Developmental Constraints on Vertebrate Genome Evolution by Julien Roux and Marc Robinson-Rechavi is a PLOS Genetics paper. The authors explore how embryonic developmental processes constrain genomic evolution. They note that it has been known for some time that developmental timing is linked to morphological divergence but molecular explanations have been found wanting due to insufficient understanding. The ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous substitutions (dN/dS) in protein coding genes, has been used to measure selective pressure. But scant is robust evidence at early developmental stages for a lower dN/dS ratio.

The authors generated gene expression data from mice and zebrafish from multiple stages of development supporting the notion of high constraints in early stages of vertebrate development. They found that a pattern of constraints differed from an hourglass model used to describe vertebrate morphological conservation. The difference being that morphological constraints were maximized at mid-development while genomic constraints continuously decrease over developmental time. Quoting from the summary:

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When Intelligent and Natural Design Collide is the title of the linked article at Wired Science. A science writer was inspired to ponder principles of Intelligent Design while flying to California. He contacted astronomer Seth Shostak for input. Concerning the ambiguity inherent to observation and inference Shostak remarked:

"You're looking for information content, for structure patterns," he said. "And it's kind of tricky."

Shostak goes on to explain his approach to ferreting out design by relating information to complexity and simplicity:

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Intelligent Design is about sneaking ID into public schools. No, there no evidence for it. It's vacuous. But wait. There's this:

The total amount of dark matter - the unseen stuff thought to make up most of the mass of the universe - is five to six times that of normal matter. This difference sounds pretty significant, but it could have been much greater, because the two types of matter probably formed via radically different processes shortly after the big bang. The fact that the ratio is so conducive to a life-bearing universe "looks like a tremendous coincidence", says Raphael Bousso at the University of California, Berkeley.

The succession of anthropic discoveries is becoming routine. If you hate ID you better hedge your bets with multiverse theories. That big lab we call our universe looks ever more designed the more it is studied. Pssst. Bradford ain't lyin.

Here.

In the thread It was Never Really About Sternberg was it? some commenters mentioned the fact that ID has been rejected by the mainstream community. In previous comments within the same thread reasons for opposition to ID were identified. They included the sterotypical meme that ID was creationism as well as its Trojan Horse twin- that ID was about sneaking a creationist curriculum into public schools.

A smart, insightful observer pointed out something offlist. He noted that the rejection of ID is a sociological fact and could be studied as a sociological fact. A hypothesis would be rooted in the idea that the mainstream perspective is both stereotypical and superficial. You can allow the Dover school district and the views of DI fellows to fashion the lens through which you view all IDists if you wish. That's stereotyping. Their views are not dominant within the TT IDist community and it is doubtful they can be attributed to the larger community of IDists which span international boundaries. The continued focus on narrow concerns to the exclusion of broader issues is superficiality. Gathering the numbers and documenting the evidence would put meat on the bones of a hypothesis. It also would do much to explain a sociological phenomenon marked by stereotyping and superficiality.

New Drug Bypasses Gene Mutations is a Technology Review article. It discusses a drug, developed by PTC Therapeutics, intended to allow for the synthesis of functional proteins in cells where mutations have taken place which disrupt normal amino acid sequencing. Diseases caused by defective proteins are the result.

Medical treatments enabling patients to survive otherwise deadly diseases should become increasingly common. This would allow humans to cheat the natural selection hangman- at least temporarily. We all die in the end so how many affected patients would pass on their genes only because of such medical treatment? It's merely an academic question. The good news is that harmful mutations may be neutralized in the future.

THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS has proven to be a highly effective program enabling many to recover from alcoholism. The approach has been so successful that it has been refined and adapted to suit the needs other organizations treating addictive behavior. The steps call for alcoholics to make admissions and decisions that alter their thinking and behavior. The steps communicate concepts and values that wean alcoholics from substance dependence to a productive life. Incorporating concepts, laden with values, has transformed the thinking and behavior of many alcoholics. Effective behavioral therapy can be analyzed outside a materialistic framework. Materialist spins on the effectiveness of the 12 step program are vacuous; adding nothing of substance to the analysis. A condition reversal is not linked to medication but rather to acting on values that produce behavioral modifications. Changed minds resulting in changed behavior. That's what we observe.

In a recent thread I wrote:

The only reason Sternberg became a public figure was because ID was associated with the controversy. No ID. No controversy. No headlines.

Sternberg became a center of attention more because of the views expressed in a paper he allowed to be published than because of his own actions. Of course that's not what critics will admit to. They'll have a laundry list of wrongs ready to leave at Sternberg's doorstep. Critics can be selectively very self-rightous. One way to illustrate this is through the mirror method. Recall the accusations leveled at Sternberg and then test the intellectual integrity of Sternberg's accusers by finding a parallel circumstance which is reversed in one key respect- the "Sternberg" is one whose ideas are accepted among the community of ID critics.

Another controversial study had been published which critics were strangely silent about. Perhaps strangely is the wrong word for hypocrisy is no stranger to that community. For the details here.

Viewpoint features an article alluding to a phenomenon that never seems to go away. From the article:

Actually, Rutherford clearly does not understand intelligent design. If he did he wouldn't talk as if evolution and ID were contraries. ID does not oppose evolution (I wish I had a dollar for every time someone, somewhere has had to say this in response to a confused news article or commentator). ID is in conflict with materialism. It denies the materialist claim that the origin of all biological organisms, structures, systems, and processes can, in theory, be fully accounted for in terms of physical processes and mechanisms.

Is evolution posed as the conceptual opposite to ID for any reason other than ignorance? Is there a deliberate attempt to muddy waters for a purpose that has nothing to do with evolution?

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Michael Egnor wrote Consciousness and Intelligent Design which appears at Evolution News & Views. From his article:

"Lawful dependence" in science has always been restricted to correlations between manifestations of third-person objective ontology. Lawful dependence correlates things. The correlations are generally quantitative, described by mathematics. A moving magnet (third person ontology) induces electrical current (third person ontology), in accordance with Maxwell’s equations.

Egnor gives us a glimpse of what a brain/mind model would indicate. When x induces biochemical cascade y in a specified area of Jason's brain, Jason communicates in his second language- Spanish. Happens every time for reasons unknown to researchers. Researchers also discovered that Jason's word choice consists of about three times more words prone to be utilized when he is angry (insults, curses, trash talk etc.) than when he normally speaks Spanish. The words correlate to vital signs consistent with the anger emotion.

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Dr. Egnor has posted The Mind and Materialist Superstition at Evolution News and Views. Egnor includes a mini-glossary and then delves into different aspects of the overall topic. This from Egnor:

If the mind is entirely caused by matter, it is difficult to understand how free will can exist. Matter is governed by fixed laws, and if our thoughts are entirely the product of brain chemistry, then our thoughts are determined by brain chemistry. But chemistry doesn’t have "truth" or "falsehood," or any other values for that matter. It just is. Enzymatic catalysis isn’t true or false, it just is. In fact, the view that "materialism is true" is meaningless… if materialism is true. If materialism is true, than the thought "materialism is true" is just a chemical reaction, neither true nor false. While there are some philosophers who assert that free will can exist in a deterministic materialistic world (they’re called "compatibilists"), and some have argued that quantum indeterminacy may leave room for free will, the most parsimonious explanation for free will is that there is an immaterial component of the mind that is undetermined by matter.

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