It’s been 20 years since America crowned Carrie Underwood their American idol. She used that win as a launching pad to country music superstardom. She’s won more than 100 major awards, including Grammy, Gold Globe, and American Music Awards. She holds the record for most CMT Awards with 25 and has 10 People’s Choice Awards. But Carrie will say that none of that would have happened if it weren’t for American Idol. She is headed home and will be a judge when the news season premiers in March. Carrie Underwood will join Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie for the show’s eighth season on ABC. Carrie brings a lot to the table, and it seems her fellow judges are happy to have her. View this post on Instagram A post shared by American Idol (@americanidol) Luke Bryan Shared His Thoughts On Carrie Underwood The judges have already started filming auditions for the next season. Ahead of the 58th Annual CMA Awards, Luke shared his enthusiasm with Extra. “It’s going great,” he said. “Carrie and I had always been in the business together, but we never spent much time together, so to sit behind the desk and watch her really learn how to transition out of being the winner of American Idol and a superstar to being the judge at the table, she’s doing good.” Luke Brian said he only has one fear about Carrie Underwood joining the Idol team. “The main thing is as long as she don’t pick up any of my habits,” he said. “I don’t want to influence her in any way.” Carrie shared a teaser for the new season of American Idol on Instagram. She showed us a bit of her 2004 audition and some of the singers she’s seen during her journey as a judge. Fans can’t wait. One wrote, “It’s SO fitting how 20 years later… Carrie is returning to where it ALL began!! It’s SO amazing!!” This story’s featured image is by Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images. The post Luke Bryan Reveals His Thoughts On Carrie Underwood As An “American Idol” Judge appeared first on InspireMore.

'Such sabotage operations can sow fear and doubt'

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Thursday's Final Word

In my quest to learn the ins and outs of the orthodoxy of evolutionary theory (and therefore bring to light its deficiencies), I discovered geologist and lawyer Dr. Casey Luskin, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute. A proponent, researcher, and advocate for intelligent design, Dr. Luskin has been defending academic freedom for scientists who face discrimination because of their support for ID for nearly 20 years. Life is very low entropy, meaning it’s very ordered, and yet it’s also very high energy. How exactly does life maintain this seemingly contradictory state? I’ve written about it here before, but I shared with Dr. Luskin my personal skepticism concerning the religion of evolution. As a layman (relative to him), it seemed to me as if Evolution™ had an “invisible hand of God” problem that’s never been seriously addressed. Meet me in the middle The mythology of Evolution™ seems to have a beginning (the Big Bang), an end (modern Homo sapiens), but no middle. And as I came to understand from my conversation with Dr. Luskin, much of the evidence for evolutionary theory amounts to flimsy, tenuously linked assumptions on the verge of being disproved in various fields. We began by discussing one of the more popular arguments against intelligent design: the concept of “junk DNA." The argument goes something like this: If everything is intelligently designed, then why does the vast majority of our DNA seem to serve no purpose? As Dr. Luskin explained, the idea originated in the early 1960s, when scientists mapped out the molecular protein production process: DNA encodes RNA, which then carries that information to ribosomes, which in turn use it to assemble chains of amino acids into proteins. Because so much of the DNA that had been studied up to that point did not seem to be doing that, it was tossed in the proverbial junk bin, hence the name. Selfish genes The idea really took off with the publications of Japanese geneticist Susumu Ohno’s “So Much Junk DNA in Our Genome” in 1972 and Richard Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene" in 1976. Ohno famously asserted that 90% of our DNA was total nonsense. Dawkins piggybacked off that and gave the junk DNA a “purpose,” saying that the only true function of the gene was to replicate itself. Whether or not the gene helps you is of non-substance. Luskin was one of the first to push back against this idea. As an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego, he experienced firsthand how the "junk DNA" theory was used to dismiss the burgeoning ID movement. Luskin would argue with his professors and peers that it was still premature to conclude that most of our DNA could be classified as “junk,” citing the unfinished-at-the-time Human Genome Project as evidence for the lack of evidence. Luskin seems to have been onto something. In the past few years, the “junk DNA” theory has slowly unraveled. God don't make no 'junk' This is in large part thanks to a groundbreaking series of papers entitled the ENCODE Project, published by biologists studying “non-coding” DNA — the goal being to uncover the mysteries of the human genome. Since the ENCODE Project began in 2010, it has found that at least 80% of the genome has shown evidence of biochemical functionality. In other words — contrary to junk DNA theory — this DNA is transcribing information into the RNA. And as for the other 20%? The lead researchers of the ENCODE Project say that many of these non-coding elements of DNA occur within very specific cell types or circumstances, so to catch them in action doing what they’re supposed to be doing is simply very difficult. But they predict that as they study more and more cell types, that that 80% figure will most certainly jump up to 100%. All this is to say that applying a Darwinian paradigm to discoveries about gene function has led to erroneous conclusions about "junk DNA" — which then, in turn, has been used to justify the same Darwinian theory that spawned it. Information, please Meanwhile, Intelligent Design's predictions that we would find function for that junk DNA have been borne out. As Luskin pointed out, the origin of life is the origin of information. Life, on its face, is a very strange arrangement of matter. It’s very easy to find things that are high entropy-high energy (think tornadoes or explosions) or low entropy-low energy (snowflakes, crystals). But life is different. Life is very low entropy, meaning it’s very ordered, and yet it’s also very high energy. How exactly does life maintain this seemingly contradictory state? Machinery. Jedi mind trick? Our cells are full of molecular machines that process and encode information to be used as applicable instructions. That is what our DNA, RNA, and ribosomes are all there for. They’re machines that process information. Imagine you wanted to watch "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" on DVD. Would you be able to watch it without the DVD player? No. Imagine if the instructions for building the world’s first ever DVD player were on a DVD. Could you build the DVD player just with the DVD? No. The information and the information-processing machine are inseparable. The question then becomes: How did these machines come into being? Did they build themselves? No, we just showed how that can’t be the case. The only plausible answer is — intelligence. There needed to be an intelligent designer to create both the machinery and the instructions. Despite the initial mockery greeting Intelligent Design, the theory is gaining ground as a reliable model and explanation for the origin of life and genes. And that’s simply because the evidence is getting to be a bit undeniable. Make sure to follow Dr. Casey Luskin’s work here.

