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Evolution

Michael Behe’s Critics Misunderstand Irreducible Complexity and Make Darwinian Evolution Unfalsifiable

It seems that Boudry, Blancke and Braekman misunderstand both Behe's argument and the nature of the scientific process: the fact that a theory (in this case, Darwinism) can be saved from refutation by proposing wildly speculative and unfalsifiable scenarios does not mean that theory holds merit. Read More ›

Has Francis Collins Changed His Mind On “Junk DNA”?

The discoveries of the past decade, little known to most of the public, have completely overturned much of what used to be taught in high school biology. If you thought the DNA molecule comprised thousands of of genes but far more "junk DNA," think again. Read More ›

Stephen Hawking’s Materialist Logic: “We Don’t Understand How Life Formed,” but It “Must Have Spontaneously Generated Itself”

In a documentary from the Discovery Channel on the search for extraterrestrial life, Stephen Hawking provides an extraordinarily candid example of the fallacious materialist logic for why extraterrestrial life “must” be possible. Around 1:15 of the clip below, Hawking states: The life we have on earth must have spontaneously generated itself. It must therefore be possible for life to be generated spontaneously elsewhere in the universe. The gaping hole in Hawking’s logic should be immediately apparent to anyone willing to think critically and skeptically: If we haven’t yet explained how life could have spontaneously generated on earth, how do we know that it can be generated spontaneously elsewhere in the universe? What makes Hawking’s position even worse is that in Read More ›

Does the New Scientific Evidence About the Origin of Life Put an End to Darwinian Evolution?

The John Ankerberg Show will launch this weekend a multi-part series examining the science behind origin of life theories and featuring Dr. Stephen C. Meyer. In four television programs beginning Sunday night, Feb. 27th at 9 PM EST on Daystar and Sky Angel at 11 PM EST across the US and over 200 nations worldwide, join Dr. John Ankerberg as he interviews Dr. Meyer. Go here for a full schedule for both cable and local channels. On this week’s first program: Every person’s body consists of over a trillion cells. Almost every one of these cells includes a DNA molecule. What is DNA? Why is it so special? What does it do? Where did the digital code embedded in DNA Read More ›

Does “Speedy Evolution” of PCB Resistance Help Darwinism?

While the NYT commentators may want the uninitiated reader to come away with the impression that this is an impressive feat which has been accomplished by the Darwinian mechanism, the original paper tells a very different story. Read More ›

Butterfly Mimicry: A “Huge” Problem for Evolutionary Biology

Can Darwinian evolution explain the complex coloration patterns found in insects that led to biomimicry? According to an article published late last year in BioScience, Darwinian evolution faces “problems” that are “huge” when trying to account for the origin of biomimicry in butterflies: The balance of Dazzled and Deceived focuses on the genetics and development of mimetic patterns, as revealed mostly through work with butterflies. The problems here are huge for evolutionary biologists. How does natural selection build a complex organism with all its integrated parts through fixation of random mutations? Butterfly mimicry has been a classic arena in which to tackle this problem precisely because the gambit is so obvious: To be a good mimic of another species requires Read More ›

Nature Publishes Paper Critical of Ardi’s Status as Human Evolutionary Ancestor

A new paper in the journal Nature, authored by paleoanthropologists Bernard Wood and Terry Harrison and titled “The evolutionary context of the first hominins,” is critical of the claim that Ardipithecus ramidus (“Ardi”) was a bipedal ancestor of modern humans. In 2009, the journal Science devoted an entire issue to introducing Ardi and promoting it as a likely human ancestor. It seems that Nature is in something of a rivalry with Science now that it has published this authoritative paper. When constructing phylogenetic trees, evolutionary biologists generally seek to minimize homoplasy, or instances of convergent evolution. Wood and Harrison observe that the problem for Ardi is that if she is on the human line, then there must be high levels Read More ›

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