The ENCODE War Continues

You remember how, back in September, there was much hype about how the release of data from the ENCODE project supposedly showed that junk DNA was  “dead”? At the time many scientists had other ideas, and the idea of writing a paper disputing this was floated at least once. An important problem, however, was that the junk DNA claims were not themselves made directly in the published journal articles – could you really write a paper slamming statements made to the media? Over the last few months it’s been shown that this was no hurdle for some, with at least three ENCODE-critical papers having been published in that time:

A Logical Leap

For Wednesday Jason Lisle provides a surprisingly up-to-the-minute article, Washing Machines on Mars, opening:

Several news outlets yesterday heralded early reports from NASA that the Curiosity rover on Mars has found evidence that the red planet could have supported primitive life.

Lisle cites three headlines: NASA: Yes, Mars could have hosted life; Mars had the right stuff for life, scientists find; and Wow! Ancient Mars Could Have Supported Primitive Life, NASA Says. If you haven’t heard the news you should probably go read one or two of those. Where do washing machines come in to it?

The Triune Universe

Moving backwards, last weekend the ICR released a new That’s a Fact video: Three in One. The premise of the video is that the structure of the universe somehow reflects the trinity.

For centuries philosophers and theologians have tried to explain the Trinity. Some have tried but our attempts often fall short. However, God in His wisdom provided an example in creation that is a parallel to His own Triune existence—the universe.

Here’s a transcript of that video, with commentary interspersed to show why this is one of the ICR’s sillier ideas:

Dried Crinoids

It’s time to return to the ICR, at last. Monday’s article, by Brian Thomas, is called Evidence Doesn’t Fade from Colorful Fossils – it’s about preserved evidence of coloured tissue in 340 million year old fossil crinoids.

Some crinoid fossils are supposed to be quite colourful – I say “supposed” because while this claim would appear to be true based on what the paper says and cites, none of the pictures I’ve seen are particularly impressive (the picture above is of a living specimen, if you were confused). The paper offers an explanation for how the “biomarker molecules” were preserved, but Thomas doesn’t like it:

Duane Gish has Died

That should really be old news to you by this point, but I thought I’d better mention it here. The ICR has posted an article on their website called Remembering Dr. Duane T. Gish, Creation’s ‘Bulldog’, which has also appeared at YOM. Similarly Answers in Genesis have posted their own obituary, while the NCSE and  Sensuous Curmudgeon have their own articles, as does Pigeon Chess (hopefully this signals a return to form) and I’m sure a hundred other blogs around the net. There really isn’t anything to say here that hasn’t already been written a dozen times already.

As for where I’ve been, university started this week and I’m still in the process of entirely reassembling my schedule from scratch. I should be able to produce a few catch-up posts by, say, the end of the weekend. (Maybe.)