Discovery Institute's Blog, page 222

War on Humans: To Love and Care, or Kill?

Sometimes I get emotional whiplash.

On one hand, we see very prominent bioethicists say that we should starve Alzheimer's patients to death if they asked to be killed in an advance directive.

Compassion and Choices teaches oldsters how to commit suicide by self-starvation.

People like Peter Singer claim we should be allowed to lethally inject Alzheimer's patients non-personseven if they never asked -- despite having cared very wellfor his own so afflicted mother.

Then, there is the story of the m...

Leading Theistic Evolutionist Darrel Falk, Past BioLogos President, Praises Darwin's Doubt

As readers of Evolution News & Views will likely already know, BioLogos is a Christian organization founded by geneticist Francis Collins, current director of the NIH. In years past the group has emphasized what it regards as the necessity of embracing Darwinian evolution over the competing theory of intelligent design. It has broadcast this message to the Christian community, and with some success.

Meanwhile, though, much to the credit of our friends at BioLogos, leading spokesmen for the th...

You're Invited! More than 100 Churches and Other Groups Will Co-Host "Science and Faith" Simulcast on Sunday, September 21

On September 21, more than a hundred groups across the United States and Canada will host a simulcast on "Science and Faith: Are They Really in Conflict?" The event features Oxford University's John Lennox, Discovery Institute's Stephen Meyer, and BreakPoint radio's Eric Metaxas. The simulcast will run from 6 to 8 pm CST/PST and 7 to 9 pm EST/MNT.

More than sixty co-hosting groups have agreed to make their simulcast available to the general public, so you are cordially invited to attend. See...

Metaspriggina Revisited: Darwin Defender Strains at a Rabbit but Swallows a Camel

With apparent relish, PZ Myers poked fun at our statement about finding a vertebrate fish in the lower Cambrian: "for Darwinists, it should hardly be more surprising to find than a Precambrian rabbit." He thinks we said that Metaspriggina is "the equivalent of a Precambrian rabbit." Following that, he reproduced artist's reconstructions of the Cambrian fish and two other Cambrian swimmers, followed by a photo of a living rabbit:

Which one would surprise you, boys and girls, if it were found...

Is Intelligent Design a Circular Argument? A Conversation with Atheist Activist Matt Dillahunty

Over the past weekend, I called into the Atheist Experience, a TV show based in Austin, Texas, hosted by atheist activist Matt Dillahunty. It is a weekly call-in program, airing Sundays from 4:30 to 5:30 pm Central and can be viewed on ustream. The recording of my discussion with Matt (I am the first and longest caller) is accessible online (mp3, video).

Informed and intelligent theists rarely call into the program. It is unfortunate that the vast majority of callers are not knowledgeable abo...

Darwin's "Horrid Doubt": The Mind

Many people in their forties today grew up with science as the business end of naturalist atheism. In their view, a "scientific" explanation is one that describes a universe devoid of meaning, value, or purpose. That is how we know itisa scientific explanation.

Science wasn't always understood that way, and the new approach has consequences. It means, for example, thatmultiverse cosmologycan consist entirely of evidence-free assumptions. Yet only a few question whether it is science.

Indeed, ph...

In Berlin, a Memorial to German Euthanasia Victims

The Associated Press reports:

Germany on Tuesday inaugurated a memorial to more than 200,000 people with physical and mental disabilities killed by the Nazis after their lives were deemed "worthless."

The transparent 24-meter (79-foot) blue glass wall outside the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall is near memorials to the Jewish Holocaust victims and the Nazis' gay and Gypsy, or Roma, victims, opened over the past decade.

It stands on the site of a villa where the murder of patients at hospital...

No! Really? Living Ediacarans?

Some unusual marine organisms don't seem to fit anywhere in the animal classification scheme. Are they remnants of the Ediacaran fauna that preceded the Cambrian explosion?

They were found in 1986 in deep waters off the coast of Australia: bizarre, striped, mushroom-shaped creatures. Pickled away in jars at the time, they escaped further study -- till now. Scientists want to know what on earth they are. The hunt is on for more living specimens! The paper in PLOS ONE sets the stage:

A new genu...

What Shall We Call Our Transhumanist Future?

Members of the materialist religious denomination of futurists, often known as transhumanists, are having a bit of a tussle. No, it isn't an argument over how many non-souls can fit into a computer server array, but about nomenclature. From the Slate story:

These are all terms thrown around trying to describe a future in which mind uploading, indefinite lifespans, artificial intelligence, and bionic augmentation may (and I think will) help us to become far more than just human. They are words...

Biology's Quiet Revolution

In 1980, I overheard a prominent Ivy League cell biologist say that all the basic features of living cells had been discovered; we just needed to fill in the details. His remark reminded me of a statement attributed to William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) in 1900: "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." Of course, many revolutionary discoveries in physics were made after 1900. Similarly, many revolutionary discoveries in cell b...