The ID Update

A story by Lisa Anderson in the Chicago Tribune shows the materialists bemoaning the plight of biology teachers in Kansas, who are "under the thumb" of those who want to change the definition of science and allow the "designer's foot in the door."

The emotional sympathy card is being played. According to the materialists, those poor adults are being harassed by students who are so uneducated and indoctrinated, that don’t believe in Darwinism.

Their "Constitutional right to be comfortable" is being violated. But, the students "right" to be comfortable is being violated as well. It cuts both ways. Maybe the teachers are being ridiculed by people who don’t get the debate. More education of the adults and students is needed.

CafePress is having a Post-Holiday sale and you can save some bucks for the next week on select items from the ARN Merchandise. Between 12/28/05 and 01/04/06 (next Friday) you can get $5 off any Hoodie and $4 off all Greeting Cards and Wall Calendars. Just enter the Discount Code: BIG5 or BIG4 in the Discount Coupon field at checkout and the credit will be applied. This includes our new 2006 "Mind Preceded Matter" Wall Calendar with thirteen fantastic Hubble Space Telescope photos and quotes about the design of the universe. All of our designs are available on Greeting Cards which are pretty unique and also qualify for the sale.

A story on the ACLU trial lawyers of Kitzmiller v. Dover written by Gina Passarella appears in the Law Intelligencer.

The lawyers are now world famous and showing how they approach the debate. For instance, Stephen Harvey comments, "The right to believe includes the right not to believe."

Does this mean that if two or three worldview positions are put before public school students, they can choose which one seems most plausible. That option is no longer allowed in Pennsylvania. The Darwinistic worldview will now be taught unchallenged. While in school in Pennsylvania, you WILL be taught the state-sponsored worldview, but elsewhere, you can learn about other worldviews. Darwinism/Materialism has been elevated to the level of indisputable fact.

The lawyers also say that since there will be no appeal on the ruling, this case will most likely stand as a trial court opinion that is not binding on any other state.

Pat Buchanan weighs in on the Kitzmiller v. Dover judicial ruling on the RealClearPolitics Web site.

Mr. Buchanan gives a wide-angle view of the decision which stretches from Aristotle to the present.

A story by Erin Hemme Froslie on the InForum Web site, tells of a decision made in North Dakota regarding ID and high school debating.

The North Dakota High School Activities Association won’t allow students to debate the role of intelligent design in public school classrooms.
Some parents and administrators feel the topic is too controversial.

A former debate coach, Kent Hjelmstad, said the process of debate is more important than the topic. He thinks "the message is that you want the experience of an academic challenge, but you don’t need to have objectionable discussions to get that challenge".

Now, we wouldn't want to infringe on anyone's "Constitutional right to be comfortable".

You will need to register with InForum to read this amazing article.

This article in First Things is a MUST read to understand the current culture war between scientism (neo-Darwinism) and design theory.

Many misunderstood Cardinal Schonborn's article in the New York Times, and this is his eloquent and clear-thinking response.

He rightly points out that there are not just two ways to discover the Truth of Reality, but three. He states that "Modern science alone may well be incapable of grasping the key truths about nature that are woven into the fabric of Catholic theology and morality. And theology proper does not supply these key truths either. Prior to both science and theology is philosophy, the “science of common experience.” Its role in these crucial matters is indispensable.

The following is a crucial point that all must grasp. Schonborn says "Let us return to the heart of the problem: positivism. Modern science first excludes a priori final and formal causes, then investigates nature under the reductive mode of mechanism (efficient and material causes), and then turns around to claim both final and formal causes are obviously unreal, and also that its mode of knowing the corporeal world takes priority over all other forms of human knowledge. Being mechanistic, modern science is also historicist: It argues that a complete description of the efficient and material causal history of an entity is a complete explanation of the entity itself—in other words, that an understanding of how something came to be is the same as understanding what it is. But Catholic thinking rejects the genetic fallacy applied to the natural world and contains instead a holistic understanding of reality based on all the faculties of reason and all the causes evident in nature—including the “vertical” causation of formality and finality.

This article should be read over and over, and slowly digested. In doing so, the reader will see it's overall importance, and Schonborn's critics will seem like the sound of "tinkling cymbals".

On the Science & Theology News Web site, Dr. William A. Dembski comments on the recent ruling of Kitzmiller v. Dover, and it's implications for ID and the culture war.

It is not the "Waterloo" of ID, just as the Scopes Trial was not the "Waterloo" for Darwinism.

An opinion by Paul Campos appears in the Rocky Mountain News. Campos practiced law in Chicago before returning to his home state in 1990 to join the law faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has written extensively on the role of law in American society.

His opinion of Kitzmiller v. Dover is illuminating.

KMBC-TV News reports that next semester, a class will examine intelligent design. The class will be taught by Richard Menninger, a religion professor, and Henry Tillinghast, a biology professor.

Ottawa University, located in Ottawa, KS has about 500 students and is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA.

Albert Alschuler, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Criminology at the University of Chicago, continues his three-part series on Kitzmiller v. Dover. Included are comments from others in the faculty blog.

Tom Bethell, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, give his perspective on the recent Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling in the Washington Times.

Hiroaki Sato, and essayist and translator, writes on Id and Darwinism in the Japan Times.

The article is anything but objective and fair, assuming that Biblical Creationism and ID are one-and-the-same.

He batters Hisayoshi Watanabe, professor emeritus of English and American literature at the University of Kyoto. He calls Watanabe an "intellectual" who defined ID as "a theory that proposes to give up explaining the making of this universe and the natural world in terms of aimless, plan-less mechanical forces alone," and to "recognize as science, other than natural factors like 'inevitability' (natural law) and 'coincidence', a 'design' factor."

James Skillen, president of the Center for Public Justice, weighs in on the issue of who decides what our children can be taught in the public schools.

Skillen points out that "...the history-of-science lesson that Judge Jones in PA included in his ruling was largely philosophical and theological in character. He stated, for example, that science is limited to 'the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena' and must therefore reject revelation in favor of empirical evidence. None of this amounts to a biological argument".

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

Ever hear the term "cognitive dissonance"? This first year psychology concept refers to the ways we handle two different mental states that are in apparent conflict. For example, Joe likes to smoke but knows that smoking is bad for him. He could quit smoking. That's one way to handle it. Another way is to simply deny the evidence that smoking is bad for him and continue to smoke. A third way is to adopt the belief that smoking helps him control his weight. Or that his particular brand is less harmful than others. These strategies vary a great deal in the extent to which they agree with facts or common sense, but they all have one thing in common: They reduce the anxiety Joe feels around smoking.

A zoo story

Last summer, when urban zoos competed with the beach, the London Zoo staged a "daring" show. For four days, August 26 through 29, it put three male and five female humans on display in the wooded habitat on Bear Mountain as homo sapiens. Spokeswoman Polly Wills explained that the exhibit "teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate."

The exhibit actually demonstrated the opposite.

A label was coyly affixed to the display: "Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment."

