Discovery Institute's Blog, page 126

Listen: Nelson, Luskin Share Memories of Will Provine

On an episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin talks with CSC Fellow Paul Nelson, sharing memories of the late Will Provine (1942-2015), historian of science and evolutionary biologist at Cornell University.

Provine, an evolutionary spokesman, was a longtime interlocutor of intelligent design proponents, who admired him for his willingness to challenge standard evolutionary views and his refreshing ability to express affection for opponents while disagreeing with them. Read Dr. Nelson's refl...

"Did Charles Darwin Start Discovery Institute?"

I showed our new short documentary, The Information Enigma, to my kids last night. It prompted a surprise question from my younger daughter -- "Did Charles Darwin start Discovery Institute?" No, I said, Bruce Chapman and George Gilder did. Why did she ask? She explained, "Because you're always talking about him."

I got a smile out of that. In fairness, she has not yet studied biology. But I think my daughter was also picking up on the fact that even as we propose intelligent design as an alt...

Register for Christian Scientific Society Conference, Hosted at Discovery Institute, November 13-14

The Christian Scientific Society (CSS) is an ID-friendly organization launched by University of Pittsburgh physicist David Snoke to foster discussion among scientists about Christianity and science. While it's a Christian group, their conferences are open to the public, and one does not have to be a Christian, or an advocate of intelligent design, to attend. Discovery Institute is pleased to announce that we'll be hosting their regional conference on November 13-14 at our offices in downtown...

Why We Don't Look Like Chimps

Pictures showing the gradual transition of an ape-like creature to a human one are part of the cultural Gestalt. They are so ubiquitous that people use the idea for jokes. You've probably seen the picture describing the evolution of man from a bent-over ape to a bent-over office worker on the computer. But do such pictures represent the truth about our history?

Let's consider just one part of the transition that would be required -- to go from an ape-like face to a human one. The portraits...

"Rapid" Evolution Observed in Guppies? As Always, It Depends on What You Mean by Evolution

Reporting in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, researchers have rigorously demonstrated something totally unsurprising -- only to turn around and offer it as evidence for something quite different and quite surprising. The technical term for that is bait-and-switch.

A team showed that if you take guppies and move them from an environment rich in predators to one that's largely predator-free, this can have an effect on a superficial trait like coloration. Who would have...

Adult Stem Cells Are Effective Against MS

This can't be true! Embryonic stem cells are the ONLY HOPE, "the scientists" and their media and celebrity camp followers repeatedly insisted -- as they urged priority funding for studies using the cells.

Except, those who argued that adult stem cells offered great potential are the ones being proven right -- as embryonic successes are almost nowhere to be seen.

Now, the early indications of a possibly efficacious treatment for multiple sclerosis are looking to be even more hopeful. From the...

Blood Pressure: Standing Up to Gravity

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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." Dr. Glicksman practices palliative medicine for a hospice organization.

The cardiovascular system's job is to provi...

Bill Nye the Junk Science Guy

There has been much deconstruction of Bill Nye's sophistry in defense of abortion, including here in an article by Robert P. George and Patrick Lee, effectively dismantling his ridiculous assertion (in a video for Big Think) that because many embryos don't implant, somehow that means a human embryo is not really a human life. That's a pretty bizarre argument for somebody who claims the mantle of "science guy."

In reality, SCIENCE! cannot tell us whether abortion is right, wrong, or morally...

Coming October 8: The Information Enigma

We are very pleased to announce a coming short documentary feature, The Information Enigma, that asks the ultimate question in biology: How does biological information arise? The focus is on the Cambrian explosion, some 530 million years ago, but of course the mystery is pervasive in the history of life. It's a major stumbling block for the theory of unguided evolution, and pretty conclusive evidence for intelligent design.

I had the privilege of drafting the script but the stars of the f...

"Designless" Logic: Is a Neural Net a Budding Brain?

Whenever you harness a random phenomenon for a function, you are doing intelligent design. For instance, raindrops falling on the ground are unpredictable, but the moment you dig a ditch to channel them to run a waterwheel, you have used your goal-directed intelligence for a pre-determined purpose, even if the inputs were random. Evolutionists routinely miss this distinction. Maybe it's because they just hope their bottom-up theory is true.

Designless Logic

The authors of a new paper in Natu...