Discovery Institute's Blog, page 128

Following Kitzmiller v. Dover, an Excellent Decade for Intelligent Design

Tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of opening of arguments in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case that resulted in the most absurdly hyped court decision in memory. In 2005, did an obscure Federal judge in Dover, Pennsylvania, at last settle the ultimate scientific question that has fascinated mankind for millennia?

Of course not. The decision by Judge John Jones established nothing about intelligent design -- far from being the "death knell" sometimes claimed by Darwin defenders. For a definiti...

"How to Make Your Theory of Evolution Look Amazing in 5 Days"

Our friend the mathematician Granville Sewell noted here the other day how refreshing it would be if biology textbooks honestly granted that Darwinian theory, even if correct as a sufficient explanation of life's diversity and grandeur, nevertheless strains credibility at first glance. True, that would be a step in the right direction.

But I would add that, after all, evolution is not merely a subject of neutral, disinterested intellectual inquiry. It's a product that many advocates are out...

PETA Sues to Give Monkey Copyright

A copyright protects creative works to encourage artists, scientists, etc. to engage in intellectual and artistic efforts. From "Copyright 101:

The primary purpose of copyright law is not so much to protect the interests of the authors/creators, but rather to promote the progress of science and the useful arts -- that is -- knowledge.

Of course, PETA ignores all of that, as it files a lawsuit to grant a copyright to a monkey that happened to take its own photo on a camera set up by a profes...

Nose for Design: Irreducible Complexity, Goal-Directed Hierarchical Organization, Combinatorial Coding

One of the dramatic moments in Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earth begins with a trip into the nostril of a salmon. Illustra's animators take us on a journey through that tiny opening to view a beautiful structure, the olfactory rosette (pictured above), where millions of specialized cells called olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) sport cilia, like antennae, equipped with olfactory receptors (ORs). Each OR responds to a specific odor molecule according to its shape and...

Waiting for Mutations: Why Darwinism Won't Work

Many scientists now recognize the insufficiency of the classic Darwinian story to account for the appearance of new features or innovations in the history of life. They focus on other theories to account for remarkable differences between genomes, the appearance of novel body plans, and genuine innovations like the bat's wing, the mammalian placenta, the vertebrate eye, or insect flight, for example. They realize that the traditional story of population genetics (changes in allele frequencie...

Natural Selection: Could It Be the Single Greatest Idea Ever Invented?

Information, according to Darwin's idea (natural selection), can exist without intelligence. Nature produces intelligent designs, just because some life forms survive and others don't. That's it. That's all it takes. How odd that no one noticed.

A letter written by Darwin, the theory's originator, might fetch $90,000 at an upcoming auction. The Guardian explains:

The 19th-century naturalist and fervent letter writer had largely evaded this question since the publication of the book in 1859....

The Giraffe's Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve -- a Stumbling Block for Intelligent Design?

On an episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin and Wolf-Ekkehard Lnnig continue their discussion of why the body plan of the long-necked giraffe could not have evolved in a step-by-step Darwinian fashion.

Dr. Lnnig gives an account of the rational design of the giraffe's recurrent laryngeal nerve, a feature that Richard Dawkins and other evolutionists claim can only be explained by Darwinian evolution.

Image credit: D. Gordon E. Robertson (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Com...

Controlling Blood Pressure Requires an Irreducibly Complex System

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 body is a multi-cellular organism that...

Mouse Experiments Point to Alzheimer's Treatment

Animal rights ideologues really bring out their deep misanthrope by opposing all animal research, no matter the potential human benefit.

They say that such research never does any good. They claim that lab animals are as important as the suffering humans the research seeks to alleviate. They say the research is just as cruel as the that done in the concentration camps. They grossly mislead when claiming that animals are never needed, that cell lines and computer programs can do the job.

It i...

Prosecute Darwin Skeptics Under RICO Act?

As you may have heard, some prominent scientists have called for the criminal investigation, no less, of scientists and other advocates who cast doubt on the global warming "consensus." From the Daily Caller:

The science on global warming is settled, so settled that 20 climate scientists are asking President Barack Obama to prosecute people who disagree with them on the science behind man-made global warming.

Scientists from several universities and research centers even asked Obama to use t...