Discovery Institute's Blog, page 60

When Atheists Meet Creationism, You Get Creatheism

Creathiest: It is not a word that rolls easily off the tongue. But I am at a loss for one that better describes the atheists Daniel Jackson describes in a condescending post at The Spectator ("Atheists are embracing Gods and creationism").

No bleak darkness for these disbelievers. No existential angst enters their minds. No despair over the vast emptiness in which Earth floats, seemingly alone with life. Creathiests have the comforts of religion without the commitment of a creed. Post-humani...

Responding to Animal Deaths, and What That Says About Humans

Can it really be true that we are still talking about Harambe the gorilla, who died on May 28? Yet in the June 27 Weekly Standard, our colleague Wesley Smith makes profound points about the events last month at the Cincinnati Zoo that perhaps could only become clear with the passage of some time and the perspective that brings.

There's no question that we respond to deaths, animal and human, based on an unfathomable emotional logic:

We saw the same kind of outrage when an American killed Cec...

The Placenta Problem: How Common Descent Fails

Editor's note : For previous replies by Dr. Gauger to Dr. Torley in this series, see here, here, and here.

Philosopher Vincent Torley (and Washington University's Professor Josh Swamidass) have been trying to persuade me that common descent is the only rational view to affirm, the only intellectually consistent and respectable choice. What they don't seem to realize is that I see the evidence for common descent. I know its strength. The reason I doubt common descent is not because of the ways...

California Hospitals Are Opting Out of Assisted Suicide

The very bad news: California has legalized assisted suicide.

The somewhat good news: An increasing number of California hospitals are opting out.

That includes Palm Springs area hospitals, all of them. From the Desert Sun story:

Eisenhower Medical Center issued a policy saying the Rancho Mirage hospital was "declining to participate in all activities" related to the new law.

A spokesman for Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs said Desert Regional and JFK Memorial Hospital in Indi...

Stephen Meyer Asks: There Will Always Be an England...Or Will There?

It was as a PhD student at Cambridge University that Center for Science & Culture director Stephen Meyer incubated his Darwin skepticism and began to develop his arguments for intelligent design. So it comes as little surprise that Meyer has a special affection for Britain, and for the special relationship between the U.K. and the U.S.

With the vote just a week away on Brexit -- the proposal that Britain leave the European Union -- Meyer weighs in with judicious articles at National Review...

The Opossum's Tale: The Torley Saga, Cont.

Background : There has been an on-going discussion between Dr. Vincent Torley, a philosopher, and myself on the subject of pseudogenes, synteny, and common descent. These are technical terms and the arguments may seem abstruse, but the topic is important because of its implications. Those who hold to common ancestry accept that, at the very least, each major group of animals is descended from a common ancestor, and some hold that the common ancestry goes all the way back to the first cell. Th...

In the Evolution Debate, Not Listening Happens in One Direction, Not Two

An eloquent post from Terry Teachout, the Wall Street Journal theater critic, might as well be a commentary on Doug Axe's observations this morning ("Public Opinion Is the Ultimate Peer Review"). Teachout (whom I had the privilege of working with at National Review long ago) laments the divorce between cultures symbolized by Red and Blue states. He recalls a time before half the country was so fiercely committed to regarding itself as Enlightened while dismissing the other half as Benighted,...

Public Opinion Is the Ultimate Peer Review

In his recent Caltech commencement address, surgeon and New Yorker staff writer Atul Gawande offered advice on how to rebuild the public's confidence in the scientific community. He ends with the right idea, but only after showing that even he needs to take that idea more seriously.

What does truth-seeking look like? Gawande concludes by saying that "it is the effort not of a single person but of a group of people -- the bigger the better -- pursuing ideas with curiosity, inquisitiveness, op...

Oh, Deer: Mammals Use Magnetic Navigation, Too

You're in a herd of deer when a mountain lion is seen approaching. What's your safest retreat? Is it to run directly away? Is it to scatter in all directions? Or is it to run according to a predetermined orientation?

Scientists in Europe were intrigued that roe deer seem to orient in a north-south direction when grazing and when startled, so they decided to investigate. What they uncovered was a novel case of magnetic navigation in the animal kingdom. A Springer news item says:

Why do deer i...

New Theory Explains How Consciousness Evolved -- It Arose as a Solution

Princeton University neuroscientist Michael Graziano's piece in The Atlantic on how consciousness evolved has a strange beginning:

Ever since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, evolution has been the grand unifying theory of biology. Yet one of our most important biological traits, consciousness, is rarely studied in the context of evolution.

Perhaps it's just me, but how can evolution be the grand unifying theory of biology if it doesn't explain one of the most impor...