Discovery Institute's Blog, page 182

What the Assisted Suicide Debate Has to Do with Evolution

It's not possible to remind yourself too often how evolutionary thinking ramifies through the culture. Assisted suicide, for example, the subject of a proposed new law before the California State Legislature, as Wesley Smith wrote here. Senate Bill 128 would bring California into the company of Oregon, Washington, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and now Canada.

In brief -- at stake in the question of biological and cosmic origins is, finally, the question of the human self-image. Our...

More on the Advantage Physicians, Engineers Enjoy Compared to Evolutionary Biologists

Thoughtful reader Dean in Ohio comments on Howard Glicksman's article this morning introducing our new series, "The Designed Body." ENV noted there: "Engineers and physicians have a special place in the community of thinkers and scholars who have elaborated the argument for intelligent design." Why? Dr. Glicksman wrote:

Some people believe that life came into being by chance and the laws of nature alone. Darwin was an excellent observer of nature but he had no idea how life actually works at...

No, Despite Often-Heard Claims, Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria Is Not Evolution

Darwinian biologist and blogger P.Z. Myers wrote a post recently in which he lamented the fact that medical researchers rarely invoke evolution in their published research, whereas evolutionary biologists routinely invoke evolution. This is of course true.

I pointed out that this is because evolutionary inferences are of no significant help to medical research. Inference to evolution is a narrative gloss on the real science in medicine. It is a point that I, along with others, have been maki...

How the Body Works: Intelligent Design in Action

Editor's note: Engineers and physicians have a special place in the community of thinkers and scholars who have elaborated the argument for intelligent design. Perhaps that's because, more than evolutionary biologists, they are familiar in very practical ways with the challenges of designing or maintaining a functioning complex system on the order of a jet airplane, or the human body. With that in mind, Evolution News & Views is delighted to introduce a new series, "The Designed Body," and t...

Let The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik Read Our Series on the 10 Top Problems with Darwinian Evolution, and Then Give Us His Thoughts

We have now posted in full Casey Luskin's series on "The Top Ten Scientific Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution." It was earlier published in serial form here at Evolution News & Views. What would Adam Gopnik at The New Yorker say if he actually sat down and read such a document?

Mr. Gopnik wrote the other day to endorse the idea of subjecting national office-seekers to an evolutionary catechism. He finds it telling that some leading Republicans have declined to say whether they...

A Historian Asks, "What if Other Human Species Had Survived?"

The morality of the 21st century will depend on how we respond to a simple but profound question: Does every human life have equal moral value simply and merely because it is human?

Answer yes to that question and it is the end of racism, sexism, "ableism," and the insidious and subversive meme that some humans are "non-persons"because such invidious ways of thinking flownaturally from measuringhuman value subjectively.

Or to turn it around, universal human rights and equality depend on theobje...

Duplicating a Power Plant Is No Easy Task

When we think about cell division, we usually focus on the chromosomes and how they separate into the daughter cells. Actually, many other organelles in the cytoplasm need to duplicate themselves, too. How do you duplicate a power plant -- a mitochondrion?

Consider that each mitochondrion (and there are many in most eukaryotic cells) has dozens of those spinning motors called ATP synthase in their membranes. Several other complex machines lead up to ATP production. These machines run constant...

This Weekend in California, Paul Nelson Will Speak on the "God of the Gaps" Challenge and the Explanatory Superiority of Design

You've heard the objection: ID is nothing but a "God of the Gaps" argument, employed to insert an empty teleological cause into some hole in our current scientific understanding -- a hole that will inevitably be filled by physical or material knowledge. When that physical knowledge comes, the "designer" will be found unneeded and unwanted yet again, to be handed his pink slip and the address of the Cosmic Unemployment office.

So familiar and potent has this "God of the Gaps" (GOTG) objection...

Seattle, Philadelphia, Washington: Hear John West on "Scientism in the Age of Obama"

Speaking of political scientist John West's newly expanded book Darwin's Doubt, West will be taking to the skies and roads next month to tell audiences in Seattle, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, about "Scientism in the Age of Obama." Our colleague Dr. West, Center for Science & Culture associate director, will speak at three prominent events coming up soon.

First, on March 5 from 4:30-6:00 pm in Seattle, we'll launch the book formally at the offices of Discovery Institute. The event is fr...

Totalitarian Temptation: Science and Culture in the Age of Obama

At BreakPoint Radio today, John Stonestreet has an excellent commentary on the totalitarian temptation that runs now through science and culture. The temptation is to explain everything about human beings in evolutionary terms, and to employ that dubious science as a tool to refashion our culture as a whole -- everything from sex to law to diet.

Stonestreet highlights the new expanded edition of John West's book, Darwin Day in America, which tells the story of how we got here, culminating in...