Discovery Institute's Blog, page 460

Metamorphosis Debuts at Butterfly World, Florida

Despite a tropical storm going on outside and the fact that butterflies hide in the rain, the Florida premiere of Metamorphosis at Butterfly World last night came off nicely. The crowd of about 175 seemed to be a mix of families, longtime supporters of Butterfly World, and possibly a couple of youth groups. There was applause at our Janine Dixon's mere mention of the phrase "intelligent design" in her introduction, and vigorous applause when the film was over.

In the Q&A with Biologic...

William Lane Craig Gives Public Lecture Responding to Hawking Claims on the Universe and Its Origins

We thought that readers in England (and elsewhere too) would like to know that on Wednesday, October 19th, at 7:30 Dr. William Lane Craig will present a public lecture responding to Stephen Hawking's claims in his 2010 book The Grand Design.

The event will be held at St. Andrew's the Great in Cambridge, England. Craig will address the question "Has Hawking Eliminated God?," followed by a discussion with physicist Dr. Rodney Holder, with the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion...

Discovery of "Oldest Fully Aquatic Whale" Fossil Throws a Major Bone into Whale Evolution Story

In an article titled "Ancient whale jawbone found in Antarctica," the Associated Press reports that paleontologists have found "the oldest fully aquatic whale yet discovered," which is about 49 million years old. As we've discussed here on ENV in the past, whale evolution has faced problems because of the short timescale (~10 million years) allowed by the fossil record for whales to evolve from fully terrestrial mammals to fully aquatic whales. As Richard Sternberg has argued (see here, here ...

Evolving Metamorphosis: A Hopeless Task

In Current Biology last month,1 Jason M. Tennessen and Carl S. Thummel from the University of Utah School of Medicine had a lot to say about the complex dance of signaling partners -- hormones, receptors, organs, and genes -- that guide a fruit fly through its stages of life. It's pretty amazing stuff. How did it come to be? Well, the relevant subtopic in the article is titled, "An Evolutionarily Conserved Program to Coordinate Growth and Maturation."

Conservatism in evolution is...

American Eugenics on the Eve of Nazi Expansion: The Darwin Connection

In the face of strong and convincing evidence linking Darwinism to the evolutionary ethic and "racial hygiene" of the Nazis (see Richard Weikart's From Darwin to Hitler and Hitler's Ethic; see also the Nazi propaganda film "Upfer der Vergangenheit" ["Victims of the Past"]), Darwinian ideologues have typically reacted with denials and indignation. For example, in "Darwin's Connection to Nazi Eugenics Exposed," Eric Michael Johnson claims that it's all a creationist plot.

"The Nazi policies...

An Ancient Greek Witness to Secularism as a Moral Corrosive

Jerry Coyne can always be counted on for a cartoonish view on modern monotheist religions -- and so too on ancient polytheist ones. Writing at Why Evolution Is True, the University of Chicago biologist chides British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, an incomparably more subtle and serious thinker than Dr. Coyne, for observing that giving up religion had a deleterious effect on Greek morals. But of course it's Sacks who is correct here. Coyne goggles:

[Sacks] also claimed, bizarrely, that the...

Pumice and the Origin of Life

Is pumice the solution to many of the problems with origin-of-life scenarios?

Science news sources are abuzz about a paper that came out in Astrobiology. This paper proposes pumice as a key player in making possible the origin of life on Earth. Pumice is a low-density volcanic rock, formed from solidified lava froth, whose uses include the preparation of stonewashed denim. (You may find bits of it in the pockets of your newly purchased "distressed" jeans.) The authors of the paper begin by...

In the Beginning: Watch Stephen Meyer on Hubble, Einstein

You can now see the video of the first installment of Stephen Meyer's 4-part interview on the John Ankerberg Show. You won't find a more lucid explanation of how scientific materialism received a mortal blow in the 20th century with the observational and theoretical findings of Hubble and Einstein and the revelation that the universe had a beginning, after all. Meyer tells the story of Einstein's visit to the Palomar Observatory and his realization that he must abandon his famous fudge...

Dennis Venema - Stephen Meyer Exchange in Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith Available Online

With permission from American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), we are now making publicly available all of the articles published in ASA's journal, Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith (PSCF), by Dennis Venema and Stephen Meyer, in their recent debate over Signature in the Cell.

The articles may be found at the following links:

Dennis Venema's Original Review of Signature: Seeking a Signature (PSCF, Vol. 62(4):276-283 (December, 2010).) Stephen Meyer's Reply to Venema: Of Molecules and...

How Do We Know Intelligent Design Is a Scientific "Theory"?

A question I commonly receive is whether intelligent design is a "scientific theory." The word "theory" gets tossed around a lot as if everyone agrees on what it means. To answer the question, we must first consider the meaning of the word "theory."

As I've already elaborated here, philosopher Peter Kosso explains that calling something a "theory" says little about the degree of certainty backing the idea. As he states, "neither 'theoretical' nor 'law' is about being true or false, or about...