Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy, with comments

1. I see where Ladd Allen, producer of the Privileged Planet DVD that caused such a ruckus when it was shown at the Smithsonian in 2005, has now come out with Darwin's Dilemma.

Darwin's Dilemma presumably references the sudden Cambrian explosion of complex, multicellular life forms, including vertebrates, the creatures most likely to have intelligence, about half a billion years ago. Note how they talk around the problem here. Darwinists have twisted themselves into pretzels trying to explain how this could happen purely by natural selection acting on random mutation. Darwin started the thing off by suggesting that the explanation was that the fossil record was poor. Well, the fossil record is way better now, and it supports him even less. Not what you expected to hear in the Year of Darwin, eh?

Behind the Scenes With Darwin's Dilemma: An Interview With Producer Lad Allen

On this episode of ID the Future Anika Smith interviews Illustra Media producer Lad Allen on the new film out next week, Darwin's Dilemma. As the third film in the intelligent design trilogy from Illustra Media, Darwin's Dilemma represents a capstone for Allen, who traversed the globe to present the story of Darwin's journey to his theory of evolution and the Cambrian Explosion, the nagging problem for Darwin in the fossil record that has become a crisis for evolution today.

Listen in as Lad Allen shares with us what it's like to shoot on location in four continents and work with scientists like Simon Conway Morris and Stephen Meyer.

Go here to listen.

(Note: The Smithsonian always had a huge problem with the Cambrian explosion because it never supported Darwinism, and their key scientist on the case in the days it first came to public notice attempted to hide the results.)

Here's a video on the explosion:




2. Discovery Jeopardizes Darwinist Argument Against Cambrian Explosion

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin discusses how trails of microorganisms knock down a favorite Darwinist argument against the Cambrian explosion. Listen in as Luskin explains why Darwinists remain stuck — whether they like it or not — with a very explosive Cambrian explosion that isn't the mere artifact of an imperfect fossil record.

Go here to listen.

[From Denyse: In my view, the Cambrian explosion knocked Darwinism through a cocked hat, and Darwin himself knew this all too well. But he had good public relations agents then and now. Earnest folk, happy to front an impossible idea if it keeps materialist atheism alive. What's so telling - and damning - is their sheer defensiveness.

3.

An Atheist Discusses the Scientific Merits of Intelligent Design

On this episode of ID the Future, atheist philosopher Bradley Monton defends intelligent design as science, discussing methodological naturalism and the evidential force of ID with Casey Luskin. Listen in as Professor Monton shares how ID-critic Robert Pennock tried to intimidate him.

Bradley J. Monton, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is author of the new book, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design (Broadview Press, 2009).

Listen to Part One of this series.

I wonder when Bradley Monton will start to get even more real flak for asking key, rude questions about Darwinism, but then he doesn't yet blog at Uncommon Descent either. Hey, Brad, wanna be bad?

No, but seriously, Darwinism - as it exists today - is a tax-supported cult gone rotten. It attracts people like Pennock who have little to offer except policing the views of others, as he attempted to do with Monton, who sensibly repelled him. That's the principle reason that cults eventually implode - no new ideas, just new PR hacks and new thugs. With the "evolutionary psychology" branch, the stink is finally coming to public attention.

Coffee!! Latest non-Cambrian non-explosion

A friend asks a bunch of us if we are as incredulous of Darwinist attempts to explain away the Cambrian explosion as he is. Well, I always say, try me on some of the latest nonsense, and he did. It is conveniently here, in relations to the Dengying fossils in southern China (541 to 551 million years ago):

The first instance of biomineralization – i.e. the biologic use of minerals – was around 2 billion years ago when certain bacteria precipitated grains of magnetite to apparently help orient themselves in the Earth's magnetic field. However, the first animal skeletons didn't appear until right before the Cambrian explosion, at the end of the Ediacaran Period.

These early shell-bearing creatures help to resolve Charles Darwin's concern over the sudden appearance of so many new animal species during the Cambrian explosion. The fossil record gives the impression of a "Creation" event, but in reality, animals had evolved prior to the explosion. They just didn't leave much for paleontologists to find until they developed the skeleton-making trait.

Reminded me of something:

The first time anyone wondered about thefts from the liquor store was on March 22, when a couple of guys appeared to be loitering with intent. However, the first theft of cash and cases of liquor didn’t occur until June 29, at the end of the subsequent accounting period.

This reported theft helps to resolve management's concern over the sudden disappearance of so much cash and so many cases during the night of June 29. The inventory record gives the impression of a major theft, but in reality, lots of cash and cases had gone missing prior to the reported heist. They just didn't leave much for investigators to find because they weren’t logged into inventory in the first place.

Hardline Darwinists obviously fear the Cambrian explosion the way crooks fear an honest investigator. You can play their claim game yourself:

The first __________ was on/around ___________ when ______________. However, the first __________ didn't ___________ until _____________________.

This ___________ helps to resolve ____________’s concern over the sudden ________ of so many __________ during the ___________. The _________ record gives the impression of a __________, but in reality, ____________. They just didn't leave much for ___________ to find because they (in some way, you make it up, couldn’t be traced) ________________.

I guess in the world of Darwin, that counts for an explanation.

UPDATED! Cambrian explosion:No wonder they're making a movie ...

University of California at Santa Barbara's Art Battson has come forward to say that he is the person behind the Cambrian explosion page linked below, that was taken off the UCSB site by a neo-Darwinist profbot (it still works at the link I gave you). He has asked me not to mention anyone else by name. I won't.

Here is his story:

My new boss (PhD in anthopology with undergrad work in sociology who still takes neo-darwinism seriously) shut down my ORIGINS QUOTES AND COMMENTS website unannounced earlier this week. He told me he had received a complaint from somebody in a university in Illinois and that the material was not related to ID (Instructional Development). I told him it was indeed related to ID but he didn't laugh as much as I would have liked. The bottom line is that he removed the faculty/Staff Christian Forum website along with the Veritas Forum website while leaving other websites that are also unrelated to Instructional Development. (We all have rented space on the ID server for years.)

Battson plans to file a complaint about viewpoint discrimination. Meanwhile, my advice to anyone who has a special interest in the Cambrian explosion or other probably non-Darwinian events in the history of life, download or print out the page linked below. Based on the Sternberg case that drew in the US federal government and the Gonzalez case, which I plan to blog soon, this is stuff that traditional materialists/naturalists/Darwinists do not want you to know, and - to the extent that they have power at universities and science institutions - they may have means of preventing you, if not now, then later.

Let's be grateful that none of this involves a loved one's health or something like that. If the Darwinists must go down fighting, let's just make sure they do not take anyone with them.

Now here's the original story with key link:
Yesterday, I noted that the controversial Privileged Planet filmmaker, Illustra Media, is making a film about the Cambrian explosion of life forms about 525 million years ago, which ID advocates think will help sink the ship of Darwinism.

