More on the Koonin article

Yesterday, I reported on an article written by Eugene Koonin, titled "The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution."

Robert Crowther, at Evolution News and Views, has posted commentary in regard to Nick Matzke's reaction to the article. Matzke was, until recently, employeed by the militant Darwinist group, National Center for Science Education. It's interesting how, in the minds of guys like Matzke, Darwinism is unquestionable regardless of the glaring lack of evidence.

When I read Matzke's comments along with the article yesterday, I just shook my head in disbelief. It doesn't matter if the evidence isn't there, he'll just imagine the problems away with fabulous just-so stories.

Will Darwinism end with a Big Bang?

Some evolutionists, is seems, are beginning to realize that Darwinism, as we know it, may be pointing to a dead end. It's interesting to see that some scientists are starting to contemplate other scenarios.

Please keep your faith beliefs confined to the basements of your churches

It seems every day we hear about another incident in which some group is trying to banish God from the public eye. It seems they just won't be happy unless they can be reassured they they will never run across a public display that may symbolize or attest to someone elses faith beliefs (Christianity in particular). I've been in many on-line forums or blogs where posters are even irate over teachers wearing cross necklaces in their child's classroom!

What ever happened to the adherence of 1st amendment rights.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It seems that many of these protesting groups only consider the first 10 words of the amendment.

Evidently a ruling has been passed that puts a ban against the word "God" being used as religious expressions on flag certificates. An Ohio lawmaker urged Pelosi to review and reverse the rule.

First amendment rights come into play here, and if this rule is not reversed we run into situations like the following:

Turner said the constituent, Paul Larochelle, and his son Andrew had requested a flag flown over the Capitol on Sept. 11 which Andrew, 17, was to give to his grandfather after being inducted into the Eagle Scouts.

They asked that the certificate of authenticity accompanying the flag read: "this flag was flown in honor of Marcel Larochelle, my grandfather, for his dedication and love of God, country and family." The Architect's office, citing its own rules, returned the certificate with the word "God" excised.

"The word 'God' is carved into the walls of both chambers of Congress," Turner said in a statement. "The Architect is the custodian of the Capitol and currently maintains several religious symbols in the building. If permitted, removing 'God' from the Capitol flag ceremonies will be the precedent for removing 'God' from the Capitol, and this cannot be permitted."

ID in a nutshell

Here is a really excellent post written by BarryA over at Uncommon Descent in regard to why he supports ID.

Homosexuality gone wild

Interesting that homosexuals, who seem to be so disgruntled that Christians do not support their choice of lifestyle, carry on in such a manner that it provides support for the biblical view that homosexuality is a perversion.

Either that, or morals are relative and these type of events provide normal/acceptable entertainment for the masses.

If we actually evolved minus any divine intervention or personal involvement on the designer's part, then this type of behavior may just become acceptable at some point in time.

Scary...next thing we know, paedophiles will be granted access to our children.

Young Cosmos

If you find that my posts are a bit sparse for the next month or so, you can pop over to Young Cosmos where I'll be guest blogging for a time.

With Salvador leaving public debate to continue his education at John Hopkins, they are minus a blogger, so I've been asked to participate for a while.

I intend to post at both blogs and cross post at times as well. Two venues to feed my obsession with this debate...it just doesn't get better than that!

[Edit: Typo. Thanks goodness I have such a good editing team at AtBC! Much appreciated.]

Transparent Frog

Where you one of those kids who got squeamish during lab when it came to dissecting those slimy frogs?

That certainly wasn’t the case for me as I remember my partner and I getting in trouble for tossing part of the little froggie at the kids at the next table...too much fun really. But, then I was only in 7th grade, and dissecting frogs was more entertaining than a learning experience. Anywhoo...maybe all that frog dissecting will be made a little easier in the future. Check it out!

September 28, 2007—For high school students everywhere, this revealing amphibian may be a cut above regular frogs.

That's because the see-through frog does not require dissection to see its organs, blood vessels, and eggs.

Masayuki Sumida, a professor at the Institute for Amphibian Biology at Japan's Hiroshima University, bred the frog to be a humane learning tool.

"You can watch organs of the same frog over its entire life, as you don't have to dissect it," Sumida told the news agency Agence France-Presse. The scientist announced his research last week at an academic meeting.

Dissecting animals for science has sparked controversies worldwide, even prompting some companies to create computer simulations as cruelty-free alternatives.

Researchers bred the sheer creature—a type of Japanese brown frog—for two recessive genes that make it pale.

Though not yet patented, the frog is the first four-legged, see-through animal to be bred by scientists. Some fish species are also clear.

