Author: Casey Luskin
Is Panda’s Thumb Suppressing the Truth about Junk DNA?
The best way to rewrite history is to delete the views of those who remember it personally. The Scientist‘s editor Richard Gallgaher’s recent article on “junk”-DNA mentions that Dr. Andras J. Pellionisz suggested that The Scientist publish an “obituary” for “junk”-DNA. Gallagher wrote: Andras J. Pellionisz, to whom I am grateful for bringing this notable 35th anniversary to my attention, suggested that The Scientist publish an obituary to “formally abandon this misnomer.” Pellionisz’s objection is that scientific progress is being inhibited, and declaring junk DNA dead would align us with his own organization, the International PostGenetics Society (postgenetics.org), which disavowed the term on the 12th of October last year. Pellionisz is not alone. (Richard Gallagher, “Junk Worth Keeping,” The Scientist, Read More ›
“Creationismo Go Home!” Intolerance of Intelligent Design Takes on Bizarre Dimensions in the Spanish-Speaking Blogosphere
A recent ID the Future podcast interviews Mario Lopez, founder of Ciencia Alternativa, discussing how intolerance against intelligent design and threats of persecution for ID-proponents are alive and well, sadly, not just in the English-speaking countries but also in Spanish-speaking nations. While searching the net recently, I stumbled across the blog of a Spanish-speaking Darwinist paleontologist who confirms this. His “Paleofreak blog” reports on a lecture by intelligent design proponents Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Wesley Richards in an uninviting post titled “Go home!” The post also includes an odd picture of some bizarre character with the title “Creacionismo Go Home”: It appears that intolerance of ID exists not only in English-speaking nations, but also among Spanish-speakers. Can you imagine the Read More ›
Richard Gallagher Frames Intelligent Design Proponents While Rewriting the History of Junk-DNA (Part 3)
I stated in my previous post that “ID has long-predicted that junk-DNA has function, and ID was right.” So what has Neo-Darwinism done with respect to “junk”-DNA? The Panda’s Thumb post cited by Richard Gallagher in his recent attack on ID in The Scientist cites an ID-proponent that found that some Darwinian biologists predicted that “junk”-DNA would have function, and the implication is that Neo-Darwinism has not forestalled research into “junk”-DNA. So what if some biologists did buck the trend and investigate function for non-coding DNA? Good for them for being observant, and good for them for not relying upon the neo-Darwinian consensus! The fact remains that the entire false “junk” DNA paradigm was born out of the neo-Darwinian mindset, Read More ›
Misinformation Left Unchecked at the Des Moines Register
The Des Moines Register is continuing the rewriting of history regarding Guillermo Gonzalez. Last week the Des Moines Register published an article by Lisa Rossi which misrepresented the accomplishments of Guillermo Gonzalez and vastly understated his grant funding. In response, I submitted the following letter-to-the-editor to the Des Moines Register, but they would not run the letter because it didn’t “add anything new to the dialogue.” It seems the Des Moines Register doesn’t regard positive information about Guillermo Gonzalez as adding anything new to the discussion. Regardless, as my letter concluded, “Rossi’s fuzzy math and selective presentation of ISU’s tenure policies obfuscate the obvious fact that Gonzalez’s tenure denial was due to intolerance of intelligent design.” I reprint the letter Read More ›
Richard Gallagher Frames Intelligent Design Proponents While Rewriting the History of Junk-DNA (Part 2)
In part 1, I explained that The Scientist‘s editor Richard Ghallager wrote a politically charged article to avoid acknowledging that ID proponents have long-predicted the death of junk-DNA. But have ID proponents made these predictions? In a previous post, I gave about 4 or 5 examples of predictions from pro-ID or ID-sympathetic scientists from 1994 to the near-present who were predicting the end of the junk-DNA mindset. But does ID logically predict that we should find more and more function for “junk”-DNA? In a post that Telic Thoughts called, “A Dubious “Opportunity” for IDers,” it was recounted that one evolutionary biologist challenged ID proponents to “Specify the basis” for predicting function for junk DNA. I’ve done this multiple times here, Read More ›