Associated Press enthused, "At London Zoo, you can talk to the animals — and now some of them talk back."

Hmm. No surprise there. Conveniently for the humans, they were separated from our primate relatives by an electric fence. Why, I wonder?

BBC News explained that the sapiens chosen for the display had to apply and give a 50 word pitch. (A pitch? Fifty words? Such high standards for language! Highly trained chimps, after six months of indoctrination and a grove of bananas, can barely manage to string together two sequential words, if that.

Indeed, one patron professed disappointment that the humans turned out to be wearing swimsuits beneath the cut-out, pinned-on paper fig leaves. Swimsuits? Paper? Pins yet? And where did they get the idea for those fig leaves anyway? Such airs.

And needless to say, all the humans went "home" at night and all the apes stayed behind lock and key. You can also be pretty sure that "home" for the humans was not a pile of leaves somewhere either.

Now what happened here psychologically is that when naturalistic beliefs (humans are just like apes) conflicted with evidence (pins, swimsuits, flats in London), onlookers chose Joe's second option—they simply denied the evidence and continued to assert the belief.

This shows why powerful beliefs like materialism are difficult to challenge. As long as the believer thinks he is getting something out of the belief, he can simply deny the evidence.

Kong: Would she really marry that gorilla?

Of course, the new King Kong movie has focused attention once again on how like/unlike us primate apes are.

Gorillas are a lot like humans—if they are really Hollywood stars. Otherwise, not, it seems. Researchers who study them tend to focus on what they see as similarities or interesting activities, missing the big picture. That fits in well with cognitive dissonance.

So does the dream of producing a human-chimp hybrid. Richard Dawkins, for one, has argued that if we could find an intermediate between humans and chimps, we would be more inclined to care about chimps:

Our chain of African apes, doubling back on itself, is in miniature like the ring of gulls round the pole, except that the intermediates happen to be dead. The point I want to make is that, as far as morality is concerned, it should be incidental that the intermediates are dead. What if they were not? What if a clutch of intermediate types had survived, enough to link us to modern chimpanzees by a chain, not just of hand-holders, but of interbreeders? Remember the song, 'I've danced with a man, who's danced with a girl, who's danced with the Prince of Wales'? We can't (quite) interbreed with modern chimpanzees, but we'd need only a handful of intermediate types to be able to sing: 'I've bred with a man, who's bred with a girl, who's bred with a chimpanzee.'

It is sheer luck that this handful of intermediates no longer exists. ('Luck' from some points of view: for myself, I should love to meet them.) But for this chance, our laws and our morals would be very different. We need only discover a single survivor, say a relict Australopithecus in the Budongo Forest, and our precious system of norms and ethics would come crashing about our ears. The boundaries with which we segregate our world would be all shot to pieces. Racism would blur with speciesism in obdurate and vicious confusion.

Quite apart from the absence of intermediates, evidence suggests that Dawkins has got the situation precisely reversed. The London Zoo story clearly demonstrates that people find it far easier to assume that humans are like apes than that apes are like humans. The leveling tendency would, in reality, go only one way—downward.

As it happens, recently released declassified documents show that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin did in fact try breeding humans and chimpanzees, according to a recent article in The Scotsman:

Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.
According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."

In 1926 the Politburo in Moscow passed the request to the Academy of Science with the order to build a "living war machine".

Of course it didn't work. The fact that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes and chimpanzees have 24 likely proved an inconveniences.

Humorist Andy Borowitz seems to have struck the right note

Hollywood, which has been buzzing with rumors of a torrid romance between the former "Friends" star and the giant ape, got the news today from an official spokesperson representing Tinseltown's latest power couple.

"Jennifer and King Kong will be married this June," said Sherrie Lasky, the couple's publicist. "We hope the press and the public will respect their privacy."

If we are going to have cognitive dissonance, it may as well be funny.

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Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O’Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She is also co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

by Denyse O’Leary
ARN correspondent

Recently, while doing research for a book on human neuroscience issues, I ran into a really neat explanation of the brain, as follows:

Neurologist Paul MacLean first proposed in 1970 that the human brain has three parts, each one of which grew on top of the other, over evolutionary time:

- the reptilian brain (includes the brain stem and cerebellum)
- the limbic brain, associated with mammals, is responsible for emotions. It contains such structures as the amygdala and the hippocampus.
- the neocortex is best developed in primates and is associated with abstract thought, imagination, consciousness, and language.

This "three brains" hypothesis sounds neat — three nested brains — but it does leave the reptile without the ability to feel emotions other than aggression or perhaps fear.

Indeed, Maclean himself liked to say that "it is very difficult to imagine a lonelier and more emotionally empty being than a crocodile." For example, two behaviors that he did not think crocodilians could manage were care for offspring and playfulness.

Indeed, the vacant reptilian brain has even achieved a minor pop psychology status in business consulting as the last word in lack of creativity or caring.

One really good thing about the "three brains" hypothesis is that it can be tested. That's a key sign of a good hypothesis in science. Does the evidence reasonably show that crocodilians do not show emotions other than fear or aggression?

Doc Gater, who has wrestled and tagged hundreds of Mississippi alligators for conservation purposes, told me recently how he catches alligators in order to tag them:

Using a headlight on my head, I can see the eye shine of an alligator several hundred meters on a dark night. I then call the alligator for a closer look by mimicking the alarm call of a baby alligator and make splashing sounds with my hand in the water. The sound is irresistible and the alligator swims toward the boat. If I am working in a new area I can usually call about 80% of the alligators close enough for their heads to hit the boat.

When I call alligators by making the grunting call of a young alligator it attracts alligators of all sizes. It is unclear if they are simply curious or if they will defend the young. It is akin to the alarm call a newborn calf will make where the entire herd will indeed come and defend the young one.

So whether they are trying to be helpful or are merely curious, the alligators do not seem to realize that they are not supposed to care ...

Smith also told me, regarding the mother alligator's concern for her brood and the young alligators' awareness of each other:

Most mother alligators will viciously defend the nest containing incubating eggs and she has a very small home range (less than a third of an acre) during the 9-12 week incubation period. We know there is maternal care because the mother alligator MUST dig out the hatchlings and will often carry them to the water in her mouth. Also the grunting sound they make before hatching helps them all to hatch together and get the mother's attention. In fact if one puts less well developed eggs in a nest they too will hatch with the others, but with their yoke sacks still outside their bodies and will soon die. The young stay close to the mother and usually hibernate with the mother the first year or two. It remains unknown if the female alligator will actively defend the young after hatching, but her presence is certainly deterrence.

Alligators also seem to have something like a love life. According to gator expert Lindsey Hord, quoted in the southwest Florida News-Press, during mating season:

"You'll get higher visibility in males: Their mind is somewhere else, like teenage boys," Hord said. "They're showing themselves out. You'll see them in the middle of lakes and ponds with much of their body exposed. It's like saying to the females, 'This is my pond. This is how big I am.' "

And the 'gators seem to be attached to their home swamps as well. Smith notes,

Alligators also have an uncanny ability to return home after being moved. In Florida nuisance alligators are often relocated (as are bears in our parks), but were found to return in a few weeks. They finally concluded they MUST be relocated over 500 miles to avoid their return.

