Evolution News & Views

Newsweek has a Global Literacy Quiz testing general knowledge, based, of course, on their reporting. The questions under the Science heading are bold, ranging from the age of the universe to stem cell research to Darwinian evolution:

Anyone want to guess the answer?

“Correct: False. Although mutations arise at random, those that survive and persist are determined by natural selection, which is not random.”

When I first saw the question, I was a little confused. While I know, according to Jonathan Wells, that “Darwinian evolution is not random but is ‘undirected,’" I had been taught from high school biology (and again in college) that “evolution is random and undirected.” (Thank you, Ken Miller.)

Surely I'm not the only student who has ever been told that Darwinian evolution is a random process. In fact, a new textbook devoted to evolution out this year (Evolution, Nicholas Barton et al., 2007) claims that there is “extreme randomness [in] the evolutionary process” (p. 435). The point is reiterated, time and again:

Seen in detail, however, the evolutionary process is fundamentally random. (p. 413)

. . . we begin our consideration of the processes responsible for evolution by emphasizing the randomness of evolution. (p. 413, emphasis mine)

Mutation randomizes genetic information, genetic drift randomizes genotype frequencies, and gene flow randomizes the positions of genes in space. (p. 439)

At this point, I felt like I was spinning the Wheel of Morality from Animaniacs. Quiz of Morality, turn, turn, turn / Tell us the lesson that we should learn / And the moral of today’s story is…

Posted by Anika Smith at 3:05 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Seattle Weekly is one of those free newsprint advertisers that you find in bins on street corners in most major U. S. cities. Their editorial boards usually consist of people too far to the left even for the establishment media, and as sources of news they’re probably about as reliable as Minju Choson, the official organ of the Democratic People's Republic of [North] Korea. But homeless people make good use of them.

The August 29, 2007 issue of The Seattle Weekly features an article quoting Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). Despite its name, the NCSE is not about teaching science but indoctrinating students at public expense in Darwinism, the creation myth of modern secularism. Whenever critics of Darwinism raise their heads, the NCSE rushes in to bop ‘em, kind of like a carnival game. Except that when the NCSE bops someone on the head it usually means the end of that person’s career in science teaching.

Scott is quoted in The Seattle Weekly as saying that “a real follower of modern science would never call himself a ‘Darwinist’,” because “evolutionary biology has advanced way beyond Darwin's 19th-century tracts.” [1]

It’s true that the word “Darwinist” is seldom used by defenders of Darwin’s theory, though “never” is too strong a description. In 2005, the NCSE’s own blog praised biologist Lynn Margulis for being “definitely a Darwinist.” [2] In 2006 Niles Eldredge, curator of paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History and an ardent defender of evolutionary theory, called himself “a true Darwinist” in The Virginia Quarterly Review. [3]

“Darwinian” is the name preferred by modern evolutionary biologists, who use it widely in the scientific and popular literature. Yet this is a distinction without a difference. Whether such people call themselves Darwinists or Darwinians, they apparently haven’t heard the news that “evolutionary biology has advanced way beyond Darwin's 19th-century tracts.”

Could Scott be following the lead of Harvard sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, who claims that the word “Darwinism” was coined by creationists to make Darwin look bad? “It's a rhetorical device to make evolution seem like a kind of faith, like 'Maoism',” said Wilson in Newsweek in November 2005. “Scientists,” he added, “don’t call it Darwinism.” [4]

Nice try, but Wilson’s revisionist approach to the history of biology doesn’t fit the facts. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Thomas Henry Huxley (Darwin's most famous defender in Britain) used “Darwinism” in 1864 to describe Charles Darwin’s theory. In 1876, Harvard botanist Asa Gray (who was Darwin's most ardent scientific defender in America) published Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism, and in 1889 natural selection's co-discoverer Alfred Russel Wallace published Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection. Two of Wilson’s former Harvard colleagues, evolutionary biologists Ernst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould, used the word extensively in their scientific writings, and recent science journals carry articles with titles such as “Darwinism and Immunology” and “The Integration of Darwinism and Evolutionary Morphology.” [5]

The reason that “Darwinism” and “Darwinian” – even “Darwinist” – are used by modern evolutionary biologists is that they are more precise than “evolution” and “evolutionist.” The latter have many meanings, most of them uncontroversial. For example, “evolution” can refer simply to change over time, something no sane person would deny. Or it can refer to minor changes within existing species, which breeders have known about for centuries.

No, Darwin went much further. He claimed that all living things are descendants of a common ancestor, modified by unguided natural processes such as random variation and survival of the fittest. Darwinian descent with modification – as a comprehensive explanation for what we see in living things – is scientifically controversial, because it doesn’t fit the evidence.

So what’s the easiest way to persuade people that they should accept something so controversial? Word play.

Eugenie Scott makes it her business to misuse words to confuse people about Darwinism and evolution. On a web site maintained (at public expense) by the University of California at Berkeley, she recommends: “Define evolution as an issue of the history of the planet: as the way we try to understand change through time. The present is different from the past. Evolution happened, there is no debate within science as to whether it happened, and so on... I have used this approach at the college level.” [6]

Of course, no college student – indeed, no grade-school dropout -- doubts that “the present is different from the past.” Once Scott gets them nodding in agreement, she gradually introduces them to what she calls “The Big Idea” that all species – including monkeys and humans – are related through descent from a common ancestor, modified by unguided natural processes. “Darwin called this ‘descent with modification’,” she writes, “and it is still the best definition of evolution we can use.” [7]

Since logic is no longer a standard part of the curriculum, students might not notice that this is the time-worn fallacy of equivocation – changing the meaning of a term in the middle of an argument. Equivocation can make anything imply anything else. As a result, rational thought disappears.

