Science Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Jonathan McLatchie

Answering Farina on Behe’s Work: Irreducible Complexity

3 Comments / Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Science / jmclatchie

I am a specialist in molecular and cell biology, and was thus interested in Farina’s video reviewing Michael Behe’s three books — Darwin’s Black Box, The Edge of Evolution, and Darwin Devolves. In this and several subsequent articles, I will offer a rebuttal to Mr. Farina’s analysis of Dr. Behe’s work. Here, I will address Farina’s commentary on Darwin’s Black Box – in particular, his alleged counterexamples of irreducibly complex systems having evolved by natural processes.

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The Prior Environmental Fitness of Nature: An Argument for the Existence of God

Cosmic Fine-Tuning, Cosmic Fine-Tuning, Existence of God, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Probability Theory, Science / jmclatchie

Over the past several decades, science has amassed considerable evidence of design in nature – evidences which may be drawn from both the physical and life sciences. This evidence suggests, contrary to popular wisdom, that the Universe was made with us in mind – that it was intended for beings like ourselves. In this article, we will consider a sample of evidences that force us to reconsider man’s place in the Universe.

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Let’s Help Harvard Understand Intelligent Design

1 Comment / Biological Design, Existence of God, Intelligent Design, Miracles and Epistemology, Philosophy, Probability Theory, Science / jmclatchie

Last week, my wife and I spent an afternoon at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, in Cambridge, MA, near where we live. We both were generally impressed by the exhibitions, particularly the dinosaur section, and would recommend the museum to anyone visiting Boston. I was, however, quite disappointed to see this notice at the entrance to the display on evolution.

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A Bayesian Approach to Intelligent Design

Biological Design, Existence of God, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Probability Theory, Science / jmclatchie

The Bayesian formulation of biological design arguments is, in my opinion, deserving of greater attention. Bayesian inference is widely used when dealing with design in the physical sciences. Perhaps the time has come for this structure of argument also to be used in design arguments in the life sciences.

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What is Bayes’ Theorem, and What Does It Have to Do with Arguments for God?

2 Comments / Biological Design, Cosmic Fine-Tuning, Cosmic Fine-Tuning, Existence of God, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Probability Theory, Science / jmclatchie

One way to frame the argument for the existence of God is to consider the evidence that we self-evidently live in what I call a moral choice arena. What is a moral choice arena? A moral choice arena is simply a community of persons, not necessarily humans, but persons in circumstances where they can engage in what we at least call moral decision-making, where they interact and mold themselves in what gets called morally significant ways.

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Muller Two-Step Model: A Refutation of Behe on Irreducible Complexity?

Biological Design, Existence of God, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Philosophy, Science / jmclatchie

Our responses to the Muller two-step have been around for a long time; it would be nice if ID critics would recognize them and perhaps even answer them rather than inaccurately proclaiming that their arguments go “unchallenged.”

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Does T-urf13 Refute Irreducible Complexity? A Response to Arthur Hunt

Biological Design, Existence of God, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Philosophy, Science / jmclatchie

Since 2007, Hunt has been claiming to have refuted Michael Behe’s thesis that irreducible complexity cannot arise by mindless evolutionary processes.

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Histone Code: A Challenge to Evolution, an Inference to Design

1 Comment / Biological Design, Existence of God, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science / jmclatchie

Discoveries over the past couple of decades have served to underscore the thesis that biological systems are chock-full of complex and specified information content, even beyond the sequence of base pairs along the sugar-phosphate backbone of the DNA molecule.

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The Wonders of Genomic Acrobatics: Ciliated Protozoa as a Case Study

Biological Design, Existence of God, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Science / jmclatchie

This article will consider an example of how a cell can reorganize and rearrange its own DNA sequence. The most spectacular known example of this is the ciliated protozoa, or ciliates, and so we will be presenting them here as a case study.

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