Category: Evolution
New Plant Evolution Paper Misfires while Debating the Controversy That Doesn’t Exist
In the past we’ve often seen Darwinists debating the controversy over intelligent design that they say doesn’t exist. The latest volley in the controversy that doesn’t exist comes from U. Kutschera, a biologist at the University of Kassel in Germany. Kutschera is a vocal critic of ID who wrote in the first issue of the new NCSE-acclaimed journal Evolution: Education and Outreach that people reject evolution because of “religious indoctrination.” Now Kutschera writes in Annals of Botany, “This spontaneous generation of complex design ‘without an intelligent designer’ evolved independently in the protective ‘skin’ of plants, animals and many other organisms.” The problem is that Kutschera’s study is not even about biological origins, and he mistakes his own amazement at the Read More ›
Peter Atkins Dramatically Overstates the Evidence for Evolutionary Phylogenies
I recently picked up Galileo’s Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science by Oxford chemist Peter Atkins. It’s a 2003 book, and on the plus side, it offers enjoyable and concise explanations of many important scientific theories, including some lucid diagrams explaining Einstein’s ideas about relativity. In his chapter on evolution, Atkins boldly states, “The effective prediction is that the details of molecular evolution must be consistent with those of macroscopic evolution.” (pg. 16) I’m willing to accept that “prediction.” However, Atkins unfortunately goes on to dramatically overstate the evidence for molecular evolution by asserting, “That is found to be the case: there is not a single instance of the molecular traces of change being inconsistent with our observations of Read More ›
Leslie Orgel: Metabolic Origin of Life “Unlikely”; Complexity Requires “A Skilled Synthetic Chemist” (Part 2)
In Part 1 I discussed the eminent and late origin of life theorist Leslie Orgel’s criticisms of theories that self-sustaining metabolic pathways could spontaneously come into existence on the early earth and evolve into life. Orgel’s was skeptical that this could occur because “the chance of a full set of such catalysts occurring at a single locality on the primitive Earth in the absence of catalysts for disruptive side reactions seems remote in the extreme.” Indeed, according to Orgel, the type of complexity we normally find in the metabolic pathways of life require “a skilled synthetic chemist.” But what if we assume that such pathways could come into existence? Even if such pathways existed, they would still be far from Read More ›
Leslie Orgel: Metabolic Origin of Life “Unlikely”; Complexity Requires “A Skilled Synthetic Chemist” (Part 1) (Updated)
Last year I blogged about Robert Shapiro’s excellent article in Scientific American that gave cogent critiques of many standard models of the chemical origin of life. Shapiro critiqued the view that a primordial soup existed on the early earth that ultimately gave birth to a self-replicating molecule, which eventually evolved into RNA and then DNA. After critiquing this standard model, Shapiro gave his alternative explanation, proposing that life evolved from metabolic pathways that naturally occurred on the early earth. As I wrote at that time, Shapiro “gives scant explanation for how these life-like metabolic networks can come into existence naturally, and he gives no details as to how these thermodynamic states produce real life–life as we know it today.” Now Read More ›
Darwinists’ Obsession with Tiktaalik Linked to Lack of Transitions in the Fossil Record
Media see, media do. And when it comes to the fossil record, the elite Darwinists of late seem unable to see evidence that challenges evolution. With the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and PBS forcefully promoting Tiktaalik to the public as proof of an evolutionary transition from fish to land-walking animals, the media is following closely in their footsteps (no pun intended). A recent article on Canada.com pushes a pro-evolution book titled “Your Inner Fish,” which tries to use Canadian- found fossil Tiktaalik to promote evolution and influence American presidential politics. It’s the Canadian Darwinist’s dream. But this is strange behavior: why are the scientific elite so forcefully pushing this one fossil, especially when it so poorly documents the evolution Read More ›