Discovery Institute's Blog, page 163

May 10, 2015

As Clay in the Potter's Hand, Eugenicists Would Edit Human Genes

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Utilitarian bioethicists and transhumanists see the human genome as clay in the potter's hand. Now that "gene editing" has been accomplished in China, some want to go full bore into embryo -- which will one day lead to fetal -- experimentation to rid us of bad diseases.

Behind the health issue, the ultimate goal is genetic human enhancement and redesign that passes down the generations, in essence, remaking us in the image desired by biotechnologists. Some bioethicists have called for cauti...

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Published on May 10, 2015 05:36

May 9, 2015

Listen: How Neo-Darwinism Struggles to Explain Biogeographical Distribution

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On a new episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin continues his series discussing the top ten problems with biological and chemical evolution.

The series is based on Casey's chapter in the volume More than Myth, edited by Paul Brown and Robert Stackpole (Chartwell Press, 2014). In this segment, Casey discusses the ninth problem: how neo-Darwinism struggles to explain the biogeographical distribution of many species.

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Published on May 09, 2015 05:10

May 8, 2015

Junk No Mo: Scientists Turn Genetic Junk into Master Controller

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You'll pardon two Aussies for their mixed metaphors. They represent the cutting edge of young scientists who have ditched the "junk DNA" label entirely. They now recognize the powerful regulatory role of micro-RNAs in the non-coding portions of the genome. Writing at The Conversation, Pamela Ajuyah (PhD student) and Nham Tran (lab head) at the University of Technology in Sydney begin their metaphors with a familiar irritation: junk mail.

Up until about two decades ago, one type of RNA, calle...

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Published on May 08, 2015 14:45

Charles Krauthammer Is for Human Exceptionalism, but I'd Rather Have Evidence than Mere Intuition

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As our colleague Wesley Smith points out over at National Review's The Corner, Charles Krauthammer comes out firmly for human exceptionalism, and makes the needed distinction between animal welfare and animal rights. Well, good for him. Writes Krauthammer:

No. I'm not joining PETA. Indeed, I firmly believe that man is the measure of all things. Sometimes you have to choose. I cringe at medical experimentation, but if you need to study cats' eyes in order to spare some humans from blindness,...

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Published on May 08, 2015 12:21

For Its Moral Ideals, Evolutionary Materialism "Freeloads" from Christianity

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Editor's note: ENV is pleased to share this excerpt from Nancy Pearcey's new book, Finding Truth: Five Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes. A Fellow of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture, Pearcey is a professor and scholar-in-residence at Houston Baptist University and editor-at-large of The Pearcey Report. She is author of the 2005 ECPA Gold Medallion Award winner Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity and other b...

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Published on May 08, 2015 04:55

For Its Moral Ideals, Evolutionary Materialism "Freeloads" on Christianity

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Editor's note: ENV is pleased to share this excerpt from Nancy Pearcey's new book, Finding Truth: Five Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes. A Fellow of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture, Pearcey is a professor and scholar-in-residence at Houston Baptist University and editor-at-large of The Pearcey Report. She is author of the 2005 ECPA Gold Medallion Award winner Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity and other b...

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Published on May 08, 2015 04:55

May 7, 2015

The Deeper Issues of the Worm Video Debate: P.Z. Myers's Misdirection

Recently, both Jerry Coyne and P.Z. Myers posted criticisms of the new video from Discovery Institute, "How to Build a Worm." Quelle surprise, they didn't like it -- but the genuine surprise was the contribution of distinguished evolutionary biologist Ursula Goodenough of Washington University. Goodenough also commented on the video, and tried to solve the problem it raised. Her solution fails, but its failure is instructive, because it reinforces the main point of the video: whatever brough...

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Published on May 07, 2015 17:15

Major Advance in Revealing the Dawn of Complex Life? Sorry, It's a Little Premature to Break Out the Champagne

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Carl Zimmer reports in the New York Times about a breakthrough in uncovering the early prehistory of the first complex cells. Publishing in the journal Nature, scientists say they have uncovered what might be evidence of an intermediate cell, a "missing link" as Zimmer calls it, that lies somewhere between bacteria -- prokaryotes -- and the first true eukaryotes, cells with multiple membrane-bound compartments.

This result is to be celebrated, if true, as it would represent a major advance...

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Published on May 07, 2015 11:52

A Simple Transition to Multicellularity -- Not!

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Volvox is a small spheroid green alga that lives in ponds, making its living by photosynthesis as plants do. Volvox is among the simplest animals to have more than one cell type. The hollow sphere that is its body is made up of somatic cells (soma is the Greek word for body). Within the sphere are specialized cells called gonidia (from the Greek gonē, meaning generation or seed). Early in embryogenesis, some cells divide to produce large cells. These become the gonidia, which then become emb...

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Published on May 07, 2015 03:52

May 6, 2015

China Is Still Killing and Harvesting Falun Gong for Organs

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China is a brutal tyranny in which all manner of oppressions are imposed by the government -- such as its authoritarian one-child policy. Some in the West have been willingly complicit in the tyranny, which includes killing political prisoners and selling their organs. One such participant, a kidney buyer, was portrayed by Daniel Asa Rose, author of Larry's Kidney, who audaciously wrote a gleeful account of his experience in the organ market.

Killing and harvesting prisoners is a particularl...

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Published on May 06, 2015 17:10

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