tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132349932024-03-08T03:12:01.007-08:00Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-29083727269654821562007-04-17T00:56:00.001-07:002007-04-17T00:56:49.535-07:00

Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1171692793696400842007-02-16T22:13:00.000-08:002007-02-19T10:29:15.050-08:00

Sal Cordova recently speculated on the relationship between the concept of irreducibility as defined in mathematics and physics and Behe's irreducible complexity. Some link-following took me to a paper by Chaitlin describing the ramifications of algorithmic information theory (and its roots in the work of Godel and Turing) for mathematics, physics, and biology. I'm not as certain as Sal that the

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1170137032574983742007-01-29T22:03:00.000-08:002007-01-29T22:03:52.586-08:00

I recently re-watched an old (April, 2006) Intelligent Design debate between Stephen Meyer and Peter Ward (you can find it online). The debate itself is not very balanced. Essentially Meyer gives a well-reasoned, thoughtful defense of ID for an hour and a half, and Ward interupts periodically to interject "It's not science". To racous applause, no less! It's not that Ward

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1169684542776156072007-01-24T16:22:00.000-08:002007-01-24T16:22:22.876-08:00

William Bradford, over at Intelligently Sequenced, talks a lot about the evidence of design from cellular DNA repair mechanisms. The genomes of modern cells rely for their integrity on incredibly complicated methods of error-detection and repair. Focussing ID criticism here highlights a fundamental weakness in darwinian origin-of-life scenarios: In order for natural selection to improve

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1169594236859946982007-01-23T14:42:00.000-08:002007-01-23T17:23:47.466-08:00

Last year, I defined "isomorphic instantiation" as the phenomenon in which a complex technology developed by intelligence is subsequently found to exist in nature. In a sense, isomorphic instantiation is the inverse of biomimetics, since biomimetics is the discipline of making technology that mimics the marvels of nature.We can see a example of isomorphic instantiation in a paper entitled "

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1169249476157967372007-01-19T15:31:00.000-08:002007-01-19T15:31:16.223-08:00

I recently ran across a paper with the intriguing title Evolution based on Design-by-Contract: Origin of Life through an abiotic double-stranded RNA world by Albert De Roos.Design-by-Contract is a computer science methodology for keeping software easily maintainable and changeable by reducing dependencies. Essentially, it advocates treating functionally distinct blocks of code as black boxes.

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1167336993052248002006-12-28T12:06:00.000-08:002006-12-28T12:17:59.466-08:00

I've said before that the standards of proof which design theorists require for an evolutionary inference is wildly different from the standard accepted (and usually given) by evolutionists. I've just read a new paper by Pallen and Matzke, From the Origin of Species to the origin of bacterial flagella, and it perfectly illustrates the disconnect. My comments on some quotes from the paper:By even

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1166869713748916702006-12-23T02:23:00.000-08:002006-12-23T02:28:33.766-08:00

I am greeting you early since I won't be blogging during the holidays. Advice to all workaholics: take some time off!

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1166805746012007872006-12-22T08:42:00.000-08:002006-12-22T08:42:26.036-08:00

There's an article in the Sept. 28 issue of Nature discussing the regulation of mating type in two yeast species, c. albicans and s. cerevisiae (regretably, the text is only available if you're on a university network with access to the Nature archives). I'll spare you the gory details, but while the two yeast share the same observable trait (phenotype), the underlying genetic

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1166603456590136512006-12-19T23:55:00.000-08:002006-12-20T00:40:19.556-08:00

Can someone give me a good formal definition for intelligence? John McCarthy, a founding father of AI (artificial intelligence) thinks that there does not yet exist a solid definition for intelligence that does not depend on relating it to human intelligence. Here is my proposed informal definition: intelligence is the ability to achieve goals by constraining natural chance processes.Consider

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1166600941576179802006-12-19T22:50:00.000-08:002006-12-19T23:51:00.933-08:00

We have some catching up to do on this blog! I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. As an early Christmas gift, here is a bag of design/evolution links: Check out the Time article, God vs. Science (HT: Steve). It's a dialogue between Richard Dawkins, the foremost spokesman for evolution, and Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Although Collins is

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1158727991279204492006-09-19T21:37:00.000-07:002006-09-19T21:53:11.343-07:00

We administered a one-question survey at the iDesign booth during the Anteater Fair. This is a highly unscientific poll, since the sample size is way too low to confer any statistical significance. We asked:"Which Theory Of Origins Is Closest To Your Personal View?"Here are the results:A. Darwinian Evolution (35%)B. Theistic Evolution (6%)C. Intelligent Design (16%)D. Creationism (10%)E. Don't

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1158690348208486652006-09-19T11:25:00.000-07:002006-09-19T11:25:52.186-07:00

