Intelligent Design Creationists are heavily invested in refuting junk DNA because it casts doubt on their model of an intelligently designed human. Over the years they have advanced all kinds of arguments against junk DNA and some ID supporters actually address the real scientific issues (e.g. Jonathan Wells). However, most Intelligent Design Creationists are as ignorant about the scientific dispute over junk DNA as they are about evolution and lots of other science issues that conflict with their underlying religious beliefs. A few days ago (March 26, 2024), the Discovery Institute's Center f ..read more

Today is the 50th anniversary of my Ph.D. oral defense. The event took place in the Department of Biochemical Sciences at Princeton University back in 1974. It began with a departmental seminar. When the seminar was over I retired with my committee to a small classroom for the oral exam. I don't remember everyone who was on my committee. My Ph.D. supervisor (Bruce Alberts) was there, as was my second reader, Abe Worcel. I know Uli Laemmli was there and so was Arnie Levine. I'm pretty sure the external member of the committee was Nancy Nossal from NIH in Bethesda, MD (USA). It's a bit of a blur ..read more

The "All of Us Research Program" is an American effort to sequence one million genomes. The stated goal is to study human genetic variants and link them to genetic diseases. The study is complimentary to similar studies in Great Britain, Iceland, and Japan but the American team hopes to include more diversity in their study by recruiting people from different ethnic backgrounds. All of Us published the results from almost 250,000 genome sequences in a recent issue of Nature (All of Us Research Program Investigators, 2024). They found one billion variants of which 275 million had not been seen ..read more

I'm a retired member of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. For many decades researchers here have been complaining that they don't get the recognition they deserve. They were convinced that the University of Toronto and its associated hospital research insitutes were among the top health science research centers in the world. That seems to be changing. In the March 14, 2024 issue of Nature we rank #3 in the world, ahead of many American health science centers that you might think are better [Leading 200 institutions in health sciences]. The University of Toronto is the only ..read more

Should universities remove online courses that contain incorrect or misleading information? There are lots of scientific controversies where different scientists have conflicting views. Eventually these controversies will be solved by normal scientific means involving evidence and logic but for the time being there isn't enough data to settle a genuine scientific controversy. Many of us are interested in these controversies and some of us have chosen to invest time and effort into defending one side or the other. But there's a dark side of science that infects these debates—false or misleading ..read more

China has become a science powerhouse and it achieved this goal, in part, by sending its young scientitsts abroad to train in universities in Canada, Australia, United States, and Europe. Many of these countries have signed scientific cooperation agreements with China but some of those agreements are in danger of lapsing as China is increasingly seen as an untrustworthy enemy. Read more ..read more

Paul Nelson is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute—the most important source of intelligent design propaganda. Paul and I have been disagreeing about science for many years. He is prone to interpret anything he finds in the scientific literature as support for the idea that scientists have misunderstood their subject matter and failed to recognize that science supports intelligent design. My goal has always been to try and explain the actual science and why his interpretations are misguided. I have not been very successful. The photo was taken in London (UK) in 2016 at a meeting on evo ..read more

Happy St. Patrick's Day! These are my great-grandparents Thomas Keys Foster, born in County Tyrone on September 5, 1852 and Eliza Ann Job, born in Fintona, County Tyrone on August 18, 1852. Thomas came to Canada in 1876 to join his older brother, George, on his farm near London, Ontario, Canada. Eliza came the following year and worked on the same farm. Thomas and Eliza decided to move out west where they got married in 1882 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The couple obtained a land grant near Salcoats, Saskatchewan, a few miles south of Yorkton, where they build a sod house and later on a woo ..read more

I've been reading Philip Ball's book on "How Life Works" and I find it increasingly frustrating because he consistently describes things that he's "discovered" that biochemists like me must have missed. Here's an example from pages 231-232. He presents a cartoon image of a cell showing that it's full of all kinds of molecules packed closely together, then he says, Read more ..read more

I'm discussing a recent paper published by Nils Walter (Walter, 2024). He is arguing against junk DNA by claiming that the human genome contains large numbers of non-coding genes. This is the ninth and last post in the series. I'm going to discuss Walker's view on how to tone down the dispute over the amount of junk in the human genome. Here's a list of the previous posts. Nils Walter disputes junk DNA: (1) The surprise Nils Walter disputes junk DNA: (2) The paradigm shaft Nils Walter disputes junk DNA: (3) Defining 'gene' and 'function' Nils Walter disputes junk DNA: (4) Different views of ..read more