Discovery Institute's Blog, page 217

Darwinians Try to Usurp Biomimetics Popularity

As we've reported often before, biomimetics is hot. Supported by university departments and peer-reviewed journals, scientists and engineers are racing to copy nature's designs. It's all based on "design thinking," from concept to application, and thus an excellent illustration of the fruitfulness of intelligent design in science, even if that fact goes largely unacknowledged. The bioengineer is first inspired by a natural design, then seeks to understand it, then tries to mimic it. Examples...

Nature Admits Scientists Suppress Criticisms of Neo-Darwinism to Avoid Lending Support to Intelligent Design

If you think that intelligent design isn't making an impact on evolutionary science, think again. The latest issue of Nature has a point-counterpoint on the question "Does evolutionary theory need a rethink?" Answering "Yes, urgently" are Kevin Laland (professor of behavioral and evolutionary biology at the University of St. Andrews), Tobias Uller, Marc Feldman, Kim Sterelny, Gerd B. Müller, Armin Moczek, Eva Jablonka, and John Odling-Smee -- some of whom were members of the infamous "Altenbe...

Emergence Is Real, but It Can't Replace Information

Without doubt, you can watch some pretty amazing things emerge in nature by a combination oflaw and chance. A snowflake is a classic example.

The binding properties of the water molecule dictate what angles are permissible, and then the crystal's chance path through the cloud accounts for the unique result: a six-sided marvel that looks like a work of art. But you won't see snowflakes spell out "John loves Mary" -- that kind of purposeful communication requires more than natural law and chan...

Hip-Hop Artist Je'kob Sings of Intelligent Design

Of all the scurrilous charges leveled at advocates of intelligent design, arguably the one that hurts the most is the accusation that the scientific alternative to Darwinian evolutionary theory could never inspire a hip-hop artist. Not true!

Kidding aside, ENV's Casey Luskin has in fact discovered a talented up-and-coming hip-hop singer and composer, Je'kob Washington, whose work is inspired by ID. A very thoughtful guy, too, as you can confirm by listening to Casey's interview with Je'kob fo...

More on Refuting Irreducible Complexity with a Tie Clip

Michael Flannery commented yesterday on Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller's claim to have refuted a major argument for intelligent design. How? By using a mousetrap as a tie clip.

The idea is that Miller's tie clip purportedly demonstrates that Michael Behe's example of the mousetrap as an irreducibly complex (IR) apparatus (comparable in this respect to the bacterial flagellum with its own IR design) fails by a simple analogy. In other words, what we see now as a complete bacterial...

More on Intelligent Design's Secret Weapon: The World

I mentioned the other day that an underappreciated weapon in the ID movement's intellectual arsenal is it strength internationally. Stalwarts of Darwinian evolution deny this, insisting that intelligent design is exclusively an American and Christian phenomenon. Nonsense!

Hard on the heels of learning about the upcoming launch of Brazil's first major scientific conference on ID, set for November 14-16 this year in Campinas, São Paulo, we received a copy of the Chinese translation of Stephen...

Responding to My Talk at the University of Chicago, Joe Felsenstein's Argument by Misdirection

Evolutionists on the web have questioned why my former doctoral supervisor at the University of Chicago, Leo Kadanoff (postdoc of Bohr, NAS member, winner of the Wolf Prize, Isaac Newton Medal, etc.), decided to invite me to speak about my work on information.

The answer can be found in an email from him to me prior to issuing the formal invitation to speak at the University of Chicago. I had sent Kadanoff a copy of my latest book, Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information, in draft f...

Has Ken Miller Refuted Irreducible Complexity with a Tie Clip?

At a recent meeting of the student apologetics group Ratio Christi an acquaintance suggested to me that biologist Ken Miller's use of a mousetrap as a tie clip -- with the catch and the hold-down bar removed -- was somewhat cheesy but had "made its point." Really?

What exactly was Ken Miller's point? Well, the idea is that Miller's tie clip purportedly demonstrates that Michael Behe's example of the mouse trap as an irreducibly complex (IR) apparatus (comparable in this respect to the bacteri...

An Ex-Christian with a Famous Last Name Nominates Neil deGrasse Tyson as an "Inspiring Preacher"

As we are putting the finishing editorial touches on The Unofficial Guide to Cosmos, documenting the many distortions in the popular series with Neil deGrasse Tyson, there comes a timely confirmation that this is important work we're doing. An article at Forbes profiles Bart Compolo, "humanist chaplain" at the University of Southern California who is also the son of a well-known liberal Evangelical pastor, Tony Campolo.

This comment from the younger Campolo was striking:

Today, Bart Campolo is...

War on Elderly Humans: "Lethal Ageism" and Its Cure

I delve into the deadly threats posed to our elderly loved ones by contemporary culture-of-death trendsin my current First Things column.

The article discuss some issues that I have explored recently, such as the joint euthanasia killings of elderly couples in Belgium and Rahm Emanuel's intention to die at 75 because after that, life isn't much worth living -- attitudes that are slipping into public policy.

Then, I get into the explicit advocacy among some in bioethicsfor a "duty to die." From...