Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

“Evolution Sunday” — Can 10,000 clergymen be wrong? — It’s happened before

Movement hopes to bridge the gap between evolution and creationism
By Steve Eighinger

Herald-Whig Staff Writer
January 21, 2006

More than 10,000 pastors nationwide have signed “The Clergy Letter” of support for Evolution Sunday Feb. 12, a day designed to bring attention to a movement that believes there is a way to bridge the gap between the theory of evolution and creation theology. Read More ›

“Unintelligent Design” now a term of use in the biological literature

Single locus Complementary Sex Determination in Hymenoptera: an “unintelligent” design? Frontiers in Zoology 2006, 3:1 doi:10.1186/1742-9994-3-1 Ellen van Wilgenburg (ellenv@unimelb.edu.au) Gerard Driessen (gerard.driessen@ecology.falw.vu.nl) Leo W Beukeboom (l.w.beukeboom@rug.nl) Abstract. The haplodiploid sex determining mechanism in Hymenoptera (males are haploid, females are diploid) has played an important role in the evolution of this insect order. In Hymenoptera sex is usually determined by a single locus, heterozygotes are female and hemizygotes are male. Under inbreeding, homozygous diploid and sterile males occur which form a genetic burden for a population. We review life history and genetical traits that may overcome the disadvantages of single locus complementary sex determination (sl-CSD). Behavioural adaptations to avoid matings between relatives include active dispersal from natal patches and mating Read More ›

[off topic] Intelligent Design in the National Football League

In the spirit of adding a little levity to this blog, I discovered “Intelligent Design” in the title of a sports column. This is an indication that the once obscure phrase “Intelligent Design” is now becoming a part of American culture. Intelligent Design At Work This also gives me an opportunity to thank William Dembski and DaveScot for allowing me to be a contributor.

Simultaneous talks at KU

Monday, 1.23.06 Program: “The Case for Intelligent Design,” by William A. Dembski, 7 p.m., Lied Center, Kansas University. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek will deliver a speech titled “The Universe is a Strange Place,” 7:30 p.m., Spencer Museum of Art auditorium, Kansas University. Free, public event. http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/jan/19/lawrence_datebook/?city_local

The uses of junk DNA

Study: MicroRNA fine-tunes brain synapses BOSTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) — Scientists at Children’s Hospital Boston say they’ve found the first evidence that microRNAs have a role in the functioning of synapses in the brain. http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20060118-21395400-bc-us-synapses.xml The researchers believe microRNAs fine-tune cognitive function, and may be relevant to mental retardation and autism. The scientists explained that non-coding regions of the genome — those that don’t have instructions for building proteins — are now known to include important elements that regulate gene activity. Among such elements are microRNAs — tiny, recently discovered RNA molecules that suppress gene expression. Increasing evidence indicates a role for microRNAs in the developing nervous system, and the Children’s Hospital Boston researchers have demonstrated that one microRNA affects Read More ›

Mark Ryland at the Vatican Forum in Rome

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The Vatican Forum

is pleased to invite you to a lecture and discussion on

Intelligent Design, Evolution, and the Church

with

Mark Ryland
Vice President, The Discovery Institute

and

Fr. Rafael Pascual, LC
Director, Science and Faith Institute, Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum

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Lenny Susskind

Design for Living
A theoretical physicist weighs in on a hot-button topic
by Geeta Dayal

Village Voice
January 10th, 2006

Many high-profile critics in the raging debate over “intelligent design” have, understandably, been evolutionary biologists. Legendary Oxford professor Richard Dawkins regularly appears on British TV to talk up Darwin and lash out against ID between books. Harvard emeritus prof E.O. Wilson has edited a hefty new 1,700-page anthology of Darwin’s collected works, with the fighting title From So Simple a Beginning.

They’re generally not people like Leonard Susskind, a renowned physics professor at Stanford and a prime architect of string theory. His new book, his first for a general audience, has the provocative title The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design (Little, Brown). It’s not the term “cosmic landscape,” trippy as it sounds, that’s drawing the attention. Nor is it the words “string theory” – even though “string theory” is, admittedly, one of those futuristic-sounding 10-dollar terms, like “chaos theory” or “complexity theory” or “quantum gravity,” that get the layperson daydreaming of The Matrix and cybernetic implants. The words that are causing double takes – and in some cases, drawing ire – are “intelligent design,” and the word that precedes them, “illusion.” Read More ›

E. O. Wilson: Strict Darwinism is “an undeniable fact” and “ranks as a virtual law of nature”

Let’s accept the fault line between faith and science
By Edward O. Wilson

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-01-15-faith-edit_x.htm

If the perennial culture war between science and fundamentalist Christianity about evolution seems insoluble, the reason is that it is insoluble. Read More ›