No one claims that alligators give to charity or solve equations, of course. But, based on evidence, it is reasonable to ask whether the reptilian brain is as lonely as proponents of the "three brains" hypothesis believe. And if the reptilian brain is not so lonely, is the "three brains" hypothesis really a satisfactory account of the evolution of the brain?

About the playfulness question, I haven't any information. If alligators are indeed playful, the over-curious human risks becoming a plaything. I have not heard of anyone so far who has volunteered for the basic research.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O’Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She is also co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

Dr. G sends his Christmas greetings to our ARN web visitors with this special year-end column in response to the recent Kitzmiller v. Dover court decision about Intelligent Design:

A proposed letter to my Hospice patients in light of the ruling in Dover.

Dear Hospice Patient:

Recently a ruling was made in a federal court, with respect to the separation of faith and state, concluding that intelligent design in biology is not Science.

Since I am a medical scientist (physician) who is reimbursed by the state for my services and you are a biological entity (human being) that is enrolled in a state funded program, it is my unhappy duty to inform you that henceforth I will no longer be able to adequately tend to your spiritual needs.

I realize that as a human being who is approaching imminent death, the questions surrounding the mystery of life take on great import, so much so that significant existential angst may be the result. However, with this ruling, Judge Jones has made the legal decision that your concerns have been determined to be unfounded and irrelevant to all practical biological science and therefore I must comply with his judgment.

Please be advised however that for your physical and emotional comfort I will continue to prescribe for you intelligently designed pharmaceutical agents which work by acting upon, the now legally determined, unintelligently designed enzymes and receptors that are necessary for life.

Sincerely yours,
Howard Glicksman M.D.

While the Darwinists are celebrating in the streets over Judge Jones' Dover decision outlawing ID and criticism of Darwin's theory, Paul Nelson explains in this blog entry why nothing has really changed. Be sure to read his previous comments link about anti-glacier books. Between the two (one written before the decision and one after) Paul gives us a pretty good bird's eye perspective on why nothing has really changed.

"Issuing theological statements isn't normally thought of as the job of a federal judge. Yet, this week when U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III released the first federal ruling on intelligent design, there was at the core of his written decision an unambiguously theological ruling: that evolution as formulated by Charles Darwin presents no conflict with the God of the Bible. Quite apart from what one thinks of his legal decision, what should we make of his theology?"

David Klinghoffer writes in the Seattle Times that Judge Jones decision to declare it is constitutional to expose young people to one such worldview, but not lawful to introduce them to another, is not really education. It is indoctrination.

In the Colorado Springs Gazette, Brian Newsome reports on a state legislator's thoughts on introducing ID into public school, but without the "mandatory" wording.

Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, believes the Pennsylvania ruling and a general culture of “political correctness” will leave school boards afraid to take up the topic. He wants to draft legislation that would allow school districts to teach intelligent design.

Intelligent design is not covered in Colorado statutes. If a school board attempted to add intelligent design to a curriculum, its legality probably would be determined by a lawsuit, as it was in Pennsylvania.

Brophy’s idea will receive a chilly greeting at the Statehouse.

Reasons to Believe, a Christian science/faith organization, issued a press release on the Dover ruling.

"As currently formulated, 'intelligent design' is not science," says biochemist, Dr. Fazale 'Fuz' Rana. "It is not testable and does not make predictions about future scientific discoveries."

Rana continued by saying that "at Reasons To Believe, our team of scientists has developed a theory for creation that embraces the latest scientific advances. It is fully testable, falsifiable, and successfully predicts the current discoveries in origin of life research."

Terry Devitt, reporting for the University of Wisconsin, writes on the frustration of scientists trying to fit the facts of natural history into a Darwinistic framework.

Considering that the general theory of evolution (macro-evolution) is a "fact", this is puzzling.

Stephen Dyer, reporter for The Akron Beacon Journal, writes on the Dover ruling's affect in Ohio.

It is truly amazing how each side sees such different potentials from the same ruling. Read on for the details.

Fox News reports that U.S. Senator Rick Santorum says he intends to withdraw his affiliation with the Christian-rights law center that defended a school district's policy mandating the teaching of "intelligent design."

"I thought the Thomas More Law Center made a huge mistake in taking this case and in pushing this case to the extent they did," Santorum said Wednesday. He said he would end his affiliation with the center.

The Discovery Institute vigorously encouraged the Dover School Board to not mandate the reading of a four paragraph statement which led to the case.

David DeWitt, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow has provided a short analysis of the decision in the Dover School Board case. DeWolf is a professor of law at Gonzaga University and the author of a briefing book for public school administrators, Teaching the Controversy: Darwinism, Design and the Public School Curriculum.

From Creation-Evolution Headlines comes commentary on a guide on how to win over the reluctant to evolution.

Dr. Albert Alschuler, of the School of Law at the University of Chicago, has posted his opinion on Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.

He opines, "If fundamentalism still means what it meant in the early twentieth century, however, accepting the Bible as literal truth, the champions of intelligent design are not fundamentalists. They uniformly disclaim reliance on the Book and focus only on where the biological evidence leads. The court’s response – 'well, that’s what they say, but we know what they mean', is uncivil...an illustration of the dismissive and contemptuous treatment that characterizes much contemporary discourse. Once we know who you are, we need not listen. We’ve heard it all already".

This trial was truly not about ID, it was about what one confused judge thinks about ID. The success of ID will not depend on its success in the courtroom, but rather on its success in the scientific realm.

Read on.

A press release concerning the Dover decision from IDnet (Kansas) is available for viewing. The title says it all.

Commentator Joe Loconto, the William E. Simon Fellow in religion at the Heritage Foundation, gives his opinion on the Dover decision on NPR's All Things Considered. It's definitely worth a listen.

An opinion piece by David Klinghoffer of the Discovery Institute appears in the National Review Online.

Klinghoffer opines by saying that "Tuesday's ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania, disparaging intelligent design as a religion-based and therefore false science, raises an important question: If ID is bogus because many of its theorists have religious beliefs to which the controversial critique of Darwinism lends support, then what should we say about Darwinism itself? After all, many proponents of Darwinian evolution have philosophical beliefs to which Darwin lends support.

'We conclude that the religious nature of Intelligent Design would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child,' wrote Judge John E. Jones III in his decision, Kitzmiller v. Dover, which rules that disparaging Darwin's theory in biology class is unconstitutional. Is it really true that only Darwinism, in contrast to ID, represents a disinterested search for the truth, unmotivated by ideology?"

So, according to the judge, Darwinists do NOT have a worldview agenda? Klinghoffer gives many examples of the Darwinist's agenda and disingenuous nature of executing the forced acceptance of their worldview and scientism.

Many have said this ruling was so poor that it may help ID in the long run. It reminds one of the current movie Chronicles of Narnia, where the White Witch and her minions are gleefully dancing after the execution of Aslan. Just wait till tomorrow.

