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 ›

Wired Magazine Makes Biological Design Inference

We are often told by Darwinists that design cannot be detected in biology. But an article entitled “Wired Science Reveals Secret Codes in Craig Venter’s Artificial Genome” reports that “Wired Science has ferreted out the secret amino acid messages contained in ‘watermarks’ that were embedded in the world’s first manmade bacterial genome, announced last week by the J. Craig Venter Institute.” In biochemical jargon, each amino acid is ascribed a letter. Thus, one can encode sequences of amino acids that effectively spell out words. (The IDEA logo has done this since 1999 by using a chain of 4 amino acids that spell out “I.D.E.A.”) These are the words that Wired‘s sleuths discovered in the “manmade” parts of the bacterial genome Read More ›

A Few Words about a Long-Winded Breach of Etiquette

After debating whether Dan Brooks’ recent post at Panda’s Thumb should be dignified with a response, I’ve been persuaded that clearing away the worst of the dross is worth some of my time. Dan Brooks, a parasitologist in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto, was invited by the Discovery Institute to participate in a private symposium held in Boston in early June 2007. The symposium revisited the issues raised at the 1966 Wistar Institute conference on mathematical challenges to the neo-Darwinian interpretation of evolution with a view toward assessing any progress that has been made in the last forty years. Brooks’ post at PT not only evinces poor etiquette in its attempt to discuss Read More ›

Canadian Science Journalist Reviews Darwin Day in America

Canadian science journalist Denyse O’Leary (co-author of the terrific book The Spiritual Brain) offers a multi-part review of my book Darwin Day in America here. O’Leary is a wry as well as perceptive writer, and I loved her description of my chapter on modern architecture, which she describes as a discussion of “featureless apartment buildings that resemble broiler houses.”

Proving Dr. Novella Wrong: Enjoying Tennis in a Persistent Vegetative State

Dr. Steven Novella has laid down the gauntlet. In a recent post, Dr. Novella, a materialist who asserts that “every single prediction” of materialism has been proven by neuroscience, listed the predictions of his theory that the mind is caused entirely by the brain: If the mind is completely a product of the material function of the brain then:1) There will be no mental phenomena without brain function.2) As brain function is altered, the mind will be altered.3) If the brain is damaged, then mental function will be damaged.4) Brain development will correlate with mental development.5) We will be able to correlate brain activity with mental activity — no matter how we choose to look at it.[numbers added] He goes Read More ›