Here’s a novel, if perverse, take on why the teaching of ID should be encouraged: http://www.alternet.org/story/22039.

Have a look at the video at the following site: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html. Is there any design-theoretic significance that on a logarithmic size-scale, we’re close to the middle of the known physical universe? Regardless of the answer to this question or whether there even is an answer, you’re in for a treat if you haven’t seen such a “power of ten” video in the past.

Allen Orr’s article against ID is now out in the New Yorker (go here). It’s as bad as I thought it would be. I’m on the road right now but will comment on it later in the week. Note that I remarked last week on this blog that a fact-checker from the New Yorker had contacted me about this article. It doesn’t appear that the time I spent with this fact-checker did much to improve this article.

Two ID books were selected among Christianity Today’s 2005 Book Awards: in the category of Apologetics/Evangelism, Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator; in the category Christianity & Culture, my book The Design Revolution (another of my books Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology received that same award in 2000). Awards like this are no doubt gratifying to the books’ authors. But more important from my vantage is that ID books being given these awards indicates that our message is getting out. For the complete list of CT 2005 Book Awards, go here.

Denis Alexander is a molecular biologist with very solid credentials who is based at Cambridge University. He is also a theistic evolutionist who has written several books on the relation between science and Christian faith. His most recent is Rebuilding the Matrix (with Zondervan). Even though he is a critic of ID, he helped one of my ID colleagues who got shafted by another Cambridge lab. I therefore feel a sense of gratitude to him. Read More ›

I just learned from my editor at Cambridge University Press that The Design Inference is going to be issued in paperback in the next 6 months. This is good news. When the book came out in 1998, it listed at $55. I believe it is now up to $85. This will take the price down significantly and, I trust, make the ideas in that book all the more accessible. Also, for some reason, the hardback is issued these days without a dustcover. The dustcover contains some nice endorsements, notably, one by evolutionist Bill Wimsatt (go here and scroll down). I expect this information will be appearing on the cover of the paperback edition.