So rather than learn Scott’s word games, biology students should begin by learning to distinguish “evolution” from “Darwinism” and “evolutionist” from “Darwinist.” Or “Darwinian” – it’s one and the same.

NOTES

[1] Scott was quoted by Nina Shapiro in The Seattle Weekly, August 29, 2007. Available at http://www.seattleweekly.com/2007-08-29/news/rural-school-board-candidate-hasn-t-been-forthcoming-about-his-intelligent-design-agenda.php

[2] Pim van Meurs, “Lynn Margulis ‘Definitely a Darwinist’,” The Panda’s Thumb, September 5, 2005. Available at http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/09/lynn_margulis_d.html

[3] Niles Eldredge, “Confessions of a Darwinist,” The Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2006. Available at http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2006/spring/eldredge-confessions-darwinist/

[4] Wilson was quoted by Jerry Adler in "Evolution of a Scientist," Newsweek (November 28, 2005), pp. 50-58, esp. p. 53.

[5] J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), Vol. IV, p. 257.
Asa Gray, Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism (New York: D. Appleton, 1876).
Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, With Some of Its Applications (London: Macmillan, 1889).
Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 116-117, 505.
Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), passim.
A. M. Silverstein, "Darwinism and Immunology," Nature Immunology 4 (2003): 3-6.
G. S. Levit, U. Hossfeld, and L. Olsson, "The Integration of Darwinism and Evolutionary Morphology," Journal of Experimental Zoology B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution 302 (2004): 343-354.

[6] Eugenie C. Scott, "Dealing with Anti-Evolutionism," University of California (Berkeley) Museum of Paleontology web site. Available at http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/fosrec/Scott2.html

[7] ibid.

Posted by Jonathan Wells at 12:04 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The peppered myth died several years ago when scientists discovered that photos of peppered moths on tree trunks - used in most biology textbooks to convince students of Darwinian evolution - had been staged.

Now, in a lecture in Sweden on August 23, 2007, Cambridge University biologist Michael Majerus has disinterred the corpse. He announced that by looking out his window at moths in the back yard he had found new evidence that peppered moths are "proof of Darwinian evolution," that humans invented God, and that there will be "no second coming; no helping hand from on high."

No, this was not on "The Simpsons." This really happened. To read more about how someone could think that moths in his back yard disprove the existence of God, go HERE.

Posted by Jonathan Wells at 1:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

CSC Senior Fellow David Berlinski talks about the evolution of cows from whales. This short clip is just a sample of a much longer interview available from Access Research Network.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 1:03 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Over at ID The Future we are featuring the first part
of an interview with Premise Media's Walt Ruloff, the executive producer for the new Ben Stein film, Expelled, due out in February of next year. In this installment, Ruloff gives a brief overview of Expelled, explains how he came to spend over two years making the film, talks about intelligent design as a disruptive technology compared to dogmatic Darwinian evolution, and tells how the film will show that Darwinian evolution is a science stopper. Rather than get mired in the politics of the debate, Ruloff explains that Expelled gets to “where the rubber meets the road, where the science is being done.”

Posted by Robert Crowther at 9:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Dallas Morning NoNews
No News To Report About Texas School Stance on Science Education

Dallas -- In a stunning development there is no news in Texas. There is no news. Nothing to report.

"I don't see any news here," said the board president.

However, another board member said, "The board hasn't created news yet, but just wait there'll be some news eventually."

News was sought across the state, but unable to be found.

"We haven't been making news, I don't see any news now, nor is there any news forthcoming" said one board member.

"I like news," commented another, "but we're not making any."

In the past both President Bush and Governor Perry have made news.

"The news must be there, no matter what they say," said Texas News Monger Network President.

Surprisingly, polls show the public likes news and would like to see more of it.

Four board members were too busy doing their jobs to answer calls about news that wasn't happening.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 8:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence
By William A. Dembski
Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, 404 pages
ISBN 0-7425-1297-5

No Free Lunch, the sequel to mathematician and philosopher William Dembski’s Cambridge University Press book The Design Inference, explores key questions about the origin of specified complexity. Dembski explains that the Darwinian search mechanism of random mutation coupled with natural selection is incapable of generating novel complex, specified information (CSI).

This observation translates into “No Free Lunch” (NFL) theorems, which Dembski explains are inherent constraints upon natural systems. Natural Darwinian mechanisms can shuffle this information around, but only intelligence can generate novel CSI. In other words, when it comes to generating truly novel biological complexity, Darwin can have no free lunch.

Some critics have asserted that he has never applied his model for detecting design to any real biological systems. The latter half of this book debunks this fallacious objection, and provides a detailed calculation of the CSI found in the bacterial flagellum. Dembski assesses the complexity of the flagellum on various levels, including its protein parts and its assembly instructions, finding that the amount of CSI contained in the flagellum vastly outweigh the probabilistic resources available in the history of the universe to construct such a structure, absent intelligent design.

No Free Lunch demonstrates that design theory shows great promise of providing insight in the field of evolutionary computation. If Dembski is right, then the ability of genetic algorithms to solve complex problems is a function of the amount of intelligent design input by programmers.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 10:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

There's been a lot of handwaving about a study out of the University of Oregon that purports to refute Michael Behe. You might think this is deja vu (vu, vu, vu), but it isn't.