Here's a site at the University of California at Santa Barbara that provides revealing statements about the Cambrian explosion from well-known paleontologists. A sample comment:

The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history -- not the artifact of a poor fossil record.

Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I. (1982)
The Myths of Human Evolution
Columbia University Press, p. 59

Other hot topics in evolution are addressed here too.

(Note: The site is unpopular with some Darwinist profbots and had to be moved recently, so be sure to see it while you still can.)

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.

Blog policy note: This blog does not intentionally accept fully anonymous Comments, Comments with language unsuited to an intellectual discussion, URLs posted without comment, or defamatory statements. Defamatory statement: A statement that would be actionable if anyone took the author seriously. For example, someone may say "O’Leary is a crummy journalist"; that’s a matter of opinion and I don’t know who would care. But if they say, "O’Leary was convicted of grand theft auto in 1983," well that’s just plain false, and probably actionable, if the author were taken seriously. Also, due to time constraints, the moderator rarely responds to comments, and usually only about blog service issues.

Darwinism and academic culture: ID film banned

Apparently, California's Science Centers refuses to show Darwin's Dilemma, about the Cambrian explosion , which was a big problem for Darwin.

He blamed the incomplete fossil record, but now that it is more complete, the significance of the explosion is all the more obvious.

Basically, almost all basic animal life forms came into existence about 550 million years ago and have pretty much developed from there. This is not good news if you are fronting a theory of evolution that depends on random, meaningless mutations (= Darwinism).

In fact, I remember a stupid Darwin lobbyist announcing that she had arguments against the "Cambrian explosion argument", only to be rebuked by mathematician David Berlinski, who pointed out that there is no Cambrian explosion argument. There is a Cambrian explosion, period. Deal with it or get lost, but please don't demand public or donor funding for your emotional problem with it. Anyway,

Today the Los Angeles Daily News reports that the California Science Center, a “department of the State of California,” cancelled the screening of Darwin’s Dilemma after the screening became public knowledge and the Center came under intense pressure to cancel, possibly from the Smithsonian Institution, with which they are affiliated. The Center’s IMAX Theater had been rented by a private group, the American Freedom Alliance, to hold the Los Angeles premiere of the film as part of a series of activities commemorating the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

This will help the American public believe that there is something to be said for Darwinism as surely as the Canadian Human Rights Commission's pretend Nazis convinced Canadians that there is something good to be said about the Commission. Like I have said before, there is fire all along the northern border, due to exercises in completely stupid, censorious, and intrusive government and its funded agencies that never address real issues.

Love it, hate it. Oh, way better you should hate it.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Controversial filmmaker tackles Cambrian explosion

Los Angeles-based filmmaker, Illustra Media best known for The Privileged Planet, whose showing at the Smithsonian took "uproar" to a whole new level, is now working on a documentary The Cambrian Explosion:

The Cambrian Explosion will examine what many consider to be, the single most powerful refutation of Darwinian evolution-the fossil record . When he wrote his book, Charles Darwin realized that the 19th century fossil record did not support his theory of gradual, step-by-step evolutionary change. Yet, he hoped that future generations of scientists would make the discoveries necessary to substantiate his ideas. Today, after more than 150 years of digging, fossil evidence of slow, incremental biological change does not exist. Instead, we find a pattern pf rapid, dramatic appearances of fully developed, complex organisms in the ancient rock strata of the world. A pattern that is best explained by the work of a transcendent intelligence.

Well, this should be interesting. What you never heard about the Cambrian explosion is mostly surprising. While I am here, I may as well shill books on the subject: Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life and Simon Conway Morris'sThe Crucible of Creation are both good reads, in my experience.
(Consumer intellectual safety warning: These books take opposite positions on key issues. Intellectual freedom required. The Darwinian thoughtbot suffered an engineered mishap this afternoon, while mistakenly left in O'Leary's thoughtful care, so no establishment-backed "we-tell-you-what-to-think" service is currently available, except possibly from the Comments box. No warranties available under the circumstances.)
(Notes: Emphases are Illustra's not mine. I don't currently have a link for this information. It came by post.)

Scientists shocked: First animal complex, not simple

LiveScience outlines the shock that the comb jelly administered to scientists recently.

Early life researchers had assumed that sponges appeared first because they are so simple. A research team headed by Casey Dunn of Brown University in Rhode Island determined that the much more complex comb jelly came first. Which means that ...

Unlike sponges, comb jellies have connective tissues and a nervous system, and so are more complex. Though squishy and tentacled, they are not, however, true jellyfish as they lack the classic bell-shaped body and characteristic stinging cells.

The finding was unexpected because evolutionary biologists had thought that less complex animals split off and evolved separately first.

All this shock and awe comes from not taking the Avalon explosion and the Cambrian explosion of life forms seriously for what they can tell us about the real history of life, rather than the Darwinian fantasy.

(In fact, the Smithsonian secretary tried to bury the Cambrian explosion in the vaults in the basement.)

Evolutionary biologists are still looking for the long, slow upward plodding path that life never took.

Incidentally, the LiveScience staff note,

Though comb jellies are a common creature in the seas today, these modern specimens likely look very different from their early ancestors.

Don't count on that either.

A few years back (2004), I wrote an item for a science teachers' magazine, "Time Stands Still for Shell Guy?", detailing an equally remarkable discovery: An early crustacean that had fossilized so quickly in Herefordshire, United Kingdom, that its internal body plan was actually preserved.

The team led by David Siveter of the University of Leicester were able to completely reconstruct the fossil, a rare event: A recently found 425 million-year-old fossil crustacean apparently has the same internal organs as a modern one. Most news items on this find focused on the fact that Colymbosathos is the oldest “male” fossil (= the penis was visible). But the real story, for science, is the amazing stability of the key crustacean body organs over so vast an expanse of time.

Researchers working with Siveter found the ostracode in Herefordshire, and discovered that it has quickly mineralized, so that most of its body tissues were preserved. They seized the opportunity to shave the rock very finely and photograph all the shavings, which enabled a complete reconstruction - and pushed back knowledge of the group by 200 million years.

And what did they discover? "Researchers are puzzled as to why the ancient creature appears so similar to its modern relatives."

Sigh. To the extent that researchers simply try to confirm what they think must be true, they will just go on being "puzzled" every few years.

See also:

Biology's Big Bangs

The Avalon explosion: The dawn of life reveals yet another intricate puzzle

Critical Decisions in Science: The Smithsonian Secretary versus the Cambrian Explosion

Questions in Evolution: Animals suddenly appear and after that nothing much happens. Why?

Coffee!!: A message from "so-called Denyse O'Leary" ...

Yesterday, I was at the Canadian Science Writers' Association convention, held in Ottawa this year, and noted an evolution display by the British Council..

In its obsequies to Darwin, the Council advises the public that

Darwin gathered a mass of information to support his ideas. The types of evidence he used – from fossils to distribution of species – are all much more developed 150 years later. The proliferation of living forms in the so-called Cambrian explosion around 530 million years ago, for example, has been studied in enormous detail.

