More ridiculous adulation of arch-Darwinist Dawkins: Now upgraded to prophet

Shades of the ridiculous adulation of Darwin, here's some ridiculous adulation of Dawkins, the current ultra-Darwinist in chief, as the "prophet of the selfish gene":

Andrew Read opens the volume with an account of how his view of life was changed after reading The Selfish Gene on a lonely mountaintop in New Zealand. My own first reading had less of Mt. Sinai in it but was still special. I was in the flats of Michigan in my first year of grad school, and Richard Alexander and John Maynard Smith were already laying waste to the false idol of uncritical group selection. Alerted by Maynard Smith to the imminent appearance of The Selfish Gene, I watched for it, snapped it up immediately, and, though I am neither a night owl nor a rapid reader, I had devoured it whole by the early hours of the next morning.

These people are beyond parody, which saves me work. You have to pay to read the rest of the glowing testimonial, including how author Queller and his dad both seen da light and realize that the selfish gene governs everyone's behavior ...

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Another ID-friendly paper clears the gauntlet: Focus on saber-tooth tigers

In a paper in an Italian biology journal, John Davison argues that the design of life forms is not generated by Darwin's natural selection, continually adding up, hour after hour, the benefits of a particular arrangement, but rather by preexisting designs, in accord with the physics and chemistry of our universe. (As far as I know, this approach is called "structuralism," and it is hateful beyond imagining to the Darwinists.)

In 1993, Otto Schindewolf said that evolution postulates “a unique, historical course of events that took place in the past, is not repeatable experimentally and cannot be investigated in that way.” In this peer-reviewed article from a prestigious Italian biology journal, John A. Davison agrees with Schindewolf. Since “[o]ne can hardly expect to demonstrate a mechanism that simply does not and did not exist,” Davison attempts to find new explanations for the origin of convergence among biological forms. Davison contends that “[t]he so-called phenomenon of convergent evolution may not be that at all, but simply the expression of the same preformed ‘blueprints’ by unrelated organisms.” While discussing many remarkable examples of “convergent evolution,” particularly the marsupial and placental saber-toothed cats, Davison’s meaning is unmistakable: This evidence “bears, not only on the questions raised here, but also, on the whole issue of Intelligent Design.” Davison clearly implies that this evidence is expected under an intelligent design model, but not under a Neo-Darwinian one. (Davison, John A. “A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis,” Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum 98 (2005): 155-166.)

All saber tooth tigers are now extinct, but placental saber-tooths presumably gave birth after some months to cubs nourished by a placenta that separates the body systems of mother and infant*. Marsupials, by contrast, produce embryos after only a few weeks. The embryos then crawl up into a pouch (marsupium) on their mother's underside to latch onto a teat and finish their development. Although all these sabertooths were mammals, the engineering of a placenta, which is an exceedingly complex organ, vs. a marsupium (another complex organ) is quite different.

Here's what's at issue: Darwinism requires that each stage in the engineering of a complex organ such as the placenta or marsupium be driven by an individual "selective advantage." But that seems hopelessly improbable to many respected scientists.

In reality, it makes much more sense to assume a high level of original design, however we account for it, with natural selection only trimming the defects of individual examples of the design.
*because otherwise the mother's antibodies would kill the infant. That's what happens in Rh negative disease.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Coma victim awakes after 19 years: Brain completely rewired with "novel anatomical structures"

A guy who regained consciousness after 19 years in a coma had essentially rewired his brain, in novel ways.

Wallis’s brain had, very gradually, developed new pathways and completely novel anatomical structures to re-establish functional connections, compensating for the brain pathways lost in the accident.

We are told that a study of the results shows that "far greater potential for recovery and regeneration then ever suspected."

In other words, the dogma - flatly stated to many of us - that brains cannot regenerate, is simply wrong.

We do well to be skeptical nowadays of any "brain is a piece of meat" dogma originating in materialism. Hey, the life you save may be your own.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Darwinism franchise opens in Britain: (= ID controversy ramps up in Europe)

National Center for Science Education is one of the key groups responsible for the popularity of intelligent design theory in the United States - on account of its senseless promotion of Darwinism in the public schools. Now, I see, the idea is being
exported to Britain, so we can anticipate more people finding reasons to doubt Darwinism there.

Don't forget- most of us never think much about D. and his theory. Only when Darwinism is force fed to us, do we begin to discover that it's a load of high-energy twaddle.

My favorite NCSE move is finding a bunch of liberal dog-collars and well-meaning but clueless scientists to insist that here is no conflict between Darwinism and Christianity, when a thirteen-year-old could figure out that the conflict is obvious and fundamental.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being denied tenure at Baylor.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.