Discovery Institute's Blog, page 50

Miracles in Evolutionary Theory

Charles Darwin gave science a major step forward in intellectual progress, many assume. He replaced what he considered "miracles" of design by natural processes. His goal seemed noble to many: unifying the disparate organisms of the earth into a unified picture of descent with modification, united by a law of nature he called natural selection. Science was thus rid of miracles. So he thought.

Darwin's law of nature, however, amounted to little more than historical contingency. Variations app...

An Orangutan "Speaks," "Orates," Engaging in "Conversation," "Surprisingly Like Our Own"?

This has got to win some sort of a prize in the category of Underwhelming Scientific Findings Hailed as Evidence Against Human Exceptionalism. The first headline I saw was from the news site RT:

Orangutan wows scientists by aping human speech

An orangutan has begun to "speak" by reproducing some of the vowel sounds used by humans -- a development scientists claim may bring us closer to understanding the evolution of human speech.

The findings, conducted by researchers at the University of Du...

Without Free Will There Is No Justice

Free will denier Jerry Coyne has a post on the bid for parole of Leslie Van Houten, one of the acolytes of Charles Manson who killed several people in 1969. Coyne argues that parole is reasonable (it was recommended by the parole board and vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown). I take no position on her parole, but Coyne's arguments about free will and criminal justice are worth discussing.

Coyne, with my commentary:

I'm a determinist about human behavior, which I think is the only rational stanc...

Now You Can Try Stylus, a Computer Model for Protein Evolution, for Yourself

We have written before about an elegant computer model for protein evolution called Stylus, for example here and here. The model draws on an amazing insight of Douglas Axe, author of the newly released book Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed, concerning the parallels between written language and protein coding and function.

Many people have made the analogy between DNA's linear coded information that specifies proteins and written human language. But protein...

Why Similarities Do Not Prove the Absence of Design

Author's note: The following is Section 2.3 of my new book Christianity for Doubters. As the title indicates, much of this book (Chapters 3-6) is explicitly theological, but the first two chapters are about intelligent design. References for quotations are of course given in the book. Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

The idea that the "survival of the fittest" could produce all the magnificent species on Earth, and human brains and human consciousness, is so unreasonable -- h...

Dolly Clones Pave the Way for Human Cloning

Apparently clones of the same dead sheep from which Dolly was manufactured are in good health and aging normally. From the Live Science story:

Four cloned sheep that are genetically identical to Dolly, the first cloned mammal, are still healthy even in old age, a new study found. The four sheep, which were derived from the same batch of cells as Dolly and could be considered her clone "sisters," have just reached their 9th birthday, which is equivalent to age 70 in human years, researchers w...

More on John Searle and Free Will

A reader objects to my post, "John Searle on Free Will." The reader cites Searle's books Rationality in Action and Freedom and Neurobiology, contending that he is in fact a defender of free will, and consequently that we owe Searle an apology. However, I stand by what I wrote.

Here's a quote from Searle in a print interview on this topic:

If forced to choose today on the basis of the evidence we have, we would choose the hypothesis that suggests that free will is an illusion.

Searle does th...

Criminal Prosecution as a Cudgel Against Dissenters

The political Left increasingly uses criminal prosecutions -- or the threat thereof -- as a political cudgel with which to crush differing views. The Planned Parenthood prosecution of David Daleiden and a colleague in Texas was a particularly egregious example of this form of authoritarianism.

Now, having served its purposes -- and with a paucity of evidence to support a conviction -- the criminal case has been dismissed at the request of the prosecutor. It should be a scandal that the indic...

In Praise of "Devout Catholics"

I'm not a Catholic, and we stay away from commenting on political races here. But I can't resist noting consternation in some quarters at the description of Democratic VP pick Tim Kaine as a "devout Catholic." This is notwithstanding his position as a self-characterized "strong supporter of Roe v. Wade." See, for example, Alexandra DeSanctis at National Review Online, "Is Tim Kaine a 'Devout Catholic'?"

What an interesting word. "Devout," of course, is a habitual media label for anyone in pu...

Scientific Inaccuracies, False Accusations: Concluding My Response to Joseph Felsenstein

Writing here yesterday I addressed some scientific inaccuracies in a post by University of Washington geneticist Joe Felsenstein at Panda's Thumb ("In Terror of Chipmunks: A Response to Joseph Felsenstein"). There are additional problems beyond those I have already noted. Before going on, however, I feel it is important to correct some accusations made against me.

Felsenstein asserts:

We can conclude that Dr. Lnnig is not familiar with theoretical population genetics. He is a retired plant...