What I want to draw your attention to is the use of the term "so-called" Cambrian explosion.

I have usually heard the fossil find in Canada's Burgess Shale called the "Cambrian explosion" - where most phyla of life forms appeared in a short period, some went extinct, and others continued. Darwin, famously, knew the Cambrian was a problem for his gradualist theory of evolution, and blamed the imperfect fossil record. A more perfect fossil record has not helped much.

The big question is why it is so important for the British Council to defend Darwin's theory of evolution on this and other questions, when other theories of evolution might more reasonably account for this sequence of events.

I think I shall take to calling that organization the "so-called British Council".

Oh, and another piece of misinformation on the page is, "The spread of bacteria that can resist antibiotics is a good example of evolution in action." Yes, if evolution means tossing out working equipment, to avoid detection and destruction. But most people want to know how the equipment was created, and - to the handwringing of Darwinists - find their particular theory unconvincing.

Here is an example: You are a pro-democracy dissident in a totalitarian regime, and you type a newsletter. You get a tip that the secret police are coming, and you row out into the middle of a nearby lake and throw your whole system into it.

Of course, the secret police could arrest you without cause, but they would prefer to have a cause, so that the government-supported and -funded media can trumpet you as a villain.

Now you don't have that system any more. You are reduced to getting unwanted books at lawn sales and writing messages at agreed pages, known only to the person whose page it is. Then you arrange discreet delivery at the homes of democracy supporters, by various covert means. Still, you manage. They really want the messages.

But someone rats, under torture. Now, you are reduced to hiding baggie-wrapped messages in grapefruits, delivered by a sympathetic travelling fruit vendor. Soggy, but not without information value. Until ...

Maybe, messages could be hidden in leafy thickets or in their root systems ... I mean, if you inserted them carefully, in plastic - because they grow variously, so they will not likely be watched. But the recipient must be warned. This works, until ...

Still, the system goes on because there is an intelligence that wants to hear the news about dissent from the Totality.

Okay, this is the evolution!! of a communications system - if you, as a total Darwinist, like the British Council - believe that bacterial resistance shows evolution in action.

Sure it does, Amoeba. Now let me no longer detain you, but dump you quickly into your latest new pond.

Otherwise, read Mike Behe's Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism.

Note: Behe's title is curious, because - if you go by current science guff - Darwinism explains everything, and taxpayers must be forced to fund it.

Cambrian explosion: Let's just say that the Echinoderm family goes back a long way ...

British physicist David Tyler comments on new findings that intensify the impact of the Cambrian explosion of life forms, about 550 million years ago:

Echinoderm diversity traced back to Lower Cambrian

Some have argued that echinoderm diversity is an Ordovician phenomenon: linked to the Great Ordovician Diversification. Others make the case for the radiation to have initiated earlier. All seem to be agreed that the origin of echinoderms is shrouded in uncertainty. One major problem is that the relevant fossils are unfamiliar and often poorly preserved and there are often doubts about their classification. However, in June 2010, research was reported dealing with Middle Cambrian echinoderms from Spain.

"The new Spanish data suggest that a number of the clades involved in [the Great Ordovician] diversification (such as sucocystid cinctans, cothurnocystid stylophorans, ctenocystoids, and isorophid edrioasteroids) appeared significantly earlier in Gondwanan settings than previously thought. This shows that, even by the earliest middle Cambrian, a variety of novel body plans and ecological strategies already existed among echinoderms, pushing back the timing of important divergences into the lower Cambrian."


A Middle Cambrian echinoid - a stromatocystitid edrioasteroid (source here)

For more, go here.

We've completed the set!: All phyla of life appeared in the Cambrian

Confronting the impact of the Cambrian explosion of life 550 million years ago, British physicist David Tyler notes that

All skeletalised metazoan phyla appeared in the Cambrian

Until this year, the Bryozoa were missing from the list of Cambrian organisms. Although some had been previously reported, critical scrutiny showed that they were misidentified and that the oldest known bryozoans came from Lower Ordovician strata. This year, however, Upper Cambrian bryozoans were reported from the lower Tinu Formation, southern Mexico. They were said to be about 8 Ma years older than the oldest Ordovician fossils. This means that Cambrian strata can be said to record examples of all the skeletalized metazoan phyla.

For more, go here.

The obvious lack of fit between the actual Cambrian event and the popular saga of the"long slow evolution of life" has sparked surprisingly little curiosity, compared to exercises in creative explanation of the "so-called" explosion, suppression of information, dunno-what-hit-us shock and reassurances about ongoing research. Too bad we can't just get past all that, to a genuine wish to know what happened.

Note: Illustration shows Bryozoan membranipora membranacea, US Geological Survey

Top Ten books to read on the intelligent design controversy, 2009 #2

(Note: These are the key books, not science or media news. The Top Ten Darwin and Design Science News Stories for 2009 are here, and my comments are here, the Top Ten Darwin and Design Media News Stories for 2009 are here, and my comments on the latter are here. Also, to get the links, you must go here.)

My comments follow.

2. Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record (DVD). The final film in Illustra Media's long-planned Intelligent Design trilogy, Darwin's Dilemma, was released in September 2009 and quickly made headlines when it was barred from public viewing by the California Science Center. The documentary examines what many consider to be the most powerful refutation of Darwinian evolution—the Cambrian explosion. The Cambrian explosion is actually the sudden appearance of biological information over a relatively short geological time period. Darwin's Dilemma is a high-quality documentary that includes interviews with world-class paleontologists Simon Conway Morris and James Valentine, as well as leading intelligent design theorists and scientists Paul Nelson, Jonathan Wells, Stephen C. Meyer, Paul Chien, Doug Axe, and Richard Sternberg. As with the first two Illustra Media ID documentaries, Unlocking the Mystery of Life and The Privileged Planet, Darwin's Dilemma is full of high quality animations to help the viewer visualize the amazing complexity and design of the Cambrian creatures.

[From Denyse: The real scandal is - and I have said this elsewhere - that the problem that the Cambrian poses for Darwinism was recognized in Darwin’s day, and never confronted then or now. Otherwise, there would be no reason to ban the film.]

# 3 Top Ten book is here.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Cambrian explosion film to be shown, after all

Anika Smith, at the Discovery Institute, informs me that:

Those who live in the Los Angeles area are invited to attend a gala premiere screening of Illustra Media's new documentary, Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record next Sunday, October 25th at 7:00 pm at the University of Southern California. The event is sponsored by the American Freedom Alliance.

This premiere was originally scheduled for the California Science Center, but the Center canceled the event just a few days ago, leaving the organizers virtually no time to find a new location. If you live in the Los Angeles area, you can show your support for free speech ...

That might be a very good idea. Especially if you note what is going on in Canada (which recently dropped a number of points in press freedom rankings, due to struggles that have sucked up much of the lives of many of my friends).

