Discovery Institute's Blog, page 55

Is Your Cat Logical?

Goodness gracious, this stuff never stops. From Plus Magazine:

Can cats do logic?

Of course they can! Any cat knows that pawing the box of cat biscuits will make it fall over and the biscuits pour out. That's a firm grip on the law of cause and effect. But what if the box is empty? Can cats deduce this fact from the sound or feel of the box, or are they simply taking their chances? How much can cats infer from incomplete information?

It's a question that has recently received a partial answe...

In Praise of Lizards

Biologist Michael Denton commented here the other day on the mysteries surrounding the origin of lizard scales, as well as bird feathers and mammal hairs, research that began with the discovery of a mutant "naked" bearded dragon, born without scales. Their scales, however, only scratch the surface of what makes lizards fascinating.

For most of us, or at least boys who enjoy the challenge of trying to pick them up without getting bitten, interest in lizards tails off after age eight or so. As...

Chalk Bass, a Fish for Our Time, Switches Gender Roles Twenty Times Daily

The hermaphroditic Serranus tortugarum is nothing if not progressive, a fish la mode if ever there was one. Arguably, not since swallowing live goldfish was a thing among 20th-century college students has a gill-breathing aquatic chordate expressed more poignantly the spirit of the time.

We leave it to others to elaborate the cultural meanings, as indeed other news sources have done, directly or indirectly:

"Relationship advice from a gender-bending fish that mates for life" (Science Daily)...

Euthanasia Tyranny in Canada

Back in 2014, before the Canadian Supreme Court imposed euthanasia on the whole country, Quebec legalized what it calls "aid in dying," which in the context of the law requires a doctor-administered lethal jab.

But mere legalization wasn't enough. Quebec's Health Minister is in the process of forcing dissenters within the medical profession to kill.

A palliative care center at McGill University Health Centre did not permit euthanasia within the clinic. The Health Minister would not let that...

"Anti-Science" Is Increasingly Turned Against Its Creators

The "anti-science" label is like Frankenstein's monster. Designed by politically correct propagandists to serve their own purposes, namely blackening the reputation of skeptics on evolution and climate change, it has since turned against its inventors. The monster now pursues those creators almost, but not quite, to the exclusion of its originally intended targets.

The aggressive Darwin-lobbying National Center for Science Education, for instance, has beat the drum for years, labeling doubt...

Desperate for Company, SETI Ratchets Up the Design Inference

Have you ever run across this anti-ID argument? "We know humans design things, but we have no experience with non-human super-intelligences. You can't extrapolate from one to the other." That line flies out the window with the latest SETI proposition.

Behold "Project Hephaistos" -- it's SETI on steroids. The intelligent designers in this project may as well be gods. Advocates even admit that their aliens' accomplishments meet the conditions of Arthur C. Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently...

Evolution's Enforcers Are Waaaaay Out of Step with Public Opinion

This week here in Seattle we will be welcoming participants to our 2016 Summer Seminars on intelligent design. We'll do so with our customary mix of excitement, curiosity, and concern about keeping everyone's identity secure.

I can say this year's group of students and professionals is particularly impressive, accomplished, and diverse. More than that? As I noted, we are concerned to keep this experience safe, and therefore private.

We take these circumstances for granted by now, as if it we...

On the Diversification of Fur, Feathers, and Scales, the Mystery Remains

An article in the Washington Post,"Scientists solve the mystery of where feathers, fur and scales come from," describes recent work reported in Science Advances that solves a longstanding puzzle regarding the first stages in the development of reptile scales.

It has been known for many years that mammals' hairs and birds' feathers both develop from small accumulations of cells in the skin, scattered all over the body, known as placodes. One of the key genes involved in initiating their deve...

Why Fossils Cannot Demonstrate Darwinian Evolution

Editor's note: William Dembski and Jonathan Wells, leading figures in the intelligent design movement, are co-authors of The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems. Originally published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics, this path-breaking work explores some of the most important arguments for intelligent design in biology. To celebrate the launch of Foundation for Thought & Ethics Books as an imprint of Discovery Institute Press, we have been publishi...

Scientists Versus the Public on Airing Scientific Dissent

I am guessing that biologist Larry Moran represents more than just his own opinion when he suggests that the upcoming Royal Society meeting might well be canceled rather than open a "can of worms." The hotly anticipated meeting, "New trends in evolutionary biology," to be held November 7-9 in London, promises a high-level discussion of "revising" the "standard theory of evolution."

Organizer Denis Noble, the distinguished Oxford University physiologist, speaks of "replacing," not merely "ex...