A review of the book, The Tinkerer's Accomplice, How Design Emerges from Life Itself. Mutation and selection are not sufficient to explain evolution, and another factor, homeostasis, should also be considered. Published in Origins, n. 62.
A review of the book, The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism. Darwinian mechanisms may permit limited adjustment to living conditions, but there have not been enough events in the history of organisms for random mutations to construct complex adaptations. Changes in species are often due to broken genes rather than to new improvements, and intelligent design is necessary to explain complex adaptations. Published in Origins, n. 62.
A review of the book, A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature. Darwinian reductionism dissolves appreciation of the genius behind masterpieces. In the real world, science and the arts each enrich and complement understanding of the other; both, at their best, are part of and point to the same Truth. Published in Origins, n. 61.
A collection of short commentaries on scientific papers published in 2007, covering topics such as oceanic productivity, pseudogenes, sedimentary gaps, fossil birds, fossil bivalves, dinosaurs, stasis in lampreys and microbes, and hybrid sterility in fruit flies. Published in Origins n. 60.
Is God real? Is the Bible true? What about all those amazing stories in the Bible? Specifically, what about the Genesis stories? Did God really create the world and all that is in it in a literal week? Did that Creation occur only some 10,000 years ago? How could all these biblical accounts be true when so many brilliant scientists advocate otherwise?
The gift of life is conferred on humankind in an intimate face-to-face encounter. God forms a work of art out of moist clay. A bond with this piece of art begins to grow in the gentle process of making. Then comes that incredible moment.
Ever since it was discovered in 1861, Archaeopteryx lithographica has been a controversial fossil. Its remarkable finding has provided certain credibility to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Archaeopteryx has a mixture of characteristics found in birds, reptiles, and theropod dinosaurs, and for that reason, scientists are divided regarding its origin, flight capacity, and position in the alleged evolutionary sequence from reptiles to birds.
Whenever religion and science have a dispute about some question of fact, religion always loses. So goes a common belief. The implication is that religion should never make any factual claims, as it has no contact with reality. For some religions, such an assertion is irrelevant, as these religions do not make any claims about the physical universe. But for biblical Christianity, such an assertion would be fatal.
Many models have been proposed that tend to blur some of the contrasts between the biblical and naturalistic theories. A number of attempts have been made to develop intermediate models in which elements of the biblical story of creation are mixed with elements of the scientific story of origins. All of these models share the biblical idea that nature is the result of divine purpose and the “scientific” idea of long ages of time, but all suffer from serious scientific problems or are entirely ad hoc and conjectural.
Darwin’s view of God is contrary to the biblical view of God and should give Christians pause before buying into Darwin’s naturalism and attempting to wed it to the supernatural in a theistic evolutionary synthesis.
A collection of short commentaries on scientific papers published in 2003, covering topics such as frog biogeography, moas, the hoatzin, magic bullets in creationism, intelligent design, gene duplication, snail variation, Cambrian lagerstatten, extraterrestrial impacts, hotspots, carbonates, mitochondrial Eve, pseudogene function, mutations in bacteria, fossil diversity patterns, feathered dinosaurs, the fossil Microraptor, intermediate fossil Ichthyostega, problems with the evolutionary tree, and mitochondrial DNA differences. Published in Origins n. 58.
The known history of birds appears consistent with the idea that they were created. These new and spectacular avian fossils suggest is that the original creation produced a much greater variety of birds than previously imagined.