Basically, Darwin always knew that the Cambrian explosion was a problem for his theory, and he attributed it to the poverty of the fossil record. Now that the record is better, it is a bigger problem for his theory. The film might be good or bad, right or wrong, but if it cannot be shown ... welcome to the world where government tells you what to think.

Which reminds me: The 19th century Smithsonian secretary avoided dealing with this evidence for many years. Ever since, it has been downplayed. We are expected to forever wait for a Darwinian explanation. That's like waiting for the guy dead drunk at the bottom of the stairs to pay his rent.

So if, as some have said, the Smithsonian had anything to do with the sudden cancellation, it would be no surprise.

Personally, I am sick and tired of all the garbage. Darwinism is an unbelievable belief currently funded by government. It makes about as much sense as this stuff.

Yet another journalist skeptical of Darwin lobby

I am rapidly developing a guest list for a Hacks' Pub Nite!

Here's a recent piece (May 5, 2008) from Lew Rockwell.com by veteran journalist Charley Reese who is agnostic about evolution, creation, or intelligent design:

True science means simply the search for truth, but a search conducted with an open mind and tolerance for dissent. There is nothing wrong with a person believing that a dinosaur evolved into a canary, but there is also nothing wrong with someone believing that God created the first man and woman. I've never seen any physical evidence to support either belief, and one is no more improbable than the other. The only fact is that some beliefs have to be accepted on the basis of faith, and that goes for evolution as well as creationism.

He adds, and I almost agree,

The trouble is that both science and religion provide a person with a worldview, and unconsciously the person begins to evaluate everything he or she sees or hears or thinks up in accordance with the worldview. I see no reason to include any discussion of evolution or creationism in secondary schools. There is a large volume of facts biology students need to learn without wasting their time on theories that have no practical value. It's like teaching molecular physics to students studying auto mechanics.

Almost agree? Well, like Reese, I have been struck by the way in which textbooks suddenly diverge into ideology when discussing evolution. No one gets ideological when discussing the fact that legless lizards have ears or that the sex of baby alligators hinges on the ambient temperature.

But - for example - in a discussion of the difficulty of providing a useful account of the origin of life or the Cambrian explosion, many textbook authors resort to blatant propaganda like "science has solved other difficult problems."

Yes, indeed - when information is available. But so many pieces are missing from the origin of life puzzle or the Cambrian explosion puzzle that we actually have no idea what the picture would even look like, just a variety of interesting speculations.

Personally, I enjoy OoL and Cambrian speculations and have read a number of books on the topics with interest. But I don't confuse them with books on facts, like "Do legless lizards have ears?" or "How do alligators reproduce?"

If only honest admission that we don't know some of these things would replace ideological blowharding in science texts, maybe these interesting topics could be kept. On the other hand, maybe Reese is right: The ideologists will never leave them alone so just dump them.

Podcasts in the intelligent design controversy

Listen to these, and don't have a fight with someone on your cell phone while driving:

1.

Moving the Goalpost: How Darwin's Theory Survives

It's easy to win the game when you can move the goalpost.

On this episode of ID the Future, biologist and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells explains how Darwinism, unlike football, has only one rule: survival of the fittest. The fittest are those who survive, and Darwinists are determined to survive at all costs—even if it means moving the goalpost.

Go here to listen.

(Note: This one is quite interesting because Wells talks about how his observation that a specific type of speciation needed by Darwinism has not been observed was recently distorted in a science mag to say that speciation - as such - has never been observed. This tells me that the commitment of many scientists to Darwinism is not to the idea of speciation as such, but to a broader philosophical commitment to a method by which it must happen, a method that supports broader philosophical ideas. Remember that 78% of evolutionary biologists are pure naturalists - no God and no free will.)

2.

Is the Cell Like a Computer?

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin interviews Dr. Donald Johnson, author of Probability's Nature and Nature's Probability: A Call to Scientific Integrity. As both a chemist and a computer scientist, Dr. Johnson explains how the cell uses programming code, much like a computer, and he elucidates how the information is processed and converted from proteins into DNA. Listen in as Dr. Johnson shares the science of how the cell is like a computer.

Donald E. Johnson holds PhDs in Computer & Information Sciences from the University of Minnesota and in Chemistry from Michigan State University. He can be reached at his website,ScienceIntegrity.net.

Go here to listen.

(Note: In two important way, cells are not like computers. When my machine is bust, it is just bust, and my local nerd must visit. If I need a new one, it must be bought and unpacked, and inevitably, I will need him back again as something is sure to go wrong. Millions of cells die every day and are replaced, with no loss of function. Fancy that, computer!)

3.

Alfred Russel Wallace: Champion of Natural Selection or Intelligent Design?

On this episode of ID the Future, CSC's Robert Crowther takes a look at Alfred Russel Wallace, who, along with Darwin, co-presented the theory of natural selection in letters to the Linnean Society of London over 150 years ago. Contrary to Darwin, Wallace actually believed that it was possible to detect design in nature. What would modern Darwin defenders make of Wallace today? Listen in and find out.

Go here to listen.

(Note: Actually, they have been doing a number on Wallace for centuries, as Mike Flannery points out. Go here or here for an example. Wallace, with thought design played a role in evolution, was just not as useful for propaganda purposes and was of a much lower social class than Darwin. Here is somewhat from my review of Flannery's book.)

4.

Deepening Darwin's Dilemma With Jonathan Wells

This episode of ID the Future features biologist and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells, who explains why Darwin saw the Cambrian explosion as a serious argument against his theory. Darwin countered it by supposing that fossils of the ancestors of Cambrian animals once existed, but were destroyed.

Listen in and learn how the discovery of microscopic and soft-bodied Precambrian fossils makes Darwin’s excuse sound hollow.

Go here to listen.

(Note: It gets better. The Smithsonian sat on the Cambrian fossils for decades because they did not support Darwin's theory. Yes, yes, that Smithsonian, currently alleged to have pressured California Science Center into cancelling a Cambrian film that - I gather - raises the Cambrian problem. [Almost all modern phyla of life forms appeared rather suddenly about 550 million years ago. This is just not the story Darwin was telling and he knew it and so did his supporters, and now so do more and more people.])

Any chance all those dusty drawers in the Smithsonian's cellar will be seized as evidence? Maybe we could learn something, and not about the current functionaries' e-mails.

Free advice to the public in general, not to anyone in particular: Do NOT feed bones to the shredder. Nor paper clips. Never feed anything but paper to the shredder, and feed paper with staples only if the firm warrants that the shredder will accept staples.]

5.

"A Matter of Dismal Wet Plops": Stephen Meyer Interviews David Berlinski on Darwinism

This episode of ID the Future features a clip from the recent "Signature in the Cell" event in Tampa, FL, featuring Stephen Meyer, Michael Medved, David Berlinski and Tom Woodward. Listen in as Dr. Meyer interviews Dr. Berlinski about the questions that led him to criticize Darwinism.

