Month: April 2009
When “Junk DNA” Isn’t Junk: Farewell to a Darwinist Standard Response
In the Darwinist repertoire, a standard response to evidence of design in the genome is to point to the existence of “junk DNA.” What is it doing there, if purposeful design really is detectable in the history of life’s development? Of course this assumes that the “junk” really is junk. That assumption has been cast increasingly into doubt. New research just out in the journal Nature Genetics finds evidence that genetic elements previously thought of as rubbish are anything but that. The research describes tiny strands of RNA, previously thought to be junk, that now turn out to play a role in gene expression. Another finding by Dr. Geoff Faulkner shows that “retrotransposons,” a further variety of “junk” as the Read More ›
Fossils Don’t Lie: Why Darwinism Is False
Note: This is Part 3 in a series reviewing Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Coyne goes on to discuss several “transitional” forms. “One of our best examples of an evolutionary transition,” he writes, is the fossil record of whales, “since we have a chronologically ordered series of fossils, perhaps a lineage of ancestors and descendants, showing their movement from land to water.”9 “The sequence begins,” Coyne writes, “with the recently discovered fossil of a close relative of whales, a raccoon-sized animal called Indohyus. Living 48 million years ago, Indohyus was… probably very close to what the whale ancestor looked like.” In the next paragraph, Coyne writes, “Indohyus was not the ancestor Read More ›
AAUP Responds on Academic Freedom
Gary Rhoades at AAUP responded to my original post. My own response is below the fold. Dear Mr. Crowther, Apparently patience is not one of your stronger virtues, at least not in this case. If you were really interested in my response, or in the position of the AAUP, you might have had the courtesy to give me a reasonable amount of time to respond to your letter below (which came to me at 3:33p.m. EST today, whereas your posting below was 1:24 p.m today, though the time zone is not posted). Upon returning to my emails late this afternoon, after addressing some other pressing matters earlier in the afternoon, I come to find that you have already posted the Read More ›
How Not to Defend Free Will
Friday in Washington, D.C. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosted an event titled “Genes, Neuroscience, and Free Will.” The panel, which discussed whether new findings in neuroscience and genetics have destroyed our notion of free will, consisted of James Q. Wilson (Pepperdine), David Brooks (New York Times), Charles Murray (AEI), Sally Satel (AEI), and moderator Christina Hoff Sommers (AEI). I won’t bother to record the differing views of the panelists, for their differences were very few and very far between. Essentially, they all argued that we have an innate sense of free will and that findings in genetics and neuroscience have not undermined it because: (1) sure, genes determine behavior, but not 100%; often the environment contributes to our behavior Read More ›
Does the AAUP Uphold Academic Freedom for All, or Just for Some?
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org] Where was the American Association of University Professors when Richard Dawkins led an unruly internet mob to get Ben Stein’s invitation to speak at the University of Vermont rescinded? They were stone cold silent as Stein was kicked to the curb by UV president Daniel Fogel, at the behest of Dawkins and other intolerant Darwinsts. Now the AAUP has the nerve to issue a statement warning schools not to rescind invitations to outside speakers. General Secretary Gary Rhoades writes: The opportunity to be confronted with diverse opinions is at the core of academic freedom, which is vital to a free Read More ›