Science and Culture Today | Page 1214 | Discovering Design in Nature

The mechanisms and processes of cellular information storage, processing and retrieval have always been a focus of ID argumentation and research. Indeed, it was the complexity and elegance of these systems which first captured my attention as a junior undergraduate as I became interested in the implications of information-rich systems in biology and the possible explicative powers of intelligent causation.

In recent years, there has been a dramatic surge in our appreciation of genomics and the processes of information flow in the cell. Papers continue to flood in, reporting on a plethora of recent discoveries which take genomic complexity to a whole new level, leading many academics to tentatively re-evaluate the causal sufficiency of Darwinian mechanisms, the dual forces of chance and necessity.

One recent paper, published in the journal, Nature, documents the discovery that human cells have the largescale capacity to copy, not only DNA, but also RNA molecules. According to the paper’s Abstract,

Small (<200 nucleotide) RNA (sRNA) profiling of human cells using various technologies demonstrates unexpected complexity of sRNAs with hundreds of thousands of sRNA species present. Genetic and in vitro studies show that these RNAs are not merely degradation products of longer transcripts but could indeed have a function. Furthermore, profiling of RNAs, including the sRNAs, can reveal not only novel transcripts, but also make clear predictions about the existence and properties of novel biochemical pathways operating in a cell. For example, sRNA profiling in human cells indicated the existence of an unknown capping mechanism operating on cleaved RNA, a biochemical component of which was later identified. Here we show that human cells contain a novel type of sRNA that has non-genomically encoded 5′ poly(U) tails. The presence of these RNAs at the termini of genes, specifically at the very 3′ ends of known mRNAs, strongly argues for the presence of a yet uncharacterized endogenous biochemical pathway in cells that can copy RNA. We show that this pathway can operate on multiple genes, with specific enrichment towards transcript-encoding components of the translational machinery. Finally, we show that genes are also flanked by sense, 3′ polyadenylated sRNAs that are likely to be capped.

Conspiracy theorist Lauri Lebo, writing at Religion Dispatches, seeks to defend once more her cloudy thesis that by criticizing a move in Louisiana to teach creationism in public schools, Bruce Chapman revealed Discovery Institute’s secret plot to support teaching creationism in public schools. Even as conspiracy theories go, this one lacks plausibility.

I wrote here earlier that Ms. Lebo, a journalist with a specialty in these issues, is presumably aware of the “enormous differences” between creationism on one hand and intelligent design (or even mere Darwin doubting) on the other. She assures us she does know the difference but there’s still no evidence of that in her latest column. Instead she thinks she has found a smoking gun, linking Discovery Institute with creationism, in our definition of intelligent design. According to the definition, the theory holds “that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”
Writes Lauri Lebo:

No matter how many times they deny it, intelligent design relies on the supernatural. They can hide it in the passive voice all they want, but when you talk about an “intelligent cause” you are talking about a creator. And that makes it (wait for it) creationism.

Actually, nothing in that definition, or in the scientific evidence, indicates the intelligent cause must be supernatural in the sense we normally give to that word. And even if the definition did speak of a “supernatural intelligent cause,” ID would not be relying on the supernatural but arguing for it.

But as a thought experiment, imagine that ID really did identify the “intelligent cause” as a deity, a creator. Would that make it “creationism”?

The following except from my article, “Zeal for Darwin’s House Consumes Them: How Supporters of Evolution Encourage Violations of the Establishment Clause,” published in Liberty University Law Review earlier this year, analyzes the decision in C.F. v. Capistrano Unified School District. In that case, a federal district court judge in Southern California found that a teacher, Corbett, violated the First Amendment by attacking the religious viewpoint of creationism in a public high school classroom. A student sued and the judge found that some of the student’s claims had merit. To give a preview of my argument regarding that case, the section of the article that discusses this case offers the following conclusion: Either a viewpoint is religious and thereby unconstitutional Read More ›

If you weren’t able to be there in person, the Wheaton debate between biochemist Michael Behe and physicist Stephen Barr is now online here Watch as the two Catholics discuss whether or not intelligent design should be taught as science.

In this new video, Dr. Stephen Meyer explains the historical scientific method and how it applies to the origin of the information that makes life possible. It’s the question facing origin of life researchers: where does the information come from? http://www.youtube.com/v/XexHxgxTbWY

A few months back, Liberty University Law Review released an article, “Zeal for Darwin’s House Consumes Them: How Supporters of Evolution Encourage Violations of the Establishment Clause,” I published in their journal last year. The article came after a legal symposium they hosted last year that included speakers such as Ed Sisson, Jay Wexler, Arnold Loewy, John Calvert, and myself. Wexler and Loewy are, of course, ID-critics so it made for an interesting dialogue. My experience at the symposium was that all were highly civil and thoughtful in the exchange. Below I reproduce the introduction to my article, and in a subsequent post will reprint my analysis of the decision in C.F. v. Capistrano Unified School District from last year. Read More ›

