Techcordance

Behe
Eight years ago, biochemist Michael Behe wrote this open letter to the prestigious scientific journal, Nature:

Sir-
As a public skeptic of the ability of Darwinian processes to account for complex cellular systems and a proponent of the hypothesis of intelligent design, (1) I often encounter a rebuttal that can be paraphrased as “no designer would have done it that way.†…
If at least some pseudogenes have unsuspected functions, however, might not other biological features that strike us as odd also have functions we have not yet discovered? Might even the backwards wiring of the vertebrate eye serve some useful purpose?
…. Hirotsune et al’s (3) work has forcefully shown that our intuitions about what is functionless in biology are not to be trusted.
Sincerely, Michael J. Behe
An Open Letter to Nature

Contrast that with Ken Miller’s now falsified claim in 1994:
the designer made serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk and scribbles.
Although Miller won in Judge Jones’ Kangaroo Court, Behe has won where it counts, in the court of empirical facts. Behe has won the argument over the backward wiring of the eye (see the essay by medical researcher Michael Denton: Inverted Retina).

And Behe has scored a second victory in the debate over junk DNA. Although Nature may not have had Behe in mind when they wrote the following, it seems, the net effect is as if they have “written back†eight years later to Behe and affirmed his views while essentially trashing their poster boy Ken Miller the honest Darwinist.
In Human genome at ten: Life is complicated, we read:
Just one decade of post-genome biology has exploded that view. Biology’s new glimpse at a universe of non-coding DNA — what used to be called ‘junk’ DNA — has been fascinating and befuddling. Researchers from an international collaborative project called the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) showed that in a selected portion of the genome containing just a few per cent of protein-coding sequence, between 74% and 93% of DNA was transcribed into RNA2. Much non-coding DNA has a regulatory role; small RNAs of different varieties seem to control gene expression at the level of both DNA and RNA transcripts in ways that are still only beginning to become clear. “Just the sheer existence of these exotic regulators suggests that our understanding about the most basic things — such as how a cell turns on and off — is incredibly naive,†says Joshua Plotkin, a mathematical biologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia

Promtional Video:

Physicians

The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) is cautioning educators and expressing concerns on dealing with sexual orientation and gender confusion by sending a letter to every U.S. school superintendent. ACP president Dr. Thomas Benton sent the letter to the school districts. In that letter he refers recipients to FactsAboutYouth.com, a website that has been established to provide educators, parents, and youngsters factual information about sexual development. He encourages parents to go to the site, check out the facts, and start a dialogue with their school superintendent.”We feel like that’s where the movement towards a safer school environment will occur is by parents being

Free Speech?

An Ohio college administrator recently lost her job after she wrote an article in her local newspaper against homosexuality. Now, Crystal Dixon, former associate vice president of human resources at the University of Toledo, is fighting back. “I wrote with no malice, no hatred in my heart. But I wanted to present another perspective on the subject and that was what was going through my mind,” Dixon said. “It never occurred to me that I would lose my job.On the morning of April 6, 2008 she woke up with a divine mandate, which was to respond to an editorial in the Toledo Free Press where editor-in-chief Michael Miller argued against gay prejudice, “based in religion.” He also advocated for domestic partner benefits for the Medical University of Ohio, the University of Toledo’s sister school.

Arson

TYLER — Court records indicate one of the suspects arrested on an arson charge in the burning of churches in East Texas had assault rifles and books on demons and atheism in his home.
Investigators also say 19-year-old Jason Bourque left graffiti in the bathroom stall of a ranch store. The Dallas Morning News reports today that court documents say Bourque carved an upside-down cross topped by flames into the bathroom wall, along with the words “Little Hope was Arson.â€
Little Hope Baptist Church was the first of 11 churches that were torched in what authorities believe was an arson spree.
Bourque and 21-year-old Daniel George McAllister were arrested and charged Sunday with a single felony arson charge.
Attorneys are not commenting publicly because of a gag order.

Avatar


With “Avatar” now the highest-grossing movie of all time, some evangelical Christians are wondering how to respond to the cultural phenomenon.
Some have slammed the film for promoting pantheism and an anti-human message. Others have joined fellow moviegoers in literally applauding the film as the credits rolled on the big screen.
And still others have not denied the entertainment value, but are concerned that Christians are getting caught up in the culture and raising fewer questions.
“Evangelicals are now consumers of popular culture as if there are no moral questions about it,” said Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, at a panel discussion Thursday.