New York Times science writer Ken Chang reported this week on how "scientists have pinpointed mutations in an ancient protein that transformed its shape and function more than 400 million years ago." One of the researchers even claims to have discovered "how evolution sculpted the protein structure to produce a new function."

Really? With such claims having been bandied about before with little basis in reality, I sought out a biologist working in a research lab and asked her about this paper and she responded:

Chang has misrepresented what the paper in fact demonstrates. This paper says nothing about how one protein fold might evolve into another fold with a different 3-dimensional structure. Rather, it describes one hypothetical set of changes that might convert the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) to a glucocorticoid-specific receptor (GR). To change MR to GR does not require anything like unraveling the fold. The protein backbone still follows the same course, and the vast majority of its amino acids are unaltered. In fact the "evolved" MR started out able to bind to both hormones, as Ortland et al acknowledge in their paper, so relatively few changes were able to boost recognition of cortisol in preference to aldosterone. Even then, most changes they tested were non-functional, and in at least one case, required a second mutation to restore activity.

Thornton overstates his case also. He has shown a possible, but by no means easy route (see Edge of Evolution) to convert MR to GR. But in terms of functional shifts, this is minor. It's not even close to explaining how really new functions and structures arise.

Thornton’s laboratory has been interested in the evolutionary development of differences between two proteins abbreviated GR and MR. Since the two proteins are very similar, and since they bind very similar small hormone molecules, they likely developed from an ancestral gene by gene duplication and subsequent diversification. Despite Chang’s story, none of that challenges intelligent design, which agrees that minor evolutionary changes can happen by random mutation and natural selection.

If ID isn't science, isn't worth researching, why do Darwinists continue to work so hard to try and refute it?

Posted by Robert Crowther at 6:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This month saw two very different takes on intelligent design in the UK press. As we reported earlier, the Guardian ran a story which set up a false dichotomy of ID as a personal opinion and Darwinism as scientific fact. Standing in contrast to this view is Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips, who wrote a penetrating piece on how the rationality of science is threatened by the new atheists, such as Richard Dawkins:

The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.

There is no evidence for this whatever and no logic to it. After all, if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?", it follows that if scientists say the universe started with a big bang, this prompts the further question "What created the bang?"

Phillips sees that science is not threatened but strengthened by entertaining the possibility of design — and that restricting the freedom of scientists to pursue this possibility is the real throwback to the Dark Ages.

Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research - which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life - have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.

These findings have given rise to a school of scientists promoting the theory of Intelligent Design, which suggests that some force embodying purpose and foresight lay behind the origin of the universe.

While this theory is, of course, open to vigorous counter-argument, people such as Prof Dawkins and others have gone to great lengths to stop it being advanced at all, on the grounds that it denies scientific evidence such as the fossil record and is therefore worthless.

Yet distinguished scientists have been hounded and their careers jeopardised for arguing that the fossil record has got a giant hole in it. Some 570 million years ago, in a period known as the Cambrian Explosion, most forms of complex animal life emerged seemingly without any evolutionary trail.

These scientists argue that only 'rational agents' could have possessed the ability to design and organise such complex systems.

Whether or not they are right (and I don't know), their scientific argument about the absence of evidence to support the claim that life spontaneously created itself is being stifled - on the totally perverse grounds that this argument does not conform to the rules of science which require evidence to support a theory.

As a result of such arrogance, the West - the crucible of reason - is turning the clock back to a pre-modern age of obscurantism, dogma and secular witch-hunts.

Posted by Anika Smith at 8:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Expelled is a disturbing new documentary that will shock anyone who thinks all scientists are free to follow the evidence wherever it may lead.

Two years ago when we hosted an event at the National Press Club to raise the alarm about the persecution of pro-ID scientists and educators, I was quoted as saying:

“There is a disturbing trend of scientists, teachers, and students coming under attack for expressing support in the theory of intelligent design, or even just questioning evolution. The freedom of scientists, teachers, and students to question Darwin's theory, or to express alternative scientific hypothesis is coming under increasing attack by people that can only be called Darwinian fundamentalists.”

Finally someone is fighting back, and that someone is Ben Stein. Stein is perfectly situated to weigh in on this issue, as he is an actor, a pop-culture icon, and at the same time a serious economist who has worked in academia and the government.

Today the website was launched for Stein’s next film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, due out in theaters nationwide next February.

Darwinists at George Mason University, Ohio State, Baylor, SMU, University of Idaho, the Smithsonian Institution and a number of other universities and research centers have been hunting down and trying to disgrace and intimidate scientists and educators for daring to defy the Darwinian orthodoxy. Most recently we saw the witch hunt return to Iowa State University and focus on astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez.

• University of Idaho president Timothy White issued an edict proclaiming that it is now “inappropriate” for anyone to teach “views that differ from evolution” in any “life, earth, and physical science courses."

• The National Center for Science Education sent out a letter urging all 50 state governors to restrict teaching the controversies of Darwinian evolution.

• The Ohio State Board of Education was pressured by the ACLU to repeal its Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan and revert to teaching only those items which support Darwinism, essentially censoring the state's science teachers from expressing any criticism of Darwinian evolution at all.

• Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings, III, delivered a polemic speech denouncing intelligent design and scientists and scholars researching the theory.

• Chemistry professor Nancy Bryson lost her job at a state university after she gave a lecture on scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory to a group of honors students.