Links to our 9-Part Series Responding to Nature‘s Evolution Evangelism Packet: • Part 1: Evaluating Nature’s 2009 “15 Evolutionary Gems” Darwin-Evangelism Kit• Part 2: Microevolutionary Gems: Lizards, Fish, Snakes, and Clams • Part 3: Microevolutionary Gems: Bird-Sized Evolutionary Change• Part 4: Microevolutionary Gems: Flea and Guppy-Sized Evolutionary Change• Part 5: Microevolution Meets Microevolution• Part 6: Evolutionary “Gems” or “Narrative Gloss”?• Part 7: Muscling Past Homology Problems in Nature’s Vertebrate Skeleton “Evolutionary Gem”• Part 8 (This Article): Of Whale and Feather Evolution: Two Macroevolutionary Lumps of Coal• Part 9: Evolutionary Biologists Are Unaware of Their Own Arguments: Reappraising Nature‘s Prized “Gem,” Tiktaalik Download Our Full Response to the Packet as a PDF. Having now addressed all of the microevolutionary or even Read More ›

Links to our 9-Part Series Responding to Nature‘s Evolution Evangelism Packet: • Part 1: Evaluating Nature’s 2009 “15 Evolutionary Gems” Darwin-Evangelism Kit• Part 2: Microevolutionary Gems: Lizards, Fish, Snakes, and Clams • Part 3: Microevolutionary Gems: Bird-Sized Evolutionary Change• Part 4: Microevolutionary Gems: Flea and Guppy-Sized Evolutionary Change• Part 5: Microevolution Meets Microevolution• Part 6: Evolutionary “Gems” or “Narrative Gloss”?• Part 7 (This Article): Muscling Past Homology Problems in Nature’s Vertebrate Skeleton “Evolutionary Gem”• Part 8: Of Whale and Feather Evolution: Two Macroevolutionary Lumps of Coal• Part 9: Evolutionary Biologists Are Unaware of Their Own Arguments: Reappraising Nature‘s Prized “Gem,” Tiktaalik Download Our Full Response to the Packet as a PDF. In the prior post responding to Nature‘s 2009 evolution-evangelism Read More ›

At Religion Dispatches, Lauri Lebo has a perplexing post up criticizing Discovery Institute president Bruce Chapman for being “disingenuous.” He had written at the American Spectator website against the move by school board members in Livingston Parish, Louisiana, to explore teaching “creationism” to students. In Chapman’s comments, Lauri Lebo finds evidence of cowardliness as well as deceit:

Once again, after pushing for anti-evolution language that opens the door to teaching creationism, the good fellows at the Discovery Institute bravely turned around and ran away from the local creationist-talking school board members who want to champion their cause.

She’s referring to the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act, which establishes the parameters under which teachers may introduce scientific supplements in the classroom with a view to developing critical thinking skills including on Darwinian evolution. The law specifically forbids promoting religion, which would in turn forbid teaching creationism.

Ms. Lebo seems to think that in supporting the LSEA, Discovery Institute intended to ease the way not merely for what the law clearly indicates, but for the teaching of Biblical literalist creationism. It’s hard to believe that Ms. Lebo, a journalist who wrote a whole book about the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, isn’t aware of the enormous difference in content between creationism on one hand, and the scientific critique of Darwinism, or the related theory of intelligent design, on the other.

You can think they are all bogus, but to fail to see they are hugely different in what they say would be evidence, on the part of a journalist, of either astonishing ignorance or incredibly sloppy thinking.

Giving Lauri Lebo the benefit of the doubt on this score — she seems bright enough — the only explanation for her outburst must be that she thinks Discovery supports critical thinking on Darwinism with the secret aim of providing a path for something wildly different, incompatible and contradictory — namely, for creationists to teach the Bible as a science text book.

Links to our 9-Part Series Responding to Nature‘s Evolution Evangelism Packet: • Part 1: Evaluating Nature’s 2009 “15 Evolutionary Gems” Darwin-Evangelism Kit• Part 2: Microevolutionary Gems: Lizards, Fish, Snakes, and Clams • Part 3: Microevolutionary Gems: Bird-Sized Evolutionary Change• Part 4: Microevolutionary Gems: Flea and Guppy-Sized Evolutionary Change• Part 5: Microevolution Meets Microevolution• Part 6 (This Article): Evolutionary “Gems” or “Narrative Gloss”?• Part 7: Muscling Past Homology Problems in Nature’s Vertebrate Skeleton “Evolutionary Gem”• Part 8: Of Whale and Feather Evolution: Two Macroevolutionary Lumps of Coal• Part 9: Evolutionary Biologists Are Unaware of Their Own Arguments: Reappraising Nature‘s Prized “Gem,” Tiktaalik Download Our Full Response to the Packet as a PDF. In the previous four responses to Nature‘s evolution-evangelism packet, Read More ›