I'm excited to do my part to help conserve energy.

Anyone wanna ride in my new wheels?

John Moore from the National Post attempts to define ID. Yet when his claims are viewed from the perspective of The Design Matrix, he's shooting blanks:

ID is often referred to as Creationism light. In fact it's more Creationism in drag.

Cute, but false. The Design Matrix does not argue against evolution, it explores the manner in which evolution may have been shaped by design.

Though its proponents claim scientific neutrality, they are usually overtly religious people affiliated with overtly religious institutions.

False. While I am a theist, I am not overtly religious. Furthermore, I am not affiliated with any overtly religious institution, any religious institution, or any institution. I come to the table as a truly independent voice.

They have written essays and books about why ID is science.

False. I have never written an essay about why ID is science. The Design Matrix acknowledges that ID is not science and moves beyond this culture war dispute.

And yet when all the sophistry is boiled down, the theory amounts to "living things are complicated. Some-one must have made them."

False. The Design Matrix does not boil down to "living things are complicated. Some-one must have made them."

It may be a sublime idea worthy of religious and philosophical contemplation, but it fails to meet the definition of science.

Irrelevant. There is no compelling reason to think science is capable of determining whether or not life was designed. Because science has not come up with a objective methodology for resolving this issue, I move on and begin contemplating alternative methods of inquiry.

Let's now consider cnidarians:

Jellyfish have traditionally been considered simple and primitive. When you gaze at one in an aquarium tank, it is not hard to see why.

Like its relatives the sea anemone and coral, the jellyfish looks like a no-frills animal. It has no head, no back or front, no left or right sides, no legs or fins. It has no heart. Its gut is a blind pouch rather than a tube, so its mouth must serve as its anus. Instead of a brain, it has a diffuse net of nerves.

A fish or a shrimp may move quickly in a determined swim; a jellyfish pulses lazily along.

But new research has made scientists realize that they have underestimated the jellyfish and its relatives - known collectively as cnidarians (pronounced nih-DEHR-ee-uns). Beneath their seemingly simple exterior lies a remarkably sophisticated collection of genes, including many that give rise to humans' complex anatomy.

[...]

Much to their surprise, the scientists found that some genes switched on in embryos were nearly identical to the genes that determined the head-to-tail axis of bilaterians, including humans. More surprisingly, the genes switched on in the same head-to-tail pattern as in bilaterians.

Further studies showed that cnidarians used other genes from the bilaterian tool kit. The same genes that patterned the front and back of the bilaterian embryo, for example, were produced on opposite sides of the anemone embryo.
The findings have these scientists wondering why cnidarians use such a complex set of body-building genes when their bodies end up looking so simple. They have concluded that cnidarians may be more complicated than they appear, particularly in their nervous systems.

[...]

In some ways, cnidarians are a better model for human biology than fruit flies. As strange as it may seem, gazing at a jellyfish in an aquarium is a lot like looking in the mirror.

Here

But where shall we go from here?

OPENTHREAD

A classic example of a receptor tyrosine kinase receptor is the insulin receptor. Most people are familiar with insulin because of diabetes, a disease that is associated with high blood sugar. Basically, insulin is a protein hormone that is secreted by endocrines cells in the pancreas. Once the insulin enters the blood, it can specifically bind to insulin receptors on the cells of various tissues, triggering those cells to import glucose. Diabetes can be caused either by either a defect in insulin production (type I) or a defect with the insulin receptors (type II). Either way, failure to import glucose from the blood leaves high levels of glucose in the blood - high blood sugar.

Well, we can make a slight detour on our trip through the rabbit hole given the announcement of some new research yesterday. It turns out that insulin is a multifunctional signal molecule, highlighting the modularity of the whole system:

Read the rest of this entry »

Now that one story is on pause, let's turn to another story and another set of blog entries. I'll begin with something I previously posted a few months ago.

Let's talk about receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs). We can think of an RTK as a communication device, since these membrane proteins transmit signals from the cell's environment into the cell. Event X outside the cell is translated into Event Y inside the cell. Specifically, the signaling molecules (such as hormones) bind the extracellular portion of the receptor protein. This binding event is then somehow communicated to the contents inside the cell. But how?

Read the rest of this entry »

The following essay was written by Jim Madden and the views/arguments contained within do not necessarily reflect the views of Mike Gene. Mike Gene hosts such essays simply to provoke thought and promote discussion and communication.

Often proponents of ID will argue that a certain kind of teleology is necessary for objective morality. A good example of this can be found in Ben Wiker's book, Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists:

If we, as a part of nature, are ultimately derived from purposeless material forces, morality should be defined as moral Darwinism has defined it. If, on the other hand, we are ultimately the result of an intelligent designer, morality must follow that design. (p. 30)

In my reflections below, I raise some concerns about the claim that ID can play a role in grounding an objective morality, but considering a distinction between two types of teleology made by traditional philosophers.
Read the rest of this entry »

Evidence, evidence, evidence. Lots of people like to use this ill-defined and subjective concept to score points, as it allows people to sit in judgment, pronouncing whether or not some data are "evidence" or whether the evidence is "sufficient." It's quite the power-trip to sit in judgment not only of other people, but of Reality. Despite these problems, we cannot ignore the importance of evidence. For example, if we are to convict Jones for the murder of Smith, there had better be evidence to support this contention if we are going to take away Jones's freedom.

Yet this very example serves to make both points. Yes, evidence is important when making decisions about our natural and social world, but relying solely on the evidence may very well deliver only a superficial, or even false, understanding of the world. We know this simply from the fact that in court rooms around the world, judges and juries have followed the evidence before them to determine guilty people are innocent and innocent people are guilty. This holds true even if we rule out corruption and biases.

Consider some movie where you, the viewer, know that Jones killed Smith, because you watched it happen. Jones, of course, subjectively knows that he killed Smith. The police investigator doesn't know this, he simply believes that Jones killed Smith because of some clues. The investigator then privately confronts Jones and accuses him of murder. Jones, privately knowing the investigator is correct, simply replies, "There is no evidence and you can't prove it" and the investigator knows this is true.

Right there, in that scene, we see the difference between evidence and truth. Relying solely on the evidence may very well deliver only a superficial, or even false, understanding of the world.

OPENTHREAD