• Law professor Francis Beckwith had his tenure challenged at Baylor University because he had expressed a professional opinion that it was constitutionally acceptable to teach intelligent design in public school classrooms.

• Three days before graduate student Bryan Leonard's dissertation defense was to take place, Darwinist professors at Ohio State University accused Leonard of "unethical human-subject experimentation" because he taught students about scientific criticisms of evolutionary theory.

• High school teacher Roger DeHart was driven from his public school simply because he wanted his students to learn about both sides of the scientific debate over Darwinian evolution.

• Biology professor P.Z. Myers at the University of Minnesota wrote this about anyone supporting intelligent design or even just questioning modern evolutionary theory: “Our only problem is that we aren’t martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough. The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians.”

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

PZ Myers Then:

Comment #35130
Posted by PZ Myers on June 14, 2005 07:50 AM (e) (s)

Here I am, a biologist living in the 21st century in one of the richest countries in the world, and one of the two biology teachers in my kids’ high school is a creationist. Last year, the education commissioner in my state tried to subvert the recommendations for the state science standards by packing a hand-picked ‘minority report’ committee to push for required instruction in intelligent design creationism in our schools. All across the country, we have these lunatics trying to stuff pseudoscientific religious garbage into our schools and museums and zoos.

This is insane.

Please don’t try to tell me that you object to the tone of our complaints. Our only problem is that we aren’t martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough. The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many schoolboard members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians. (emphasis mine)

PZ Myers Now:

"... and now I'm a bit disturbed that someone would think criticism of a scientific hypothesis must be defended by silencing its critics." (see here)

Posted by Robert Crowther at 10:40 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A few days ago I sat in one of the rooms where the producers of a new film, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," were screening a trailer and passing the word to interested individuals and groups. It's the same pre-release publicity approach used recently for other Hollywood offerings, including documentaries. My emotion was almost as much one of relief as excitement. It is going to be a terrific film treatment of the whole controversy, and far fairer than any we have encountered.

For two years we have known that the Hollywood actor/critic/comedian/writer Ben Stein was making a film with a company called Premise Media that would inspect the controversy over Darwinian theory and intelligent design. Let's just say that some people at Discovery Institute were eager to cooperate, others more cautious. We have been burned so often by sweet-talking film-makers and television people who wanted to hear about "the science" and to hear our "side" of the controversy, only to be appalled by the one-sided, selectively edited final products that resulted.

So, while I have always liked Ben Stein and am astounded by the extent of his name familiarity, I had to wonder along the way whether he really would "get" the truth about the ruthless suppression of the culture war over Darwinism and its implications for our society. I know now that he does and it is a huge satisfaction.

Today Premise Media put out a press release announcing the new film, which, it happens, will premier on Darwin's birthday, next February 12. A key motif is academic freedom, as it should be (see the last couple of posts on Discovery Blog). Stein is truly and properly outraged at the mixture of ignorance and condescension he has encountered from Darwinists and from learning first hand of their ruthless disregard of science's normal openness to new ideas and new information. He also finds them amusing.

The Premise Media press release is here. Read it through. Meanwhile, I know that between now and next February the Darwinists will use all their power and connections to try to stifle or discredit this film; that's their standard m.o. Let them. It isn't going to work. "Expelled" obviously is going to be an enormously important event in the historic struggle between Darwinism and its scientific critics.

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 8:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This week Behe's Edge of Evolution received a glowing review in The Philadelphia Inquirer by Cameron Wybrow, who writes:

Behe's new book, The Edge of Evolution, provides some hard numbers, coupled with an ingenious argument. The key to determining the exact powers of Darwinian evolution, says Behe, lies with fast-reproducing microbes. Some, such as malaria, HIV, and E. coli, reproduce so quickly that within a few decades, or at most a few millennia, they generate as many mutations as a larger, slower-breeding animal would in millions of years. By observing how far these creatures have evolved in recent times, we can estimate the creative limits of random mutation.

Behe deserves better. The Edge of Evolution makes a serious, quantitative argument about the limits of Darwinian evolution. Evolutionary biology cannot honestly ignore it.

Posted by Anika Smith at 10:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Materialists predict they will create "artificial life" in a test tube in the next 3 to 10 years. I have a counter-prediction: They will succeed only by re-defining "artificial" and "life." For example, "artificial" will cover any human manipulation of an existing organism -- so replacing a few genes or enzymes in an already-living cell will count as creating "artificial life." And "life" will be anything that can undergo "Darwinian evolution" -- such as an artificially engineered system of molecules -- even though it can be sustained only in a carefully controlled laboratory environment.

But a free-living cell? I don't think so. We are still many years and many discoveries away from understanding the nature of life even in prokaryotes. And Darwinists -- with their attitude that they already know all the important things there are to know about life -- will not be the ones to
make the necessary discoveries.

That's my prediction.