Go here to listen.

(Note: Besides being brilliant, Berlinski, a mathematician, is as funny as heck - not always a common combination. We are all familiar, I suppose, with the genius who doesn't get a joke. Well, that's not him, as the title of this pod suggests. I had a lot of fun reading his Devil's Delusion, a shot at publicly funded nonsense in science, of which many people are getting royally tired. Science advisor to Marie Antoinette, check your e-mail.

Never forget: Most people fund science because they think it will help find cures for cancer or get one's country a Nobel Prize in physics [and ain't we proud!] or offer one's kid a stable, respectable job wearing a lab coat. So take that away - make science mean folly about Stone Age Man, exposed e-mail plots, court cases about broken contracts, reasonable doubts subjected to inquisition and persecution - and what happens?

One thing that might very well happen is that people who used to just sigh and pay the bill might start thinking differently. As in ... we've got the headache already, Now, where is the payload?)

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Evolution in the light of intelligent design

Evolution in the light of intelligent design: How would intelligent design advocates answer various questions about human evolution? Read here:

British physicist David Tyler, one of my co-bloggers at Access Research Network, blogs on a number of issues raised in the science literature that impact the intelligent design controversy. Here's an alphabetized list of the ones he's discussed to date. You will also find some of my own compilations from the media (animations, columnists discussing the issues, et cetera.).

The goal of this compendium of links is a one-stop shop if you are trying to track down information in the growing controversy, that is written from a design perspective.

Acritarchs - oldest known protists (Tyler)

The picture emerging of the Late Archaean is one that includes prokaryotes and eukaryotes, photosynthesis, an oxygenated atmosphere and lots of biological activity. This is a big contrast from the picture even 10 years ago. The significance for our thinking about origins is that the eons of time demanded by Darwinian processes are not available.

Adaptation - adaptationist fantasies (Tyler)

Adaptation - adaptationist paradigm (Tyler)

Adaptation(Tyler) - adaptive change and design in echolocation

Adaptive landscape(Tyler) Intermediate evolutionary forms and adaptive landscape

"Adult resistance to science" (Tyler) (a social science theory on doubt about Darwinism as rooted in childhood error)

Aldini, Giovanni, and virulent materialism, with John West (podcast)

Allegory of the Cave SciPhiShow with Jason Rennie (podcast)

Altruism (Tyler) Darwinian vs. intelligent design interpretation

Amber See Stasis

analogies in science interview with Jay Richards on analogies in science (podcast)

Animal evolution(Tyler) - central nervous system

Animal evolution (Tyler) multicellular animals and need for complex information

Animations of life inside the cell, indexed, for your convenience.

antibiotic resistance - problems for evolution theory (animation)

Anti-God crusade Recent series on anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera.

Apes and language (Tyler)

Appendix (human appendix) - despite it's name, no longer considered superfluous or rudimentary (Tyler)

Archaea - horizontal gene transfer - review of The Archaea's Tale (Tyler)

He presents evidence that Darwinian evolution does not go back to the beginning of life. When we compare genomes of ancient lineages of living creatures, we find evidence of numerous transfers of genetic information from one lineage to another. In early times, horizontal gene transfer, the sharing of genes between unrelated species, was prevalent. It becomes more prevalent the further back you go in time. - Freeman Dyson

astronomy and intelligent design interview with Guillermo Gonzalez, (podcast)

Atheism and science (Tyler) Does science promote atheism?



Ayala - Darwinian orthodoxy, beyond question (Tyler)

Azoic hypothesis (Tyler) How a deep-seated belief hindered science

Backwards eye wiring(Tyler) (The vertebrate eye does not have a compromised design.)

Bacterial flagellum - no simple explanation (Tyler)

Bacterial flagellum(Tyler) - sequence similarities

Bats (Tyler) - echolocation, adaptive change and design

Beetle (Tyler) White beetle as optimally designed

Biomimetics (Tyler)

Bipedalism See Human evolution, bipedalism

Birds - bird song(Tyler) Female song neglected due to sexual selection bias

Brain - anachronistic junk? (Tyler)

Brain(Tyler) Mechanistic assumptions and criminal law

Butterfly sex ratios in Samoa - and natural selection (Tyler)

Sex ratios are distorted by the presence of a maternally inherited bacterium which has the effect of selectively killing male embryos. The authors report ratios of >99% female to nearly 1:1. These were different on different islands and at different times. The genetics of this shift of sex ratios is summarised in one paragraph with some supporting online data. There is not enough information here for anyone to either confirm or challenge their conclusions.

Cambrian era (Tyler) Ancestors largely missing

Cambrian era(Tyler) Comb jellies well developed

Cambrian era (Tyler) Pattern of diversity in the marine fossil record

Cambrian explosion - jellyfish in Cambrian as representatives of modern jellyfish (Tyler)

Campagna, Joey C., Intelligent design - research Wiki Web site for research (podcast)

Canada - intelligent design controversy in Canada - Cultural differences between Canada and the United States, interview with Denyse O'Leary (podcast)

Catholic Church A summary of the Catholic Church's actual teachings on evolution

Cell development (Tyler) and complex specified information

Cell, metaphors,changing metaphors (Tyler)

Cell - molecular recognition - advantages of cellular key-lock not being an exact fit. (Tyler)

So, something that could have been interpreted as evidence for tinkering evolution is discovered to have advantages after all. Furthermore, it has potential for the design of human systems operating in noisy environments. By invoking "evolutionary selection", the authors suggest an evolutionary context for their work. However, there is no evidence that evolutionary selection was involved, and the link with evolutionary theory is gratuitous.

Central dogma (Tyler)

Casual observers might say they find chaos in the emerging picture of the genome, but systems biology is tracking down extraordinary sophistication at the molecular biology level, indicating that theories (like Darwinism) that are undirected and stochastic have little to offer 21st Century biology.

Central nervous system - animal evolution(Tyler)

Chambers, Scott, "Cosmological Fine-Tuning and the Multiverse Model" interview (podcast)

Chimpanzees(Tyler) Common ancestor with humans - dating disputes

Chimp-human DNAcomparisons (Tyler)

Chimpanzees (Tyler) Differ from humans by six percent of genes

Chimpanzees(Tyler) Tool use of late Stone Age chimps and evidence of design, intelligent causation

Chimpanzees See also Apes

Ciencia Alternativa - intelligent design interview with Mario Lopez (podcast)

Coelacanth Devonian coelacanth find fills gap. "The find is significant for consigning an extensive discussion of coelacanth and lungfish fins to the filing cabinet of history." (Tyler)

Collins, Francis My review of Francis Collins' book The Language of God

Columnists weigh in on the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

Comb jellies(Tyler) in Cambrian era

Compsocidae - an example of stasis. (Tyler) See also Stasis

Consciousness Douglas Hofstadter attempts to deconstruct consciousness:

... the materialist approach to consciousness is commonly dignified by the name "science". Other approaches, which are likely to be linked to Theism, are labelled "religion" and are excluded, on demarcation grounds, from science. This is an unacceptable situation, for as metaphysics, materialism has a philosophical standing that is entirely equivalent to Theism. It is simply that people choose to build their thoughts on different foundations. The paradox is that materialistic science wants to be realist and to have truth as a goal, but its approach to human consciousness can only support a post-modern philosophy which emphasises the socially constructed nature of reality and substitutes relativism for truth. And, for materialists, individuals have to seek for meaning and self-worth in existential experiences (an escape from reason) because the universal acid of rationalism has completely corroded realism and truth in human psychology.

