Discovery Institute's Blog, page 39

If These Critics of Intelligent Design Are Right, Then Evolution Can't Be Tested

Doug Axe and his colleagues Ann Gauger and Mariclair Reeves tested evolution in the lab at the most fundamental possible level -- effecting a minor transition in function between similar protein folds. They found that you can't get there from here by "any evolutionarily plausible means." In a brief video conversation, Dr. Axe, author of Undeniable, discusses responses to this research from critics of intelligent design in the science world.

What I take away from this is that it if these crit...

The War on Robert Atkins Goes On

PETA and other animal rights zealots went to war against Robert Atkins because he promoted a low carb diet as a healthy way to lose weight.

They were so filled with hatred that the animal rights fanatics of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) -- which hides its ideology by masking itself as a medical organization -- claimed falsely that he was obese to try to discredit the deceased nutritionist.

Now, the New York Times has run a piece by two doctors who treat obesity and...

Surprise Grows Over Importance of Previously Dismissed Portions of the Genome

We've often pointed out how the collapse of the junk-DNA concept fulfills intelligent-design predictions while falsifying Darwinism. At the risk of being repetitive, it is important to keep reporting the latest evidence, for the benefit of holdouts.

In the past, we have seen indirect evidence for function, finding that large portions of non-coding DNA are indeed transcribed, as shown by the ENCODE project. Further indirect evidence has come to light as knockout experiments of non-coding regi...

Eric Metaxas on "Evolution's Can Opener"

In a BreakPoint radio commentary, Eric Metaxas shows again why he's among the drollest observers of evolutionary theory and its shortcomings:

There's an old story about a chemist, a physicist, and an economist stranded on a desert island with nothing to eat but a can of soup. Puzzling over how to open the can, the chemist says, "Let's heat the can until it swells and bursts from the buildup of gases." "No, no," says the physicist, "let's throw it off that cliff with just enough kinetic energ...

Psychologists Say "Awe" in the Face of Nature Is a Problem for Science

This almost seems like a parody, but it's not. Researchers at Claremont McKenna, Yale, and Berkeley sound an alarm about the peril in experiencing awe when we're confronted with nature and its wonders. They warn in particular that this should be "disconcerting to those interested in promoting an accurate understanding of evolution."

The Abstract from the journal Emotion, where the research appears, summarizes:

Past research has established a relationship between awe and explanatory framework...

"Nature Rights" Goes to Court

As I detail in my book The War on Humans, environmentalists want to grant "nature" the human-style "right to exist, persist, maintain, and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution" -- in essence a right to life for flora, fauna, and even rivers and granite outcrops.

Before you laugh, Bolivia and Ecuador -- as well as more than thirty U.S. municipalities -- already have laws guaranteeing nature rights. Perhaps more ominously, UN Secretary General Ban Ki...

Michael Behe: Is That MEGA-Plate Antibiotic Resistance Video Evidence for Evolution, or Devolution?

On an episode of ID the Future, biologist Michael Behe talked with Discovery Institute's Sarah Chaffee about a Science article and Harvard Medical School video in the news that's supposed to be giving "creationists" nightmares.

Download the episode by clicking here:

Dr. Behe isn't losing any sleep. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria demonstrate evolution by breaking stuff -- not by building it and certainly not by creating complex new biological information. On the contrary, information is lost...

Intelligent Design Is the Backdrop for a Dan Brown-Style Thriller -- Bruce Buff's The Soul of the Matter

Intelligent design means different things to different people. In reality, it's a sober, meticulous theory of biological and cosmic origins. Starting with the failures of materialism in explaining life and the universe, it goes on to infer that the best available explanation suggests purposeful guidance. For all its modest refusal to draw conclusions beyond the scientific evidence, ID has far-reaching implications that unnerve, even unhinge some individuals.

To observers in the media and aca...

The Low Bar of Evolutionary Biology -- More on That Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Experiment

Darwinists are clueless. To wit, biologists lead by Michael Baym of Harvard Medical School published an article in Science, "Spatiotemporal microbial evolution on antibiotic landscapes," on which Evolution News commented last week. The biologists filmed a large plate of agar with discrete regions of antibiotic concentrations that contained bacteria. You can view it in the accompanying video, above.

Over time, you see new clones of resistant bacteria emerge and grow onto the higher concentrat...

Has Science's Freedom Become Its Downfall?

Writing in The New Atlantis, Daniel Sarewitz has a lengthy essay on why science, "pride of modernity, our one source of objective knowledge, is in deep trouble." He argues that science, rather than being disconnected from practical purposes, is most effective when it has a goal. Sarewitz cites Department of Defense projects as examples, and notes the recent reproducibility crisis as a sign of failure.

These are important points, but one of his overarching themes jumped out at me as another...