer, who appears in Expelled, defended both the film and ID in a debate with atheist Peter Atkins, which you can listen to here. The “Bad Boy UK Version” promises to be a hit in a market that has been dominated by the likes of Richard Dawkins, whose appearance in the film and startling admission that intelligent design exists — coming from aliens, of course — might raise a few eyebrows in his native land.What’s the old saying about prophets and honor in their homeland?

SEATTLE — “Darwin’s attempt to explain the origins of all the magnificent species in the living world in terms of the struggle for survival is easily the dumbest idea ever taken seriously by science,” writes Dr. Granville Sewell in his new book In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design published by Discovery Institute Press.

What do you get when you add together the big bang, the fine-tuning of the laws of physics and the evolution of life? Definitely not a materialistic theory of origins, answers Sewell, a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas El Paso.

In this wide-ranging collection of essays, Sewell concludes that while there is much in the history of life that seems to suggest natural causes, there is little evidence to support Charles Darwin’s idea that natural selection of random variations can explain major evolutionary advances.

Fresh on the heels of Darwin Year, Discovery Institute announces the launch of the 2nd Annual Academic Freedom Day in honor of Charles Darwin’s birthday, February 12, 2010.

Yes, it’s that time of year again, and Discovery Institute is gearing up for the celebration by supporting what Darwin supported: academic freedom.

Academic Freedom Day couldn’t come at a better time, as academic freedom is threatened around the country. We have seen Darwinists launch cyber attacks on a pro-ID conference website in Colorado and engage in an illegal coverup in the censorship of a pro-ID film in California.
It’s time like these when Darwin’s own words should instruct everyone on how to have an open and honest debate over evolution and intelligent design.

Signature in the Cell continues to stir up debate and attract attention as Thomas Nagel’s selection of SITC as one of the Books of the Year brought on an interesting series of letters, where Nagel was attacked (he responded, and he was attacked again) by a Darwinist who told people forgo reading SITC and instead just read Wikipedia.

This week, author Stephen Meyer himself responds in a letter, with a shortened version published yesterday. (Nagel himself responded with a letter that is published on the same page by TLS.) Below is Meyer’e letter in its entirety.

To the Editor
The Times Literary Supplement
Natural Selection and the Origin of Biological Information

I’ve been honored by the recent attention my book Signature in the Cell has received in your letters section following Thomas Nagel’s selection of it as one of your books of the year for 2009.

Unfortunately, the letters from Stephen Fletcher criticizing Professor Nagel for his choice give no evidence of Dr. Fletcher having read the book or any evidence of his comprehending the severity of the central problem facing chemical evolutionary theories of life’s origin.

In Signature in the Cell, I show that, in the era of modern molecular genetics, explaining the origin of the first life requires–first and foremost–explaining the origin of the information or digital code present in DNA and RNA. I also show that various theories of undirected chemical evolution–including theories of pre-biological natural selection–fail to explain the origin of the information necessary to produce the first self-replicating organism.

Yet, in his letters to the TLS (2 and 16 December), Stephen Fletcher rebukes Nagel (and by implication my book) for failing to acknowledge that “natural selection is a chemical as well as a biological process.” Fletcher further asserts that this process accounts for the origin of DNA and (presumably) the genetic information it contains.

Not only does my book address this very proposal at length, but it also demonstrates why theories of pre-biotic natural selection involving self-replicating RNA catalysts–the version of the idea that Fletcher affirms–fail to account for the origin of genetic information.

Indeed, either Dr. Fletcher is bluffing or he is himself ignorant of the many problems that this proposal faces.

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