Discovery Institute's Blog, page 119

National Science Standards Reflect a Growing Anxiety on the Part of Evolution Advocates

Teach science critically -- except when it comes to evolution. In discussions of how to improve public school education in the U.S., that's the message that advocates of national science standards typically convey. Yet that wasn't always the case.

An article at Ars Technica recounts the development of the most recent set of proposed standards: the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), finalized in 2013. Ironically, teaching students to engage in scientific inquiry, rather than simply ex...

Comments by Darwinists: Another Perspective

My colleague David Klinghoffer has a superb post on a perennial question at Evolution News. Should we accept comments on our published articles here? David provides a fine explanation for the decision not to allow comments.The point he makes is valid: Much of the output of the Darwinian blogosphere is venom unrepeatable in polite company.

Indeed, some of our fine readers might be unable to access the Darwinists' comments from work, due to obscenity filters. Moderating comments would be a Her...

How Many Codes in Life?

On a recent ID the Future podcast, Jonathan Wells listed six codes used by cells: the genetic code, the epigenetic code, the membrane code, the sugar code, the RNA splicing code, and the bioelectric code. Geoffrey North at Current Biology, on the other hand, contends that there is only one code, because all the others ultimately derive from DNA. Who's right?

As each eager new candidate comes along, it is invariably dubbed a new second genetic code -- never a third or fourth genetic code.......

Human Cloning Advance: Ban Now or Cry Later

Human cloning used to make big headlines. But "the scientists" got smart, and just started using the scientific term for cloning -- somatic cell nuclear transfer -- as a way of hiding in plain sight.

Thus, when the first human embryos were successfully manufactured via SCNT, the were few headlines and most people yawned -- if they heard about it at all. Of course, I reacted strongly.

Now, the South Koreans have improved the efficiency of cloning, and again, the scientists are keeping mostly...

Weighing the Impact of California's New Physician-Assisted Suicide Law

Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a new California law legalizing physician-assisted suicide. The national impact of the new law in our nation's largest state will be enormous. California follows Oregon, Washington, and Vermont in providing legislative approval for physician-assisted suicide. There are several chilling outcomes from this odious law.

Physician-assisted suicide is a violation of the Hippocratic Oath -- "I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advi...

For SETI Researchers, Here Is a Guide for Handling Fallacious Objections

A recent story making the rounds, "Space anomaly gets extraterrestrial intelligence experts' attention," claims that the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project has found "a strange star" that "could mean alien life." As David Klinghoffer noted in an earlier post, the raw data entails odd fluctuations in the intensity of light coming from a star. CNN reports:

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute has its eyes -- and soon possibly one of the United States' pre...

What Evolution Is, and What It's Not

Evolution, in the sense of common descent, is not a theory of similarity. Linnaeus, Cuvier, and Agassiz knew all about similarity, yet they denied common descent. Evolution is a theory of transformation.

Here's an instructive parallel. Lead (Pb) and gold (Au) share many similarities: Au and Pb are metals. Au and Pb are dense, with very similar atomic masses. Au and Pb are highly ductile.

And so on. It doesn't take much to imagine that, with the right chemical methods, one could transform lea...

Why No Comments at Evolution News?

A complaint we sometimes get at Evolution News & Views concerns why we do not provide a forum for comments after each post. Rather than reply to this question afresh each time it comes across my desk, I would like to state the reasons here so that, in the future, I can simply provide a link by way of an answer.

Now and then the query is posed in a polite manner by a thoughtful correspondent. For example, biologist Douglas E. Swartzendruber at Pepperdine University writes to ask:

A lot of us...

In Pursuit of a Death Culture, Wearing Decency Down

In my 22 years of anti-euthanasia advocacy -- and I had no idea what I was getting into -- I have noticed that the death pushers don't give a fig about democratic processes. They simply want to win.

If democracy gets them their way, fine. If not, they go to courts. If that doesn't work, some engage in illegal surreptitious assisted suicide or open defiance of the law. And eventually, they wear decency down.

A Canadian law professor applauds her country's Supreme Court as it imposes euthanasi...

The Economist Admits Cambrian Explosion Is a "Mystery"

A recent video from The Economist takes on the evolution of animals in the Cambrian explosion, conceding something that many Darwin advocates refuse to fully acknowledge: that "biology's big bang" is a "mystery." Find it here. Among other important admissions, it says:

Narrator: "The cause of this sudden burst of life, which geologists call the Cambrian explosion, remains a mystery."
Andrew Parker, Professor of Life Sciences at the Natural History Museum of London: "The Cambrian explosion...