One of the most interesting books I've read in the last few years was The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution by J. Arvid Ågren. The author explains the gene's-eye view both scientifically and historically, and I hope to write about the book sometime soon. But for now there's one point he makes that I found fascinating.
Titktaalik roseae. Image from https://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/index.html The second post in my series on limb evolution is now up at the BioLogos site. This installment reviews the fossil evidence on fin-to-limb evolution, introducing the famous Tiktaalik . Next up: evidence from developmental biology. The first post at BioLogos outlined limb structure and some historical background.
Last month, I started a series on the topic of limb evolution, here at Quintessence of Dust. That series has been transformed (through a series of intermediates) into a series of posts* at the BioLogos site. The first installment is now up, and it provides an expanded introduction to the topic and a little historical context.
Here I'm continuing my discussion of the Signature in the Cell book-signing event at Biola University on 14 May. You'll want to read Parts I and II before reading on. My second question to Steve Meyer was the one question I most wanted to ask him, both out of personal curiosity and because I thought the answer would help demystify many of his claims. The exchange that resulted was memorable – on that, everyone seems to agree.
A few interesting responses on the Theistic Evolutionists...We Can Help You thread at Uncommon Descent, one from a poster named jerry who asked a few straightforward questions. My response is below as usual. To Jerry @68: Thanks for the words of welcome. I need to be relatively brief now, especially on Behe's work, but I'm happy to discuss biology and evolution with anyone anytime, and I welcome questions, the more specific the better.
Howard Van Till is one of my heroes. It's been a month and a half since his address to the Grand Dialogue, and I still think about it, even though the ideas were all familiar to me. I think this is due partly to the fact that the excellent talk displayed Howard's disarming warmth and generosity, and partly to the fact that he was already one of my heroes.
I'll soon post the first in a series of articles that will explain why I believe that Christians are unwise to turn to Reasons To Believe (RTB) or to other proponents of "intelligent design" for competent Christian commentary on evolutionary biology. I think it's important for Christians to reject folk science and the lack of integrity its presence implies, and my goal in creating Quintessence of Dust is to help Christians understand biology.
Like every other scientist I know, I'm a big believer in peer review. The self-checking mechanism that peer review represents is surely one big reason for the success of science. Accountability, error checking, "wisdom in many counselors," and enforcement of community standards -- those are some ways of expressing the benefits of peer review.
If you have only read the more superficial descriptions of intelligent design theory, and specifically the descriptions of irreducible complexity, you might (reasonably) conclude that Michael Behe and other devotees of ID have claimed that any precise interaction between two biological components (two parts of a flagellum, two enzymes in the blood clotting cascade, or a hormone and its receptor) cannot arise through standard Darwinian evolution.
Long before Richard Dawkins topped the charts with his recent entry into the folk-religion genre, he was reviled by Christian culture warriors as a Public Enemy, an ayatollah of atheism, the embodiment of the evil that ensnares all who embrace Darwin's Dangerous Idea TM . His revivalistic fervor, combined with his, um, expertise in handling the media, makes him a near-perfect spokesperson for unbelief, and consequently he is credited