I do not believe, as Dr. Meyer asserts, that he is unqualified—quite the opposite. He is likely more qualified as a philosopher than I am as a scientist. Furthermore, I guarantee you that if I was venturing into his discipline, I would have little of value to say. Dr. Meyer has ventured into my discipline, biology. He is not highly qualified as a biologist, but he’s ventured in anyway. Fair enough. Since he is a great communicator, we should be able to analyze the quality of his arguments.

here

It should be pointed out at this juncture that the biological points made by Darrel Falk in his exchanges with Meyer are easily understood by most freshman students in biology. I have a daughter who is a freshman and an intending major in biology who has no difficulty following Falk's points. Of course Falk might maintain that his deeper understanding would confound both Meyer and my daughter and account for any divergence of views but in what follows I'll show that to be a mistaken assumption.

In Meyer’s response to my review, he made a very strong statement. I am amazed that someone who is really smart and equally sincere could make it, but here it is

First, intelligent agents have demonstrated the capacity to produce large amounts of functionally specified information (especially in a digital form). Second, no undirected chemical process has demonstrated this power. Hence, intelligent design provides the best—most causally adequate—explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life from simpler non-living chemicals. In other words, intelligent design is the only explanation that cites a cause known to have the capacity to produce the key effect in question. (Emphasis added)

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Stephen Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell wrote Response to Darrel Falk’s Review of Signature in the Cell. A prior post focused on the first few paragraphs. Continuing with the article:

Falk first cites a scientific study published last spring after my book was in press. The paper, authored by University of Manchester chemist John Sutherland and two colleagues, does partially address one of the many outstanding difficulties associated the RNA world, the most popular current theory about the origin of the first life.

Starting with a 3-carbon sugar (D-gylceraldehyde), and another molecule called 2-aminooxazole, Sutherland successfully synthesized a 5-carbon sugar in association with a base and a phosphate group. In other words, he produced a ribonucleotide. The scientific press justifiably heralded this as a breakthrough in pre-biotic chemistry because previously chemists had thought (as I noted in my book) that the conditions under which ribose and bases could be synthesized were starkly incompatible with each other.

Nevertheless, Sutherland’s work does not refute the central argument of my book, nor does it support the claim that it is premature to conclude that only intelligent agents have demonstrated the power to produce functionally-specified information. If anything, it illustrates the reverse.

Very true. Sutherland's work is causally inadequate as an explanatory model for the issues raised in Meyer's book.

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"Reasons to Believe" e-mailed this one to me, and I had to pass it on.

In two prior posts we witness two individuals sympathetic to intelligent design attacked based on their views. John A. Designer said it well in this comment. JAD:

Even if Berlinski is a crank and Meyer is unqualified, as olegt and Falk respectively claim, it doesn’t change the fact that there are devastating criticisms of the so-called “RNA world” or “RNA first” hypothesis. Indeed, if neither Berlinski or Meyer had said anything on the subject you would still have the criticisms to seriously challenge the viability of the hypothesis.

JAD makes a good point but as I thought about the criticism I was reminded that whether or not someone is the object of degrading comments can relate to what it is their arguments or cited data are intended to support. For example, would Professors Olegt and Falk and notorious critic Matzke like to continue their critiques against scientists who merit some bashing. Let's see. Dr Rajendra Pachauri admitted that a 2007 report, indicating that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035, lacked a scientific basis and that its inclusion in a report resulted from improper procedures.

HT: Clare

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Stephen Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell wrote Response to Darrel Falk’s Review of Signature in the Cell. From the article:

Nevertheless, in his recent review on the Biologos website, Prof. Darrel Falk characterizes me as merely a well-meaning, but ultimately unqualified, philosopher and religious believer who lacks the scientific expertise to evaluate origin-of-life research and who, in any case, has overlooked the promise of recent pre-biotic simulation experiments.

I've seen no evidence that Meyer does not understand the biochemistry or cellular processes of which he alludes to in Signature in the Cell. I have not seen anyone point out specific errors that would indicate a lack of understanding. Citing the promise of recent experiments refers to a subjective assessment of what might be rather than confirmation of what is. It's the difference between speculation and solid scientific theory.

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Introducing David Berlinski:

Having with indignation rejected the assumption that the creation of life required an intelligent design, Mr Fletcher has persuaded himself that it has proceeded instead by means of various chemical scenarios.

These scenarios all require intelligent intervention. In his animadversions, Mr Fletcher suggests nothing so much as a man disposed to denounce alcohol while sipping sherry.

