Discovery Institute's Blog, page 132

From Darwin and Galton to Sanger and Planned Parenthood, John West Traces the Evolution of an Idea

"Family planning" is one of the euphemisms that have wrapped what Planned Parenthood does behind a mystic veil. The phrase sounds like it should mean what you do once you have a family, prudently planning and budgeting for college tuition, weddings, orthodontia, and the like. I think what shocked a lot of people about the surreptitiously obtained Planned Parenthood videos is less the apparent trafficking in aborted baby parts, legal or illegal, and more the look behind the scenes at the way...

Life Continues to Ignore What Evolution Experts Say

Recently, philosopher James Barham published a series of articles called "Seeing Past Darwin," in which he looks at the recent growth and enormous implications of non-Darwinian biology and its approach to evolution. We've been discussing some of the specific issues in this series.

One motif recurs: Darwinian evolution -- which most lay hearers assume to be "evolution" period -- assumes that evolution is vertical: Organisms take their form from genes inherited with slight modifications from t...

Eric Metaxas Explains the Octopus Genome to You -- and 2 Million Others

Leave it to Eric Metaxas at Breakpoint to turn the latest research on the octopus genome into an amusing, illuminating, lucidly understandable radio-commentary takedown of Darwinian theory -- in less than 4 minutes. Go here and listen to (or read) today's program.

Eric draws on our work at Evolution News, including Casey Luskin's post "The Octopus Genome: Not 'Alien' but Still a Big Problem for Darwinism." Metaxas makes the excellent point that for all the trouble the Cambrian explosion pos...

Remembering Will Provine, Friend and Adversary

Editor's note: Though saddened by the occasion, Evolution News is gratified to welcome the godfather of the modern ID movement, Phillip E. Johnson, Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and author of Darwin on Trial and other books. He is Program Advisor to Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture. Look here for Professor Johnson's articles, reviews of his books, and multimedia files of his interviews and lectures.

I have just learned tha...

Armed Forces in the Cell Keep DNA Healthy

Science reporters struggle for metaphors to describe the complex operations they see going on in the cell. For example:

The Orchestra

News from the University of Geneva likens the human genome to a "complex orchestra." Their research led to "unexpected" and "surprising" findings showing "harmonized and synergistic behavior" in the regulation of genes. The metaphor of a conductor keeping all the various players in harmony came to mind:

A team of Swiss geneticists from the University of Geneva...

Toppling Another Evolutionary Icon, ENCODE Data Suggests Endogenous Retroviruses Are Functional

Recently a reader emailed us to ask about how to respond to the argument that some endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) seem to match the standard phylogeny of higher primates, supporting common descent. Endogenous retroviruses are thought to be parasitic junk sequences in our genome that were derived from viral DNA. Evolutionists often cite them as supposed evidence of common ancestry. The reader asked how many ERVs are shared between humans and apes.

These are good questions. ERVs are a favorit...

For Your Labor Day Weekend Consideration: Alfred Russel Wallace, Scientist and Working Man

We hope you're enjoying your Labor Day weekend. While you are carefully putting away all your white clothing until next summer, take a moment to consider the impact of labor on the development of evolutionary theory.

That's right, the two founders of evolutionary theory, Wallace and Darwin, came from very different backgrounds. Alfred Russel Wallace, who would later become a premature proponent of what we'd now call intelligent design, grew up among the middle class and had to work for a li...

Human Exceptionalism Prevails in New York

Human exceptionalism remains the law in New York State as the highest court there has refused to hear an appeal seeking to create chimp personhood.

The Court of Appeals ruling rejecting the attempt, now the law of New York because the high court rejected the appeal, could have been written by me. (It wasn't.) From the decision:

...unlike human beings, chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to social responsibilities, or be held legally accountable for their action. In our view, it...

Unanswered Questions: New York Times Highlights the Benefits of Teaching "Ignorance" in Science

Concerned that his students thought they now understood the brain after studying the course's 1400+ page textbook, Dr. Stuart Firestein, neuroscientist and chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, wrote Ignorance: How it Drives Science. He was afraid his students might come away with the idea that science has all the answers. His book takes a more realistic view, describing scientific discovery as "feeling around in dark rooms, bumping into unidentifiable thi...

Will Provine (1942-2015): A Personal Remembrance

I first met Will Provine in the late 1980s. He was then a regular speaker at the Spring Systematics symposia, organized by the invertebrate paleontologist Matthew Nitecki and held at the Field Museum in Chicago. The symposia always ended with an alcohol-fueled reception in a big hall where the speakers mingled with attendees.

Will's eyes would be twinkling with mischief as people responded to some deliberately outrageous statement he had made during his official talk. One year, I recall Will...