Posted by Jonathan Wells at 12:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

You cannot critique a theory for inappropriately concluding “X” when indeed the theory does not conclude “X.” Jewish Action Magazine has an article entitled “Revisiting Intelligent Design” that repeats this common flawed argument for intelligent design. First, the article misrepresents Michael Behe’s arguments as saying that ID proposes “the existence of a supernatural being, whom he calls the ‘intelligent designer,’ meaning, of course, God.” Of course Behe does believe that the designer is God, but Behe has made it clear that as a science, intelligent design does not try to address religious questions about the nature of the designer. So while the designer may be God, the empirical data cited by Behe—information in DNA and complex machines in the cell—do not inform us on that matter. The author then writes that “there is not a single secular scientist who claims that it is necessary to invoke supernatural intervention to explain the animal kingdom,” but this is not accurate, for intelligent design does not invoke the “supernatural,” but rather merely invokes intelligence without digging into questions about the “supernatural.” Moreover, there is a growing body of mainstream scientists who believe that it is not inherently inappropriate to invoke intelligence. Indeed, the author cites the Kitzmiller trial, but during that trial, 85 scientists signed a brief to Judge Jones supporting academic freedom to investigate intelligent design. Clearly there are secular scientists who support ID. Finally, the article’s use of the phrase “secular scientist” is curious: exactly what is a “secular scientist”? Many ID proponents are scientists in the mainstream scientific community. Or is a “secular scientist” one who is not religious? If that is the case, does the author suggest that religious scientists are now disbarred from making their case to the scientific community? Hopefully the author is not making such a prejudiced argument.

The article’s second major mistake is when it claims Behe views his arguments as “ironclad proof.” Again, this also misunderstands intelligent design, which is an inference to the best explanation, and not a deductive proof. The article later tacitly admits it misrepresents Behe as it describes his arguments as saying “this implies design.” The latter description is more accurate. The article’s third major mistake is to claim that evolutionary biologists have taken Behe’s argument and “ripped it to shreds.” It cites a 1996 article by Allen Orr in Boston Review as having demonstrated the “demise of ID,” but apparently the author does not realize Behe forcefully rebutted Orr’s article after it was written. Behe wrote in response to Orr:

"Professor Orr has a mistaken notion of irreducible complexity. I thought I made that clear in my reply, but from his response I suppose I did not, so let me try again. I define irreducible complexity in Darwin’s Black Box as “a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.” Orr, however, uses the term loosely to mean something like “if you remove a part, the organism will die.” In his review he talks about lungs, saying “we grew thoroughly terrestrial and lungs, consequently, are no longer luxuries, they are essential.” The problem is, if you quickly dissect lungs from an animal, many parts of it will continue to work. The liver will work for a while, muscles will twitch, and cells will metabolize until they run out of oxygen. Thus lungs are not absolutely required for the function of those other parts, not in the way that a spring is absolutely required for a standard mousetrap or nexin linkers are required for ciliary function. That’s the problem with using poorly chosen examples, especially at the whole-organ level. I am careful in my book (pp. 46-47) to say that you must look at molecular systems to see if Darwinism can explain their development. When you look at irreducibly complex molecular examples, it is clear that Darwinism has not and, I believe, cannot explain them. Orr’s main line of argument, therefore, simply misses the point.”

(Michael Behe, “Michael Behe’s Response to Boston Review Critics”)

Posted by Casey Luskin at 10:06 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Recently the Boston Globe ran a letter to the editor by Stephen Meyer, responding to Sally Lehrman's ridiculous claim that the Explore Evolution textbook "uses psuedoscience to attack Darwin's theories."

Meyer's response? There's nothing "psuedo" about saying what the evolutionists themselves admit, even citing the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

Perhaps Lehrman judges our book pseudoscience because we also describe current scientific criticisms of evolutionary theory. Perhaps she is unaware that skepticism about the creative power of natural selection and random mutation is common in peer-reviewed scientific literature and in the scientific community. No less an authority than the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences published a recent paper stating: "Natural selection based solely on mutation is probably not an adequate mechanism for evolving complexity."

"Explore Evolution" not only tells students about such skepticism, but offers the evidential basis for it. But it does so alongside a thorough discussion of the strengths of evolutionary theory. That isn't pseudoscience, that's good science education.

Posted by Anika Smith at 12:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Over at Pandas Thumb Nick Matzke has announced his departure from the NCSE (the leading Darwin-only lobby group) to focus on getting an advanced degree in evolutionary biology. Perhaps he should consider taking some history courses as well.

Matzke reiterates the old canard that the phrase "intelligent design" was concocted after the Edwards v. Aguillard supreme court case in which creationism/creation science was ruled out of bounds for public high school science classes. This is simply a Darwinian urban legend.

In 2005 we published a paper by Dr. Jonanthan Witt, titled, The Origin of Intelligent Design:
A brief history of the scientific theory of intelligent design.

Witt explains the origins of the term in part here:

Its roots stretch back to design arguments made by Socrates and Plato, and even the term “intelligent design” is more than 100 years old. Oxford scholar F.C.S. Schiller employed it in an 1897 essay, writing that “it will not be possible to rule out the supposition that the process of Evolution may be guided by an intelligent design.”

Furthermore, in James E. Horigan's 1979 book, "Chance or Design?" (Philosophical Library: New York), Horigan uses the phrase "intelligent design" and explicitly connects it extensively to the literature of the 1800's that used the term in a similar spirit to how it is used today.

If you want a brief, and more importantly, accurate account of the origins of intelligent design theory, definitely read Witt's paper.