Only 1 in 16 frogs end up see-through, and Sumida's team has not yet figured out how to pass on the transparent trait to offspring.

I'll have to tell my son about this one though it doesn't appear that these little guys will be circulating to the schools any time soon. He's about the age where I'll get to start hearing about frog dissection.

Ouch?

In Moscow, recently a woman delivered a 17-pound baby! I'm having sympathy pains for the women even as I'm writing this post. Both of my boys weighed less than half that at birth, and I though I was going to die.

At least she had her daughter by Caesarean section, but the kicker was that she is as old as me...42 years old and delivering a 17 lb. baby. It sounds horrendous, IMHO.

Tatiana Khalina, 42, delivered the girl by Caesarean section at a maternity clinic in Aleisk, a town of 30,000 in the Altai region in southern Siberia, Svetlana Gildeyeva, a nurse at the clinic, said Thursday.

Gildeyeva said the birth on Sept. 17 went smoothly and both the mother and the child were fine. She said the baby, Nadezhda, was transferred from the small Aleisk clinic to a maternity hospital in the bigger city of Barnaul which had better conditions.

The girl was feeling well and developing normally, said Irina Kurdeka, a doctor at the Barnaul hospital.

Again, all I can say is OUCH!!

DNA Unraveled

DNA is so freaking cool it gives me goosebumps...

The science of life is undergoing changes so jolting that even its top researchers are feeling something akin to shell-shock. Just four years after scientists finished mapping the human genome - the full sequence of 3 billion DNA "letters" folded within every cell - they find themselves confronted by a biological jungle deeper, denser, and more difficult to penetrate than anyone imagined.

............

In any event, lots of basic biological beliefs are going out the window these days as new discoveries come so rapid-fire that the effect is almost more disorienting than illuminating.

The discoveries have one common theme: Cellular processes long assumed to be "genetic" appear quite often to be the result of highly complex interactions occurring in regions of DNA void of genes. This is roughly akin to Wall Street waking to the realization that money doesn't make the world go 'round, after all.

"It's a radical concept, one that a lot of scientists aren't very happy with," said Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. "But the scientific community is going to have to rethink what genes are, what they do and don't do, and how the genome's functional elements have evolved.

"I think we're all pretty awed by what we're seeing," Collins said. "It amounts to a scientific revolution."

...............

"The picture that's emerging" of how living cells actually operate and evolve "is so immensely more complicated than anyone imagined, it's almost depressing," Rigoutsos said.

HT: Rob Crowther, EN&V

Behe Interview

Found here...

Two questions from the interview:

Q: Why is intelligent design science? Isn’t it just giving up on finding a scientific explanation for something that we don’t yet fully understand?

A: Intelligent design is science because it is based completely on physical data — the molecular machinery of cells — plus ordinary logic. Whenever we see systems in our everyday world of a certain degree and kind of complexity (like clocks), we always have found them to be designed. Now, much to our surprise, science has discovered similar systems in the cell. I see no reason to withhold the conclusion of design for cellular components. So the design of cellular machinery is an inductive argument based on physical evidence — a scientific conclusion.

When the motions of the galaxies away from the earth was first observed in the 1930s, that led to the Big Bang hypothesis. Many scientists of that time hated the idea of a beginning to nature, because it seemed to have theistic overtones. What if they had said that the Big Bang hypothesis was simply giving up on finding a scientific explanation for something that we don’t fully understand yet? If they had, physics would have missed out on a lot of progress. Science has to follow the evidence wherever it leads, or it ceases to be science. Right now the biological evidence is leading to the conclusion of design.

Q: But that’s how they might have phrased it - “a beginning to nature” not “a designer got things started.” Do you appreciate the concern that many people have about introducing a “designer” into science textbooks?

A: Yes, I do appreciate people’s concerns about explicitly talking of a “designer” in textbooks. Nonetheless, science is supposed to be a no-holds-barred search for the truth. Throughout the history of science we’ve had to get used to a lot of ideas that people thought were odd. There’s no reason to shy away from the concept of a designer just because it makes some people uneasy.[my emphasis]

Science is a search for truth...there should be no materialistic gatekeeper hell bent on blocking the path.

Baylor takes Lilley to task

Well, it looks as though Baylor is becoming a bit put off with their President. Yesterday, I posted an article from the Baylor Lariat which was written by the producer of the upcoming movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Apparently, his film crew was on it's way to interview President Lilley in regard to the Evolutionary Informatics lab fiasco, but it looks as though he refused to meet with them.

