A Conversation Starter
A review of the book, Explore Evolution. This is written as a supplemental Classroom textbook exploring the controversies surrounding neo-Darwinism. Published in Origins, n. 63.
A review of the book, Explore Evolution. This is written as a supplemental Classroom textbook exploring the controversies surrounding neo-Darwinism. Published in Origins, n. 63.
A review of the book, The Tinkerer's Accomplice, How Design Emerges from Life Itself. Mutation and selection are not sufficient to explain evolution, and another factor, homeostasis, should also be considered. Published in Origins, n. 62.
A review of the book, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism. Darwinian mechanisms may permit limited adjustment to living conditions, but there have not been enough events in the history of organisms for random mutations to construct complex adaptations. Changes in species are often due to broken genes rather than to new improvements, and intelligent design is necessary to explain complex adaptations. Published in Origins, n. 62.
A review of the book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. Published in Origins, n. 61.
A review of the book, Compositional Evolution: The Impact of Sex, Symbiosis, and Modularity on the Gradualistic Framework of Evolution. Published in Origins, n. 61.
The idea that different types of organisms were created and commanded to reproduce "after their kinds" seems widely believed among creationists. It may therefore come as a surprise to many to learn the idea is not stated in the Bible. Published in Origins n. 60.
A review of the book, Beginnings: Are Science and Scripture Partners in the Search for Origins? Published in Origins n. 60.
A review of the book Why Is a Fly Not a Horse? Published in Origins n. 60.
A review of the book The Evolution-Creation Struggle. Published in Origins n. 60.
Within a Darwinian framework, this means that all genes shared by humans and sea urchins must have been present in a common ancestor shared sometime before Cambrian strata, which contain both chordate and echinoderm fossils, formed. Published in Origins n. 60.
Is God real? Is the Bible true? What about all those amazing stories in the Bible? Specifically, what about the Genesis stories? Did God really create the world and all that is in it in a literal week? Did that Creation occur only some 10,000 years ago? How could all these biblical accounts be true when so many brilliant scientists advocate otherwise?
Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection was inspired not primarily by his observations of the natural world, but by Thomas Malthus's theory of scarcity.
Review of Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. Published in Origins n. 58.
Ever since it was discovered in 1861, Archaeopteryx lithographica has been a controversial fossil. Its remarkable finding has provided certain credibility to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Archaeopteryx has a mixture of characteristics found in birds, reptiles, and theropod dinosaurs, and for that reason, scientists are divided regarding its origin, flight capacity, and position in the alleged evolutionary sequence from reptiles to birds.
Poor design in Rubisco can now be added to the growing list of failed Darwinian arguments from ignorance.
The world is not divided into the good creationists and the bad evolutionists. Many scientists have never had opportunity to see reasonable alternatives to a materialistic evolutionary process. Many scientists, though convinced by the evidence for evolution, are unwilling to give up on God and/or are searching for some meaning in life. Do we want to draw these people to us or drive them away?
In this article, the multivariate technique of classical multidimensional scaling is introduced to baraminology. Published in Origins n. 57.
Whenever religion and science have a dispute about some question of fact, religion always loses. So goes a common belief. The implication is that religion should never make any factual claims, as it has no contact with reality. For some religions, such an assertion is irrelevant, as these religions do not make any claims about the physical universe. But for biblical Christianity, such an assertion would be fatal.
Many models have been proposed that tend to blur some of the contrasts between the biblical and naturalistic theories. A number of attempts have been made to develop intermediate models in which elements of the biblical story of creation are mixed with elements of the scientific story of origins. All of these models share the biblical idea that nature is the result of divine purpose and the “scientific” idea of long ages of time, but all suffer from serious scientific problems or are entirely ad hoc and conjectural.
Darwin’s view of God is contrary to the biblical view of God and should give Christians pause before buying into Darwin’s naturalism and attempting to wed it to the supernatural in a theistic evolutionary synthesis.