Heh, heh. Vintage Berlinski.

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A New Scientist article lists seven questions about gravity here. Each question links to another distinct article.

Thank you Victor Reppert for linking to Luke Muelhauser's What if God existed?, an interview with Christopher Hitchens.
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I'm an atheist and scientist. I don't believe anybody without good evidence.

Who said that? The sentiment is fairly commonplace in forums where intelligent design is discussed. Those people of reason are amazing are they not? They remind me of Mr. Spock wannabes. So logical and sciency and unlike people of faith, right? Here's the link.

PZ does not believe anyone without good evidence. Unlike many of us he has never been short changed in a business or consumer transaction because he is no doubt scrupulous in getting solid evidence before making a purchase. It must be nice to be able to support all your beliefs with good evidence. Did he believe the claims about transparency in government or vote for the one who promised it while thinking the promise insincere? And PZ, remember this?

The movie has been criticized by those interviewees who are critics of intelligent design (P.Z. Myers, Dawkins,[68] Shermer,[30] and National Center for Science Education head Eugenie Scott), who say they were misled into participating by being asked to be interviewed for a film named

here

Remember the death panels? Sure you do. Sarah Palin running off at the mouth. Ya know how those people are- either dishonest or dumb. There is no such thing embodied in any legislative initiative… or is there? Government Control Leads to Denial of Care suggests that the very nature of the beast lends itself to rationed care; particularly for the elderly. Quoting:

From the Daily Mail, October 13: "A grandfather who beat cancer was wrongly told the disease had returned and left to die at a hospice which pioneered a controversial 'death pathway.' Doctors said there was nothing more they could do for 76-year- old Jack Jones, and his family claim he was denied food, water, and medication except painkillers. He died within two weeks. But tests after his death found that his cancer had not come back and he was in fact suffering from pneumonia brought on by a chest infection."

Doctors said so. Jump back. Who are you to dispute an authority? Especially one so well versed in the science of medicine. There are pioneers in everything including pathways to death. The human mind is marvelously innovative. Now we know two things. There was no death panel. We also know that people die and they die in America which has a different system of health care and one which favors those with better health plans or simply any plan at all. But there is something else worth looking at. Reasoning Through the Rationing of End-of-Life Care is a Science Daily article. From the article:

ScienceDaily (2010-01-21) — Acknowledging that the idea of rationing health care, particularly at the end of life, may incite too much vitriol to get much rational consideration, a professor of neurology called for the start of a discussion.

There we go again. Professor of neurology. Authority. Oh well, we listen to Professor Olegt don't we? John Freeman, M.D., Lederer Professor Emeritus of Pediatric Neurology and a faculty member of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, authored an opinion piece this very month in the Journal of Medical Ethics, which was directed at the Obama administration. It asks Obama "to consider rationing end-of-life care as an initial step towards healthcare reform." Now he did not use the term death panel but…

HT: Paul

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Truthfulness in science should be an iron law from Medical Hypotheses.

Thanks to Victor Reppert at dangerousidea.blogspot.com for linking to E.T.Babinski's very interesting article. Babinski writes:

Many evangelical Christians today suppose that Bible believers have always been in favor of a "young-universe" and "creationism." However, as any student of the history of geology (and religion) knows, by the 1850s all competent evangelical Christian geologists agreed that the earth must be extremely old, and that geological investigations did not support that the Flood "in the days of Noah" literally "covered the whole earth."

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Not that war.

This war.

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Are mutations truly random? is an online article of The Scientist. Genomes are not equal opportunity hosts of genetic mutations. Some genomic regions are more hospitable to mutations than others. The so called hot spots. This has piqued my curiosity as well as the curiosity of others. Why is this so? A study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B calls attention to some intriguing ideas.

Even small SNP clusters are non-randomly distributed: is this evidence of mutational non-independence? is a paper authored by William Amos. The paper begins by noting that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are very non-randomly distributed in the human genome. SNPs result when changes occur to one of the four nucleotides- A, T, C and G- within a sequence (if interested read details at the link). Amos was interested in exploring whether or not the likelihood of mutations increases with proximity to existing SNPs. From the paper:

HT: Clare

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There are now 1,000 architects and engineers who have signed a petition, saying they doubt the official version of events of 9/11, and calling for a new, independent investigation that considers the possibility of controlled demolitions. When I first discovered their site, in September of 2008, they had 470 A&Es. So it's grown a bit. Their two hour length video can be seen here.

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