Month: September 2010
Inconsistent Reasoning Governs Evolutionary Interpretations of Feathered Dinosaurs
Nature news is reporting another feathered dinosaur. The title of the Nature news article says, “Crested dinosaur pushes back dawn of feather.” This dinosaur is from around 130 mya, but feathers are already known from the bird Archaeopteryx around 150 mya. So how does it push back the origin of feathers? Their reasoning is that the feathers on this new species, dubbed Concavenator corcovatus, appear in a different lineage than the one that supposedly led to birds. Since “such structures [feathers] are unlikely to have evolved separately in both groups” they use evolutionary reasoning to infer that “the common ancestor of the two predatory dinosaur branches, ‘could have been feathered’.” This pushes the origin of feathers back to “Middle Jurassic Read More ›
Fr. Robert Spitzer to Debate Stephen Hawking Tonight on Larry King Live
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. From The Catholic Register: Friday, Sept. 10, Father Robert Spitzer, president of the Magis Center of Reason and Faith and author of New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy, will defend God’s existence against physicist Stephen Hawking’s belief that God isn’t the creator of the universe on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” Father Spitzer already refuted Hawking’s claim on the Magis Center website. Fr. Spitzer isn’t the only one to respond to Dr. Hawking, but the debate at 9pm EDT will be worth watching.
Derbyshire: “Mommy, You’re Stupid! You’re Stupid, Mommy!”
John Derbyshire at National Review was AWOL for a while but I’m glad to see he’s back in action, abusing us in his accustomed style. He is one of those Darwinists like PZ Myers who’s always at least an enjoyable read notwithstanding that part of the enjoyment lies in the way the actual content tends to boil down to something little above the level of “Mommy, you’re stupid! You’re stupid, Mommy!” (This is our three-year-old Saul’s current best shot at a counterargument when crossed.) Thus it’s a relief to find that on his vacation from Darwin advocacy, John has learned nothing. On James Lee, briefly famous gunman and hostage-taker at the Discovery Channel headquarters, Derbyshire chides those who took a Read More ›
NDM-1 Superbug the Result of Bad Policies, Not Compelling Evidence for Evolution’s Creative Powers
Recently, the media has been discussing the micro-evolution of a new antibiotic resistant strain of bacteria, dubbed the “NDM-1 superbug.” This seems to be a very sad case of one of those things that evolution is pretty good at doing — making small, incremental improvements upon an enzyme through a step-by step process. That, plus the tendency of bacteria to collect multiple antibiotic resistances, makes this gene a real problem. However, it by no means provides evidence for the ability of evolutionary processes to produce new functions within a cell. The problem is that antibiotics are frequently used — and abused. Beta-lactamases, the enzymes that degrade penicillin and penicillin-like antibiotics (they are all characterized by a “beta-lactam” ring) were around Read More ›
Darwinian Morality: How the Truth Refreshes
Assurances that we have nothing to fear from Darwinism are a familiar species of evolutionary apologetics. We’re told that Darwinian thinking doesn’t threaten morality, religion, or belief in life’s having an ultimate meaning. On the contrary, it enhances all things good and fair. Karl Giberson’s recent column in the Huffington Post, “How Darwin Sustains My Baptist Search for Truth,” deserves to be pinned under glass and put up on a wall as a near-perfect specimen of the genre. Anyone who’s honest with himself knows this is all propaganda and wishful thinking, but it refreshes us nevertheless to hear Darwinists themselves confess — even trumpet — the truth. Darwinian scholars and journalists have been writing with what must seem, to their Read More ›