Discovery Institute's Blog, page 104

Hemostasis: Maintaining the Right Numbers Is Crucial

Editor's note : Physicians have a special place among the thinkers who have elaborated the argument for intelligent design. Perhaps that's because, more than evolutionary biologists, they are familiar with the challenges of maintaining a functioning complex system, the human body. With that in mind, Evolution News & Views is delighted to present this series, "The Designed Body." For the complete series, see here. Dr. Glicksman practices palliative medicine for a hospice organization.

So far i...

Epigenetics, a Revolution with a Long Onramp, Poised to Accelerate Design Thinking

Some revolutions have long onramps. Modern epigenetics has been around for well over a decade, but its impact has yet to be fully explored. Which interpretation of biology -- evolution or intelligent design -- stands the best chance of advancing scientific understanding of genomics through epigenetics research?

Well, it is indeed a revolution; that's what senior reporter Heidi Ledford calls it in her Nature Outlook piece, "Epigenetics: the genome unwrapped." She ends with remarks by Tomasz J...

Beating a Dead Straw Horse

In a recent series of posts here at Evolution News, I answered objections to arguments for intelligent design based on specified complexity and conservation of information (see here, here, here, and here). The series, in turn, provoked responses that I would like to address now. Over at Panda's Thumb, University of Washington geneticist Joe Felsenstein declares that it is "Game over for antievolutionary No Free Lunch argument." At Evolution Blog, mathematician Jason Rosenhouse takes issue wi...

Koko Wants to Save the Planet

Koko, the sign-language-talking gorilla, wants to save the earth. From the Daily Mail story:

Koko was filmed delivering a 38-word bulletin about how 'stupid' mankind is harming the Earth.

In the 60-second video, the 44-year-old great ape, which has been learning sign language since she was one, said: 'I am gorilla, I am flowers, animals. I am Nature. Koko love man. Earth Koko love.

Wow, so Koko supports the Paris (non) treaty to stop climate change? Not quite:

A spokesman for The Gorilla Fou...

New Article in BIO-Complexity Addresses the Problem of Biological Innovation

One of the toughest problems for evolutionary biologists is to account for what might be called the problem of innovation -- the appearance of a new beneficial biological feature that did not previously exist. Put another way, evolution by natural selection can be defined as "the survival of the fittest," but evolution is unable to select for something that is not already there. It can only select among existing traits. When some new trait is required in order to survive, can evolution expla...

Intelligent Design Is Older Than You Think -- A Lot Older

The modern intelligent design movement may be traced to a seminal meeting organized by Phillip Johnson at Pajaro Dunes in 1993, although the Wistar Symposium of 1966 and a persistent march of Darwinian skeptics certainly prepared the soil for that fertile meeting. But ID as a concept long predates the twentieth century. Just as modern materialism and physicalism have their roots in the ancient atomists (notably Leucippus, Democritus, Lucretius), so too ID has a deep and rich history.

If one...

You Are Immoral if You Eat Fish!

Animal rights, properly understood, is an ideology that insists the capacity to feel pain is the basis for possessing rights. Hence, several years ago, PETA claimed that eating meat is an evil equivalent to Auschwitz.

Now, with some studies showing that fish may feel pain, we are told over at the Huffington Post to stop eating fish. The writer is Marc Bekoff, a professor (of course) of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. From "Science Shows Fish Feel Pain, So Let's Get Over It and Do Somethin...

A Designer Encourages Scientists to Think Like Designers

Recently Live Science had a reflective piece by Ayse Birsel, an award-winning designer, co-founder of Birsel + Seck, and author of the book, Design the Life You Love. The title of the article is eye-catching: "The Art of Science: Why Researchers Should Think Like Designers." That's an unusual headline for a science site that generally takes the anti-ID position whenever it can.

Birsel's article is not about intelligent design theory or the intelligent design movement. It is, however, very mu...

Happy New Year! Here Is #1 of Our Top Stories of 2015: A Scientific Debate that Can No Longer Be Denied

Editor's note: Welcome to the traditional recounting of our Top 10 evolution-related stories of the past year, as compiled in a rigorous, peer-reviewed, strictly scientific manner by Evolution News staff. Presenting the most amusing, the most enlightening, and the most important news to come our way in 2015, the countdown culminates today. Happy New Year from your friends in the intelligent design community!

Published originally on July 21, 2015.

Today marks the anniversary of the famous Sco...

Animal Rights Aren't Natural

When I wrote my book A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement, I thought the movement was on the march and its violent arm growing ever more dangerous. These days, not so much.

I do think the animal rights movement has influenced society. People are certainly more attuned to the duty, derived from our exceptional status as humans, to treat animals humanely. As a result, for better and worse, animal welfare reforms -- not the same thing as animal rights -...