Finally, ResearchID.org has a wonderful timeline that documents historical references to the phrase intelligent design as well as intelligent design ideas.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 9:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If only Darwinists could come up with a body of convincing scientific evidence to support Darwin's theory: after 150 years of assuring us, such evidence surely must exist. As recently as May of this year, the best that a Darwinist as prominent as Professor Francisco Ayala of UC Irvine could come up with as examples of evolution in action was: (1) bacterial resistance to antibiotics; (2) insect resistance to pesticides; and (3) the evolution of fur coloring of desert rodents. (Ayala, "Darwin's Greatest Discovery: Design without designer," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (May 2007).) These examples of "evolution" appear to be microevolution in action; none of them even approach the level of one species "evolving" into another species. On the other hand, there are aspects of the fossil record, such as the Cambrian Explosion, that appear to contradict Darwin's theory of small gradual changes over time, and for which neo-Darwinism still offers no plausible explanation. (Ayala wisely avoids the subject in his article, by starting his history of modern life after the Cambrian Explosion.) Stasis and “living fossils” are another paradox of Darwinian evolution. Yet according to Ayala, the bacteria that are the oldest organisms on Earth have not changed at all in the billions of years of their existence! This observation does not help Darwinian evolution explain the origin of new types of living organisms.

On the other hand, maybe we are missing the point of Darwin's theory by demanding that it be supported by actual scientific evidence. As Ayala observes, for Darwin, finding actual scientific evidence to support his theory was a secondary concern. The main focus of his work was philosophical — to come up with a theory to explain the obvious design in nature without a designer. As Ayala puts it:

"'Origin of Species' is, first and foremost, a sustained effort to solve the problem of how to account for the design of organisms, their complexity, diversity, and marvelous contrivances, as the result of natural processes. Darwin brings about the evidence for evolution because evolution is a necessary consequence of his theory of design."

So why, 150 years later, is Darwin's theory of design considered by Darwinists to be "scientific," while Paley's theory of design, like contemporary intelligent design theory, is not considered to be "scientific?"

Obviously, such official pronouncements of which theories are "scientific," and which are not, are based on a philosophical pre-commitment rather than on the actual scientific data.

How fitting for the followers of Charles Darwin to consider scientific evidence to be only a secondary consideration to metaphysical considerations.

How presumptuous of some of us to demand that Darwin's theory be supported by actual scientific evidence!

Posted by Larry Caldwell at 9:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Why is a Fly Not a Horse?
By Giuseppe Sermonti
Discovery Institute Press, 2005, 166 pages
ISBN-10: 0-9638654-7-1

Editor of the Italian biology journal “Revista de Biologia,” (one of the world's oldest biology journals) Giuseppe Sermonti explains why evolution resembles a “paradigm” more than it does an explanation. Scientists assume that the theory and its implications (such as universal common descent) are true, but no one can ever explain the details of precisely why it is. According to Sermonti, naturalistic theories of biological origins are science-stoppers.

Sermonti explains that biology has advanced greatly when naturalistic theories of biological origins have been disproved. For example, in 1688 Francesco Redi performed an experiment which refuted the notion that flies come from rotting meat—Redi discovered that flies actually come from worms that hatch from eggs laid in rotting biological matter which subsequently develop into flies. The recognition that flies come from eggs rather than meat fostered our early understanding of biological development, but one theory of spontaneous generation had to die before the advance was made.

Sermonti recounts that the field became stalled when the early evolutionist Comte de Buffon imagined that everything from fleas to the hippopotamus emerged from the primordial slime. Providing an Italian perspective on the history of biology, Sermonti explains that an Italian naturalist named Spallanzani refused to just accept spontaneous generation as the easy answer, and through a series of carefully observed experiments, came to the conclusion that “omne vivium ex ovo” (all life comes from eggs). Spontaneous generation was finally disproved by Pasteur’s experiments nearly a century later. This was a fact lamented by Darwin, who claimed that Pasteur “denied spontaneous generation.” Despite Pasteur’s “denial,” biology progressed.

Sermonti turns to the primary question of his book: Why is a fly not a horse? According to Sermonti, developmental genes are widely similar across various species. Providing a tour of genetic development, Sermonti finds that genes alone may not be enough to account for differences among the species, something that would pose a profound challenge to Darwin’s theory.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 8:27 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

So, the benighted brites at the New York Times are suddenly all agog over the deep ponderings of Oxford’s Nick Bostrom (never mind that it isn't really a new idea at all — it's been bubbling up for a few years now). What exactly has them so excited, you ask? Well, Bostrom thinks we all might just be an eleborate Sims game for some sort of advanced video game addict. Seriously.

He has “thoughtfully” proposed the idea that this world, your reality, is nothing more than a very advanced simulation, an illusion, if you will. In fact, he thinks that this simulation might just be running inside another simulation, inside another simulation, inside another simulation on and on back, forever and ever amen.

Bostrom put it this way:

Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine-grained and if a certain quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct). Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race. It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones. Therefore, if we don’t think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears. That is the basic idea.

And his conclusion? "Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation." You just can't make this stuff up ... er, wait a minute, I guess you can just make this stuff up.

Compare this to the serious scientific ideas advanced by intelligent design theorists. How does Bostrom’s simulation theory look when lined up next to an idea propsed by Michael Behe such as irreducible complexity? Or, next to theorems proposed by William Dembski, such as those in The Design Inference or No Free Lunch?

Yet it is ID proponents like Behe and Dembski that are denied serious consideration and coverage by The New York Times (or, if they are covered, they're attacked and mocked), while the same media which ignores a scholarly proposition from an ID theorist will fuel serious discussion of ideas such as Bostrom’s. One scientist commented after reading this article that it is "fascinating what explanations for reality are acceptable in quarters which despise ID."

Regardless, it is Behe and Dembski — who are using science to search for evidence of design, not a designer — who are constantly asked who’s the designer, who’s the designer, who’s the designer? When they patiently explain that science can’t answer that question, they are criticized and told they are not doing science.

Bostrom too is confronted with that question, but with considerably more respect and deference.

