Physical Sciences

CSC research director Jay Richards takes aim at the latest pronouncement from Stephen Hawking today at The American: Stephen Hawking declared that our understanding of physics proves God did not create the universe. Is he right? Stephen Hawking holds the chair of mathematics at Cambridge University once held by Sir Isaac Newton. So when he declared that our understanding of physics shows that God did not create the universe, it was bound to get attention. Summarizing the thesis of his new book, The Grand Design (co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow), Hawking announced: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why Read More ›

FoxNews recently published two articles (see here and here) about extrasolar planets and extraterrestrial life. Although skepticism is supposed to be a hallmark of science, one evolutionary scientist quoted, Steven Vogt, boasts that he has “no doubt” that there is life on this newly discovered extrasolar planet: “Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent,” said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during a press briefing today. “I have almost no doubt about it.” Let me make sure I understand this right. Dr. Vogt has “almost no Read More ›

New Scientist is reporting: “Last month, a team of astronomers announced the discovery of the first alien world that could host life on its surface. Now a second team can find no evidence of the planet, casting doubt on its existence.”

Discovery Senior Fellow Bruce Gordon was recently published in The Washington Times calling Stephen Hawking’s message that God is not necessary to create the universe “a matter more of fiery sentiment than of coolheaded logic“: Mr. Hawking asserts that “as recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” But “spontaneous creation” minus any cause illustrates the lack of an explanation rather than scientific comprehension. It also runs counter to a question Mr. Hawking Read More ›

Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press is reporting that astronomers have discovered an extrasolar planet in the “goldilocks” zone of its star. That is, the planet appears to be in the circumstellar habitable zone where water can persist at liquid temperatures on its surface. The planet, named Gliese 581g, is a mere 20 light years away from Earth.

The article is referring to the circumstellar habitable zone, though presumably it is also in the galactic habitable zone since it’s so close to Earth. That means that Gliese 581g may have two of the major factors needed to make a planet hospitable to life.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen hundreds of reports like this, so I now read them with a bit of skepticism. For the last fifteen years, we’ve been hearing about supposedly Earth-like planets around other stars. The headline is so common that even Borenstein, in an otherwise breathless articles, admits: “Scientists have jumped the gun before on proclaiming that planets outside our solar system were habitable only to have them turn out to be not quite so conducive to life.”

Reached today for comment about Stephen Hawking’s new book, the Universe said that Professor Hawking should receive no credit for the ideas. “You humans naively assume that ‘physicists’ exist, who discover theories,” said the Universe. “But I did it all. Me. The transitory entity known to you as ‘Stephen Hawking’ is merely an epiphenomenon of the laws of nature, otherwise known as Me, the Universe itself. Mindless physical stuff, the only thing that ever really existed, or ever will exist.” “Hawking, and that other guy — what’s his face, Dawkins — have been stealing my royalties for years. I’ve got some lawyers working on that.” “Anyway, I don’t know why Hawking and Dawkins, or Harris and Dennett and the rest Read More ›

Advocates of intelligent design have long been skeptical of the claim that the majority of our genome is nonfunctional gibberish, a mere relic of our evolutionary past. Many of the key arguments for common ancestry are based around the supposition that certain loci of our genome are functionless. But the gaps in our knowledge of the genome (in which such supposition resides) are continually shrinking.

A recent paper published in Science by Kondo et al. reported on the discovery that some of the supposed “non-coding” regions of the RNA transcript actually actively encode for short peptides that regulate genes involved in Drosophila development.

According to the Abstract,

A substantial proportion of eukaryotic transcripts are considered to be noncoding RNAs because they contain only short open reading frames (sORFs). Recent findings suggest, however, that some sORFs encode small bioactive peptides. Here, we show that peptides of 11 to 32 amino acids encoded by the polished rice (pri) sORF gene control epidermal differentiation in Drosophila by modifying the transcription factor Shavenbaby (Svb). Pri peptides trigger the amino-terminal truncation of the Svb protein, which converts Svb from a repressor to an activator. Our results demonstrate that during Drosophila embryogenesis, Pri sORF peptides provide a strict temporal control to the transcriptional program of epidermal morphogenesis.

I have no reason to believe that the acclaimed physicist Roger Penrose supports intelligent design. But he’s definitely not afraid to take on critics of the argument for fine-tuning. In the video below, he explains that the fine-tuning of the initial entropy of the universe is this precise:

It’s the question raised by yesterday’s New York Times article on the push for balance in classroom discussions of global warming, though, as Jay Richards aptly notes over at The American, the real point of Leslie Kaufman’s story is “to connect the teaching of evolution to the climate change debate.”

Now when I read anything on the environment in the New York Times, I try to keep a couple of deconstructionist qualifiers running in the back of my head: “This is what the New York Times wants me to believe about the issue” and “What are they trying to accomplish with this piece?” I know it’s cynical, but when it comes to environmental stories, I just don’t trust New York Times reporters to keep it straight.

Some things they want to accomplish with this piece:

(1) Divide and conquer skeptics of global warming orthodoxy and Darwinism, by painting the latter as ignorant religious zealots, in hopes of starting a fight among conservatives. No doubt they’re hoping that, say, Richard Lindzen will have to explain why he agrees with those nefarious creationists on the global warming issue, and that he’ll have to spend his time issuing statements of agreement with evolution.

(2) Make it harder for official bodies to encourage critical thinking on global warming, since attempts to do the same with regard to evolution have, in recent years, met with fierce resistance and only modest success.

This is the media analysis required with today’s journalism, though I would call it prudent rather than cynical.
Richards goes on to consider how the debate over evolution and the debate over climate change are alike — and how they differ:

It seems that climate scientists aren’t just nasty and unprofessional in emails. Dr. Andrew Watson, a leading climate scientist from the scandal-plagued School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, appeared December 4th on BBC’s Newsnight program with global warming skeptic Marc Morano. Morano, who runs the superb Climate Depot site, took Watson to task for his denial of the scandal that has rocked the Climate Research Unit at Watson’s university. Watson, who bears an amusing resemblance to Richard Dawkins, clearly was not accustomed to vigorous questions from his lessers, and appeared angry, defensive, and arrogant. At the close of the interview, after telling Mornao to “shut up” and still on live television, Professor Watson commented “What an Read More ›