__k-review

I was treated to a –sadly– all too typical story in the aftermath of the great 4 Nails in Darwin’s Coffin: New Challenges to Darwinian Evolution conference the other night at SMU. An SMU staffer told me about what happened to a student that wanted to let his friends know about the event. Earlier this week the student asked his science professor if at the end of class he could make a quick announcement and the prof said no problem. At the end of the class the student stood up and very quickly announced the name of the event and that students could come and hear about some of the flaws in Darwin’s theory. At that point the professor put Read More ›

What do hox genes, gene duplication, evo-devo and ontogenetic information all have in common? They were among the subjects raised–in some detail–by audience members during the Q&A portion of 4 Nails in Darwin’s Coffin: New Challenges to Darwinian Evolution event at SMU last night. The evening started with a screening of Darwin’s Dilemma:The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record for a standing room only crowd in the theater of the Hughes Trigg Student Center, and was rounded out by four presentations and a question and answer period with the speakers. CSC’s Stephen Meyer moderated the discussion after the film which included four serious challenges to Darwinian evolution. The first speaker was evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg, who presented the challenge of Read More ›

Since early this morning, the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute has faced repeated denial-of-service attacks on its server in an effort to shut down the Institute’s various websites. The attacks coincided with the scheduled appearance tonight of Institute-supported scientists at the “4 Nails in Darwin’s Coffin” event at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas. Want to bet there is a connection? Because of the cyber attacks, the web page providing information about tonight’s event was unavailable several times today. Last fall, Darwinist cyber bullies similarly attempted to close down the website for a conference on intelligent design in Colorado in order to prevent people from registering for the event. Fortunately, more than a thousand people showed up anyway. Regardless of one’s view of Darwinism, this sort of cyber censorship ought to be out of Read More ›

Intelligent design is gaining steam in Britain. According to a press release from The Centre for Intelligent Design:

It’s been long known that the bacterial flagellum can spin in one direction and then quickly reverse directions and spin in the other. A recent issue of Nature has an article titled, “Structure of the torque ring of the flagellar motor and the molecular basis for rotational switching” which elucidates some of the biomechanical properties of the FliG motor protein that allows this rotation switch to occur: The flagellar motor drives the rotation of flagellar filaments at hundreds of revolutions per second, efficiently propelling bacteria through viscous media. The motor uses the potential energy from an electrochemical gradient of cations across the cytoplasmic membrane to generate torque. A rapid switch from anticlockwise to clockwise rotation determines whether a bacterium runs Read More ›

Good news! The Berlinski/Hitchens debate of a couple weeks ago, “Does Atheism Poison Everything?,” is now viewable online in full at C-SPAN. Berlinski is inimitably rapier-like yet courteous as always, though I don’t envy him having to fend off the sympathy vote for the ailing and recently sainted Christopher Hitchens (who looks eerily like Sebastian Shaw as Anakin Skywalker in Return of the Jedi). At Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne notes the C-SPAN production, first smugly saying — apparently before he watched it — how enjoyable it is to see Hitchens “take apart” the “haughty” Berlinski. Then he offers an update to the same post, apparently now having watched the event, where he pronounces it a “reasonably good debate” Read More ›

The Nova series on PBS airs a documentary tonight titled, What Darwin Never Knew. You mean like, how life evolved? Naw, of course not. The focus is evolutionary developmental biology, or evo devo, and needless to say it turns out that what Darwin never knew actually confirms how much he did know. From the publicity material: The results are confirming the brilliance of Darwin’s insights while revealing clues to life’s breathtaking diversity in ways the great naturalist could scarcely have imagined.

British journalist Christopher Bookerhas a refreshing perspective in his latest column. He recently spent some time with scientists in France and considered their varied experiences with questioning Darwin: Three months ago I spent a fascinating few days in a villa opposite Cap Ferrat, France, taking part in a seminar with a dozen very bright scientists, some world authorities in their field. Although most had never met before, they had two things in common. Each had come to question one of the most universally accepted scientific orthodoxies of our age: the Darwinian belief that life on earth evolved simply through the changes brought about by an infinite series of minute variations. The other was that, on arriving at these conclusions, they Read More ›

Sometimes excuses just sound too convenient. Take, for instance, the California Science Center’s excuse for abruptly cancelling a showing of Darwin’s Dilemma last fall. According to top California Science Center (CSC) officials, the event was cancelled “because of issues related to the contract.” But emails obtained by Discovery Institute pursuant to CSC’s settlement of our lawsuit against them strongly show that CSC officials illegally discriminated against intelligent design (ID) and then tried to cover their tracks by claiming “contractual reasons” for the cancellation. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to those familiar with the culture of intolerance fostered by many critics of ID. In this case, it’s especially important since that culture is being funded by over millions of taxpayer Read More ›