The above story by Fox News is typical of many stories across the world. Getting some of the details correct, but not all.

For instance, while the reading of "the statement" would have been mandatory, ID would not have been taught in the Dover School District.

Some comments from those in the higher ranks of the ID movement:

- Is ID science or not? If it's science, some judge's opinion somewhere doesn't really matter. He can't make things true that are actually false or false that are actually true. He delays the day of reckoning.

- Has a court ever considered whether a civil rights ordinance would be unconstitutional because a legislator thought he was conforming the country to the will of God that all people be treated equally?

- Welcome to the USSA where you can't question the anti-religious motives of those who want the exclusive teaching of the Theory of Unintelligent Design in our public schools.

- The judge said IDers "have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors". The ACLU could not have written it any better. By implication, evolution is just science.

- U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs.
Sounds like we should be hearing some perjury trials coming up, if this is true.

- The judge's ruling said "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy".

In my mind, this is one of the most misleading statements in the opinion. It ignores the fact that everyone has a metaphysical commitment of some kind. It buys into the positivist notion that philosphical materialism or naturalism is somehow neutral, unbiased, and can be simply ignored.

- The judges opinion says that "to preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, § 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any schoolwithin the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID."

Does this mean that Punctuated Equilibrium (a criticism/alternative of traditional evolutionary theory) cannot be required to be taught? What about endosymbiotic theory a la Margulis? Surely that denigrates Darwin's gradualistic vision. Does this forever enshrine a 19th century theory as everlasting dogma, regardless of where future science leads? This is a sad day for Dover.

No doubt, opponents of ID will spin this story to dizzying proportions: some with a humble tone, and some not, such as this example in Time online.

You asked for it and here it is: Mind Preceded Matter 12 Month Wall Calendar

It includes thirteen stunning space photos from the Hubble Telescope and twelve fabulous quotes about the design of the universe. Order today and request overnight shipping to get it before Christmas.

Merry Christmas from the ARN Staff!

Judge Jones ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and accepted the theory that the board's policy was adopted as part of the "Wedge" strategy. Here is an excerpt that summarizes his opinion:

“The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.”

There were some surprise statements in the decision such as the implication that teachers in Dover cannot criticize the theory of evolution in any way:

"To preserve the separation of church and state mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Art. I, § 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we will enter an order permanently enjoining Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory known as ID."

What are they afraid of? Apparently Judge Jones has forgotten what Justice Jackson said in the flag salute case:

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion." West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943)

Although there was some fascinating testimony by ID scientists such as Michael Behe and Scott Minnich, and many interesting aspects to the case, Discovery Institute and many other supporters of Intelligent Design saw this as a poor test case for ID and predict that this will be just the first court case on the Intelligent Design, not the last.

A column by Dennis Byrne in the Chicago Tribune speaks to the overarching quest to answer the "Big Question" about origins. This is a fair and balanced piece, which deserves a look.

The Dover trial decision by Judge John E. Jones III is expected on Tuesday. Read this article by Ap in the Philadelphia Daily News.

In the continuing saga of Dr. Paul Mirecki, backers of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Kansas have sent a postcard to potential donors, seeking to distance themselves from the department’s former chairman. Read the article by AP picked up by the Kansas City Star.

This column by Douglas Baynton in the Washington Post is the kind of muddled thinking that will bring further shame to, and possibly eventually bring down the Darwinists.

Baynton presents a false dichotomy: either understand the world as a meaningful place of beauty and purpose or a mechanical, meaningless accident to be understood via material causes only.

Given this false dichotomy, it's amazing how much scientific progress was made when many scientists were theists in the 17th and 18th centuries.

According to Baynton, since theistic scientists said silly or stupid things in the 19th century, then ID is worthy of ridicule today. Following that line of argument, since Darwin was a racist, then Neo-Darwinism isn't worth holding to today!

One who follows ID closely commented that "Braynton is committing the fallacy of composition, arguing that whatever is true of the parts of something must true of the whole. Some 19th century design thinkers said stupid things, but it does not follow from that that those stupid statements get transferred to all design advocates. It would be like saying, 'Stephen Douglas and other 19th century Democrats believed that states should have the right to permit slavery, so therefore, if 21st century Democrats were to achieve political power again, then we would see a resurgence of proslavery-state rhetoric.'"

Baynton's thinking needs to be exposed for what it is...nonsense.

Amanda Gefter, on NewScientist.com, gets into the mind of Leonard Susskind. He is the Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University in California. His new book is titled Cosmic Landscape: String theory and the illusion of intelligent design.

It is an interesting Q & A session on string theory and the naturalistic scientist's grappling with origins. He admits that multiverse theory is unfalsifiably, but will not give an inch to ID.

The last question and paragraph are telling:

"If we do not accept the landscape idea are we stuck with intelligent design"?

"I doubt that physicists will see it that way. If, for some unforeseen reason, the landscape turns out to be inconsistent - maybe for mathematical reasons, or because it disagrees with observation - I am pretty sure that physicists will go on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say that if that happens, as things stand now we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature's fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics. One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID."

Sorry Dr., but it would be much more faith-based than what ID is really about.

Ellen Berry, writer for the LA Times, reports on the Cobb County Georgia book sticker ruling.

A federal appeals court panel appeared sharply critical Thursday of a ruling this year that ordered the removal of stickers in science textbooks stating, "Evolution is a theory, not a fact."

Science Education book by Michael Poole added to ARN catalog.

Someone recently brought this gem to our attention which was originally published in Britain in 1995. Much of the raging Darwin vs Design debate boils down to the worldview of scientists, educators, school boards, or editors that are in command, and how that worldview is imposed on those with different worldviews. The debate is seldom over the scientific data, but the framework within which that data is interpreted.

This book hits that issue head on. If if more educators teaching science would embrace Poole's wise guidance on addressing Beliefs and Values in Science Education in an honest an open fashion we believe much of the public agnst over teaching Darwin or Design would dissipate.

Consider this quote from the preface of the book:

An Educational Model

"the sensible educator...will not expect or intend to produce an educated adult who has no beliefs, values, or attitudes, which he cannot rationally defend against all commers and who is incapable of settled convictions, deep-seated virtues, or profound loyalties. But neither will he treat his pupils in such a way as to leave them with closed minds and restricted sympathies. The process of being educated is like learning to build a house by actually building one and then having to live in the house one has built

It is a process in which the individual inevitably requires help. The extreme authoritarian helps by building the house himself according to what he believes to be the best plan and making the novice live in it. He designs it in such a way as to make it as difficult as possible for the novice to alter it. The extreme liberal leaves the novice to find his own materials and devise his own plan, for fear of exercising improper influence. The most he will do is to provide strictly technical information if asked. The sensible educator helps the novice to build the best house he can (in the light of accumulated experience). He strikes a balance between the need to produce a good house and the the desirability of letting the novice make his own choices; but he is careful that the house is designed in such a way that it can subsequently be altered and improved as the owner, no longer a novice, sees fit."

