[Update: The debate went well. Michael and I played to a packed house and had a good time. The students were bright and asked good questions. I hope we can do it again some time. –WmAD] http://www.colby.edu/news_events/calendar/eventview.cfm?rID=31421&bID=288045

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635162236,00.html

Science friction: God’s defenders target 3000 schools
By Linda Doherty and Deborah Smith
November 14, 2005

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/11/13/1131816809073.html

Up to 3000 schools have been targeted in a DVD blitz aimed at challenging Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in favour of an “intelligent designer”. Read More ›

UI faculty sign on against intelligent design in science
By William Dillon, Staff Writer
11/16/2005

http://www.zwire.com/site/tab1.cfm?newsid=15586126&BRD=2700&PAG=461&dept_id=554314&rfi=6

More than 150 faculty members at the University of Iowa have signed a statement denouncing the use of intelligent design in science. Read More ›

Yesterday Charles Harper issued a press release taking to task Daniel Golden for his piece in the Wall Street Journal in which he suggested that the John Templeton Foundation has been a patron or sponsor of Intelligent Design (for the press release, go here). In that press release, Harper ritualistically underscored just how much money and effort the John Templeton Foundation has spent on critiquing ID. In particular, he noted that Read More ›

Intelligent Design: Professors discuss teaching the controversial subject November 15, 2005 By Xiaowei Cathy Tang Cornell Daily Sun, Senior Editor http://www.cornellsun.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/11/15/43798727eb0ab . . . . For I.D. proponents, the challenge of specified complexity is how to mathematically model the difference between design and chance. Senior Lecturer Art Lembo, crop and soil sciences, said that although currently no satisfactory solution exists, this challenge is worthy of exploration. He said that the ability to differentiate empirically between design and randomness holds far-reaching potential for other areas of science. Applications include “scanning faces on airport monitors to find terrorists, making inferences about locations of non-point source pollution or determining whether O.J. killed Nicole,” he said. . . .

The following conflation of intelligent design and global warming is unworthy of Chomsky the scholar (as opposed to Chomsky the activist). Chomsky uncritically takes as the definition of ID what he has read in the popular press. It might interest readers of this blog to know that I hold in my files a note (dated February 26, 1997) from Chomsky on MIT stationery commeting favorably on one of my early papers on information and ID (namely, “Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information” — which ultimately became chapters 3 and 4 of No Free Lunch). Chomsky in his private moments has in fact been a critic of evolutionary theory, a fact reflected in Daniel Dennett’s criticisms of Chomsky in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.

Evolution, ecology and `malignant design’

Noam Chomsky says the Bush administration’s hostility toward scientific inquiry puts the world at risk of global-warming disaster

NOAM CHOMSKY
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Nov. 13, 2005

President George W. Bush favours teaching both evolution and “intelligent design” in schools, “so people can know what the debate is about.”

To proponents, intelligent design is the notion that the universe is too complex to have developed without a nudge from a higher power than evolution or natural selection. Read More ›

[From http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=72] The January issue of FIRST THINGS will include a reflection by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn on the intelligent design/evolution controversy. His article is occasioned by physicist Stephen Barr’s argument in the October issue, “The Design of Evolution.” Barr, in turn, was responding to Cardinal Schönborn’s earlier op-ed piece on these questions in the New York Times, which received a great deal of attention. In the issue following Schönborn’s reflection, Barr will have a further evaluation of the state of the question. So what is FIRST THINGS up to here? We are not distancing ourselves from the intelligent design movement. The champions of that movement have rendered a signal service in exposing the non-scientific philosophical dogmatism of many evolutionists. Nor Read More ›

Intelligent Design: Official statement on false and misleading information published in the Wall Street Journal today.*

By Charles L. Harper, Jr., Senior Vice President, John Templeton Foundation.

*[Monday November 14th, 2005. Article by Daniel Golden:
At Some Colleges, Classes Questioning Evolution Take Hold.]

Today the WSJ ran a front page story mentioning the John Templeton Foundation in a way suggesting that the Foundation has been a concerted patron and sponsor of the so-called Intelligent Design (“ID”) position (such as is associated with the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and the writers Philip Johnson, William Dembski, Michael Behe and others). This is false information. In fact, quite the opposite is true. The John Templeton Foundation has provided tens of millions of dollars in support to research academics who are critical of the anti-evolution ID position. Any careful and factual analysis of actual events will find that the John Templeton Foundation has been in fact the chief sponsor of university courses, lectures and academic research which variously have argued against the anti-evolution “ID” position. It is scandalous for a distinguished paper to misinform the public in this way. Read More ›

Darwinian Struggle At Some Colleges, Classes Questioning Evolution Take Hold ‘Intelligent Design’ Doctrine Leaves Room for Creator; In Iowa, Science on Defense; A Professor Turns Heckler By DANIEL GOLDEN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL November 14, 2005; Page A1 http://online.wsj.com/article_email/article_print/SB113193754738896194-lMyQjAxMDE1MzExNDkxMzQ3Wj.html

Science friction: God’s defenders target 3000 schools
By Linda Doherty and Deborah Smith

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/11/13/1131816809073.html
November 14, 2005

Up to 3000 schools have been targeted in a DVD blitz aimed at challenging Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in favour of an “intelligent designer”.

The right to teach intelligent design in science classes is being tested in US courts and a fiery debate has erupted in Australia that has pitted scientists against advocates for the “alternative theory” to evolution.
Proponents of intelligent design say some forms of life are so complex they can be explained only by the action of an unspecified “intelligent designer”, who some say is God. Read More ›

Kansas Evolution Ruling Chases Jobs Away By Scott Ott . . . According to an unnamed spokesman for the corporate coalition, the businesses plan to relocate to communities in states “where faith in evolution helps to build strong families and produces workers who know the value of slow, undirected change over vast spans of time.” “The last thing our companies need is a wave of employees who use logic to question orthodoxy and demand proof for dogmatic assertions,” the spokesman said. “Kansas employers are saying, ‘Give me that old time evolution. It was good enough for our mothers and it’s good enough for me’.” http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2059

After Richard Sternberg published Stephen Meyer’s pro-ID article in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, the NCSE and the Smithsonian (where Sternberg works) exchanged emails on how best to derail Sternberg’s career (see here and here and here for background). The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) investigated and confirmed that Sternberg had been shafted (go here). But the full set of emails that the OSC examined in reaching its conclusion has to date not been made public. I’m herewith offering $500 to the first person who sends me a single pdf file under 2.5Mbytes with all this correspondence (email the file to info AT designinference DOT com). To receive the money, this needs to be an uncommondescent.com exclusive Read More ›

Jeffrey Shallit’s deposition in the Dover case is now available online (go here). The deposition itself was attached to the Plaintiff’s argument against the Defense’s motion for summary judgment (go here). I solicit your reactions to Shallit’s deposition.

President’s Veterans Day Speech

By President George W. Bush

TOBYHANNA, PENNSYLVANIA — Thank you all for coming, please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. I’m glad to be back in Pennsylvania, and I’m proud to be the first sitting president to visit Monroe County — especially pleased to see so many military veterans with us today. Those who have risked their lives for our freedom have the respect and gratitude of our nation on Veterans Day and on every day. Read More ›