William Dembski

[From a colleague in Germany:] Recently your name in connetion with ID did appear in several (liberal) newspapers here in Germany, mostly of course accompanied by unqualified critic. You surely experience this yourself often enough in the US, lately I saw e.g. a scientist and ID-opponent on the O’Reily Show (Fox News) directly attacking ID and you. O’Reily tried to defend a bit, but he is no scientist. . . . As a representative of our German Anti-ID-Artciles, I have attached one from the “Süddeusche Zeitung” from July 12th 2005 [for the article, go here]. We see this whole movement as a stirring up of the (atheistic) science community also here in Germany. I would no go so far to Read More ›

This academic year may be pivotal for Cornell University (a school at which I spent half a year doing research on probability theory back in 1986) as its president just spent nearly the whole of his State of the University Address speaking about intelligent design: Read More ›

From a contact in Australia:

Last night on TV and today in all newspapers ID was derided as “not science.” See below the transcript of our ABC National Broadcaster’s treatment of ID in the program “Catalyst” last night: www.abc.net.au\cayalyst. It is followed by a specially timed letter for all Australian Newspapers today proclaiming “It’s not Science”

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Check out http://origins.mcmaster.ca/about.html. Will ID get a fair hearing at this institute?

[From the 14Oct05 review in Science of Andreas Wagner’s new book:] Wagner does a wonderful job of outlining the parameters of the debate [over robustness, or how organisms achieve stability under perturbation]. He recognizes two basic difficulties. One is a catch-22: the more robust a system becomes, the less variable it is (by definition), and the less raw material there is available for selection to act on. A possible — but as yet unsubstantiated — solution to this dilemma is that environmental variation is always present. Thus, so long as selection acts to reduce environmental noise, genetic robustness might be expected to evolve in parallel. A more basic conundrum is that robustness must involve non-additive genetic interactions, but quantitative geneticists Read More ›

Aristotle was one of those creationists in a cheap toga who concluded that the abundant design in nature points to an intelligent cause even if that cause isn’t visible. “For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this true,” he wrote in The Physics, a book that the ACLU would argue violates the separation between church and state. . . . Scientists who stood alone used to inspire a little more deference in the left. But Michael Behe is one nonconformist they won’t defend. The silencers of unpopular science once feared ACLU lawyers. Now they retain them. MORE

This just in from a friend of mine: “Into The Cool; Energy, Thermodynamics, and Life, by Eric Schneider and Dorion Sagan, devotes several pages to “demolishing” your contributions, pp 319-322. No surprise, given the ludicrous proposals they make about the origin of life, Benard cells explaining physiology, etc. When they stick to expositions from the great names in thermodynamics, especially contributions to open systems, and energy flow, they seem to be OK (I am not expert!).” Can someone send me a pdf scan of those four pages? Thanks.

The Antikythera mechanism: The clockwork computer Sep 19th 2002 From The Economist print edition An ancient piece of clockwork shows the deep roots of modern technology. . . . MORE

A test nobody wants to take Neither side is interested in trying to prove intelligent design. By MICHELLE STARR Daily Record/Sunday News Thursday, October 20, 2005 HARRISBURG — Intelligent design and evolution proponents agree that a test on bacterial flagellum could show if it was or wasn’t able to evolve, which could provide evidence to support intelligent design. MORE

I reported in September about Northwestern University’s new indoctrination minor in evolutionary theory (go here for my earlier post on this blog). Here is a follow-up article about that new minor. The article notes, “The program will examine evidence for evolution from paleontology, anthropology and biology, according to Teresa Horton, the program’s director. One thing it won’t include is the theory of intelligent design.” Having taught a course at Northwestern in 1992 on evolution and intelligent design (I was a post-doctoral fellow at the time in history and philosophy of science), I’ll be watching this program with interest. Read More ›

In the summer of 2000, I conducted a 6-week seminar on intelligent design and self-organization at Calvin College (go here). Among the people who presented at the seminar were Steve Meyer, Paul Nelson, Jed Macosko, Howard Van Till, Del Ratzsch, Michael Ruse, and Harold Morowitz. Read More ›

Adaptive evolution in biology and technology:
Why are parallels expected?

Peter Kaplan
University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
[snip]@aya.yale.edu

INTRODUCTION: Since the beginnings of technology, inventors have sought to draw parallels between biological and technological designs. Read More ›

Here is Barbara Forrest’s take on the religious implications of neo-Darwinism and astronomy in her article “The Possibility of Meaning in Human Evolution,” Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science 35.4 (Dec 2000), 861-889. She writes (p. 862, notes omitted): Read More ›

www.themonkeytrial.com distinguishes myth and reality.

Donald Wise wants to move beyond the philosophical and religious dimensions of ID to the “unintelligent design” of certain biological systems. But clearly that means we can also focus on the “intelligent design” of biological systems. Let us encourage the scientific community to open that Pandora’s box: Read More ›