-- Professor Basil Mitchell, The Durham Report

With this model in mind, Michael Poole engages the topics of science standards; beliefs and values about science; language, concepts and models; environmental beliefs and values; cosmology and creation; the Galileo affair; and the Darwinian controversies. His approach to science education is an excellent example on how to move forward with the Darwin vs. Design controversy in a pluralistic society.

A free, 31 page study guide in pdf format for Nancy Pearcey's book Total Truth is available on the Web site above. Merry Christmas from the Pearceys!

On the CBC Web site an article describes that scientists have figured out the functions of the narwhal whale tusk.

How did that evolve by random chance and natural selection? How many lucky steps occurred, and was there enough time for this to happen? Oh, the faith of the Darwinists!

On Friday, December 16th, the University of Leiden in the Netherlands will hold a half-day symposium on ID. The Web site is in Dutch. The question addressed in the symposium is, "Is ID about theology or science?"

ID is becoming a global topic.

On Human Events Online, Casey Luskin, of the Discovery Institute, is published. The opinion is a clear thinking, right-on-the-mark, critique of recent ID articles by Charles Krauthammer and George Will.

When I read those articles, my first thought was, "Didn't they do their homework (rhetorical question)?"

Luskin answers that question.

A story by Ryan Alessi, reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader, investigates what may be going on politically with ID in Kentucky. Too bad he didn't interview anyone with a good working knowledge of ID to get a good sound bite from our side.

A story on the ID controversy at ISU by Marcos Rivera, Virginia Arrigucci and Emily Schaefer appears in the Iowa State Daily.

A seminar, led by Hector Avalos, Jim Colbert and Michael Clough titled "The Nature of Science: 'Why the Overwhelming Consensus of Science is that Intelligent Design is not Good Science,'" will be held to explore why the majority of scientists are coming out in such strong opposition to introducing Intelligent Design as a science.

Avalos said he is not in favor of completely dismissing the theory, but thinks it should be introduced in the philosophy or religious studies departments rather than as a science.

One person who will not be attending the discussion forums is Guillermo Gonzalez, author of "The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery," assistant professor of physics and astronomy. He says that the arguments for ID are not based on religion.

"I don't intend to participate in any kind of forum presented by the opposing side," Gonzalez said.

Larry Caldwell's voice is being heard in California, with regard to a proposed Quality Science Education Policy, dedicated to improving how Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is taught in public schools.

This is his response to the editorial on the subject in the Sacramento Bee. You may need to register to read the opinion.

Sophia Maines, of the Lawrence-World Journal, writes on the continuing saga of Dr. Mirecki. Seems he's unhappy with the sheriff's department and KU. You be the judge.

This is an excellent opinion letter in the Rocky Mountain News by professor Doug Groothuis, of Denver Seminary.

Straw men are easy for the other side to knock down. Of course, it's a deceptive practice, and a waste of people's time.

Dave Carhart writes a lucid opinion letter in the Chicago Tribune.

It's definitely worth a read, and you need to do a free register with the Trib.

Chris Kahn, of the Sun-Sentinel, writes on a flap over a new biology textbook that makes a mention of ID.

Teachers should decide whether to buy a textbook that tells students about intelligent design, not Superintendent Frank Till, the Broward County Teacher's Union said Friday.

Till made the decision on his own Thursday when he said references to the creationist idea would be cut out of Biology: The Dynamics of Life, one of two books under consideration for use in local classrooms.

Seems the thought police are everywhere. WIll he use scissors?

Pillars of Naturalism

Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Charles Darwin are considered the pillars of modern western thought. They differed in many ways but had one thing in common—they were reductionists who claimed that all higher realms of existence could be explained by lower natural causes. They were the pillars of naturalism.

But their ideas were tested during the twentieth century and found wanting. Freud was the first fall. Incidents in his career were cited to call into question both his integrity and his scientific competence, and psychiatry seemed to make more progress through medication than through Freudian analysis. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s inflicted a death blow on Marxism, which is now seen as not only failing to deliver its promised utopia but as creating an inhumane tyranny. Darwin is the last man standing, but his theory is rapidly eroding as modern biological science reveals amazing complexity and design that cannot possibly be explained by Darwin’s proposed mechanism of random mutations and natural selection. This led Phillip Johnson to summarize the situation one day with the phrase that appears on this shirt: “Freud is dead, Marx is dead, and Darwin is not feeling very well.”

Elizabeth Pennisi, writing for ScienceNOW Daily News, reports that a new survey of marine life indicates that "simple" organisms such as corals and sea anemones have many of the same genes and complex gene families, consisting of many closely related genes derived from the same ancestral gene as we do.

The complexity of genes is causing all to pause...and wonder.

Listen to a debate between William Dembski and Michael Shermer on audiomartini.

The Wichita Eagle picked up the story from the Kansas City Star by David Klepper, regarding the embattled Dr. Paul Mirecki of the University of Kansas.

Dr. Mirecki claimed he was beaten up by people sympathetic with creationism or ID on a lonely rural road south of Lawrence, Kansas this past Monday. While many believe he should be given the benefit of the doubt, some aren't so charitable, such as the piece you can access by clicking HERE.

You may recall, Dr. Mirecki said some rather unkind things about people of faith and ID proponents in a letter to his friends. He was going to teach a course at KU the next semester which called ID a myth (among other things), but the course was canceled shortly after his e-mail became public.

MyrtleBeach online picks up the story by Lisa Anderson of the Chicago Tribune.

It examines the three possibilities of the judicial decision in the Dover trail. The ruling could range from landmark to local. No matter what the outcome, you can bet the political spin will be dizzying.

"There is a disturbing trend of scientists, teachers, and students coming under attack for expressing support in the theory of intelligent design, or even just questioning evolution," said Robert Crowther director of communications for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture.

For the disturbing details, read the entire blog on the Discovery Institute Web site in Evolution News & Views.

MSNBC carries a stroy by Victoria Bosch in Newsweek.

For students who doubt the validity of evolution, college science class can be daunting. What happens when beliefs and schoolwork collide?

IDEA Clubs are mentioned in the piece.

We are pleased to announce that a 25% discount will be made available on any of the Intelligent Design T-shirts and merchandise in our Café Press store on December 7th and 8th.

On those two days (this Wed & Thur) any Café Press orders will receive the following discounts:

HOL5 $5 off $20
HOL10 $10 off $40
HOL25 $25 off $100

When you checkout just enter the HOL5, HOL10, or HOL25 in the Coupon/Promotional Code box on the checkout page and if your order total (before tax and shipping) exceeds the $20, $40 or $100 threshold, the discount will be applied to your order. The coupon codes are only valid Dec 7-8, 2005.

Cheers,
The ARN Staff

On space.com, Seth Shostak thinks that IDers are being less than honest when using the SETI program to bolster support for ID.

You can read a rebuttal from David Coppedge on the Creationsafari Web site by clicking HERE.

Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute reports on another proposed course mentioning ID to be taught at Knox College in Illinois. Knox will also host Phil Johnson in February.

A link to a story about sloppy reporting in the New York Times is also found on the link above.

William Dembski comments on an article in the New York Times on the Templeton Foundation and its willingness to support proposals for actual research.

Dr. Stephen C. Meyer states our case for ID in the National Post (Canada)

An article by Kenneth Silber on Tech Central Station briefly looks into String Theory and ID.

The multi-verse hypothesis is brought up, which is a way for atheists and Darwinists to brush aside the idea of an uncaused intelligence. The only problem is we will never know if multiverses exist, because they can never break into this space-time continuum. It takes as much, if not more, faith to believe in them as an eternal, intelligent being.

In the National Review online, Mustafa Akyol, a Muslim writer based in Istanbul, Turkey, and one of the expert witnesses who testified to the Kansas State Education Board during the hearings on evolution, writes on the cultural bridge that ID could offer.

Akyol points out that in a New Republic cover story, "The Case Against Intelligent Design," Jerry Coyne implied that all non-Christians, including Muslims, should be alarmed by this supposedly Christian theory of beginnings that "might offend those of other faiths." Little does he realize that if there is any view on the origin of life that might seriously offend other faiths, including Islam, it is the materialist dogma: the assumptions that God, by definition, is a superstition, and that rationality is inherently atheistic.

The New York Times picked up on this Reuters story.

Ronald Numbers said that the proponents of intelligent design "want to change the definition of science" to include God, an issue he predicted would end up in the Supreme Court. He added, "one of the most successful PR campaigns we've seen in recent years is intelligent design."

John Milburn, writing in Guardian Unlimited, reports that the course at KU, which was to be taught by professor Mirecki, has been canceled.

Not surprising, because of the furor that arose from his arrogant and condescending attitude revealed in an email to his pals that became public.

Dr. Gerald Schroeder of MIT discusses the amazing odds against random mutation to create anything remotely complex on aish.com.

Boggles the mind...atheists dare not read this.

The new book by Tom Bethell, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, is now available through ARN. There are many interesting topics covered, including the crumbling of Darwinism.

This is a must read for scientists like me, who get asked about Global warming and Darwinism frequently.

A joint op-ed column by Bob Beckel and Cal Thomas appears in USA Today.

Beckel begins by saying, "Cal, I'm going to stray from the consensus liberal line on the issue of intelligent design. The Dover, Pa., school board had a good reason to allow the teaching of intelligent design as a scientific alternative to Darwinism in the school system's science classes. Despite the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community that evolution is the sole explanation for all living things, these scientists have yet to prove the theory conclusively. Not only are there still gaping holes in the evolutionary chain from single cells to man, the science crowd hasn't come close to explaining why only man among all living things has a conscience, a moral framework and a free will".

Thomas then adds, "What I find curious about this debate, not only in Pennsylvania, but in Kansas and throughout the country, is that so many scientists and educators are behaving like fundamentalist secularists. Only they will define science".

Much more good dialogue in this piece...

We have added new links at the ARN home page. The combination of watching Meyer talk about design and then Dawkins talk about "apparent design" and his faith in natural selection makes for an excellent one-two punch.

The links are near the top, in the center of the home page.

Denis Boyle writes in National Review, about the recent debate and antics of the opposition.

The chairman of KU’s religious-studies department, Paul Mirecki, and the campus group he mentors, the 120-member "Society of Open-minded Atheists and Agnostics" is exposed for what he and they are.

Beware, there is some profane and possibly offensive language in the piece.

On the Human Events Online Web site Nancy Pearcey weighs in on the debate and shows why a paradigm shift to ID will occur.

A story on NPR by Barbara Bradley Hagerty treats the subject fairly.

Express you appreciation to NPR for this story. Ms. Hagerty has received condescending emails in the past from the opposition.

To get to the NPR reply form, click on "contact us" at the top of the webpage, then click the circle "NPR Program" and select "All things considered" from the drop-down menu.

The controversy is discussed in an article in the Harvard Crimson by Sarah E. F. Milov.

Leading scholars on the issue at Harvard Divinity School (HDS) and other divinity schools say their faculties have almost no proponents of intelligent design.

Michael Behe says that the intelligent design argument is purely scientific and is in no way related to the creationism debates of the early twentieth century.

Mark U. Edwards Jr., professor of the history of Christianity and associate HDS dean for academic affairs, says intelligent design is bad science and bad theology.

Edwards has an explanation for the persistence of a contentious dialogue between science and religion. "One quarter of the population is evangelical," Edwards says. "They aren’t very sophisticated."

Excuse me while I knuckle-drag my way to the kitchen for a snack...

Recently a discussion on ID and Darwinism took place at Warwick University in the UK.

To have a listen, go to the site above and scroll down a bit.

by Denyse O’Leary
ARN correspondent

A fungus called haptoglossa mirabilis uses a harpoon gun
to attack the rotifer (a microscopic animal) and nematode a simple type of worm that is one of the most common life forms on Earth. (Nematodes survived the destruction of Challenger space shuttle.)

The harpoon injects the reproductive cells (sporidium) of the fungus into the worm, and the junior fungi consume it within the next couple of days. They then germinate to form clusters of gun cells.

According to University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) researcher George Barron, the technology by which the fungus consumes the nematode is tiny but sophisticated:

The head of the harpoon is laminated. This means that it is compressible. As it is pushed up the barrel of the gun it will fit tightly and prevent leakage to maintain maximum muzzle velocity. As it emerges from the muzzle it pierces the cuticle of the nematode. At the head emerges it will 'decompress' and make a hole wider than the width of the bore. This will facilitate penetration by the everting tubular "hypodermic".

The gun cell is anchored to the substratum by a mucilaginous glue. It also has a swollen base. When the base is anchored the business end of the gun cell is then tilted upwards at an angle of about 30 degrees which is very suitable for contact with the nematodes and rotifers that graze bacteria in the vicinity of the cell.

The basal vacuole is the power pack for the cell. It is at high Osmotic Pressure. When the gun cell is released the pressure up front is removed and water flows in rapidly through the semipermeable membrane surrounding the vacuole. This squeezes the protoplasm and nucleus, like toothpaste, through the tubular hypodermic. The Haptoglossa gun cell is only about 15 microns long.

Just how do life forms such as haptoglossa acquire sophisticated equipment, given that they do not, so far as we know, have intelligence in the human sense? Darwinian evolutionists argue that such technologies evolve through a long, slow process of natural selection. However, a harpoon gun that Haptaglossa needs in order to reproduce itself can hardly wait years for Service Pack 2 before it works properly.

It was questions like this that prompted Gordon Rattray Taylor, a well-known British science journalist in the 1970s, to write a book, published in 1982 shortly after his death, in which he asked some probing questions about the traditional Darwinian explanations. He focused on a different creature that also uses a gun mechanism, as you will see from this excerpt from By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004. p. 93):

A Mystery of the Natural World A Worm Armed for War

Gordon Rattray Taylor was a well-respected British science writer, and Chief Science Advisor to BBC Television. Shortly before his death in 1981, he completed a book, The Great Evolution Mystery, in which he explained why he questioned Darwinism and neo-Darwinism. He relates, for example, the strange tale of the relationship between the pond hydra (Hydra) and the flatworm Microstomum.

