Paul Nelson

Biola University | BU · MA Program in Science & Religion

Evolution by natural selection requires variations that (a) exhibit fitness differences, and (b) are heritable. We use these criteria to examine what McDonald called a "great Darwinian paradox," namely, that there is little evidence for relevant variation at "those regulatory loci set deep with the control network" (1983, 92-3) of metazoan ontogeni...

Howard Van Till has long been a critic of interventionist conceptions of God's creative activity, and he places the “intelligent design” position in that category. Yet certain lines of reasoning in Van Till's own work can best be understood as arguing for design. It is likely that this reasoning will eventually bring Van Till into conflict with an...

Paul A. Nelson is a Research Fellow in the Discovery Institute Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, and is the editor of the journal Origins & Design. 1. Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," American Biology Teacher 35 (1973): 125-29. 2. Dobzhansky, "Nothing in Biology," 127. 3. Dobzhan...

A remarkable but little studied aspect of current evolutionary theory is the use by many biologists and philosophers of theological arguments for evolution. These can be classed under two heads: imperfection arguments, in which some organic design is held to be inconsistent with God's perfection and wisdom, and homology arguments, in which some pat...

Before Darwin, homology was defined morphologically and explained by reference to ideal archetypes -- that is, to intelligent design. Darwin reformulated biology in naturalistic* rather than teleological terms, and explained homology as the result of descent with modification from a common ancestor. Descent with modification, however, renders desig...

Introdução Os críticos da Teoria do Design Inteligente (doravante TDI) afirmam que a entre outros, de que existem sinais de inteligência e que eles são empiricamente detectados na natureza é pseudociência ou criacionismo disfarçado. A TDI seria pseudociência porque não obedece ao rigor do método científico, criacionismo disfarçado porque propõe uma...