Discovery Institute's Blog, page 85

"Settled Science" and the Cambrian Explosion -- Geologists Weigh In

Yesterday we considered the "settled science" explaining the Cambrian explosion in light of one of two new papers in the Geological Society of America Bulletin. In the second paper, also by geologists from Harvard (Smith et al., with Francis A. MacDonald participating in both papers), we travel to Mongolia.

Until the 1990s, large regions of outcrops that cross the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary were inaccessible to Western scientists. The Harvard team performed an extensive mapping of the area...

In a Three-Way Radio Debate, Stephen Meyer Takes on a Chemist and a Biologist

We often say that Darwinists are reluctant to debate advocates of intelligent design, but here are two who deserve a tip of the hat. Keith Pannell is a chemist at the University of Texas at El Paso who hosts a program, Science Studio, on the NPR station there. He invited Stephen Meyer on to talk about the science of ID, pegged to the Dover anniversary.

Clearly Pannell is an ID critic so he gets kudos for being willing to have a civil and informative conversation. Perhaps feeling insecure ab...

An Evolutionary Biologist Asks, "Really, Couldn't Have God Done Better?"

It's been said that much of evolutionary advocacy boils down to an assertion, "If I were God, I wouldn't have done things this way." That may not always be a fair critique of Darwinist thinking. But it sure is if you take a moment to read a post at Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True where the good doctor argues with a new video from BioLogos. Coyne, an evolutionary biologist, surveys the world and asks, "Really, couldn't have God done better than that?" Those are his words, not my interpret...

Geologists Kick Out Props for Evolutionary Theories of the Cambrian Explosion

Reading the Darwinist explanations for the Cambrian explosion is like watching a game of "Who's Got the Button?" The biologists are sure the paleontologists have the reasons for this unprecedented appearance of animals in the fossil record. The paleontologists, in turn, point to the geologists for it. And the geologists rely on the opinion that the biologists have handfuls of explanatory buttons. When you inspect each one's hands, though, they come up empty.

It was the geologists' turn to sh...

Scientists Cure Blindness with Adult Stem Cells

If this breakthrough had occurred with embryonic stem cells, front-page stories would have screamed around the world. But it was adult stem cells and so the reporting is muted. You see, after all these years, this is still how the media judge the newsworthiness of a story.

The story is sensational, nonetheless. Scientists have used adult stem cells to cure blindness, providing what may be a splendid treatment for cataracts as well. From the Telegraph story:

Cataracts can be cured by using a...

Refer Questions of Scientific Controversy to the FBI?

Questions about global warming turn upon clashes of legitimate scientific opinion. The climate controversy is not a focus for us here, but preserving the freedom to debate unsettled science very much is. So some comments of Attorney General Loretta Lynch yesterday to the Senate Judiciary Committee were troubling. From CNSNews:

Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged Wednesday that there have been discussions within the Department of Justice about possibly pursuing civil action against so...

To Protect Genetic Information, Cells Go to Extraordinary Lengths

If the real "stuff" of the universe is information, as William Dembski argues in his book Being as Communion, it makes sense that life would make it a high priority to preserve that information. To a Darwinian who deals in chance processes, though, information is just a haphazard by-product of variation and selection. Some recent papers provide an opportunity to compare the explanatory success of both positions.

That DNA bears coded information has been non-controversial since the 1950s, of...

Some Bioethicists Are Not as Smart as They Think

Witness this attack by University of Ottawa professor Stuart Chambers on the disability rights advocacy organization Not Dead Yet for its opposition to legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Chambers calls the organization's stance "unprincipled." Why? Because it distinguishes between the right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment, which the group supports, and legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide, which it opposes implacably. From "Not Dead Yet: An Unprincipled Position Aga...

Diabetes: When Blood Glucose Control Fails

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 my last article...

Watch Meyer Take on Krauss and Lamoureux, Streaming Live at Evolution News on March 19

Those on the Darwinist, materialist, atheist side of the debate that we follow here aren't normally very good at listening and responding to scientific perspectives at variance from their own. They are much more interested in condemning and ridiculing -- which has got to be a poor strategy for them if they want to persuade anyone.

With that as the background, as we noted already, it's refreshing that arch-atheist cosmologist Lawrence Krauss has agreed to participate in a public conversation...