A Kentucky sheriff who was accused of fatally shooting a district judge in his chambers two months ago was indicted for murder Thursday.Prosecuting attorney Jackie Steele said after a grand jury returned the indictment that he couldn't comment on an alleged motive, although police previously said Shawn “Mickey” Stines — then-sheriff of Letcher County — and Judge Kevin Mullins had argued just before the Sept. 19 shooting, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.'Everything seemed fine between them. There was no clue that anything was wrong at all. You wouldn't have guessed there was the slightest problem.'Judge Julia H. Adams received the indictment and set Stines’ arraignment for next Monday, the paper said.Stines turned himself in after the shooting and was charged with first-degree murder, the New York Times reported, citing police. He retired as sheriff less than two weeks after the shooting. Stines — who's accused of shooting Mullins eight times — pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.The shooting was captured on surveillance video. You can view the surveillance clip here; it omits the actual shots being fired, and it's included in a larger video report about the shooting. Spectators cried out in the Morgan County courtroom as the video played during a hearing last month, WDKY-TV reported.Kentucky State Police Detective Clayton Stamper testified that the full video of the shooting shows Stines using his own phone to make multiple calls, then using the judge’s phone to make a call, the Louisville Courier Journal reported, adding that the shooting followed.Stamper testified that the calls were to Stines’ daughter, the Courier Journal noted, and he said the phone number of Stines' daughter had been saved in the judge's phone and was called before the shooting. Stamper also said Stines stood up from his chair in the judge’s office after looking at Mullins’ phone and shot him seconds later, the Herald-Leader said.The shooting is particularly curious since Stines and Mullins reportedly had been decades-long friends. Image source: Letcher County Sheriff's Office Facebook page (left); letchercounty.ky.gov (right)What's more, the pair went to lunch at the Streetside Grill & Bar on Main Street just hours before the shooting, the Daily Mail reported. A restaurant employee told the outlet that Stines and Mullins ordered their usual lunch — both having chicken wings with salad."Everything seemed fine between them. There was no clue that anything was wrong at all," an employee said. "You wouldn't have guessed there was the slightest problem."A woman who reportedly works for the Letcher County Sheriff’s Office also gave her phone to investigators for examination, WDKY said, adding that Stamper testified that she was one of Stines’ employees and believed she’d received text messages from Stines that noted what occurred at lunch and led to the shooting.Under cross-examination, Stamper said that when Stines "was taken into custody, I was told by one of the other officers that were there that he made the comment, ‘They’re trying to kidnap my wife and kid,'" WDKY added.More from the Herald-Leader:The crime could be eligible for the death penalty if Stines is convicted because Mullins was a public official. Steele, who is prosecuting the case with Attorney General Russell Coleman’s office, said there had been no decision yet on whether to seek the death penalty against Stines if he is convicted. However, Stines’ attorney, Jeremy Bartley, has said that he does not think the murder is the appropriate charge in the case.Bartley said at the Oct. 1 hearing that the evidence offered there pointed to the shooting as being an act of “extreme emotional disturbance” in reaction to something Stines had seen on Mullins’ phone.There was no information at the hearing about what was on the phone. If a jury decided Stines acted out of extreme emotional disturbance, he couldn’t be convicted of murder, but rather first-degree manslaughter or a lesser crime. The death penalty would not be an option in that case. You can view a video report here about Thursday's murder indictment.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!