Science and Culture Today | Page 1191 | Discovering Design in Nature

The 2011 edition of Ken Miller textbook Biology states, “Similar patterns of embryological development provide further evidence that organisms have descended from a common ancestor.” (p. 469) But what happens when supposedly similar types of organisms have very different patterns of embryological development? Would that count as evidence against common ancestry? In fact, researchers are finding striking differences in the development of vertebrates. A recent ScienceDaily release from November 30, 2010, “Marsupial Embryo Jumps Ahead in Development,” states: Duke University researchers have found that the developmental program executed by the marsupial embryo runs in a different order than the program executed by virtually every other vertebrate animal. “The limbs are at a different place in the entire timeline,” said Anna Read More ›

In a peer-reviewed paper titled “Evidence of Design in Bird Feathers and Avian Respiration,” in International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics, Leeds University professor Andy McIntosh argues that two systems vital to bird flight–feathers and the avian respiratory system–exhibit “irreducible complexity.” The paper describes these systems using the exact sort of definitions that Michael Behe uses to describe irreducible complexity: [F]unctional systems, in order to operate as working machines, must have all the required parts in place in order to be effective. If one part is missing, then the whole system is useless. The inference of design is the most natural step when presented with evidence such as in this paper, that is evidence concerning avian feathers and Read More ›

In my last post I reported that University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, who had critiqued my recent Quarterly Review of Biology article concerning laboratory evolution studies of the last four decades and what they show us about evolution, had asked several other prominent scientists for comments. I replied to those of experimental evolutionary biologist John Bull. In a subsequent post Coyne discussed a recent paper by the group of fellow University of Chicago biologist Manyuan Long on gene duplication in fruitflies. After a bit of delay due to the holidays, I will comment on that here.

Try as one might to keep Darwinists focused on the data, some can’t help reverting to their favorite trope: questioning Darwinism simply must be based on religion. Unfortunately Professor Coyne succumbs to this. Introducing his blog post he writes:

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A 2009 peer-reviewed scientific paper by David Abel in International Journal of Molecular Sciences titled “The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity” asks, “If all known life depends upon genetic instructions, how was the first linear digital prescriptive genetic information generated by natural process?” The author does not consider himself per se a proponent of intelligent design, and warns materialists that there is an easy solution to the challenges posed by intelligent design: “To stem the growing swell of Intelligent Design intrusions, it is imperative that we provide stand-alone natural process evidence of non trivial self-organization at the edge of chaos. We must demonstrate on sound scientific grounds the formal capabilities of naturally-occurring physicodynamic complexity.” However, while the author notes that Read More ›

Whenever the old stream media report on someone who is supposedly “conservative” but who nevertheless agrees with them, you can be pretty sure a snow job is coming.

On January 6, Neela Banerjee reported (in the Seattle Times and elsewhere) about conservative scientists who nevertheless . . . wait for it . . . believe in climate change. Wow! (Of course, “believe in climate change” is the confusing euphemism for believing that we are catastrophically altering the natural climate — which always changes — and that the only solutions involve increasing the power of the federal government and the UN. But never mind that for now.)

Banerjee tells us about scientists, such as “politically conservative” Kerry Emanuel, from MIT, and various evangelical and Mormon scientists who believe that we’re harming the global climate and that a political solution is needed.

Proponents of evolutionary theory assume that human beings as well as every other living creature evolved through natural selection. They theorize that humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor and cite various archeological examples of possible pre-homo sapiens in hopes of filling in the missing links leading up to today’s version of human. Evolutionary biologists, therefore, tend to look towards the past to find confirming evidence of what they presume to be true, humans evolved. Transhumanists, on the other hand, tend to look forward to a day when, though the assistance of technology, a new species of human will evolve. As Nick Bostrom, one of the major spokespersons for the transhumanism movement, writes, “After the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), it became increasingly plausible to view the current version of humanity not as the endpoint of evolution but rather as an early phase” (“A History of Transhumanist Thought” Bostrom, Nick originally published in Journal of Evolution and Technology vol 14, issue 1, April 2005).

This is not a blog about foreign affairs, but I came across a refreshing and illuminating piece on the New Republic website that, in the context of talking about Islam and terrorism, suggested to me a reason for hope in the Darwin debate. In the current culture of science, where the 19th-century materialist Church of Science rules and the congregation bows obediently, what’s needed is a modernizing reformation. Doubts about Darwinism are part of that. We can draw a parallel to past reformations in the religious sphere, and future ones. Most of us in the West agree, for example, that Islam urgently requires a reformation. Some observers see radical Islamism not as the leading edge in Muslim life — that Read More ›

A recent blog post here at ENV by Michael Egnor, “Why Doesn’t the NCSE Have an Atheism Project?,” stated that “for quite a while; people of faith have long been the target of NCSE litigation.” To be fair to the NCSE, I don’t think that Egnor’s statement is exactly accurate; however, the truth is probably just as bad, or worse. It would be more accurate to say that the NCSE targets people who adhere to a certain purported faith and has eagerly supported litigation against those people. Part III (A) of my law review article from last year, “Zeal for Darwin’s House Consumes Them: How Supporters of Evolution Encourage Violations of the Establishment Clause,” provides some documentation on this: NCSE Read More ›

Doug Axe of Biologic Institute has a new peer-reviewed scientific paper in the journal BIO-Complexity titled “The Limits of Complex Adaptation: An Analysis Based on a Simple Model of Structured Bacterial Populations.” The purpose of this paper is to mathematically determine just how long it takes to evolve traits that require multiple mutations before any adaptive benefit is conferred on the organism. To put this question in context, the ability of Darwinian evolution to produce features that require multiple mutations before gaining a benefit has been an issue long-debated between proponents of intelligent design (ID) and proponents of neo-Darwinism. In their 2004 peer-reviewed paper in the journal Protein Science, Michael Behe and David Snoke simulated the evolution of protein-protein interactions Read More ›