Discovery Institute's Blog, page 59

What Is Teaching Evolution All About?

In Education Week, Adam Laats and Harvey Siegel offer a seemingly humane and generous compromise on teaching evolution in public schools. "Teaching Evolution Isn't About Changing Beliefs," says the headline.

Authors of a new book from the University of Chicago Press, Teaching Evolution in a Creation Nation, they argue that students should learn about evolution, but not be indoctrinated in it. Students, they say, simply need to understand the theory, but teachers should not force them to bel...

Ice-Cold Water on Past Alien Civilizations Thesis

Astrophysicist Adam Frank at the University of Rochester and astronomer Woodruff Sullivan at the University of Washington have been getting some mileage out of their thesis that past alien civilizations are a near certainty.

Frank and Sullivan reported their research in Astrobiology last month -- I commented here ("Cosmic Archaeology: Taking the Sting Out of the Drake Equation") -- and Frank followed up with a New York Times op-ed, "Yes, There Have Been Aliens."

Yes, we have no bananas, but...

Stephen Meyer on a "Special Relationship" at Risk

Considering that we spend a lot of time here criticizing the legacy of a 19th-century English gentleman scientist and the ideas of his latter-day followers, linking intelligent design with Anglophile sentiments might not seem an obvious connection to make.

On the other hand, Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin's compatriot and erstwhile colleague in articulating the theory of evolution, is the major forerunner of modern ID thinking. Historical associations aside, ID is very much a cross-Atlantic...

Common Descent: An Obituary

Common Descent (CD) has been offered as a scientific theory and must therefore be judged as such. Its status as a scientific theory, however, has never been properly established. Without a theory showing that speciation is reasonably probable in the available time, all the circumstantial evidence proffered for CD by its advocates is for naught, and the evidence of proteins such as vitellogenin (the subject of some discussion here lately) is no more than circumstantial evidence. Circumstantia...

Your Mind into a Computer Would Not Be You

The transhumanist fantasy about becoming immortal through uploading your mind to a computer is nonsense -- even if such a thing could be done.

Here's the goal. From the Express story:

Mr Itskov has been subject to a BBC documentary titled The Immortalist, in which he said: "Within the next 30 years, I am going to make sure that we can all live forever.

"I'm 100 per cent confident it will happen. Otherwise I wouldn't have started it."

The 2045 Initiative hopes to have functioning 'avatars' by...

Carnivorous Plants, and Why 0 Really Is Not Equal to 1

There is a little mathematics game that people sometimes play. You start with x=0, do some long, complicated algebraic manipulations, and end up with x=1. Since 0 is not equal to 1, you know there must be errors somewhere in the algebra, even before you find them, and before you even look at the mathematics. The game is to find the errors, which are hidden as well as possible.

I have frequently tried to make the point that to not believe in intelligent design, you have to believe that a few...

Carnivorous Plants -- And Why Zero Really Is Not Equal to One

There is a little mathematics game that people sometimes play. You start with x=0, do some long, complicated algebraic manipulations, and end up with x=1. Since 0 is not equal to 1, you know there must be errors somewhere in the algebra, even before you find them, and before you even look at the mathematics. The game is to find the errors, which are hidden as well as possible.

I have frequently tried to make the point that to not believe in intelligent design, you have to believe that a few...

No Offense! "Bird Brain" Is a Compliment

Next time someone calls you a birdbrain, smile and say "thank you." Our feathered friends come well equipped with hardware and software for complex behaviors. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences puts birds on par with macaques and other mammals, and even suggests they can think.

Here's what the news from Vanderbilt University says about the results of a detailed study by researchers primarily from the University of Prague, with additional team member...

There's No Grand Unity Called "Science"

Editor's note : We are delighted to welcome Dr. Westfall as a new contributor. He is an emeritus professor in the Computer Information Systems Department at California Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Doug Axe's piece at Evolution News the other day was very good ("Public Opinion Is the Ultimate Peer Review"), but it implicitly supports the misconception that science is one big thing. That idea is the primary basis for all pejorative propaganda attacking dissenters as being "anti-science."

It...

The Kidney's Irreducibly Complex Systems

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.

If a unicellular o...