Common ancestor of all life(Tyler) Assumptions vs. evidence

Common ancestor of all life(Tyler) Hagfish and common ancestor

Common ancestor of humans and chimps (Tyler)

cosmological fine tuning "Cosmological Fine-Tuning and the Multiverse Model", interview by Casey Luskin with Scott Chambers (podcast) See also Fine tuning

CO2 sensors (Tyler) as wonders of natural engineering

Cypher's choice Jason Rennie explains the Matrix crux (podcast)

Darwinbots Denyse O'Leary vs. the Darwinbots (podcast)

Darwin Day in America - West, John, on Darwin Day in America (podcast) John West reads from his book Darwin Day in America (podcast)

Darwin exhibition (Tyler) American Museum of Natural History - historical errors

Darwinism and its Discontents(Tyler) Comments by David Tyler on Michael Ruse's book

Darwinism - Ayala's Darwinian orthodoxy, beyond question (Tyler)

Darwinism Darwinian reductionism and Darwinism(Tyler) Alex Rosenberg's views
Darwinism, Judaism, and Christianity with Jonathan Rosenblum (podcast)

Darwinism moral relativism and Darwinism John West (podcast)

Darwinism and dissent(Tyler) - defenders of Darwinism propose ways to deal with dissent from current consensus in science

Darwinism dissent Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin

Darwinism, limits of Darwinism Reviews of Michael Behe's Edge of Evolution "The real issue is: will a debate within science be allowed? If Behe is not allowed the right of reply, this review should be treated as an exercise in polemics, designed to protect the world of science from ever having to face up to evidences of ID. If there is the opportunity to reply, readers will enjoy a genuine scientific debate. This review must backfire, because science has shown that there are limits to Darwinism and it is perfectly legitimate to ask what Darwinism can and cannot do." (Tyler)

Darwinism (Tyler) and molecular clocks

Davies, Paul(Tyler) and design inference

Dawkins, Richard, information challenge Casey Luskin's response (podcast)

Dembski, William, on intelligent design and the church, in conversation with Russell Moore (podcast)

Descartes's demon SciPhiShow with Jason Rennie (podcast)

Design(Tyler) Can self-organization explain design?

design - unintelligent design - A discussion between Sheirdan Voysey (host), Robyn Williams, and Denyse O'Leary (science journalists) (podcast)

Dinosaurs(Tyler) Horned dinosaurs and evolutionary predictions

Dissent(Tyler) - defenders of Darwinism propose ways to deal with dissent

Doan, Andy, interviewed by Jason Rennie, "Miracles and the Q" (podcast)

Dover Trial (US) (Tyler)

Dover Trial (US) Montana Law review articles (podcast)


Ear evolution(Tyler) Yanoconodon

Ears (Tyler) Moth ears show design sophistication

Earth as privileged planet "Theories of how planetary atmospheres formed will need to be reappraised. The findings create yet more problems for OOL research. In other contexts, finding water outside the Earth has been used to raise expectations of finding life, but at least that does not arise here. However, it is worth contrasting this point with some of the more sensational media reports ... " (Tyler)


Earth-like planet (Tyler) Found in 2007

Echolocation(Tyler) - Adaptive change and design

Emergent evolution (Tyler) Can self-organization explain design?

Enzymatic PH activity profiles(Tyler) Fine tuning

Eozoon - a claimed fossil strenuously defended by the 19th century science establishment

Eozoon was not a fossil and the dissenters were correct to challenge the consensus. Clearly there are parallels with today: the role of scientific elites, the status of peer publication, the protocols required to be accepted as members of the scientific community, the way debated issues can be presented as fact to the public, the disdain shown to dissenters, the lobbying of editors to restrict access by critics of the Establishment, and the exploration of alternative ways of communicating minority views to peers and the public. This is the very human face of science. We are seeing these characteristics today in numerous areas where scientists have reached different conclusions.

(Tyler)

eukaryotes, origin Reason for flood of speculation in 2007: "According to Poole and Penny, there has been far too much speculation about the origin of eukaryotes. "The conflicting hypotheses currently on offer show a curious disregard for mechanism." (Tyler)

Eukaryotic cell (Tyler) enigmas

Eukaryotic cells (Tyler) Irreducibility issue

Evolution - animal evolution (Tyler) multicellular animals and need for complex information

Evolution(Tyler) And long periods of no change (stasis) See also Stasis

Evolutionary Informatics Lab Robert Marks's explanation (podcast)

Evolutionary Informatics Lab and Banned Items (podcast)

Evolutionary Informatics Lab - Web site suppressed at Baylor Report by Anika Smith (podcast)

Evolutionary Informatics Lab See also Marks, Robert

Evolution - Evolutionary transformations - Darwinism does not have the answers(Tyler)

Evolutionary psychology - Altruism (Tyler) Darwinian vs. intelligent design interpretation

Evolutionary psychology - grandmothers who care

This is 'black box' biology, with natural selection being asked to do an amazing number of things in a short period of time to achieve the (relatively small) fitness benefits. It should be noted that genetic changes are not directly passed on to offspring, as in the normal portrayal of the way Darwinism works. We are dealing here with complex changes in females that marginally affect the survival of grandchildren. Additionally, one wonders how many caring grandmothers there actually were in the hypothetical social groups of early man where life expectancies were low.

Exoplanets - atmospheres (Tyler)

Exoplanets See also Hot Jupiters

Expelled movie, with Ben Stein - interview with Bruce Chapman (video podcast)

Explore Evolution information, textbook (podcast)

Eye - squid's eye lens (Tyler) Fine tuning

Eye, vertebrate eye (Tyler) (It does not have a compromised design.)

Falsifiability - Intelligent design - philosophical criticisms (Tyler)

falsifiability - intelligent design and falsifiability interview with Jay Richards (podcast)

fine tuning of the universe Discovery Institute's Casey Luskin discusses Newsweek's Sharon Begley's take on fine-tuning (podcast)

fine tuning of the universe "Cosmological Fine-Tuning and the Multiverse Model", interview by Casey Luskin with Scott Chambers (podcast)

Flagellum - See Bacterial flagellum

Flight - Flightless birds (Tyler) Design in ostriches

Flight - insect flight (Tyler) Hawk moth gyroscope

Form, theory of form The modern synthesis (neo-Darwinism) has not given us a theory of form. (Tyler)


Foundation for Thought and Ethics Dover Trial (podcast) Casey Luskin and Seth Cooper ask, was justice done?