The pond hydra is a tiny creature, shaped like a tube, with a mouth end and a foot end. It proceeds through life by rolling end over end. Some species of hydra hunt and protect themselves with a battery of poison guns: tiny stinging cells mounted on their surface that fire a coiled, poisoned hair, with a second hair serving as the trigger.

The hydra is usually safe from the flatworm, but every so often a flatworm seeks out and consumes a hydra. The worm somehow swallows the hydra’s poison gun apparatus without digesting it, and then positions the guns on its own surface. It uses the guns for its own protection; one species actually fires them like rockets at assailants.

As long as the flatworm has ammunition from a previous meal, it ignores hydras. However, when it is low on ammunition, it finds another hydra, eats it, and repeats the cycle.

Taylor asks how a creature with no brain or complex nervous system learns this routine. How does it remember and pass it on? He writes: "The theory of evolution by natural selection is powerless to explain how chance variation could have evoked such a closely coordinated programme."

Taylor believed that evolution occurs, and he also believed that random natural selection played a role in evolution. However, he came to doubt Darwinism, the idea that random natural selection and a few other naturalistic processes explain the life we see around us. Rather, he argued that "we seem to see a purposiveness of the kind which Darwinists refuse to believe in."* Taylor did not believe that this purposiveness—or purpose—was part of a divine plan. He thought it was implicit in the nature of life itself.

Whether the purpose Taylor spoke of resides in the nature of life itself or in something beyond life, many today find it increasingly difficult to ignore—which is why the intelligent design controversy has become so fierce .

(*See Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery (London: Secker & Warburg, 1982), pp. 14–15.For microstomum, search at.)

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O’Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007).

An AP story reports that, in a written apology, Paul Mirecki, chairman of the university's Religious Studies Department, said he would teach the planned class "as a serious academic subject and in an manner that respects all points of view."

In an email to associates and friends, his real thoughts and emotions on the subject came out.

Rep. Brenda Landwehr, vice chairwoman of the Kansas House Appropriations Committee, called the e-mail "venomous," adding, "He's not sorry he wrote it. He's sorry it became public."

So true.

The controversy between Darwinism and Intelligent Design has, in addition to sparking lively, and sometimes vitriolic exchanges, caused a rise in sales of merchandise on both sides.

This AP story in the Kansas City Star describes that phenomenon.

Russell Jacoby, a professor of history at UCLA, opines in the LA Times on why controversy should not always be taught in the university, and chimes in with an ID example. One interesting comment by Dr. Jacoby is that ID "is now mandated to be taught in five states and proposed in 20 others." Truth is, ID is not mandated to be taught in any one of the United States.

According to Jacoby, the jargon of choice and diversity actually corrodes academic freedom, which once referred to the freedom of college instructors to teach what they considered salient, subject to the review of their peers, not outside authorities. Today, it increasingly means the freedom of students to hear what they, or their parents want.

Using material from the Boston College Honors web site:

What is a Liberal Education?

The British playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, with more wit perhaps than truth, that a school is much like a prison, indeed worse since in a prison at least the inmates aren't forced to read books written by the warden and the guards. Well, you may have felt this way once or twice during the years you've spent in school, but a good education should have precisely the opposite effect. It should "free" a person, Aristotle thought, from the bondage of unexamined opinions, prejudices, and ignorance.

The American university in the late 20th century has become a supermarket of bewildering choices, reflecting the breakdown of agreement in our culture about what is worth knowing. In contrast, we in the Honors Program believe that there is no better foundation for an education than a solid grasp of the history of the debate--from Homer and the Hebrew Bible to our own century--about the perennial topics that have preoccupied men and women: the origin and destiny of our lives, human nature, the just society, the constitution of the physical world, how we understand our history.

But learning the wisdom of the past is not enough. An education for a constantly changing world has to be a training in a special way of thinking: one that leads you to see connections across disciplines, to notice what the tradition has valued and what it has neglected, to challenge your own conclusions and commitments, and to prize what can be learned from people different from you. But even this style of thinking will remain incomplete, unless you use it to develop a vision of a worthwhile life for you and your neighbors and to imagine plausible ways of achieving it.

This is the real goal of a liberal education.

"Teach the Controversy" makes a lot of sense after this kind of introduction to what college is suppose to be about.

Becky Bartindale and Lisa Krieger of the San Jose Mercury News report on the lawsuit filed by Larry Caldwell against operators of a University of California-Berkeley web site that is designed to help teachers teach evolution. Caldwell claims the site improperly strays into religion.

Defendants include two top biologists from the UC Museum of Paleontology, which runs the Understanding Evolution web site (http://evolution. berkeley.edu) and an official from the National Science Foundation, who is named because the foundation provided more than $400,000 in public funding for the site.

Caldwell says that amounts to a government endorsement of certain religious groups over others, and is an effort "to modify the beliefs of public school science students so they will be more willing to accept evolutionary theory as true."

Strange but Glenn Branch of NCSE says this action encourages a "climate of hostility", and yet the University of Kansas professor's new courses are just fine, with no victims apparent there. One word to describe that: hypocrite.

ID will make its way into a second KU classroom in the fall, this time labeled as a 'pseudoscience.' Sophia Maines reports in the Lawrence World Journal of the new class at KU.

John Hoopes, associate professor of anthropology, said the course focused on critical thinking and will teach how to differentiate science and 'pseudoscience.' Intelligent design belongs in the second category, he said, because it cannot be tested and proven false.

Oddly enough, Darwinian theory is also not falsifiable. Darwin's test of irreducible complexity can always be "explained away" by creative Darwinists. The highly elastic theory will always be stretched to cover whatever is found to be the case factually. Note, in some circles the move from gradualism, once thought to be crucial to the theory by Darwin himself, to Gould's punctuated equilibria.

It is amazing when you examine the bias and hypocrisy of the professor at KU who will teach the course 'Special Topics in Religion, Intelligent Design, Creationism and othef Religious Mythologies.'

An email of his has been circulated and written about in the Lawrence World Journal. For the story by Sophia Maines, click HERE.

In addition, the upcoming class has obviously upset ID proponents. For the story by Sophia Maines, click HERE.

One could easily counter by simply observing that Professor Mirecki is uneasy with the notion that one can offer rational arguments for beliefs that fit well within a religious worldview. This attitude would stifle the intellectual development of both him and his students. At an institution funded by citizens from a wide range of worldviews, the University of Kansas faculty and administrators have an obligation to offer respectful critiques of positions with which they disagree. American pluralism requires nothing less. Professors like Mirecki appear to be narrow minded religious bigots whose passion for protecting their orthodoxy clouds their otherwise good judgment.