From an editorical in today's Baylor Lariat, it appears that the student body is asking for answers...

Editorial: Lilley's two cents are missing

Sept. 20, 2007

Being Baylor's president is not an easy job. Between managing a staff of professors and administrators and fundraising enough to finance Baylor 2012, President John Lilley has a lot on his plate.

But one of the most crucial roles a university president must play, especially during times of dispute, is to act as the face of the university. By virtue of his job description, Lilley is the voice of Baylor. Lately it seems he has laryngitis.

When Baylor was thrust into the national spotlight for shutting down distinguished professor Dr. Robert Marks' intelligent design Web site, representatives from media relations answered questions, not Lilley.

Of course, the public could hardly expect anything less, considering Lilley's absence from the initial meeting between Marks and a handful of Baylor administrators.

It's understandable that the president is a busy man and can't attend every single meeting with a faculty member, but certainly one with a distinguished professor and his legal counsel could merit his coveted attention.

This is not the first time Lilley has been missing in action for a crucial meeting. Let's not forget the controversy surrounding the book Baylor Beyond the Crossroads, now known as The Baylor Project -- it was another national stage for Baylor and another silent moment in Lilley's presidency.

Not only was Lilley notably absent from meetings with the book's editors, director of media relations Lori Fogleman said he was unable to comment at all because he had never seen any version of the book, even though manuscripts and galley copies are available.

There really is no excuse for this type of detachment from issues so close to the heart of Baylor.

Even former president Robert B. Sloan Jr. is easier to get ahold of than Lilley. When The Lariat called the office of the Houston Baptist University president, we were patched right through.

However, when trying to reach our own president, we run into a string of red tape that media relations proudly declares is "the same treatment we give the New York Times." This is nothing to brag about.

By making itself unavailable to the press, the Lilley administration has forfeited its voice in major conversations. Even though representatives from media relations eagerly give statements to newspapers across the country, nothing has the same effect as a word from the president.

While the weight of his speech may be the very thing that's causing Lilley to hold his tongue, few statements could be as damaging as this current silence.

Often, people refuse to speak out of guilt. By choosing silence, Lilley has unwittingly thrown himself under these suspicions, even though this may not be the case.

In an article by the Baptist Press, former Baylor professor William Dembski infers that Lilley is the culprit behind the changes to Marks' Web site due to his absence at the August meeting. If Lilley had only been there, Dembski couldn't make such an argument.

Now the Lilley administration is declining to meet with the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary following intelligent design issues in higher education.

By hiding out, it's beginning to look like Lilley's got something worth hiding.

Nothing would silence the conspiracy theorists like undeniable physical presence. Show up to meetings, make public statements, maybe even hit up the Bear Trail while you're at it.

As your student body, we'd like to hear from you once in a while.

Hmmmm...not looking good for Lilley.

Natural or Designed?

You decide...

September 19, 2007—Not far from Taiwan, Pacific waters engulf stone structures just off the coast of the tiny Japanese island of Yonaguni Jima, part of the Ryukyu archipelago in this undated photo.

The structures maybe the ruins of a 5,000-year-old city that featured a castle, several temples, and a stadium, according to a Japanese researcher who has been diving at the site for past 15 years. (Read full Story.)

"The largest structure looks like a complicated, monolithic, stepped pyramid that rises from a depth of 25 meters [82 feet]," said the scientist, Masaaki Kimura of the University of the Ryukyus. Kimura recently suggested that the site might have been sunk by a massive tsunami similar to the one that hit the island in 1771.

But other experts who have dived at the site, which was discovered in 1986, are equally convinced that the formations are natural.

"It's basic geology and classic stratigraphy for sandstones, which tend to break along planes and give you these very straight edges," said Robert Schoch, a professor of science and mathematics at Boston University and a leading critic of the theory.

"Expelled" goes to Baylor

Looks like they haven't finished final editing for the much anticipated movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Evidently, the executive producer of the film submitted a letter to the Baylor school news in regard to the recent squabble over the Evolutionary Informatics lab at the university, and they actually published it! Check it out...

BU administration silencing science by design

Sept. 18, 2007

It may sound like a crazy question, but it needs to be asked: Does the administration at Baylor believe in God?

This is a legitimate question in light of the university's heavy-handed actions in shutting down the research Web site of Dr. Robert Marks.

As many of you have heard, Marks, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been conducting research that ultimately may challenge the foundation of Darwinian theory. In layman's terms, Marks is using highly sophisticated mathematical and computational techniques to determine if there are limits to what natural selection can do.

