Discovery Institute's Blog, page 492

Lynn Margulis Criticizes Neo-Darwinism in Discover Magazine (Updated)

National Academy of Sciences member biologist Lynn Margulis does not support intelligent design. She's a materialist who is seeking materialist explanations of evolution. However, as revealed in a recent interview with Discover Magazine, she's a skeptic of neo-Darwinian evolution, and she expressly admits that many of her criticisms of neo-Darwinism are the same as those made by proponents of intelligent design (ID). She first explains why she disagrees with the adequacy of mutation and...

Lynn Margulis Criticizes Neo-Darwinism in Discover Magazine

National Academy of Sciences member biologist Lynn Margulis does not support intelligent design. She's a materialist who is seeking materialist explanations of evolution. However, as revealed in a recent interview with Discover Magazine, she's a skeptic of neo-Darwinian evolution, and she expressly admits that many of her criticisms of neo-Darwinism are the same as those made by proponents of intelligent design (ID). She first explains why she disagrees with the adequacy of mutation and...

Does Life Use a Non-Random Set of Amino Acids?

An interesting research paper was recently published in the Journal Astrobiology by Gayle K. Philip and Stephen J. Freeland, which asks, "Did Evolution Select a Nonrandom Alphabet of Amino Acids?"

The article notes that there exists no strict limitation on the character or type of amino acids which can be used in living systems. Indeed, biology could conceivably have used a different amino acid alphabet, and there appears to be a fairly wide range from which it could have chosen. But is there ...

Catch Stephen Meyer on the John Ankerberg Program This Sunday

Stephen Meyer's series of interviews on the John Ankerberg Program will be on the air this Sunday. Here's the relevant info:

The series has already begun on the Daystar Network, which will air the show with Dr. Meyer at 5:30pm EDT.

And starting this week, the series will also air on the INSP Network at 9:30pm EDT.

Nashville Public Radio Will Take Your Talking Points Without Even Fact-Checking Them

That is, they'll take the talking points they already tend to agree with, without questioning or investigating their veracity.

The news that the Tennessee House passed an academic freedom bill is upsetting those with a vested interest in maintaining censorship in the science classroom. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the same people who call for teaching one-sided evidence for evolution also limit their their news reports to only one side of the story.

WPLN, the Nashville Public Radio station...

Understanding Ontogenetic Depth, Part II: Natural Selection Is a Harsh Mistress

Longer post today. Bear with me. [For a little background, be sure to read Understanding Ontogenetic Depth, Part I.]

1. What Does "Traversing Ontogenetic Depth" Mean?

Let's look again at Toy Organism Alpha. Figure 1 depicts a complete cell lineage -- "complete" in the sense that the starting point is a single cell, and the end point, a reproductively capable adult. Adults, by definition, can produce the specialized cells (gametes), which, when fertilized, start the whole process of cell...

Tennessee House Passes Academic Freedom Bill by 70-23 Vote

Today an academic freedom bill in the Tennessee State Legislature passed out of the Tennessee House by a vote of 70-23.

The journal Science has an online newspiece about the bill which states the following:

In a 70-28 vote today, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed HB 368, a bill that encourages science teachers to explore controversial topics without fear of reprisal. Critics say the measure will enable K-12 teachers to present intelligent design and creationism as...

Francis Beckwith Takes on Barbara Forrest in Synthese

" We have a choice. We can take our cue from Forrest, and a few of her compatriots higher up on the philosophical food chain, and continue to escalate and amplify our inflammatory rhetoric, falsely depicting our adversaries as sinister subversives looking to usher in a totalitarian regime committed to either theocracy or atheocracy. Or we can be philosophers.

--Francis Beckwith, responding to Barbara Forrest

We recently wrote about the issue of Synthese where Barbara Forrest and others used...

Understanding Ontogenetic Depth, Part I: Naming Versus Measuring

I was supposed to do this a year ago -- well, long before that, too -- but a glacier passed me on the interstate, and then I ran out of gas, got so depressed that I threw my notes into a box, and...oh, never mind. Let's get started.

After the second entry in this series (part II), we'll open up the comments section for your responses. Complete citations and additional reading will also be compiled at the end of part II.

1. Introduction: Why A Biological Distance That's Currently Impossible...

What We Can't Not Know

One of the more fruitful ideas to emerge in Western history is the concept of natural law. I'm not talking about the laws of physics and chemistry, but, rather, the fundamental moral truths that are, to some extent, knowable by everyone everywhere, at all times. C.S. Lewis gave examples of these truths, common to all the world's great religions, at the end of his book The Abolition of Man. The American Founders took the natural law for granted. Even the most strongly deistic, such as ...