Science

Thanks to various live-bloggers, you can read summaries of all of the University of Chicago Darwin 2009 conference presentations. The conference organizers have also promised to make video podcasts available of all the lectures shortly. By contrast, what follows below is — as they say in sports television — color commentary. This will be a longer post, because much was said that calls for comment.

Bottom line: this was an outstanding conference, where any ID theorist would have enjoyed himself, and learned a lot, if he didn’t mind a bit of mocking laughter along the way.

Evolutionists have long sought mechanisms for the origin of reproductive barriers between populations, mechanisms which are thought to be key to the formation of new species. A recent article in ScienceDaily finds that “Junk DNA” might be the “mechanism that prevents two species from reproducing.” Basically, so-called “junk”-DNA is involved in helping to package chromosomes in the cell. If two species have different “junk” DNA, then this prevents the proteins in the egg from properly packaging the chromosomes donated by the sperm. The organism does not develop properly. As the article, titled “Junk DNA Mechanism That Prevents Two Species From Reproducing Discovered,” explains: during early development, the proteins required for cell division come from the mother. The researchers speculate that Read More ›

NewsBusters has a great interview with David Berlinski by Kevin Mooney, who praises The Deniable Darwin as “a series of mind-bending essays.” Proving once again that he is a skeptic’s skeptic, Dr. Berlinski addresses the lack of criticism in science: “In the U.S. you have the separation of powers that keeps different branches in check, but this is not true for science, where there is now a lot of corruption,” he observed. “Science needs its own critics. The same skepticism that is used in research now needs to be turned back onto science itself.” Dr. Berlinski’s essays go a long way toward rectifying this situation, while his observations and insights quickly reveal how ridiculous the anti-ID crowd can be: But Read More ›

Tuesday night at the Beverly Hills Library, with David Berlinski debating an atheist before a mixed crowd of friends and foes of religion, I experienced a lifetime first.

As a journalist writing about people and events, I’ve often had occasion to change or withhold someone’s name or otherwise disguise his identity. Almost always this is because the person in question never asked to be part of my story, is not a public personality and never sought to be, did nothing seriously blameworthy, but would be embarrassed by having his words or actions reported in public. So I don’t identify him. On Tuesday, listening to the debate, for the very first time in my experience I encountered a situation where someone was indeed seeking to make a name for himself but I felt nevertheless it would be cruel to give his name or institutional affiliation in my account of the event.

David Berlinski’s atheist opponent is that person. The poor guy! He was so hopelessly outgunned and outmanned as a thinker, debater, and speaker that I just can’t bring myself to give you his identity. He probably has his name on a Google Alert. Who doesn’t? Even it was entirely his free choice to put himself up again Berlinski in defense of his non-belief, I don’t have the heart to worsen his embarrassment.

The debate was sponsored by the tireless and infectiously enthusiastic Avi Davis of American Freedom Alliance. Dr. Berlinski spoke first and was, as ever, amazingly eloquent. He began by reframing what’s called the “Darwin debate” as something different. Rather than opposing sides in a conflict, for or against “Western civilization,” he generously portrayed the difference of views as an argument between passengers in a lifeboat on the open seas. Our civilization is a sinking boat on the ocean. We’re all, atheists, agnostics, and believers, trying to bail out the sorry craft. The argument is over how best to save all of us. There are no enemies here.

Berlinski went on to summarize Thomas Aquinas’ strong case for atheism and Aquinas’ own reply to that case. He spoke of the mysteries of existence, the origin of the universe, or matter and life, hardly stressing the case against Darwin at all. Afterward, in the Q&A, a questioner addressed him with hesitation: “Mr. Berlinski, you’re so eloquent it makes me pause before expressing myself publicly to you.”

Then the opponent got up. “I didn’t know we’d be talking about the origin of the universe,” he explained. “I would have studied more!”

This just gets better. Remember the International poll we highlighted earlier this week? British Darwinists, confused by the results (You mean our constant barrage of DARWIN RULZ msgs aren’t convincing anyone?), has taken to that old defense mechanism every psychologist knows too well: projection. That’s it! They must be confused about Darwin’s theory. After all, “scientific wording” like “intelligent design” tricks people into thinking what they couldn’t possibly think after all the money we’ve spent on advertising Darwin’s awesomeness.I almost wish they didn’t make it this easy: Surprisingly, this percentage [of support for teaching alternative theories] was higher than in the US — a comparative bastion of religious fundamentalism — and Egypt, where only a third as many people dissented Read More ›

The science writer Carl Zimmer posted an invited reply on his blog from Joseph Thornton of the University of Oregon to my recent comments about Thornton’s work. This is the last of four posts addressing it. References appear at the bottom of this post.

At the end of his post Thornton waxes wroth.

