Evolution

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 ›

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.

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.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1595996413039321190&q=complexity+in+cell [Thanks Bombadill for this URL.]

For IMMEDIATE RELEASE on October 12, 2005

Contact: Larry Caldwell
Phone: 916-774-4667
lcaldwell@qsea.org

Lawsuit Alleges that Federally-Funded Evolution Website Violates Separation of Church and State by Using Religion to Promote Evolution

San Francisco, CA— A California parent, Jeanne Caldwell, is filing a federal lawsuit today against officials of the National Science Foundation and the University of California at Berkeley for spending more than $500,000 of federal money on a website that encourages teachers to use religion to promote evolution in violation of the First Amendment. Read More ›

U of I president: teach only evolution in science classes

By JOHN MILLER, Associated Press Writer, The Associated Press October 05, 2005

University of Idaho President Tim White has entered the debate pitting Charles Darwin’s theories of life against religious-based alternatives by forbidding anything other than evolution from being taught in the Moscow school’s life, earth and physical science classes.

White’s edict came as a U of I biologist, Scott Minnich, a supporter of the “intelligent design” theory, was set to testify in a Pennsylvania lawsuit Read More ›

The following story, based largely on my interview with the local reporter on the Dover case (Lauri Lebo), doesn’t get an A for coherence or nuance, but I’m glad she got this point right: Dembski wrote, “In the words of Vladimir Lenin, What is to be done? Design theorists aren’t at all bashful about answering this question: The ground rules of science have to be changed.” Dembski said the remarks should be taken in historical context. “Science does not spring from Zeus’ head like Athena,” he said. He defends the movement to change the definition of science because the scientific method, which limits research to the natural world, has evolved in the past and will likely change in the future. Read More ›

Go to http://idea.berkeley.edu for the new website for UC Berkeley’s IDEA Club (IDEA = Intelligent Design & Evolution Awareness): For too long the students have been dogmatically told that ID is just pseudo-scientific religious dogma. This website will offer Berkeley students accurate information on what ID is and is not. When students realize that ID does have scientific content behind the unfortunate politics, they will realize that the critics of ID on this campus are just arguing against themselves based on strawmen arguments. Their characterization of ID as “creationism in a cheap tuxedo” will only work if the students don’t read the ID material for themselves. It seems that incredulously asserting that ID theorists are bad scientists also works well Read More ›

To Debate or Not to Debate Intelligent Design?
By Gerald Graff

When I heard that advocates of “Intelligent Design” were urging schools to “teach the controversy” between their view and Darwinian evolution, I was dismayed.

About 20 years ago, I coined the phrase “teach the controversy” when I argued that schools and colleges should respond to the then-emerging culture wars over education by bringing their disputes into academic courses themselves. . . . Read More ›