Posted by Nick Matzke on April 26, 2005 | Comments (101) | TrackBack (0)

PZ Myers notes that toads are exploding for reasons unknown in Hamburg, Germany.  This story is apparently not made up, although I am not yet convinced that we are getting the straight story from the media — after all, the widely reported three-headed British frog of 2004 was, after vigorous discussion, decided to most likely merely be multiple amplexus, inexpertly observed, on one Evolution/Creationism forum (see also “Three-headed frog — not!” for the apparently definitive analysis).

Let’s assume that frogs really are exploding.  Unexplained phenomena like this are a great chance to test William Dembski’s Explanatory Filter to see if it detects intelligent design.  Let see: Is the phenomenon specified?  You bet.  In fact, it is specifiable in advance.  Humans have been blowing up animals for some time now — for example, in 1970, the Highway Department of my beloved home state of Oregon decided to dispose of a stinky eight-ton whale carcass with 20 cases of dynamite.  See the Exploding Whale Website for the video.  Can known natural laws account for the explosion of live frogs?  Apparently not.  The known natural laws say that frogs, particularly live ones in a cool climate, shouldn’t be exploding (dead ones in the hot sun might be another matter — see the story about the natural exploding of a 60-ton sperm whale in Singapore in 2004).  Can chance explain exploding frogs?  Nope.  Chance might explain some dead toads, but I estimate the chance of 1,000 dead toads, exploding rather than just dying, and all in Hamburg, to be less than 1 in 10^1,000 (and this is very generous probability estimate).  Furthermore, we know that intelligent designers can and do blow animals up intentionally.  So, we can safely conclude intelligent design is the best explanation for Hamburg’s exploding toads.  QED.  Somebody alert the authorities.

Posted by John Wilkins on March 31, 2005 | Comments (11) | TrackBack (1)

It pains me to say this, and I have to do it on my own blog as the ranters on Panda’s Thumb will delete my entry forever, but I am announcing my conversion to intelligent design, and all that implies…

See more on my Evolving Thoughts blog entry.

Posted by Nick Matzke on November 29, 2004 | Comments (6) | TrackBack (2)

So far, most of the results from the Cassini mission have been scientifically interesting, but, well, not much to look at.  Most of the photos have been black-and-white.  However, today JPL put up a color composite that deserves some kind of award for science photograph of the year.

Whoa.  And again I say, whoa.  This definitely belongs in the “amazing things simple physics can do” category.  For the higher resolution version and the caption, see the main body of the post.

Continue reading  “Whoa. (New Cassini photo)”

Posted by Nick Matzke on September 23, 2004 | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

This isn’t evolution, but it is biology related.

During and after college, I spent several summers working for the Oregon State University Forestry Department, Forest Sciences lab, and for the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station.  Many of these jobs involved some combination of measuring trees, surveying vegetation, and otherwise being ecological.  It was great fun, and I think that it’s hard to really understand biology unless you’ve really spent some time out in the field not just hiking around, but carefully examining and identifying some of the ridiculous number of organisms out there.

Continue reading  “Now here's a miracle”

Posted by John Wilkins on June 28, 2004 | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

One long-standing question in understanding the origin of life is the so-called “chirality problem”. While this is an unresolved question in our understanding of the origin of life, it is used by anti-evolutionists to beat evolutionary theory over the head. As we never tire of telling folk, the origin and subsequent evolution if life are two distinct issues.

What is the “chirality problem”? Let’s start by briefly discussing what chirality is. Biological molecules of some complexity often come in two forms that while chemically identical, have different three dimensional shapes; a “left-handed” one, and it’s mirror image, a “right-handed” one (see alanine graphic). Of particular importance for living systems are amino acids (levo- or left-handed) and sugars (dextro- or right-handed). Handedness is due to the carbon atom’s bonding capacities. This property of some molecules was discovered in 1847 by none other than Louis Pasteur (the molecule was a form of tartrate) in the dregs of some wine.

[img][*]http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/L-alanine.jpg…[*]http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/D-alanine.jpg…[/img]
Chiral forms (enantiomers) of the amino acid alanine. White balls are hydrogen atoms, grey balls are carbon atoms and the red ball is an oxygen atom, The left handed form is not superimposable on the right handed form).

How, it is asked, could this have occurred at the beginning of life? Surely ordinary physical processes should have given us a mix of both left and right handed forms (known as a racemic mixture)?

Well, firstly it turns out that ordinary physical processes do produce an excess of left over right forms. Recently, though, it was discovered that life itself can generate a particular enantiomer or chiral form of a particular molecule.

Continue reading  “The Left Hand of Darwin”

Posted by Pim van Meurs on April 20, 2004 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

This morning, on my way to work, I listened to NPR. One of the guests, Ebbesmeyer described his recent work on tracking items found by beach combers. Once again I came to realize how the beach provides us not just with pleasurability but also measurability. Without beaches we would not be able to track Rubber duckies.

Continue reading  “The purpose of life is a beach part 2”

Posted by Pim van Meurs on April 18, 2004 | Comments (17) | TrackBack (2)

I am starting what I intend to be a regular contribution in which I will share some of my almost spiritual experiences and insights gained when I was on the beach.

It was this unforgettable moment late summer, the first time that I realized how special the beach really is.

Continue reading  “The Purpose of Life is a Beach Part 1”

Posted by brauer on April 04, 2004 | Comments (6) | TrackBack (1)

Last week I introduced Dawkins' term "designoid" with a striking example. These objects have been found in a variety of places, but the most controversial of them come from the site of putative neolithic habitations in the present Gulf of Cambay, India. The "artifacts" have been used to bolster the controversial theory that a highly developed civilization existed at the site nearly 10,000 years ago.

Continue reading  “Fairy circles and stone circles”

Posted by brauer on March 25, 2004 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Dembski's "Explanatory Filter" (EF) claims to be a reliable technique for detecting design. To date, the EF is the only method presented by the "science" of ID. How well does it do? Nobody knows. It has been applied precisely once, by Dembski in his book No Free Lunch. And that application was a dismal failure.

Before going into the reasons that the EF is a psuedo-algorithm, I'd like to present an example of what Dawkins calls a "designoid," that is, something that appears designed but isn't. A "false positive" for the EF, if you will.

Continue reading  “Grist for the EF mill”