At Baylor, a Christian institution, this should be pretty unremarkable stuff. I'm assuming most of the faculty, students and alumni believe in God, so wouldn't it also be safe to assume you have no problem with a professor trying to scientifically quantify the limits of a blind, undirected cause of the origin and subsequent history of life?

It would seem this kind of research would be praised and encouraged at Baylor.

But the dirty little secret is university administrators are much more fearful of the Darwinian Machine than they are of you.

I've spent the last two years of my life researching the widely accepted Neo-Darwinian theory and the theory of Intelligent Design.

My team and I (including lawyer, economist, actor, game show host and social commentator Ben Stein) have interviewed dozens of the world's top experts in biology, astronomy, physics and philosophy.

What we have uncovered in our documentary film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, is an attack on freedom of speech and scientific inquiry that is as frightening as it is appalling. And it's happening right here at Baylor.

Last month Dr. Ben Kelley, dean of engineering and computer science, shut down Marks' Web site. He apparently had the blessing of President John Lilley. Why? The university put forth a bunch of phony-baloney procedural explanations that don't stand up to scrutiny.

The truth however, can be found in an e-mail sent to Marks by Ben Kelley in which he told Marks, "I have received several concerned messages..." about his Web site. These complaints have been kept anonymous. How convenient.

Here's what's going on: Somebody within the scientific community let Kelley know that Marks was running a Web site that was friendly to Intelligent Design.

Such a thing is completely unacceptable in today's university system -- even at a Christian institution. Kelley was probably told to have the site shut down immediately or suffer the consequences.

What are those consequences? The ultimate penalty is to have Baylor marginalized by being designated as not a "legitimate institution of higher learning." So designated merely for the "crime" of allowing Neo-Darwinism to be questioned, since conventional elitist wisdom holds it's no longer a theory but an inviolable truth.

Do you think this is some kind of fanciful conspiracy theory? Google the names of Richard Sternberg, Caroline Crocker, Guillermo Gonzalez, Dean Kenyon and Bill Dembski and see what you find. These distinguished scientists have suffered severe consequences for questioning Darwinian theory and there are hundreds, if not thousands, more.

We want to speak with President Lilley about this academic suppression, so we are going to give him one more chance. Mr. Stein is sending a crew down to knock on President Lilley's door Thursday, September 20.

Will he talk? We hope so. But even if he doesn't, the actions of the Baylor administration will be in our film.

Walt Ruloff

Executive producer, Premise Media

Yikes....wonder how that little meeting went? Ya think they got Lilley on film?

HT: UD

Why Whales Developed Sonar

Speaking of just so stories...

When whales first took the plunge into the ocean from land about 45 million years ago, they lacked the ability to echolocate—that is, to find and identify objects by emitting and bouncing sounds off them, much as bats do.


About 7 million years later, toothed whales (sperm whales are a type of toothed whale) developed this ability, fossils show.

Some marine biologists think that sonar in toothed whales came about as a better way to find food in the darkness of the deep ocean. But how did the whales, which primarily ate fish, know there was a large supply of food down in the dark?

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, suggest that giant squid would bump into the whales as the squid migrated from the dark depths to the surface at night, something they've been doing for about 200 million years.

“When whales developed sonar," explained researcher Nick Pyenson of the University of California, Berkeley, "it allowed them to dive deeper and follow the squids into the very dark ocean depths, where they discovered a rich food source that was accessible 24 hours day.”

Cephalopods, such as squid, are the most abundant and high-energy resource in the ocean and are eaten by 90 percent of all toothed whales.

The researchers detailed their idea in the European journal Lethaia.

The development of echolocation in whales and bats are strong examples of how two very different species evolved similar adaptations to their environment and passed it down to succeeding generations, a process known as convergent evolution, Pyenson noted.

“With convergent evolution, we see the same solution for being able to chase after your prey in the dark," Pyenson said, "whether you’re a bat or a whale.”

Before they come to any conclusions about how echolocation evolved, they might try working out all those nasty little details that will help us better understand how those "whales first took the plunge into the ocean from land".

If anyone has access to the above mentioned article in the European journal Lethaia, I'd be interested in reading it...

Paging Jeremy

[post removed...control regained...I think]

Egnor hits the nail on the head...

...in regard to some of the inane speculation being published in regard to evolution, yet...

Nature recently published an editorial asserting that the inference to design has no place in our effort to understand the origin of the genetic code or the origin of the intricate nanotechnology in living cells.

But, they certainly seem to be interested in spit...

Now, a few months later, Nature lauds a research paper that asserts that groundbreaking insight into the origin of the human brain can be gained by extrapolating from the comparative biology of spit.

