Discovery Institute's Blog, page 52

In Female Sexual Function, Irreducible Complexity and Natural Survival Capacity

Editor's note: Physicians have a special place among the thinkers who have elaborated the argument for intelligent design. Perhaps that's because, more than evolutionary biologists, they are familiar with the challenges of maintaining a functioning complex system, the human body. With that in mind, Evolution News is delighted to offer this series, "The Designed Body." For the complete series, see here. Dr. Glicksman practices palliative medicine for a hospice organization.

In previous articl...

Quebec Can't Wait to Kill

Waiting periods for reflection are supposed to be a "safeguard" against abuse in euthanasia and assisted suicide. That has been exposed as mere veneer as Quebec euthanasia advocates are furious that the province has imposed a ten-day waiting period.

From the CBC News story:

The federal assisted-dying law requires a 10-day delay between a patient's request for doctor-assisted death and the administration of the procedure.

Quebec's law doesn't stipulate a waiting period before a doctor-assiste...

Atheist Philosopher Thinks "We Never Have Direct Access To Our Thoughts"

In a post titled "At last: a rational thinker at 'The Stone,'" atheist biologist and free-will denier Jerry Coyne quotes fellow atheist Alex Rosenberg, a Duke University professor of philosophy.

Rosenberg:

We never have direct access to our thoughts. As Peter Carruthers first argued, self-consciousness is just mind reading turned inward... There is no first-person point of view.

Our access to our own thoughts is just as indirect and fallible as our access to the thoughts of other people. We...

Intelligent Design -- The Future! Join Us on August 12 to Celebrate 20 Years of Advancing Science and Culture

This August 12, join us in marking the twentieth anniversary of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture (CSC) -- the driving force behind the intelligent design movement -- by attending the Center's gala in Seattle. This wonderful and important event will feature the world premiere of a new hour-long documentary, Revolutionary: Michael Behe and the Mystery of Molecular Machines.

See the trailer here:

Our twentieth anniversary only comes once. Help us celebrate in Seattle!

The pre...

On Junk DNA Claim, Francis Collins Walks It Back, Admitting "Hubris"

Count on Marvin Olasky at World Magazine not to miss something like this. In The Language of God, theistic evolutionary icon Francis Collins used so-called Junk DNA as homerun evidence against intelligent design. He has since backed down on that, honorably, admitting "hubris" in the process. Olasky:

Collins claimed on page 136 that huge chunks of our genome are "littered" with ancient repetitive elements (AREs), so that "roughly 45 percent of the human genome [is] made up of such genetic flo...

Yes, There Can Be Science Without Scientism, and Without Relativism

In an article at Slate referring to Neil deGrasse Tyson's now famous #Rationalia tweet, sociologist Jeffery Guhin argues that "A rational nation ruled by science would be a terrible idea."

What? This, from popular media? Guhin makes his case against scientism, noting:

First, experts usually don't know nearly as much as they think they do....[T]he real problem is when we forget that scientists and experts are human too, and approach evidence and reasoned deliberation with the same prior com...

Here's How We Could Know if Animals Use Language

I have pointed out in several posts that animals are incapable of language. Animals communicate via signals, which are not language and have particular things, not abstract concepts, as their object. Claims by scientists that animals use grammar are nonsense as well. Birdsongs and the like are signals that have patterns, but patterns are not grammar. Animals have no language and are incapable of abstract thought.

A reasonable question can be asked: How could we know if an animal were capabl...

More Scientists Praise Douglas Axe's Undeniable

One of the refreshing things about Doug Axe's new book Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed is his confession that you don't have to take his word for it. Or anyone else's, for that matter.

Despite being a molecular biologist who has done the lab research to confirm the impossibility of unguided nature chancing upon functional proteins, he shows how, even without that, the design intuition most of us share embodies sound science.

We don't need to rely slavish...

Once Again, Astrobiologists Put a Veneer of Sophistication on Ignorance

People who follow SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, likely know about the Drake equation. It was the brainchild of one of the founding fathers of SETI, Frank Drake. In order to estimate the probable number of other intelligent civilizations in the galaxy, he wrote his famous equation as the product of a series of factors, such as the number of stars, those with planets in the habitable zone, those on which life emerges, the fraction of those who evolve intelligent life, an...

Are Birdsongs Language?

Atheist mathematician Jeff Shallit insists that animals have language. He cites several studies, including a study on birdsongs, reported on in New Scientist, that claim to detect grammar in the songs.

Let's take a look:

First evidence that birds tweet using grammar

They may not have verbs, nouns or past participles, but birds challenge the notion that humans alone have evolved grammatical rules.

Bengal finches have their own versions of such rules -- known as syntax -- says Kentaro Abe of K...