Discovery Institute's Blog, page 197

Mayo Clinic Paper: Human Biology Makes Sense Outside of the Light of Standard Darwinian Evolution

A new paper in the prestigious medical journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, "The Childhood Obesity Epidemic as a Result of Nongenetic Evolution: The Maternal Resources Hypothesis," argues that regarding the basis for inheritance, the modern evolutionary synthesis is fatally flawed. In fact, says Dr. Edward Archer at the University of Alabama, many aspects of human life, physiology, and health do not make sense in the light of the standard neo-Darwinian model.

Referring to the famous adage of Theo...

When Humans Make a Simplified Imitation of a Cell Machine, It's Called Design

Meet Rocker, the invention of an international team of scientists, including Gevorg Grigoryan at Dartmouth (pictured above). It's just a bundle of alpha-coils that sticks through a cell membrane. It can let some ions pass in, and others pass out. That simple function took years of work, and will require years more; it's just a stepping-stone toward rational design of cellular machines. Science published the achievement of a "de novo design" of a membrane channel that can transport zinc ions:...

Welcome to the Top Ten Scientific Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution

Editor's note: This is Part 1 of a 10-part series based upon Casey Luskin's chapter, "The Top Ten Scientific Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution," in the volume More than Myth, edited by Paul Brown and Robert Stackpole (Chartwell Press, 2014). When the series is complete, the full chapter will be posted online.

"There are no weaknesses in the theory of evolution."1 So said Eugenie Scott, the de facto head of the Darwin lobby, while speaking to the media in response to the Texas St...

Happy New Year! Our #1 Evolution Story of 2014: New Paper from Biologic Institute, "Shared Evolutionary History or Shared Design?"

Editor's note: The staff of Evolution News & Views wish you a happy New Year! We've been on a light reporting schedule as we have enjoyed some vacation time with family and friends. We have enjoyed offering our wonderful readers a countdown of the past year's Top 10 stories reflecting the most exciting and important developments in the evolution debate, concluding today. Enjoy!

Published originally on December 4, 2014.

I am pleased to announce the publication of a new paper from Biologic Insti...

Ring in the New Year with a Fabulous Video on Fine-Tuning from William Lane Craig

If you don't have plans for New Year's Eve -- or even if you do have plans -- take six minutes out of your evening to watch this spectacular video produced by William Lane Craig:

Yes there's a Bible verse at the end, but that in no way negates or mitigates the point here, which is the astounding fine-tuning of the universe for life. On the contrary, and this is of interest whether you're a religious believer or not, it shows that the wisdom of the ancients is being confirmed, not refuted, by t...

#2 of Our Top Ten Evolution Stories of 2014: Now with More Doubt! Meyer's Landmark Is Back in a New Edition, Replying to the Critics

Editor's note: The staff of Evolution News & Views wish you a happy New Year! We're on a light reporting schedule as we enjoy some vacation time with family and friends. In the meantime we offer to our wonderful readers a countdown of the past year's Top 10 stories reflecting the most exciting and important developments in the evolution debate, concluding on New Year's Day. Enjoy!

Oh, and by the way, if you haven't finalized your year-end contribution to support the work of the Center for Sci...

A Rare Media Defense of Human Exceptionalism

The media and the academy love anti-human exceptionalists. Why? I believe the unremitting assault on unique human value -- animal rights, nature rights, transhumanism, bioethics -- aims to break the spine of Judeo-Christian moral philosophy (not the faiths principally, but yes, in the end them too). That, in turn, is toward the end of destroying perceived moralism and opening the door to treating the most weak and vulnerable among us as objects.

It is rare to see much space devoted in mainstr...

Faced with Uncooperative Data, Evolutionary Icthyologists Reverse the Predictions of Common Descent

Here's another case of common descent predicting whatever we find, even when it's in fact not what evolutionary scientists predicted. Neil Shubin (pictured above) and his team are at it again, suggesting that Tiktaalik was a fish with a "wrist." A Science Daily article reports:

"Fossils show that the wrist and digits clearly have an aquatic origin," said Neil Shubin, PhD, the Robert R. Bensley Professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago and a leader of the team th...

#3 of Our Top Ten Evolution Stories of 2014: Cosmos Finale Takes One Last Shot at the Privileged Planet Thesis

Editor's note: The staff of Evolution News & Views wish you a happy New Year! We're on a light reporting schedule as we enjoy some vacation time with family and friends. In the meantime we offer to our wonderful readers a countdown of the past year's Top 10 stories reflecting the most exciting and important developments in the evolution debate, concluding on New Year's Day. Enjoy!

Oh, and by the way, if you haven't finalized your year-end contribution to support the work of the Center for Sci...

In Bacteria, an Astonishing Array of Chemical Factories

In 2008, it was 41. In 2012, it grew to 140. Now, the number is 262. What is it? It's the number of aromatic compounds that bacteria are known to synthesize. A new third-generation inventory of "terpene synthase" genes in bacteria has revealed widespread ability in simple microbes to manufacture complex organic compounds. Each chemical compound is backed by one or more genes that codes for an enzyme machine ("synthase") able to construct it.

Yuuki Yamada and a team of six colleagues in Tokyo...