Science and Culture Today | Page 1396 | Discovering Design in Nature

Political science professor Larry Arnhart, author of the book Darwinian Conservatism, is probably the most thoughtful and articulate proponent of Darwinism as a support for conservatism. My recent book Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest is largely framed as a response to Arnhart’s arguments. I appreciate how seriously Arnhart takes the debate over the implications of Darwin’s theory, and also how committed he is to a civil discussion. Arnhart has now responded to my book in two posts (here and here) on his Darwinian Conservatism blog, and in a four-part series over the next several days I will be offering my response to his comments. After some initial clarifications, today’s post will focus on the issue of Darwinism and traditional morality.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the ID The Future podcasts, you will want to make doing so one of your new year’s resolutions. IDTF has become quite popular and recently has started producing occasional video podcasts as well. Today there is a short podcast about how to properly define and explain what the theory of intelligent design is. Last Friday IDTF featured a short video clip from Dr. Stephen Meyer’s recent appearance on the PBS program Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg. Previous podcasts have included: These are just a few of the IDTF podcasts from 2006. There is a complete archive of every podcast currently available here.

Part I of this series discussed two exciting papers which support the claims of intelligent design (ID), and in Part II, I discussed how the molecular data is failing to support Neo-Darwinian common descent with modification. This final post of a 3-part series recounting some interesting scientific discoveries reported since the Kitzmiller ruling will discuss how Darwinists have tried to oversell evolution to the public while ID-proponents have continued to do some exciting research. While researching protein structure at various institutes in the UK, Douglas Axe, now at the Biologic Institute in Redmond, Washington, published two peer-reviewed papers that are cited by anti-evolutionists as evidence that intelligent design is backed by serious science.”Extreme functional sensitivity to conservative amino acid changes Read More ›

Over at ID The Future, Casey Luskin has a year-end interview with Access Research Network’s Dennis Wagner who has compiled a list of the top intelligent design stories of the past year. His list spans the globe and includes such highlights as:

TVW here in Washington state has chosen to rebroadcast Seattle’s Townhall debate on intelligent design between Discovery Institute’s Stephen Meyer and University of Washington’s Peter Ward as part of their “Best of 2006.”For those who missed this debate, it is available on our website here. We debate. You decide.

Part I of this series discussed two exciting papers which support the claims of intelligent design (ID). While ID is certainly compatible with common ancestry, molecular evidence against the Neo-Darwinian icon, “Darwin’s Tree of Life,” continues to mount. This paper will discuss how molecular data is posing great challenges to the Darwinist assumption that life forms a nested hierarchy. Perhaps with time, common design will be considered as a serious option.

During the holiday season, many Americans take time to seriously and respectfully reflect on Judeo-Christian religious beliefs. Not so for one website, the “Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” (FSM), a pro-evolution satire against intelligent design. They exhibit no interest in treating Christian holidays with respect. To celebrate the season, they are selling Christmas cards which show a dead Christian fish symbol. Other Christmas Cards portray Michelangelo’s well-known “Creation of Adam” painting on the Sistine Chapel, but the FSM cards have God replaced by the “Flying Spaghetti Monster.” Another graphic promoted on the page shows a nativity scene where Jesus is replaced by the “Flying Spaghetti Monster.” I can appreciate humor, but it’s also clear that the FSM images are Read More ›

It’s been just over a year since the Kitzmiller ruling, and over a series of 3 posts, I’d like to briefly highlight some scientific discoveries reported since that time: Random mutation and blind selection may have trouble on the horizon. This will become especially clear in the second post of this series which will discuss the difficulty Neo-Darwinism is having constructing robust phylogenetic trees.