The suboptimality argument against ID is looking more forceful than I originally gave it credit for. On the surface, it does not seem worthy of much serious consideration - merely a theological objection meant to make certain theists feel uncomfortable about God's competence. But if it is interpreted as an argument against the validity of ID as a legitimate research program, it

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1158618653541690242006-09-18T15:10:00.000-07:002006-09-19T16:28:12.483-07:00

I wish to welcome everyone to another year at UCI. Thanks to all those who stopped by the iDesign booth in the park today! We plan to put together some great events this year. Last year, we showed some documentaries and had some discussions and put together a well-attended colloquium on origins.If you are curious about our club, please read the blue sidebar on the left (which includes the mission

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1158043986017884012006-09-11T23:52:00.000-07:002006-09-11T23:53:06.036-07:00

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1157936665365050242006-09-10T17:27:00.000-07:002006-09-10T21:21:33.486-07:00

Intelligent design suggests that at least one aspect of nature is likely a product of intelligence. In other words, there exists an aspect X such that X is in nature and X was likely to be designed. Some possible candidates for X are "fine-tuning," the "bacterial flagellum," or the "living cell."Darwinism (in a broad sense) would suggest that everything in nature is a product of unintelligent

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1156895459612560762006-08-29T16:50:00.000-07:002006-09-18T15:34:04.323-07:00

I found this at Uncommon Descent: When we visited the zoo the other day, my wife snapped this photo just outside of the Panda play area. I guess when they put together the verbage for the sign, they neglected to consult Gould because I didn’t read “looks jury-rigged” anywhere on there. Further down in the comment thread, Markus Rammerstorfer has posted snippets from a Nature article on the

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1155857797938343482006-08-17T16:36:00.000-07:002006-08-17T16:36:38.013-07:00

There is an interesting exchange going on between Salvador Cordova of Uncommon Descent and Dave Thomas of Panda's Thumb. First, Dave posts about his genetic algorithm for finding Steiner trees ("the shortest networks of straight-line segments connecting a given collection of fixed points"). He claims his algorithm (explained in detail in an earlier post) is not targeted because it does

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1155790147902991752006-08-16T21:49:00.000-07:002006-08-16T21:49:07.913-07:00

A recent article in Nature explored the means by which certain proteins called chaperonins work. Chaperonins are proteins which help other proteins fold correctly. Specifically, they provide a "cage" in which the target protein can fold without interference. Artificially growing or shrinking the size of the cage can make certain proteins fold more quickly or slowly, but the overall size of the

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1154665933599554812006-08-08T15:15:00.000-07:002006-08-08T15:24:10.706-07:00

PZ Meyers has an interesting (and a bit over-my-head) post on the evolution median-fins over at his blog Pharyngula. Snipping the biology and leaving the punchline, he says:A story is beginning to emerge, though, that shows that midline fin development and evolution is a wonderful example of a general principle: modularity and the reuse of hierarchies of genes.... The redeployment of previously

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1154849381187475542006-08-05T23:43:00.000-07:002006-08-06T00:38:30.523-07:00

This past week, Kansas Republican primary voters removed two conservatives from the Kansas Board of Education. The board now has a majority of evolution-only members, and the state's science standards (which currently call for the teaching of both the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory) will likely be changed.The Washington Post weighs in with an editorial. I would like to critique some

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1154845917697154952006-08-05T22:23:00.000-07:002006-08-05T23:43:21.786-07:00

AP reports, "After 10 years, life-on-Mars rebuked." The absence of even simple life in planets other than Earth appears to strengthen the Privileged Planet argument. By the way, you can watch the Privileged Planet documentary here (.ram file) with RealPlayer.I found this sentence in the AP article interesting:Some bacteria produce extraordinarily small and pure magnetite crystals, then align the

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1154585687855447122006-08-02T23:07:00.000-07:002006-08-05T21:16:24.690-07:00

The URL for this site may change soon. Bookmark our XML feed (which won't change) in order to keep track of this blog.[Update]: We are now at http://idesignclub.blogspot.com

Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17253803071772680935noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1153416250903968482006-07-20T10:22:00.000-07:002006-07-20T11:09:24.860-07:00

I recently finished reading Compositional Evolution, by Richard Watson (which I blogged about previously here and here), and I thought it would be worthwhile to summarize the full results, their limitations, and their relevance to ID. The following gets a little technical and is mostly written for myself, but I've tried to summarize the take-home in layman's terms.The major claim of the book is

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13234993.post-1152668394493306122006-07-11T18:38:00.000-07:002006-07-29T15:15:53.146-07:00

In cause you're wondering what a typical day is like here at iDesign, it goes a little something like this:(At least for me anyways; I'm enjoying what's left of my vacation! -- Art) .

Wedgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02643341022936006805noreply@blogger.com2