Discovery Institute's Blog, page 164

For a Troubled Student, Straight Talk on Intelligent Design

Writing at his site Reasonable Faith, William Lane Craig answers a poignant question from a Christian student at what sounds like it might be a Christian university: "Should Christians Accept Intelligent Design?" The student, Drew, has been hearing unexpectedly negative appraisals of intelligent design from professors. Drew figures that he, or they, may have misunderstood ID and asks Dr. Craig for assistance:

1) What is your definition of intelligent design?

2) Is intelligent design somethin...

Understanding Cardiovascular Function: How Water Is Distributed in the Body

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 human body consists of trillions of cel...

From the Folks Who Brought You Camels and Lucky Strikes: "Consensus"

Spend some time with old issues of Time Magazine or Look circa 1950 and you'll find ad after ad touting the doctors who smoke Camels or Lucky Strikes (""). The PR agencies surveyed the doctors, sometimes counting hundreds of thousands of them, then advised readers that such and such brand was "not irritating on the throat," was "soothing," and other euphemisms for scientific approval of what turned out to be a deadly product.

Most doctors smok...

"Ninety-five Percent of Forensic Scientists Agree..."

Firedoglake, on the scandal involving forensic science and the FBI:

In a stunning revelation the FBI has admitted that it provided flawed forensic testimony on hundreds of cases in the two decades prior to the year 2000. The FBI forensic experts falsely stated forensic matches that favored prosecutors 95% of the time in the over 200 cases reviewed so far.

In 14 of the cases the FBI experts offered that flawed testimony in the defendants have either died in prison or been executed. Four previ...

Biologist Ann Gauger on How Life Is Sculpted by Death

Biologic Institute biologist Ann Gauger has a beautiful and illuminating essay out now, "Greater Love Has No Cell," in the Christianity Today publication The Behemoth. The subject: apoptosis. What's that? Programmed cell death, in which our ENV colleague Dr. Gauger finds not only major biological significance but a profound spiritual metaphor. The only drawback is that the article is behind a paywall, but we can share highlights. She begins:

We naturally think of death as something awful, a...

At the Dawn of Life, a Mystery

At the dawn of life the first cells were something like the bacteria we see today. Their appearance by itself is a great wonder and mystery, yet another marvel had to take place -- the appearance of the first eukaryotic cells.

What does it take to go from a prokaryotic cell to a eukaryotic cell? Why does it matter? Every animal and plant, every fungus we know is made up of eukaryotic cells. The differences between the two kinds of cells are immense. I discussed this briefly in a post a few d...

Medical Technocrats Want Death Panels; They Would Just Prefer a Less Provocative Name

"Don't mention death panels!" the medical technocrats warn us -- even as they plot and plan to institute death panels.

And that's just the course taken by the New York Times physician columnist Dr. Sandeep Jouhar, as he races past supporting Futile Care Theory -- in which doctors are permitted to withdraw wanted life-sustaining treatment based upon their subjective moral views about the patient's quality of life -- to advocate imposing a regimen of "social justice" on the practice of medicin...

Could a Computer Experience Consciousness? Why Not a Typewriter?

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Editor's note: The following is excerpted from the new expanded edition of Granville Sewell's book In the Beginning: And Other Essays on Intelligent Design (Discovery Institute Press). References for cited works are given in this book. ENV contributor Dr. Sewell is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas El Paso. He has written three books on numerical analysis, and is the author of a widely used finite element computer program.

[image error]One way to appreciate the problem human consciousne...

Scientific Consensus? You've Got to Be Kidding, Right?

We are often told that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." The statement was first made in 1973 by neo-Darwinist Theodosius Dobzhansky. (Neo-Darwinism is the view that evolution is due to the natural selection of variations that originate as gene mutations.) Dobzhansky's statement is false. Nevertheless, it has become the majority opinion ("consensus") of the scientific establishment. Sometimes, it is carried to absurd extremes.

For example, in a blog post last...

Pope to Declare that Nature Has Rights?

Commonweal, as I understand it, is a liberal Catholic publication. As Roman Catholics prepare to hear Pope Francis's statement on global warming, writer Robin Darling Young seems to hope that that he has something far more transformative in mind than urging a reduction of our carbon dioxide footprint. From "Does the Earth Have Rights?":

But he may go further now, and address our duty to other species and to the integrity of a creation that is losing many of those species. He may end up movin...