A collection of short commentaries on scientific papers published in 2008, covering topics such as human skeletons on Palau, the bacterial flagellum, antiobiotic resistance, abrupt appearance of fossil bats, Cretaceous feathers, dinosaur respiration. 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, Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement. Published in Origins n. 61.

The debate raging around ID is not one of scientific fact versus religious faith. The real clash is an ideological one in which scientists are seeking to maintain the intellectual and cultural dominance of the humanist/atheist worldview.

In this article, we will review the contemporary status of the design theory and examine some of the major criticisms leveled against it.

Three claims have been made that, if true, might suggest that scientists should be wary of intelligent design.... What is the status of these claims? Published in Origins n. 59.

This article explores the usefulness of the idea of intelligent design in the context of modern (scientific) efforts to understand nature. Among the questions to be considered are whether intelligent design is a necessary inference from the properties of nature, and whether its incorporation into science would improve our ability to explore and understand nature.

Review of Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. Published in Origins n. 58.

Review of the book, Thinking About God: First Steps in Philosophy. Published in Origins n. 58.

Poor design in Rubisco can now be added to the growing list of failed Darwinian arguments from ignorance.

The argument to design is that nature shows evidence of design but does not attempt to identify the designer. The argument from design is that the design seen in nature is best explained as the result of a specific designer, most often the Christian God. Published in Origins n. 57.

A review of the book, The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God. Published in Origins, n. 57.

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.

Design in nature can be detected using criteria similar to those for searching for extraterrestrial life, such as purpose, extreme improbability, or specification. Published in Origins n. 56..

There is more to design than complexity. I am proposing that it is time to advance beyond an analysis of complexity, fruitful though that has been. We are able to expand the scope of design arguments to include the existence of beauty, which points to design of a different kind.

If microorganisms are indeed ubiquitous and indispensable, it is reasonable to expect to find evidences of their activities in the biblical record. Such an approach may enrich our grasp of the sacred text. This paper intends to show that there is more microbiology in the Bible than meets the eye!

A review of the book, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. Published in Origins n. 55.

Creationism is a robust paradigm, fully capable of undergirding the scientific enterprise in the new millennium. Wider acceptance of creationism by the scientific community in the future will depend, in part, on how well theologians can convince scientists of the priceless value of revealed information.

While Christians may be convinced that design in nature points to a Creator-God, the general scientific community has not been persuaded. Perhaps more scientifically respectable work on intelligent design of the kind done by Behe and Dembski will encourage evolutionary scientists to look beyond purely naturalistic mechanisms to explain the complexity and meaning of life.

The molecules of life suggest no need for Christians to become sycophants to materialistic philosophy posing as science. On the contrary, science liberated from the artificial constraints of materialism provides an elegant mechanism for study of the creation and logically points to a wonderful Creator.