Tebow Ad

The national director for Generation Life says it comes as no surprise that liberal groups are upset over a Super Bowl ad featuring Tim Tebow and his mother.Focus on the Family produced the 30-second spot, which is slated to run during the CBS broadcast on Sunday and reportedly will feature Pam Tebow recounting her decision to carry Tim to full-term, despite a doctor’s advice to have an abortion due to health concerns. Liberal and feminist groups were quick to denounce the ad, even though it has yet to be previewed, and Brandi Swindell, founder and national director of Generation Life, contends the heated opposition shows the liberal groups’ true colors.

The Book of Eli

The new motion picture, The Book of Eli, is still filling up movie theaters.The Bible is at the center the post apocalyptic film. But there is some debate about whether it’s a Christian film.Actor Denzel Washington portrays Eli, a man who survives a world war and holds the one remaining Bible. Eli is on mission to protect the book as he takes a 30 year westward walk across the country.

March

While pro-life supporters marched in Washington, D.C., on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Friday, an abortion-related trial began in Kansas.Scott Roeder confessed to killing Dr. George Tiller who was one of the few late term abortion providers in the country.As Roeder’s murder trial gets underway on the 37th anniversary of the ruling that legalized abortion, activists on both sides of the issue focused in.The prosecution began by playing 911 calls from witnesses.Police say Roeder walked into a Kansas church last May, and shot Tiller at point blank range and threatened two others.”I saw out of my right vision. I saw a flash and I heard a pop, to me sounded like a balloon popping,” witness Kathy Wegner recalled. “Then I just saw Dr. Tiller just fall flat on his back. I just saw him flat on his back and I thought, ‘why is he there?’”

Collins

Let us now praise famous geneticists. President Obama did the right thing Thursday by nominating Dr. Francis Collins, the “genome guru†in the mellifluous words of the Associated Press, to head the National Institutes of Health. Collins is highly likely to receive Senate confirmation and become one of the world’s most influential scientists, with an annual budget of almost $30 billion to use in support of human flourishing.
Collins, 59, is best known for directing the successful effort to sequence the humane genome, the DNA that makes up the human physical blueprint. But there’s more: Earlier this year, I heard him before a sophisticated New York audience speak of his personal faith in Christ, and he did so credibly and winsomely. He said it would require more faith not to believe in “a designed universe†than to see it as God-made. So, is Collins a proponent of Intelligent Design (ID)? Perish the thought! Yes, he speaks of “pointers to God from nature,†including “the precise tuning of 15 physical constants—if you tweak their values by a tiny fraction, it doesn’t work.†But he takes pains to argue for “theistic evolution†and recently set up the BioLogos Foundation, funded with a Templeton Foundation grant. According to its website, BioLogos “is the belief that Darwinism is a correct science.â€
Let’s be clear here: Collins is not an atheist like many Darwinians. He told the New Yorkers that “atheism is the least rational of all the choices.†He’s not a deist: He believes not only that God got the ball rolling, but that miracles can happen, although not very often. He believes in Christ’s resurrection. But he doesn’t seem to have a high view of Scripture, which is where we primarily learn about Christ’s resurrection. Here’s just one example: Collins’s BioLogos website declares, “It seems likely that Adam and Eve were not individual historical characters, but represented a larger population of first humans who bore the image of God.†Many subsequent figures in the Bible, preeminently Jesus, referred to Adam as an individual: Were they deluded? But I’m not so worried about Collins’s theological statements: Many readers can exegete them and come to their own conclusions.

Gideons

Missouri’s South Iron School District has received a favorable court ruling.
The lawsuit goes back to 2006, when the American Civil Liberties Union sued the South Iron School District for allowing The Gideons International to distribute Bibles on the school campus and in the classrooms. A judge initially barred the distribution of the Bibles in the classroom, which prompted the school to enact a policy that would allow the distribution of secular and religious material just outside the classroom, and students who were not interested in the material could simply walk by.
The judge issued an order against that policy as well. Matt Staver is the founder of Liberty Counsel, which is representing the school district.