The Editors bid farewell to Origins Research and welcome you to Origins & Design, the newest journal in a very old debate.
Since the late 1970's, the thinking of English paleontologist and systematist Colin Patterson has been a focal point of controversy in biology and evolutionary theory. O&D reports on Patterson's revisting of his famous question, "Can you tell me anything about evolution that is true?" and looks at highlights of his published (and unpublished) work.
Within the past decade, the RNA World hypothesis -- the idea that life began with a self-replicating RNA molecule -- has moved from intriguing speculation to widely-accepted theory. Yet behind the excitement lies a landscape of chemical difficulties which render the RNA World highly problematical.
It is widely argued by evolutionary biologists that the vertebrate retina is poorly designed, revealing the handiwork of the blind watchmaker, natural selection. However, this suboptimality argument is exceedingly weak, ignoring the available evidence about the actual structure and function of vertebrate eyes.
Levinton on Kauffman; Penman rethinks cell structure; Snyder illuminates Whewell; Sullivan and Dawkins spar; and other selections.
Huxley: The Devil's Disciple. London: Michael Joseph, 1994; 475 pp.
Are We Alone? Philosophical Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life. New York: Basic Books, 1995; 160 pp.
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life.New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995; 586 pp.
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