I recently recommended a very nice new blog by Mike Beidler called The Creation of an Evolutionist. It's subtitled "My journey from young earth creationism to evolutionary creationism," and it's downright fun to read. Mike is engaging and bright. He writes with enthusiasm and joy, so it's hard to imagine that his journey might have been difficult in places. But I'm sure it was.

Several weeks ago, I started this series on "junk DNA" by noting that the shoddy nature of anti-evolution folk science is rarely more clearly displayed than in discussions of genomic and genetic findings that are aptly explained by common descent.

In another post in this ongoing series, we looked at creationist distortions of the nature of research into non-coding DNA, or "junk DNA." There I mention how creationists of all stripes are quite fond of the claim that "Darwinist" assumptions led to the labeling of all non-coding DNA as non-functional, and thereby to the neglect of research in the field for three decades.

Here at Calvin we used to have a super-cool club called SNUH, which sought to discuss and enjoy The Simpsons. I was a guest speaker there twice, but their biggest catch by far was Prof. Tony Campolo, who came to Calvin three years ago, specifically in response to an invitation from the wacky SNUH.

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.

"Junk DNA" is a very popular subject among anti-evolution commentators. At the Discovery Institute (DI) and Reasons To Believe (RTB), as well as other creationist outlets, you can find ample discussion of "junk DNA" and why it matters to Christians who don't like evolution.

Last week I discussed the notion of folk science as an approach to understanding creationism. The basic idea is this: folk science is science-talk which can be of any degree of accuracy and that has the sole purpose of supporting an already established world-view. As such, folk science does not seek to inform; it seeks to encourage, and any accurate information transfer is incidental. Folk science is employed by people of various persuasions;

There are many reasons to think twice before calling a statement a lie (and especially before calling someone a liar), and most have little to do with hilarious Shakespearean punning. A lie is not the same thing as a mistake, or even a big mistake. A falsehood is not necessarily a lie. And of course there are various grades of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

One of the most common refrains of anti-evolutionists is the claim that evolutionary mechanisms can only degrade what has already come to be. All together now: "No new information!" It's a sad little mantra, an almost religious pronouncement that is made even more annoying by its religious underpinnings, hidden or overt. But it's a good question: how do new genes come about?

Evolutionary science is so much bigger, so much deeper, so much more interesting than its opponents (understandably) will admit. It's more complicated than Michael Behe or Bill Dembski let on, and yet it's not that hard to follow, for those who are willing to try. The best papers by evolutionary biologists are endlessly fascinating and scientifically superb, and reading them is stimulating and fun.