In 2012, the evolutionary “junk DNA” paradigm took a major hit when the ENCODE Project reported that over 80% of our DNA is biochemically functional. How did evolutionary biologists respond to the demise of one of their favorite arguments? Their responses fall into three main categories: (1) Get angry, (2) rewrite history, and (3) deny the data. This video explores Read More ›
Is the idea of junk DNA this one of the biggest mistakes in science in our lifetime? Only about 1% of our DNA codes for proteins, so what is the other 99% doing? Many evolutionary scientists over the years insisted that the non-protein coding DNA is largely junk, but intelligent design theorists predicted function will be prevalent throughout our genome. Read More ›
Life depends on information, but can unguided material processes produce the information needed for the first life? This episode of Long Story Short shows why unguided natural mechanisms can’t produce new biological information, and therefore can’t explain the origin of life. REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. Sara Walker & Paul Davies, The Algorithmic Origins of Life, 10 J. Royal Society Interface Read More ›
Inside your body a massive amount of encoded information that makes your life possible. Your body also contains sophisticated computer-like hardware that reads this coded information and builds the things you need for a living system. Explore the mystery of the amazing information codes inside you in this first installment of the “Codes of Life” mini-series produced as part of Read More ›
Can you trust everything you hear about the origin of life? The short answer is “No.” Many popular science expositors overstate the evidence for the natural, chemical origin of life and promote gross misinformation to the public on this topic. This video reviews popular claims made about the origin of life and shows why they are contradicted by the evidence, Read More ›
What is life and how did it originate? Many origin of life researchers claim that life started as a primitive self-replicating molecule, and evolved from there into all the complex forms of life we observe. But does the evidence support this? This video reviews obstacles to forming a self-replicating system, challenging the “RNA World” and “RNA-Peptide World” hypotheses and other Read More ›
We’re often told that origin of life experiments have simulated the production of life’s building blocks under conditions that mimicked the early earth. Or at least that’s what many textbooks say. But is this really true? This video deals with one particular challenge to evolving life from chemicals: the challenge of creating biopolymers. Watch this video to appreciate how origin Read More ›