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 collection of short commentaries on scientific papers published in 2007, covering topics such as Antarctic biogeography, body plan development, English Channel flood, snowball Earth, fossil collagen, death posture in fossils, dinosaur swimming, parallel speciation in songbirds, and a gene for dog size. 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.
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.
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.
The words kind and kinds that are mentioned in the Creation narrative of Genesis 1:21, 24, and 25. How are we to understand these terms in a modern context? How do they relate to current terms and classifications in biology?
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.
A collection of short commentaries on scientific papers published in 2003, covering topics such as bird conservation, convergence in corals, biogeography, banded iron formations, Cretaceous and Permian mass extinctions, Mediterranean evaporite, Homo floresienses, Archaeopteryx brain, fossil patterns, fossil insect, fossil hummingbird, fossil mammals, and speciation. Published in Origins n. 57.
Currently evolutionary geology explains the fossil record as the result of slow processes and change occurring over long periods of time. However, an increasing number of rock formations and fossil occurrences previously interpreted within such an evolutionary framework must be reinterpreted as the result of rapid, or even catastrophic, processes operating on a different time scale.
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.
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.
A collection of short commentaries o nscientific papers published in 2000, covering topics such as trilobite complexity, tilting of Earth's axis, degradation of duplicated genes, origin of life, dinosaurs, and living Permian bacteria.
How does one account for bird migrations? Why do they migrate at all? How do they know when it’s time to begin the long journey? What guides their flight path and direction? How do they know their destination, and how do they prepare for the trip?
The subtribe Flaveriinae is a group in the sunflower family. This group of plants appears to have diversified from a single ancestral species after the flood. Published in Origins n. 52.
A collection of short commentaries on scientific papers published in 1999 (mostly), covering topics such as fox domestication, biogeography, a polyploid mammals, gene duplication, inbred cattle, pseudogenes, Missoula Flood, protein evolution, origin of life, dinosaur skin, quality of the fossil record, fossil burrows, Cambrian explosion, Neanderthal DNA, problems in phylogenetics, Australopithecus face, Galapagos tortoise phylogeny, the hoatzin bird, lateral gene transfer, limits to change, shark phylogeny, rift lake cichlids, and homeobox genes. Published in Origins n. 52.