Discovery Institute's Blog, page 62

With Stunning Admission of Error, Scientific Name-Calling Suffers a Setback

Our colleague Sarah Chaffee this morning notes New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's unthinking dismissal of evolution skeptics as "nincompoops." Well, we've been called worse things than that.

The discourse of name-calling is a scourge of public life today, and it's only getting worse, seen across a broad spectrum of political and scientific perspectives, with college students even more severely infected than their elders. I'm referring to the strategy of jeering at your opponents as...

Universities Shouldn't Hire Evolution Dissenters, Says Intellectual Diversity Advocate

I wrote a couple weeks ago about Nicholas Kristof's New York Times column, "A Confession of Liberal Intolerance," in which he argued that conservatives, particularly evangelical Christians, faced harsh discrimination in academia -- and that liberals should embrace intellectual diversity on campus. His descriptions of discrimination sounded uncannily like what some ID proponents have faced.

Now, in a follow-up article, Kristof makes clear that he doesn't think tolerating differences in acade...

Objection to Intelligent Design -- Universe Is Too Big, with Too Much "Wasted Space"

Thoughtful reader Eric points me to a fine article over that The Stream by Tom Gilson, addressing an objection to ID:

We don't know whether anyone is enjoying the view from some other planet. For all we know, we might be the only observers. Whether we are or not, the vastness of it all has led some skeptics to ask, why would God waste so much space on so few living creatures? Is this really a mark of intelligent design? It might surprise you to hear that I like that question, but I do: I enj...

Meet Doug Axe and Celebrate the Publication of Undeniable, July 13 at Seattle's McCaw Hall!

Join us on the evening of July 13 as we celebrate the release of a courageous and pioneering book by Biologic Institute's Douglas Axe, Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed. Meet Dr. Axe at McCaw Hall in Seattle, where he will be speaking about the book, his reasons for writing for it, and the startling and original scientific vision it embodies.

Throughout his distinguished and unconventional career as an engineer-turned-molecular-biologist, Doug Axe has been...

A Design False Positive? Applying the Design Filter in Archaeology

Off the coast of a Greek island, snorkelers found structures that resemble human artifacts. Some look like pottery, others like pipes. There even appear to be paved courtyards. Were these treasures from a sunken ship, or remains from a town that became submerged after a tidal wave? Archaeologists from two universities went to investigate.

We've considered cases before (here and here) of odd formations that didn't look designed but were judged by archaeologists to be man-made structures. Here...

Medicine and Our "Perfect" Anatomy

Check out the title on this article from the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: "Links Between Evolution, Development, Human Anatomy, Pathology, and Medicine, with a Proposition of a Re-defined Anatomical Position and Notes on Constraints and Morphological 'Imperfections,'" by Diogo and Molnar. The word in scare quotes, "imperfections," is your tipoff.

From the Abstract (emphasis added):

Surprisingly the oldest formal discipline in medicine (anatomy) has not yet fel...

Better Babies Through Evolution? Richard Weikart on the Siren Song of Transhumanism

[image error]

Thanks to "advances" in technology, we're turning over a frightening future to our children and grandchildren. On one hand, there is the world of the Internet and the wilderness of glowing screens, which in a couple of decades have already done so much to degrade, numb, misinform, isolate, and addict us.

On the other hand, there is the prospect of technological "fixes" for everything that's deficient about us, from the medical to the moral.

Which is the scarier? I would instinctively say th...

Watson's Goof -- What We Should Really Fear from AI

It was a telling response, revealing the idiot inside the savant. But the game went on. As the final round ended, Ken Jennings, one of the champions IBM's Watson machine bested, jokingly welcomed "our new computer overlords." But will a new supreme intelligence arise from the likes of Watson, overtaking and perhaps even subjecting humans? Or, perhaps, in fearing the one thing, have we missed something more important?

IBM created Watson for one purpose: Win at Jeopardy. They conquered chess i...

On Prebiotic Chemistry, Synthetic Chemist James Tour Urges an Admission of Ignorance

Last time we checked in with Rice University's great synthetic chemist James Tour, he had just delivered a slashing lecture at the University of Waterloo on the problem of life's origin. The specific theme was how "clueless" science actually is about abiogenesis, the enigma of life from nonlife. He apologized for a "painfully technical" approach, but added, "I simply know of no other way to expose the hypocrisy of the conjectures based on the evidence."

That was intense enough. Now writing i...

Foundational Question: Is Biology Engineering?

In an earlier article, I discussed a few observations about an operative question for intelligent design -- Is ID science? Arguments over this question often get bogged down in the larger worldview battle between those who are open to scientific evidence of design and those who refuse to consider such a possibility.

Here I'll look briefly at a second question, which is asked much less often, but seems likely to yield interesting answers.

Is Biology Engineering?

Engineering offers new perspec...