Framing information(Tyler) for public consumption

Galactic habitable zone - Earth-like planet (Tyler) Found in 2007

Galactic habitable zone- hot Jupiters (Tyler) Hot Jupiters lack water

Gecko - feet a standard for adhesion (Tyler)

... the gecko does not demonstrate just a single trait with enhanced performance. There are issues of adhesion and delamination, self-cleaning, and achieving a sustained adhesive performance. What we have in the gecko is exquisite design and, for that, biomimetics needs a methodology that can relate well to intelligent engineering design concepts.

Gene regulatory networks(Tyler) and design

Genetic code(Tyler) Optimal features

Genetic code(Tyler) Silent mutations and design inference

Genetic information(Tyler) and design inference

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

Gilder, George, on information theory, at Bar-Ilan University (podcast)

Gnosticism Ben Witherington III interviewed by Jason Rennie of the SciPhiShow, on Gnosticism and Christianity (podcast)

Gnosticism Edwin Yamauchi interviewed by Jason Rennie of the SciPhiShow, on who Gnostics were and what they believed (podcast)

Goldilocks Principle(Tyler) Pau Davies and design inference

Gonzalez, Guillermo - and academic freedom (Tyler)
See also Galactic habitable zone

Gonzalez, Guillermo, interview on the Privileged Planet hypothesis (podcast)

Gonzalez, Guillermo, astronomy and intelligent design interview with Guillermo Gonzalez, (podcast)

Gonzalez, Guillermo - denied tenure - documents, interview with John West (podcast)

Gonzalez, Guillermo - denied tenure - tenure appeal (podcast)

Habitable zone See Galactic habitable zone

Haeckel, Ernst (Tyler) doctored embryo images

Haeckel's embryos - use in textbooks, interview with Casey Luskin (podcast)

Hagfish(Tyler) and common ancestor

homology - intelligent design and homology (video podcast)

Hot Jupiters (Tyler)

Human evolution, bipedalism (Tyler)

Human evolution (Tyler) Common ancestor with chimps - dating disputes

Human evolution 1470 man deemed an ape - deemed ape (Tyler)


Human evolution (Tyler) Little Foot and the time gap problem

Human evolution(Tyler) Lucy - former icon currently deemed gorilla

Human evolution - Neanderthals(Tyler) Neanderthals not so primitive as once thought

Human genome (Tyler) Differs from chimpanzees by six percent of genes

Human genome(Tyler) Diversity of human genome

Hunter, George Cornelius - interview on his recent book, Science's Blind Spot (podcast)

information theory - George Gilder at Bar-Ilan University (podcast)


Insect evolution(Tyler) Speculation vs. evidence

Insects - beetles (Tyler) White beetle as optimally designed

Insects - CO2 sensors (Tyler) as wonders of natural engineering

Insects - ears (Tyler) Moth ears show design sophistication

Insects - insect flight(Tyler) Biorobotics and insect flight See also Flight

Insects - insect muscles(Tyler) remarkable adaptations

Intelligent design - and academic freedom (Tyler) Guillermo Gonzalez

Intelligent design academic publications.

Intelligent design - controversy timeline An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

intelligent design - definitions, Crowther, Robert: "Defining what intelligent design is" (podcast)

intelligent design - definitions, Luskin, Casey: "Confronting misrepresentative definitions of intelligent design" (podcast)

ntelligent design - falsifiability interview with Jay Richards (podcast) See also falsifiablity

intelligent design - origin of term by Rob Crowther (podcast)

Intelligent design - philosophical criticisms (Tyler)

intelligent design - research Wiki Web site for research (podcast)

Intelligent design(Tyler) Self-organization and design

Intelligent design - refusal to engage arguments (Tyler)

Intermediate evolutionary forms(Tyler) and adaptation as explanation

In the Light of Evolution conference(Tyler)

Jellyfish - reinforcing challenge created by Cambrian explosion

New fossils from the Middle Cambrian of Utah "have very well preserved soft tissue, which the authors interpret as evidence that representatives of modern jellyfish existed by the middle Cambrian period."

(Tyler)

Jensen, Lyle, neo-Darwiism skeptic (podcast)

Junk DNA (Tyler)

Junk DNA - Framing the debate (Tyler)

Keller, Rebecca, on "Real Science for Kids" (podcast)

Kelvin "As a physicist, Kelvin sought to develop quantitative, rather than qualitative, science and he found himself in conflict with geologists who wanted an Earth with "no vestige of a beginning." (Tyler)

Lactose intolerance (Tyler) and design perspective

Language (Tyler) Apes and language

Life - Vitalism theory (Tyler)

Light of Evolution conference(Tyler)

Linnaeus(Tyler) Tree of life, evolution, and intelligent design

Living fossils(Tyler) (Life forms that change little over long periods of time) - stasis

Living fossils - Jurassic shrimp (Tyler) Challenge to Darwinism

Lucy(Tyler) Former icon currently deemed merely gorilla

lungfish Why lungfish have the best of both worlds.

Lungfish do not demonstrate a transitional physiological system, but employ two developed systems side-by-side. They have an air-breathing system for controlling acidity (respiratory compensation) and they use their gills and kidneys to reduce excess base (metabolic compensation). In other words, the ability to operate in both watery and land environments requires two complex systems to be in place: one for living in water and the other for living in air. The case of lungfish shows that biological information precedes and permits biological function.

(Tyler)

magic - SciPhiSHow with Jason Rennie, on science, rreligion, magic, and technology (podcast)

Mammals - mammal evolution(Tyler) early Cretaceous mammal specialized - not the neo-Darwinian view

Marks, Robert - Evolutionary Informatics Lab Web site suppressed at Baylor Report by Anika Smith (podcast)

Marsupial genome - what we have learned(Tyler) (the opposum)

Matrix SciPhiShow with Jason Rennie (podcast)

Methodological naturalism - Charles Lyell (Tyler)

Microbes(Tyler) as complex in real world

Microbes(Tyler) How microbes don't fit reductionist Darwinian thinking

Microtubules (Tyler) Molecular zipper and complex specified information

mind - mind as illusion - Is the mind just an illusion. Anika Smith interviews Denyse O'Leary (podcast)

miracles, Doan, Andy, "Miracles and the Q" (podcast)

Molecular clocks(Tyler) Darwinism assumed, never tested

Molecular clocks (Tyler) Telling the wrong time

Molecular motors (Tyler) Structural similarity and intelligent design

Molecules(Tyler) small molecules, medicine, and design

Molecular recognition in the cell (Tyler)

moral relativism moral relativism and Darwinism John West (podcast)

