February 6, 2008
Leslie Orgel: Metabolic Origin of Life “Unlikely”; Complexity Requires “A Skilled Synthetic Chemist”
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 [...]
Comments (2) Filed under: Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science & Nature, Vox Populi — Casey Luskin @ 1:17 pmJanuary 28, 2008
New England Journal of Medicine Rejects Pro-ID Letter About Kitzmiller Decision
On June 2, 2006, I submitted a short, 175-word letter to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine ( NEJM ), responding to the incomplete and one-sided discussion of the Kitzmiller ruling they published, ” Intelligent Judging — Evolution in the Classroom and the Courtroom ,” by George J. Annas ( [...]
Comments (2) Filed under: Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science & Religion, Vox Populi — Casey Luskin @ 2:09 pmJanuary 22, 2008
Darwin’s Failed Predictions, Slide 8: “Why sexual selection?”
[Editor's Note: This article shows slide 8 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]
According to PBS, the male peacock’s beautifully-colored tail is easily explained using sexual selection: females prefer the colorful [...]
January 17, 2008
The Facts about Intelligent Design: A Response to the National Academy of Sciences’ Science, Evolution, and Creationism
Introduction
A 1982 poll found that only 9% of Americans believed that humans developed through purely natural evolutionary processes. Two years later, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued its first Science and Creationism booklet, stating that science and religion occupy “separate and mutually exclusive realms.”[1] Public skepticism of evolution remained high—a 1993 poll found [...]
January 15, 2008
Darwin’s Failed Predictions, Slide 7: “Evolving views of embryology”
[Editor's Note: This article shows slide 7 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]
PBS observes that Darwin boasted that embryology provided “the strongest single class of facts in favor of” his [...]
January 11, 2008
Darwin’s Failed Predictions, Slide 6: “Darwinism: grounded in science or propped up by philosophy?”
[Editor's Note: This article shows slide 6 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]
PBS observes that the famous 19th century naturalist, T.H. Huxley, declared that “evolution excludes creation and all other [...]
January 9, 2008
The Double Standard for Intelligent Design and Testability
Many proponents of intelligent design (ID) have argued for design of the cosmos based upon the highly improbable fine-tuning of our universe to permit the existence of advanced forms of life. Skeptics of cosmic-design often cite the possibility that there are infinite universes, or “multiverses,” where our universe just happened to win a cosmic lottery [...]
Comments (31) Filed under: Intelligent Design, Vox Populi — Casey Luskin @ 11:42 amJanuary 7, 2008
Darwin’s Failed Predictions: 4, 5
[Editor's Note: This article shows slides 4 and 5 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]
Slide 4: “The role of natural selection in evolution is controversial among scientists (continued)”
As discussed in [...]
January 3, 2008
Darwin’s Failed Predictions, Slide 3: “The role of natural selection in evolution is controversial among scientists”
[Editor's Note: This article shows slide 3 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]
As noted in the Introduction, PBS asserts that the data “unequivocally” support the view that “[e]volution happens through [...]
January 1, 2008
Darwin’s Failed Predictions (1 and 2)
[Editor's Note: This article shows slides 1 and 2 in a series of 14 slides available at JudgingPBS.com, a new website featuring "Darwin's Failed Predictions," a response to PBS-NOVA's online materials for their "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary.]
PBS confidently instructs us that “evolution happens.” But should that matter? Even Darwin’s scientific critics agree [...]