Discovery Institute's Blog, page 466

Richard Lenski's Long-Term Evolution Experiments with E. coli and the Origin of New Biological Information

Intelligent Design and the Origin of Information: A Response to Dennis Venema

In this article, Part 5, we:• Understand why Venema's citation of Lenski's "Long Term Evolution Experiments" do not demonstrate that "Complex, specified information can indeed arise through natural mechanisms"
• Review Michael Behe's 2010 paper in Quarterly Review of Biology which investigated Lenski's research and found that "mutations were decreasing or eliminating the protein's function"
• Investigate why...

At Southern Methodist University, Metamorphosis Gets a Respectful Reception

Metamorphosis had a very successful Dallas premiere last night at Southern Methodist University. It was a good deal friendlier than the tense, loaded atmosphere of the reception the night before at the University of Oklahoma. The SMU audience was mixed, several hundred people in all, mostly students along with other young people and older adults.

In the Q&A after the film, Paul Nelson and Ann Gauger got some great questions. But the first was from a student who had written a somewhat...

We Got Your Intelligent-Design Tattoo Right Here!

Evolution News & Views does not endorse tattooing, however as intelligently designed indelible skin decorations go, this one is certainly...colorful. This fellow showed up at the Metamorphosis premiere in Southern California. He's got a DNA strand, ammonite shell, and bacterial flagellar motor. Yikes, now that is a tat!

Alfred Russel Wallace Got There Before Metamorphosis

Our friend and colleague Michael Flannery notes a fascinating letter written by evolutionary theory's co-discoverer that anticipates the intelligent-design argument in Metamorphosis.

Alfred Russel Wallace was writing to Mrs. Fisher, who prior to her marriage had served as Charles Lyell's secretary under her maiden name of Arabella Buckley. The letter is dated on March 6, 1909. Excerpt:

Another point I am becoming more and more impressed with is, a teleology of fundamental laws and...

An Atheist Contemplates Lying

This goes to show the deformation of ideas about right and wrong when people think they can just figure out all that morality stuff for themselves -- as, evolutionarily speaking, why should they not?

I was struck today by Jerry Coyne's post at Why Evolution Is True, noting Sam Harris's new e-book, Lying, in which Harris denounces all telling of untruths. Self-help guru Tim Ferriss writes in a blurb for the book, "Humans have evolved to lie well," yet "Harris demonstrates how to benefit from b...

Richard Weikart on Darwinism and Hitlerism

In his most recent book, Hitler's Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress, Discovery Institute fellow Richard Weikart lays out a historian's case for the proposition that Adolf Hitler's murderous policies arose from a scientific racism inspired by Charles Darwin's most famous ideas.

According to Weikart, Hitler wasn't an amoral monster, but a frighteningly "moral" one -- "moral" in the sense of principled, of course. Principles can be directed to evil or to good. Hitler was...

Packed House and Intense Q&A at Sam Noble Museum for Metamorphosis

When the building security pushes you out, keys in hand, and there are still five people standing at the microphone waiting to ask their questions, you know it's been a good evening.

Last night, a lively -- to say the least -- audience responded to the Oklahoma premiere of Metamorphosis, Illustra Media's new film about the biology of butterflies, evolution, and intelligent design. The first questioner at the Q&A microphone was followed by a steady stream of other audience members...

Butterflies Set to "Mess with Texas" Tonight at Southern Methodist U.

Well acquainted with arguments over Design v. Darwin, Texas will host its own premiere of the intelligent-design documentary Metamorphosis tonight. The screening will be on the Dallas campus of Southern Methodist University, Tuesday, September 20 at 7 pm at the Hughes-Trigg Student Center Theatre.

Butterflies are the new "icon of intelligent design." This premier screenings is FREE and will be followed by a Q&A with Discovery Institute Fellow Paul Nelson and Biologic Institute research...

Engineering at Its Finest: Bacterial Chemotaxis and Signal Transduction

ID theorists have long urged that the case for design is both a positive and scientific argument, based on standard principles of abductive scientific reasoning. Key to the detectability of design are particular characteristics that intelligent agents often leave behind as hallmarks of their activity. We know that intelligent causes are the only category of explanation with the ability to visualize, and ultimately actualize, a complex and functionally specified end goal. Hence, presented...

Listening to Butterflies

Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge...Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Butterflies are, by and large, pretty quiet creatures. While a few species make noises, most pass their lives with only the faintest rustle of their wings revealing their existence audibly. We're not talking about black howler monkeys here.

Yet butterflies are among the most eloquent animals on the planet. I love the photograph above...