We have recently been discussing a series of critical reviews of Science and Human Origins published by PhD student Paul McBride on his blog Still Monkeys. I am going to respond now to McBride's review of chapter 4, in which he tackles Casey Luskin's handling of the...
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On the Evolution of the Mammalian Middle Ear
A correspondent recently asked me about the evolution of the mammalian middle ear in relation to the fossil record. Based on data gathered from embryology, it is widely thought that the bones of the mammalian middle ear (the region just inside the eardrum) evolved...
An Incontrovertible Case of Intelligent Design: Artificial Jellyfish Made from Silicone and Rat Heart Muscle
The popular science media are abuzz over the creation by scientists of a synthetic jellyfish, called a medusoid, using silicone and a rat's heart muscle cells (Nawroth et al., 2012). Explains Nature News, "When placed in an electric field, it pulses and swims exactly...
Science and Human Origins: A Review
ENV editor David Klinghoffer has already drawn our attention to the new book by Ann Gauger, Douglas Axe and Casey Luskin on Science and Human Origins.Although intelligent design is not committed to a particular view on whether our species Homo sapiens share a common...
The Molecular Flagellar Clutch of Bacillus Subtilis
I have previously outlined a few of the key mechanisms undergirding flagellar assembly, and the remarkable process of bacterial chemotaxis by which bacteria change direction in response to chemical signals. There are, of course, a number of different variants in those...
In Explaining the Cambrian Explosion, Has the TalkOrigins Archive Resolved Darwin's Dilemma?
A correspondent recently referred me to an article in the TalkOrigins Archive responding to the argument that "Complex life forms appear suddenly in the Cambrian explosion, with no ancestral fossils." TalkOrigins is a popular online resource that collects attempted...
New Paper Reveals a "Novel Insight into the Non-Coding Repertoire"
On an almost weekly basis, new research floods in documenting previously unidentified functionality of many different classes of non-coding DNA elements. This consistent trend renders untenable the dogmatic claim that our DNA is mostly junk. A paper was recently...
A New Study Adds Further Depth to the Information Story
Previously on ENV, I have described several remarkable features -- and the finely tuned characteristics -- of the genetic code found in nature. A new study, published in the journal Nature and conducted by a research team at the University of California, San...
Irreducible Complexity with Four Glasses and Three Knives
A post at Uncommon Descent offers an innovative way of illustrating the concept of irreducible complexity -- one that is likely to be more resistant to Darwinist misrepresentation than Michael Behe's well-known mouse trap analogy. The illustration is intended to...
Massimo Pigliucci: Theodosius Dobzhansky, in His Famous Comment about Evolution, Was "Patently Wrong"
Writing on his "Rationally Speaking" blog, internationally acclaimed evolutionary biologist turned philosopher Massimo Pigliucci has weighed in on a recent paper published by Addy Pross entitled "Toward a general theory of evolution: Extending Darwinian theory to...
This Saturday on the National Mall in Washington, It's the Unreasonable Rally
This Saturday, March 24, on the National Mall in Washington D.C., atheists and secularists from all over the world will gather for a day of entertainment from guest speakers, comedians and musicians. The Reason Rally, which claims to be the "the largest secular event...
British Geneticist Robert Saunders Weighs in on Signature in the Cell
Readers may recall my exchange with British geneticist Robert Saunders (here and here) following Stephen Meyer's lecture at the Lord McKay dinner in London (which you can now watch here). At the time, Saunders admitted that he had not read Signature in the Cell, nor...
The GULO Pseudogene and Its Implications for Common Descent
L-gulonolactone oxidase (GULO), the final enzyme in the biosynthetic pathway of ascorbic acid (vitamin C), is a subject that comes up often in discussions of common ancestry. The functioning GULO gene allows most plants and many animals to produce vitamin C from...
Is Banning Same Sex Marriage Discrimination?
[Note: This is an exchange which took place between myself and an anonymous correspondant regarding a recent article I published on Blogos.org (and also posted here). The correspondant's comments are appended below and immediately followed by my response.] Dear Blogos...
Joining the Conversation: Perspectives on the Discussion with James Shapiro
I have followed with interest the discussion ("Is James Shapiro a Design Theorist?") initiated by Bill Dembski and now involving James Shapiro, Ann Gauger and Douglas Axe. The nub of the issue seems to relate to conflicting conceptions about what constitutes a...
British Free Schools that Teach Intelligent Design as Science Will Lose Funding
The British Guardian newspaper reports on recent developments in UK governmental policy on teaching evolution in free schools (which, though state funded, are normally not required to follow the national curriculum): Click here to continue reading>>>
On the Origin of Mitochondria: Reasons for Skepticism on the Endosymbiotic Story
With regret, ENV recently noted the passing of biologist Lynn Margulis. Margulis, a scientist whom I admired greatly, was never a stranger to controversy, going so far as to call neo-Darwinism "a complete funk" and asserting that "The critics, including the...
The Year in Review: Intelligent Design in the UK
An often-heard criticism of intelligent design claims that it is exclusively an American phenomenon, since presumably the rest of the world is too smart to fall for the stuff. Of course this is nonsense. ID is making impressive strides in Europe and Asia. As I can...
Larry Moran Defends "Junk DNA"
Earlier, I responded to remarks made by PZ Myers at the recent Skepticon 4 conference. His subject: "Junk DNA." On his Sandwalk blog, University of Toronto biochemist Larry Moran has posted a response to my article. Since the post is relatively civil (unusually for...
Animation Reveals Engineering Elegance of RNA Interference
Nature Reviews Genetics features an excellent high quality computer visualization (including an associated slideshow) of the elegant mechanism of RNA interference. RNA interference is a defence mechanism that enables double-stranded RNA molecules (such as those...