Of course, it’s tough to guess what the designer would be like. He or she might have a body made of flesh or plastic, but the designer might also be a virtual being living inside the computer of a still more advanced form of intelligence. There could be layer upon layer of simulations until you finally reached the architect of the first simulation — the Prime Designer, let’s call him or her (or it).

A colleague wrote about this article:

The annoying thing about the cultural elite is that, because of the profound philosophical and theological illiteracy, the most sophomoric observations about the nature of ultimate reality pass for "thought-provoking" or "profound." Their forays into the world of philosophy or theology are regarded as "cute" or "brave" forms of self-disclosure, with almost no attention paid to whether they are plausible or even coherent.

Posted by Robert Crowther at 12:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

You cannot fairly pit the educated views of Darwinian scientists against the opinions of students. To be honest, you need to hear from scientists who doubt Darwinian evolution and have the evidence to defend themselves. To merely stigmatize skeptics of Darwinism as “fundamentalist Christians” and “creationists” is to serve the cause of propaganda, not objective discourse.

Posted by Bruce Chapman at 2:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Have you ever spent time pondering the intellectual pedigree of scientism—say, of the Dawkins variety? It would be nice if folly really were an orphan, but unfortunately he is not. And Herbert Spencer was only one link, though an important one, in a long chain of Western scientism.

Consider this Spencerian quote from Steven Shapin’s recent New Yorker article “Man with a Plan: Herbert Spencer’s Theory of Everything”:

What knowledge is of most worth?—the uniform reply is—Science. This is the verdict on all the counts. . . . Alike for the most perfect production and highest enjoyment of art in all its forms, the needful preparation is still—Science. And for purposes of discipline—intellectual, moral, religious—the most efficient study is, once more—Science.

Now this is very interesting. One wonders which method of inquiry Spencer used to arrive at his conclusion that Science (with a capital “S,” no less) is the most valuable form of knowledge. Certainly he performed no scientific experiments. Perhaps his own statement is not of much worth then?

Now before you write to complain, no one is bashing science. What we object to is this self-contradictory statement that science is the most valuable source of knowledge when that piece of knowledge itself is not scientific. This is still heard today. It is a leftover from the failed, philosophically discredited worldview of materialism. This nonsense should have ended with the collapse verificationism (which is only one example of how scientific materialism led a discipline astray for the better part of a century).

One would do well to keep in mind that Spencer was feted, as Dawkins is now, by the intellectual elites of his day despite his transparently flawed worldview. As Shapin recounts one dinner in Spencer’s honor in New York, 1882:

Senators, captains of industry, and professors were there in force, vying with each other in the fulsomeness of their praise. The former Secretary of State William Evarts said that Spencer was the smartest man in the world: “We recognize in the breadth of your knowledge, such knowledge as is useful to your race, a greater comprehension than any living man has presented to our generation.” The Union Army general Carl Schurz declared that there would have been no Civil War if the South had been adequately instructed in Spencer’s principles of individual liberty. And the president of Columbia, Frederick Barnard, announced that Herbert Spencer was “not only the profoundest thinker of our time, but the most capacious and most powerful intellect of all time.”

Posted by Logan Gage at 12:02 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Michael Egnor recently wrote about the great difficulties faced by origin of life researchers and the great speculation they are willing to undertake to retain natural chemical explanations for origin of life. This reminds of events in the early 1900's, when some leading scientists had philosophical objections to new ideas in cosmology. In 1931, leading cosmologist Sir Arthur Eddington wrote in response to Big Bang cosmology, "Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant . . . I should like to find a genuine loophole." Even Einstein was troubled by the fact that his own theories showed "the necessity for a beginning." In fact, he added a "cosmological constant" to his equations to avoid that necessity of a beginning to the universe. Decades later, after the cosmological constant was disproved, Einstein called the way he allowed his personal philosophy to override science the biggest blunder of his life. (Note: the cosmological constant made a re-appearance just before the new millennium – not to prevent the universe from having a beginning in the finite past, but rather to account for the fact that the observed rate of the universe’s expansion was greater than what general relativity would predict without it.)

Now it's Eugene V. Koonin's turn. Koonin, a biologist with the National Institutes of Health, is again letting philosophical preferences influence his cosmology. This time, however, it has to do not with the implications of the origin of the universe, but regarding the origin of life. In a recent article in Biology Direct entitled, "The cosmological model of eternal inflation and the transition from chance to biological evolution in the history of life," Koonin realizes that the natural chemical origin of life is highly unlikely if there is only one finite universe. Koonin writes, "The RNA world faces its own hard problems as ribozyme-catalyzed RNA replication remains a hypothesis and the selective pressures behind the origin of translation remain mysterious."

Koonin's solution is not to figure out how, chemically speaking, the RNA-world may have arisen within our universe. Rather, his solution is to promote a new cosmology that allows for events that are "untenable" or only happen "rarely" in a finite universe to eventually occur:

Eternal inflation offers a viable alternative that is untenable in a finite universe, i.e., that a coupled system of translation and replication emerged by chance, and became the breakthrough stage from which biological evolution, centered around Darwinian selection, took off. A corollary of this hypothesis is that an RNA world, as a diverse population of replicating RNA molecules, might have never existed. In this model, the stage for Darwinian selection is set by anthropic selection of complex systems that rarely but inevitably emerge by chance in the infinite universe (multiverse).

(Eugene V. Koonin, "The cosmological model of eternal inflation and the transition from chance to biological evolution in the history of life," Biology Direct Vol. 2:15 (May 31, 2007).)