Multicellular animal evolution (Tyler) multicellular animals and need for complex information

multiverse "Cosmological Fine-Tuning and the Multiverse Model", interview by Casey Luskin with Scott Chambers (podcast)

Mutation theory of phenotype evolution (Tyler)

Mutations as mostly harmful (Tyler) Challenge for Darwinism

Neanderthals(Tyler) Not so primitive as once thought

Neanderthals - language and FoxP2 (Tyler)


Non-coding DNA (Tyler)

Orchids "on the basis that the "rate of orchid evolution" exhibited by the subtribe Goodyerinae is almost zero, the comment of the lead author is probably correct: "The dinosaurs could have walked among orchids." (Tyler)

Origin of life research - examples of flawed thinking (Tyler)

Origin of life (Tyler) Need for design perspective

Origin of life Why origin of life is such a difficult problem. (O'Leary)

Ostriches (Tyler) design in ostriches

Peppered Moth controversy
"Is it scientifically defensible to find an example of natural selection within a population of an animal, and then use this as an evidence for evolutionary transformation from the first single cell to the extraordinary diversity of life that we find in the biosphere?" ( Tyler)

Phenotype variations(Tyler)

Photosynthesis(Tyler) - its efficiency

Photosynthesis(Tyler) Irreducible complexity and photosynthesis evolution

Photosynthesis - extreme efficiency (Tyler) "Photosynthetic complexes are exquisitely tuned to capture solar light efficiently, and then transmit the excitation energy to reaction centres, where long term energy storage is initiated.” The problem has been one of understanding how 95%+ efficiencies are possible in a natural system."

Platypus's complex electrolocation sense evolved early.

... there are extreme constraints on time for any evolutionary story of the origin of platypuses and their electrolocation device. We appear to have a situation where intelligent design is demanded by the evidence of short timescales and the complexity of the "implausible" electrosensory system.

(Tyler)

Polls relevant to the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

privileged planet hypothesis interview with Guillermo Gonzalez, on the Privileged Planet hypothesis (podcast)

Protein engineering - limits to Darwinian mechanism (Tyler)

Protists - oldest known protists (Tyler)

Pycnogonids - pycnogonids (sea spiders) (Tyler)

Real Science for Kids - Keller, Rebecca, on "Real Science for Kids" (podcast)

Reductionism(Tyler) How microbes don't fit

Reductionism(Tyler) Why it doesn't work in medical research

Reductionism - Darwinian reductionism(Tyler) Alex Rosenberg

Retraction - Homer Jacobson's retraction of 1950s origin of life quotes to prevent use by creationists.

This response recalls the Miller-Urey experiments (which are currently regarded as peripheral by most OOL researchers). The element of conjecture is apparent here also, as Jacobson can only argue that the right conditions "could have existed under early Earth conditions". The empirical support for this is highly controversial. More generally, it is worth noting that evolutionists are very reluctant to calculate probabilities - because some regard it as very high (but we don't yet know the mechanism) whereas others regard it as very very low (but think it was a lucky chance anyway). Based on what we know, the probabilities are extraordinarily low, as Koonin has demonstrated. For more on this, go here.

Jacobson is perfectly entitled to make a retraction, but the issues are not going to go away. Jacobson may gain some personal satisfaction, but the challenge of IC systems remains and the improbability of chemical evolution appears insuperable. Far better for Jacobson and those who think like him to face up to these challenges and address the data as we know it (rather than indulge in fantasies about "might well have occurred" and what conditions "could have existed").

(Tyler)

Ribosome(Tyler) and design inference (Ribosome as an AMT cell)

RNP Complexes(Tyler) - remarkable complexity

Rosenblum, Jonathan, interview on Deniable Darwin (podcast)

Ruse, Michael - Darwinism and its Discontents(Tyler) Comments by David Tyler

science journals - double standard re intelligent design interview with Paul Nelson re Michael Behe's work (podcast)

Science - and pursuit of truth (Tyler)

Science teaching (Tyler) Culture of conformity vs. culture of enquiry

SciPhiShow, featuring Australia's Jason Rennie, offers podcasts featuring major players pro and con intelligent design (O'Leary)

Self-organization (Tyler) Can self-organization explain design?

Sensory perception - advanced perception in Permian amniotes (Tyler)

The discovery of a highly-evolved auditory apparatus in Middle Permian parareptiles even further emphasizes that the entire groundplan for the impressive evolutionary history of amniotes was already largely in place by the end of the Paleozoic; what followed was in fact only a subsequent tinkering of earlier inventions." Darwinism needs time, but the fossil record no longer provides it.

Silent mutations(Tyler) Genetic code and design inference

"Small molecules(Tyler) medicine from nature and design

Squid's eye lens (Tyler) Fine tuning

Starlet sea anemone Tyler Unexpected genome complexity

Stasis - amber preserved insects(Tyler) Evidence shows mostly stasis, not evolution - a challenge to Darwinism.

Stasis - amber-preserved insects (Tyler) Midges show little change over time - why stasis should be considred more important than it is.

Stasis Compsocidae as an insect example of stasis from Cretaceous era (Tyler)

Stasis(Tyler) Darwinian attempts to account for stasis (little change in life forms over time)

Stasis - and Jurassic shrimp (Tyler) Challenge to Darwinism

Stasis - and leaf insects (Tyler) Stasis in their fossil record

Stasis - pycnogonids (sea spiders)

Here is yet another life form, stretching from the lower Palaeozoic to the present, that displays stasis in its morphology with relatively minor differences over time. Why is it that the dominant feature (stasis) gets so little attention, when "evolutionary history" gets so much?

(Tyler)

Stasis - trilobites (Tyler)

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

Taste (Tyler) evolution and design

Teleology - "promiscuous teleology" and design inferences (Tyler)

Tool use (Tyler) in chimpanzees, and intelligent causation

Transitional forms (Tyler) Intermediate evolutionary forms begin to be studied

Tree of life (Tyler) Bush or forest of life better explanation? Alternatives to common ancestry

Tree of life (Tyler) - force fitting explanations to defend an orthodoxy

Tree of life (Tyler) as unnecessary concept that cannot be justified by empirical data

Trilobites - variation and stasis as a pattern

The research documented both rapid morphological variation and subsequent stasis. ... One hypothesis is that radiations occur because organisms are designed to vary, but the process results in genetic impoverishment that leads to stasis.

(Tyler)

Type III secretory machines(Tyler) challenge to gradualism

Unfalsifiability (Tyler)

Variation - trilobites (Tyler)

Vertebrate eye (Tyler) (It does not have a compromised design.)

Von Baer's law - interview with Paul Nelson (podcast)

Walking(Tyler) intelligent design and evolution

Wells, Jonathan, an interview with Doug Giles at AudioClash on his book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design (podcast)

West, John, on Darwin Day in America (podcast)

West, John, Darwinism moral relativism and Darwinism John West (podcast)

Wing morphology and intelligent design (Tyler)

Yanoconodon(Tyler) Ear evolution