Origins – Page 264

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Our Complex Brains: Lessons from Phrenology

June 25, 2007

This is your brain on science: it is too complex for simplistic diagrams. Back in the 19th century, the “science” of phrenology was in full swing. Phrenologists divided the brain into more than two dozen regions of “mental faculties” that controlled such things as instincts for eating and sex, sensation of color, language ability, and […]

Education

Council of Europe Officially Condemns Creationism and I.D.

June 22, 2007

A lengthy and strident policy document was issued by the Council of Europe denouncing creationism. The summary statement makes it clear there is no compromise possible, because “religious fundamentalists” are behind it, and that creationism and intelligent design must be firmly and unequivocally opposed. Evolution, by contrast, is given supreme status as the explanation for […]

Genetics

Genome Complexity Unveiled: No Junk, Only Function

June 15, 2007

Any remaining doubts that the idea of “junk DNA” has itself been junked should vanish under the latest findings about genome complexity. A number of recent news stories have revealed astonishing levels of regulation and organization in the non-coding regions of DNA. It turns out that genes are not the only interesting things in the […]

Intelligent Design

Origin of Life Made Simple: Stochastic Innovation Answers I.D.

June 8, 2007

A press release from UC San Francisco teases, Before life emerged on earth, either a primitive kind of metabolism or an RNA-like duplicating machinery must have set the stage – so experts believe. But what preceded these pre-life steps? A pair of UCSF scientists has developed a model explaining how simple chemical and […]

Politics and Ethics

The Malthus Effect on Politics and Economics

June 5, 2007

In 1798, Thomas Malthus published an essay that had a profound impact on Charles Darwin and others. But it was flawed.

Amazing Facts

Molecular Motors Move You

May 30, 2007

The realization that cells are filled with molecules that move like machines fascinates many people. Students who grew up thinking of chemistry as bouncing molecules that did little more than link up and separate have a whole new paradigm to consider: molecules that walk, fold and unfold, spin and operate like ratchets, robots, wrenches and […]

Biomimetics

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: Design by Darwin

May 24, 2007

Can Darwin get credit for intelligently-planned research? Apparently John Chaput thinks so. A press release from the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University states this: Nature, through the trial and error of evolution, has discovered a vast diversity of life from what can only presumed to have been a primordial pool of building blocks. Inspired […]

Origin of Life

OOL Study Substitutes Computer for Chemistry

May 15, 2007

Upon reading a recent origin-of-life paper in PNAS,1 you might think the authors ran experiments with real chemicals and real deep-sea rocks. A more careful look, however, reveals that their model only worked in cyberspace. This raises interesting questions about the ability of simulations to substitute for empirical evidence. Their claims were dramatic […]

Dumb Ideas

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: Design without a Designer

May 10, 2007

Apparently Francisco Ayala (UC Irvine) thinks that just stating something dogmatically is enough to end all discussion. The scope of his paper in PNAS is grandiose and sweeping, enough to keep philosophers and theologians from around the world busy for years, but Ayala just put out his opinions without any hint of dispute, and stamped […]

Amazing Facts

More Optical Design in Eye Retina Than Seen Before

May 2, 2007

For decades, evolutionists have used the vertebrate retina as an example of poor design (dysteleology). They have mocked how any designer could have been so unintelligent as to get the wiring backwards – with the photoreceptors behind a jumble of light-scattering cells. Creationists have countered that despite the arrangement, it works well.1 Now, they may […]

Origin of Life

Can the Miller Experiment Be Revived?

April 4, 2007

Jeffrey Bada at the Scripps Institute is finding more interesting stuff in Stanley Miller’s spark-discharge tubes – with a little tweaking of ingredients. Scientific American acknowledges that the famous experiment fell into disrepute when scientists used a more realistic atmosphere: “It seemed to refute a long-cherished icon of evolution—and creationists quickly seized on it as […]

Origin of Life

Is Hardy Life Evidence of an Evolutionary Origin?

March 29, 2007

Salt-tolerate species of unicellular organisms are found in all three kingdoms of life, says an article on Space.com. “Astrobiologists, those cross disciplinary scientists dedicated to investigating the broad question of life in the universe,” writes Lisa Chu-Theilbar of the SETI Institute, “often study extremophiles, organisms that live at the edges of what life is known […]

Dumb Ideas

Can the Interior Design Itself?

March 26, 2007

Calling all interior designers: has Darwinism rendered you superfluous? J. Scott Turner thinks so. He wrote a book called The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself (Harvard, 2007). It was reviewed by Claus Wedekind in last week’s Nature with the title, “The interior designer.” This does not imply that interiors need an exterior […]

Education

Free Speech? Not When Darwin Is at Stake

March 25, 2007

Radicals get away with saying or doing almost anything on campuses these days. There’s one “radical” view, however, that even though believed by a majority of Americans, is sure to be met with outrage: creationism. It doesn’t even have to be creationism. Just to suggest that Darwin and his views might not be infallible is […]

Botany

Is a 100-Year Misunderstanding about Plants Solved?

March 15, 2007

Part of “one of the biggest misunderstandings in botanical history,” a plant has moved from an upper part of the family tree down to the bottom. Trithuria submersa, an underwater flowering plant from India and Australia that was thought to be a monocot is really not a cot at all, says Science Daily reporting on […]

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