Evolutionary biology can't be satirized. It can only be described.

sigh...

The Edge of Evolution - An Honest Review

Cameron Wybrow's review of Behe's Edge of Evolution is unlike several reviews we’ve seen in the past. He actually addresses the science rather than concentrate on needless ad hominem attacks.

In his conclusion:

The response to Behe has been predictable. The editors of the major print media have assigned known enemies of ID to trash the book - Richard Dawkins for the New York Times; Coyne for the New Republic; Miller for Nature; Ruse for Toronto's Globe & Mail. A large part of each review is ad hominem, concerned with Behe's alleged religious agenda, his minority status among biologists, and other irrelevant matters. In Dawkins' review, the science is barely touched, and it's not clear from Ruse's review that he has even opened the cover of the book. Behe deserves better. The Edge of Evolution makes a serious, quantitative argument about the limits of Darwinian evolution. Evolutionary biology cannot honestly ignore it.[My emphasis]

HT: Denyse O’Leary

Richard Dawkins stumped by creationists' question (RAW FTGE)

Southern Methodist University teaches ID too!

While academic freedom is being stifled for some, as I noted in an earlier post, others are free to teach courses that claim ID is pseudoscience.

Southern Methodist University is offering a course entitled, “The Scientific Method-Critical and Creative Thinking (Debunking Pseudoscience)“. Intelligent Design will be included in this course along with “aid deniers”, “flat earthers“, “astrology“, etc., etc.. The course will include parodies from "The Onion", “Evolution for ID-iots” on YouTube, and several other like items that are aimed primarily at ridiculing ID and providing a one-sided argument in order to convince students that ID is something to laugh at rather than to be taken seriously.

At some point, these type of courses are going to backfire. Students who are interested enough in this controversy will eventually attend a lecture given by an ID proponent such as Dembski or Behe, and find that what they’ve been sold is not an accurate portrayal of ID in many cases. I saw this happen at both Behe and Dembski’s lectures here in Kansas. I questioned and listened to several students after Dembski's lecture, and they appeared to be surprised by what they heard as they seemed to be expecting a religious argument. Behe’s lecture also had those I talked with interested in learning more about ID.

Back to this particular course at SMU...

This link provides the class schedule for the course being taught by Professors John L. Cotton and Randall J. Scalise. That site links to another site which lists information about the ID portion of the course.

I am actually more than a bit shocked at the choice of words and snide remarks used in the course outline that I’m assuming, as seems to be indicated, is meant for use by the students.

The term BS or bullshit is used throughout. For example, consider the course description:

This course will provide you with an understanding of the scientific method sufficient to detect pseudoscience in its many guises: paranormal phenomena; free-energy devices; alternative medicine; intelligent-design creationism; and many others. You will learn to think critically and to question outlandish claims, hype, and outright BS. Expect to do a lot of reading, writing, and, most of all, thinking.

I certainly don’t remember my college professors using that type of language in their course descriptions. My how things have changed, and to think this is a *Methodist* university.

Let me share a few more little gems...

You don't have to teach both sides of a debate if one side is a load of crap.

He repeatedly uses the word “Id(iots)” when referring to ID supporters. He puts the initials ID=BS at the bottom of the link, and when referencing a list of ID books, he includes a heading that states “or read these and get stoopider“, along with a section titled, “Quotations from ID proponents (IDiots)”.

He references PZ Myers' blog, Pharyngula, along with AntiEvolution.org which both cater to atheists and agnostics. PZ Myers, as most readers know, is a self proclaimed “militant atheist” who rants about religion and ID, as well as conflating the two on a daily basis at his website. My concern is not that these are atheist sites, but rather if they can be considered unbiased, reliable, open-minded sources. Will the students be asked to critically analyze these topics or, as seems to be indicated, will they be told *exactly ~what~ to think about ID?

Do you suppose SMU monitors these course description websites? This one is more than a little over the top. If my child brought home a course description with words like “bull shit", “stoopider”, “IDiots”, etc., I’d wonder if the Professor of the course had lost his mind. Honestly, when I first glanced at those links, I thought perhaps this was some kind of parody website!

Now I understand why there was such a ruckus over the Darwin vs. Design conference that was held at SMU. The science department had a fit over the fact that the conference was being held at their university, and when asked if they would like to participate in a debate over the issues, they flat out refused rather than give their students the chance to consider both sides in an open debate. It would seem that if they have such solid arguments against design, they'd show up to debate the ID proponents into the ground. Evidently, their case against ID is not as reliable as they would like to have us believe.

HT: Casey Luskin, EN&V