http://telicthoughts.com An independent blog about intelligent design Thu, 15 May 2008 22:35:49 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I'm almost done reading The Design Matrix for the second time. I'll probably read it a third time. I thought I would just post some of the passages that I especially enjoy. Feel free to comment on them, or post your own favorite passages from Mike's book. ... http://telicthoughts.com/favorite-passages-from-the-design-matrix/ Piattelli-Palmarini: Ostracism W/out Nat Selection, is the title of an article featuring an interview of Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini by Suzan Mazur. It is rich in notable quotes. Although Piattelli-Palmarini has some counter-mainstream ideas he establshes his bonafides with mainstreamers with this comment: I think that abandoning Darwinism (or explicitly relegating ... http://telicthoughts.com/so-then-how-did-it-happen/ To what degree is the design of a designer constrained by his/her building material? For example, imagine that we enlisted the service of the worlds most creative and brilliant engineers and tasked them to design a space craft that will carry men to Mars and back. Now, let’s ... http://telicthoughts.com/limiting-the-designer/ I imagine that in one of his two upcoming volumes, Mike Gene will discuss whether DNA and RNA were optimal design materials. When I read Robert Shapiro's comments that Mike linked to here: http://www.edge.org/documents/life/Life.pdf I found this: There's famous set of experiments from about ten years ago when Albert Eschenmoser, ... http://telicthoughts.com/ribose-optimal/ After a winter of discontent, the snapping point came while Ms. Venkatesan was lecturing on "ecofeminism," which holds, in part, that scientific advancements benefit the patriarchy but leave women out. One student took issue, and reasonably so – actually, empirically so. But "these weren't thoughtful statements," Ms. Venkatesan protests. "They ... http://telicthoughts.com/intellectual-distress/ It has sadly reached the point that my ancient 'pooter and cranky dial-up connection simply cannot load the On Holocaust Memorial Day thread anymore. I've had to follow comments from the admin board, and I can't post from there. So this is a follow-up thread for continuing a very interesting discussion, ... http://telicthoughts.com/continued-eugenics-thread/ Here is an interesting article: From these two facts it follows that the evolutionary path to life-forms capable of space colonization leads through a "Great Filter," which can be thought of as a probability barrier. (I borrow this term from Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University.) The filter consists ... http://telicthoughts.com/the-great-filter/ A major short-coming of Intelligent Design Theory has been its reluctance to identify the designer. This study addresses this problem and firmly establishes the reality of Intelligent Design. Most design theorists are uncomfortable talking about the designer. Wedgocentric analysis has demonstrated this reluctance to be part of a sinister ... http://telicthoughts.com/detecting-the-designer-among-flergellar-componentry-2/ Mike has highlighted the importance of proteins. Proteins are involved in all sorts of cellular functions including their own synthesis. Each step in the pathway to protein synthesis involves proteins. That includes the regulation of genes (whether or not a gene coding protein will be expressed), the ... http://telicthoughts.com/spinning-wheels/ Here. Since there is very little evidence the blind watchmaker can do that much without help from proteins, the next question to ask is: why are proteins so incredibly helpful to the blind watchmaker? http://telicthoughts.com/hi-tech-evolution/