Behe’s argument has no scientific merit. It is based on a misunderstanding of the fundamental processes of molecular evolution and a failure to appreciate the nature of probability itself. There is no scientific controversy about whether natural processes can drive the evolution of complex proteins. The work of my research group should not be misintepreted by those who would like to pretend that there is.

Well, now. I’ll leave it to the reader of my previous replies to Thornton to decide whether she thinks they have scientific merit, and whether it is I or he who misunderstands the disputed facets of molecular evolution. As for “the nature of probability itself” and “no scientific controversy,” I will briefly address those here.

A Colorado group is the target of malicious computer hackers in what appears to be a coordinated attempt to suppress information about an upcoming conference on Darwin and intelligent design in Colorado. Earlier this month the Shepherd Project Ministries website was breached using a “brute force attack” to break the password. The hackers then deleted webpages containing information about an upcoming conference featuring Discovery Institute speakers Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and John West. “No question whatsoever about they were targeting,” said Shepherd Project Executive Director Craig Smith. “That was brazen. We were a little stunned, to be perfectly honest. We had seen some hostile language about the conference, but honestly we just assumed it was cyber-flaming. We didn’t Read More ›

After having the premier of Darwin’s Dilemma canceled by the California Science Center, Avi Davis’s American Freedom Alliance really pulled things together in heroic fashion in Los Angeles. The AFA found a new venue, hardly inferior, where academic freedom may be less endangered: the University of Southern California. The sizable crowd on Sunday night of about 230 people was appreciative and intelligent. There were university students representing both sides of the Darwin debate, high school students from a church school in Santa Monica on a field trip, and a mix of other folks from the community.

The film is a powerful document. The word that came to my mind watching it was “spooky.” Besides very lucidly and compellingly laying out its scientific case that the Cambrian explosion can’t be remotely explained in Darwinian terms, and that the event 530 million years ago virtually compels a conclusion that purposive design was involved, I was struck by the atmosphere of mystery that director Lad Allen evokes. What does explain the sudden appearance of most animal body plans in a space of maybe 5 to 10 million years? The film quotes Richard Dawkins unarguable statement that, “Without gradualness in these cases, we are back to a miracle, which is simply a synonym for the total absence of explanation.”

Allen, David Berlinski, and Jonathan Wells all spoke afterwards on a discussion panel. The inimitable Berlinski, the William F. Buckley of Darwin doubters, was in fine form, at one point amusingly decapitating a rambling student challenge from the audience with the concise answer, “No.” I also loved his insight that the ugliness of the results of the Darwinian idea, its effects on our culture, are far from irrelevant in judging the idea’s truth. This is another one of Darwin’s dilemmas. Berlinski cited Keats, “‘Truth is truth, beauty truth,’ — that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” No, he pointed out, you can’t separate the consequences of Darwinian theory from its truth. Beauty may well be an aspect of truth.

Heady stuff, but Berlinski brought it down to earth the next morning in the studio of Dennis Miller in Culver City here, discussing the new paperback edition of The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretentions. The last segment included David’s very funny riff on how a cow-like creature could take to the seas as a proto-whale, per the Darwinian just-so story, including the challenge of developing nipples that work underwater. Miller took up the nipple image and developed it in a manner that I’m not sure belongs on a blog intended for all the family, but was very entertaining nevertheless.

The science writer Carl Zimmer posted an invited reply on his blog from Joseph Thornton of the University of Oregon to my recent comments about Thornton’s work. This is the third of several posts addressing it. References will appear in the last post.

Now back to Thornton’s first point, the role of neutral mutations (which he sometimes labels “permissive” mutations). At several places in his post Thornton implies I’m unaware of the possibilities opened up by genetic drift:

Behe’s discussion of our 2009 paper in Nature is a gross misreading because it ignores the importance of neutral pathways in protein evolution…. Behe’s first error is to ignore the fact that adaptive combinations of mutations can and do evolve by pathways involving neutral intermediates…. As Fig. 4 in our paper shows, there are several pathways back to the ancestral sequence that pass only through steps that are neutral or beneficial with respect to the protein’s functions.

My interest in evolution by neutral mutation, however, is a matter of public record. It is an old idea that if a gene for a protein duplicates (3), then multiple mutations can accumulate in a neutral fashion in the “spare” gene copy, even if those mutations would be severely deleterious if they occurred in a single-copy gene. Four years ago David Snoke and I wrote a paper entitled “Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues” (4) where we investigated aspects of that scenario. The bottom line is that, although by assumption of the model anything is possible, when evolution must pass through multiple neutral steps the wind goes out of Darwinian sails, and a drifting voyage can take a very, very long time indeed. But don’t just take my word for it — listen to Professor Thornton (1):