The plausibility of different models for the origin of life on earth directly depends on the adopted cosmological scenario. In an infinite universe (multiverse), emergence of highly complex systems by chance is inevitable. Therefore, under this cosmology, an entity as complex as a coupled translation-replication system should be considered a viable breakthrough stage for the onset of biological evolution.

(Eugene V. Koonin, "The cosmological model of eternal inflation and the transition from chance to biological evolution in the history of life," Biology Direct Vol. 2:15 (May 31, 2007).)

Such philosophically-guided arguments get published in mainstream science journals, but last year Nature recognized that the multiverse hypothesis is unfalsifiable and "isn't science." Nature then affirmatively quoted anti-ID physicist Leonard Susskind stating, "It would be very foolish to throw away the right answer on the basis that it doesn't conform to some criteria for what is or isn't science."

That these same scientists wrongly regard intelligent design as an unfalsifiable concept shows their double standard, which I observed last year: "Perhaps untestable theories are acceptable to [mainstream journals] when they can challenge intelligent design, but are not acceptable when they support design." The publication of Koonin's latest paper lends further support to that thesis.

Posted by Casey Luskin at 12:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The National Research Council’s report — The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems — is a must read. Not for the science — what there is of it can be summed up simply: we have no clue how life began. No, the report is a must read for the insight it offers into the current state of origin of life research:

For generations the definition of life has eluded scientists and philosophers. (Many have come to recognize that the concept of “definition” itself is difficult to define)… Indeed, because the chemical structures of terran biomolecular systems all appear to have arisen through Darwinian processes, it is hardly surprising that some of the more thoughtful definitions of life hold that it is a “chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.” [emphasis mine]

Aside from jargon that would make Derrida squirm— “the concept of definition is itself difficult to define”— the Council claims to see, through post-modern haze, a more thoughtful definition of life: life is defined as “a chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution”! This more thoughtful definition of life is an even grander tautology than 'survivors survive': Darwin’s theory must explain life because life is defined as ‘what Darwin’s theory explains.’ You've got to admire the audacity.

The Council continues:

The canonical characteristics of life are an inherent capacity to adapt to changing environmental conditions and to interact with other living organisms…it is difficult for us to imagine how life might look in environments very different from what we find on Earth. Recognizing the challenges in mitigating that difficulty, the committee chose instead to embrace it. In constructing its outlook, it exploited a strategy that began by characterizing the terran life that humankind has known well …

Put aside for a moment the lifeless prose. The authors do raise real difficulties faced by origin of life researchers. The difficulties are enormous. Darwin’s theory depends on replication and modest heritable variation — neither too much nor too little — in each generation. A Darwinian process depends on pre-existing specified complexity, and there’s no real evidence that the considerable specified complexity that would be needed to jump-start life can be generated by known physical laws. Even the speculations are outlandish. The Council cautions against "terracentricity," and appeals to astrobiology:

Thus, truly “weird” life might utilize an element other than carbon for its scaffolding. Less weird, but still alien to human biological experience, would be a life form that does not exploit thermodynamic disequilibria that are largely chemical. Weirder would be a life form that does not exploit water as its liquid milieu. Still weirder would be a life form that exists in the solid or gas phase….

The natural tendency toward terracentricity requires that we make an effort to broaden our ideas of where life is possible and what forms it might take. Furthermore, basic principles of chemistry warn us against terracentricity. It is easy to conceive of chemical reactions that might support life involving noncarbon compounds, occurring in solvents other than water, or involving oxidation-reduction reactions without dioxygen. Furthermore, there are reactions that are not redox. For example, life could get energy from NaOH + HCl; the reaction goes fast abiotically, but an organism could send tendrils into the acid and the base and live off the gradient. An organism could get energy from supersaturated solution. It could get relative humidity from evaporating water. It is easy to conceive of alien life in environments quite different from the surface of a rocky planet. The public has become aware of those ideas through science fiction and nonfiction…

Mostly fiction. The Council's report is necessarily written in the subjunctive tense. There isn't a shred of evidence for "non-terracentric" life. The Council is unsure even about explanations for terracentric life. They point out the inadequacy of Darwin’s theory to explain biological complexity. The Council barely stops short of signing on to the Dissent from Darwinism list, which is a list of scientists (over 700 now) who agree with the statement: "We are skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation acting on natural selection to account for the complexity of life." The Council admits, with surprising candor:

Natural selection based solely on mutation is probably not an adequate mechanism for evolving complexity. More important, lateral gene transfer and endosymbiosis are probably the most obvious mechanisms for creating complex genomes that could lead to free-living cells and complex cellular communities in the short geological interval between life’s origin and the establishment of autotrophic CO2 fixation about 3.8 billion years ago...[emphasis mine]

Lateral gene transfer and endosymbiosis pose significant problems for a theory based entirely on competition. For Darwin's theory, unicellular altruism is even more of a problem than hominid altruism. 'Kin selection' is a conundrum for life that reproduces asexually (you're surrounded by 10^13 copies of yourself — who do you help first?), and Darwinists will no doubt be proposing theories of how bacteria ‘evolve reciprocity’ and ‘detect cheaters.’ Bacterial altruism is a tough sell.

Yet ‘just-so stories’ are unavoidable if we adhere to strict materialistic explanations for the origin of life and for evolution. This materialistic crisis in origin of life research is self-inflicted. Biological complexity can be explained away — however implausibly — as Darwinian, but the origi