It's this kind of activity that should cause some Kansas legislators to
question the extent to which Kansas taxpayers should be funding state sponsored faith bashing. Imagine if a religious studies professor announced an upcoming course bashing Native American 'mythologies.'

Of course, bashing ID seems to be just fine.

Nature 438, 504-507 (24 November 2005)

Design principles of a bacterial signalling network

Markus Kollmann, Linda Lovdok, Kilian Bartholome, Jens Timmer1, and Victor Sourjik

Abstract: Cellular biochemical networks have to function in a noisy environment using imperfect components. In particular, networks involved in gene regulation or signal transduction allow only for small output tolerances, and the underlying network structures can be expected to have undergone evolution for inherent robustness against perturbations. Here we combine theoretical and experimental analyses to investigate an optimal design for the signalling network of bacterial chemotaxis, one of the most thoroughly studied signalling networks in biology. We experimentally determine the extent of intercellular variations in the expression levels of chemotaxis proteins and use computer simulations to quantify the robustness of several hypothetical chemotaxis pathway topologies to such gene expression noise. We demonstrate that among these topologies the experimentally established chemotaxis network of Escherichia coli has the smallest sufficiently robust network structure, allowing accurate chemotactic response for almost all individuals within a population.

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, who asked questions about Darwinism in a very modest way - and received a huge load of Darwinist fury in reply - asks for response: Is he stupid?

He writes:

I've been overwhelmed with e-mail and comments pointing out that I misunderstand a great many things about science. While this is certainly true, the vagueness of the accusations is robbing you of the joy of publicly humiliating me with razor-sharp specificity. Here's a chance to fix that.

Add a comment to this post that's brief and specific about what you think I got wrong in any of my blog writings. I'll publish all comments that are brief, specific and not too profane. For example, you might say, "Scott claims the moon is made of cheese." I'll publish that. But if you say, "Scott displays a lack of understanding about biochemistry," I won't publish that because it's not specific enough. Instead you might say, "Scott says biochemistry is a form of cooking," and that would be specific enough.

Brevity is key. Anything more than a paragraph will be deleted from this particular comment section. And I'll delete duplicates just to make it easier to slog through them.

Okay, go nuts.

Go here to offer a comment.

Journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy, and co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007). Her blog is The Post-Darwinist, http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/.

The Wall Street Journal points the finger at profs who encourage students to think about intelligent design, revealing along the way that world-class quantum chemist Fritz Schaefer was dissed by local bonzos on account of his interest in ID:

Some well-respected scientists have fostered the spread of intelligent design. Henry F. Schaefer, director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia, has written or co-authored 1,082 scientific papers and is one of the world's most widely cited chemists by other researchers.

Mr. Schaefer teaches a freshman seminar at Georgia entitled: "Science and Christianity: Conflict or Coherence?" He has spoken on religion and science at many American universities, and gave the "John M. Templeton Lecture" -- funded by the foundation -- at Case Western Reserve in 1992, Montana State in 1999, and Princeton and Carnegie Mellon in 2004. "Those who favor the standard evolutionary model are in a state of panic," he says. "Intelligent design truly terrorizes them."

This past April, the school of science at Duquesne University, a Catholic university in Pittsburgh, abruptly canceled its sponsorship of a lecture by Mr. Schaefer in its distinguished scientist series. According to David Seybert, dean of the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Mr. Schaefer was invited at the suggestion of a faculty member belonging to a Christian fellowship group on campus. The invitation was withdrawn after several biology professors complained that Mr. Schaefer planned to speak in favor of intelligent design. The school wanted to avoid "legitimizing intelligent design from a scientific perspective," Mr. Seybert said. Faculty members were also concerned that top students might not apply to Duquesne if they thought it endorsed intelligent design. Mr. Schaefer gave his lecture -- entitled "The Big Bang, Stephen Hawking, and God" -- to a packed hall at Duquesne under the auspices of a Christian group instead.

I love it! "Faculty members were also concerned that top students might not apply to Duquesne if they thought it endorsed intelligent design." So top students are supposed to be the kind of people who need protection from scientists like Schaefer, who challenge them, and exposed only to those who don't? No wonder Darwinism is on the way out.

Couldn't be there last April? Here's a lay-friendly lecture by Schaefer on "The Big Bang and God."

Journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy, and co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007). Her blog is The Post-Darwinist, http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/.

In a screed against politicized science, best-selling novelist Michael Crichton
trashes SETI, the search for extraterrestrial life, as merely a religion:

... the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion.

[ ... ]

Back in the sixties, SETI had its critics, although not among astrophysicists and astronomers. The biologists and paleontologists were harshest. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard sneered that SETI was a "study without a subject," and it remains so to the present day.

Crichton notes the marked unwillingness of science boffins to criticize SETI:

The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks.

But Michael, SETI did not threaten materialism. Indeed, many believed that SETI would uphold it. Anyway, Crichton argues that the gullibility index shot up through nuclear winter, second-hand smoke, and now lands us with global warming. The real problem, he thinks, is consensus:

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

Well then, the ID guys are either stars or dogs, depending on whether they are right in saying that information is a real input into nature.

Overall, a most interesting essay. Note his treatment of the much-maligned Bjorn Lomborg, who questioned global warming and became Scientific American's whipping boy:

Further attacks since have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That's why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That's why the facts don't matter. That's why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He's a heretic.

Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church.

Oh, that's nothing new, Michael. Scientific American is a flagship congregation of the Assembly of the Churches of Darwin, and behaves accordingly. Thus, I am sure the mag slid easily enough into the role of persecutor of Lomborg.

Incidentally, I heard Lomborg speak at the 4th World Science Journalists conference and thought he made some sensible (and important) observations on how we need to make real-world decisions about how to understand and tackle global warming, or we risk further damage Third World countries. The treatment of him as been a disgrace. Unfortunately, there is such a thing as consensus journalism, as well as consensus science. But at least we know what to call them. We call them the rat pack.

Journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy, and co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007). Her blog is The Post-Darwinist, http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/.

The University of Kansas will sponsor a course that studies intelligent design, but only as a form of mythology, taught by department chair Paul Mirecki.

Mirecki said his course, limited to 120 students, would explore intelligent design as a modern American mythology. Several faculty members have volunteered to be guest lecturers, he said.

I bet. I wonder if anyone will be allowed to defend ID?

Here's Mirecki's background, which is an impressive array of studies of ancient myth and magic:

John Calvert, who got the new Kansas science standards through (for which this course is clearly payback), says,

... Mirecki will go down in history as a laughingstock.
To equate intelligent design to mythology is really an absurdity, and it's just another example of labeling anybody who proposes (intelligent design) to be simply a religious nut," Calvert said. "That's the reason for this little charade."

Well, charade or not, what's needed here is for some brave students to take the risk of questioning Mirecki on slightly more modern issues such as the apparent fine tuning of the universe for life and the high level of information in cells. He could likely do with some good questions.

On the other hand, beware the curse of King Tut's Tomb, or is it King Toot's Tome or King Tote's Tum, or ... well, anyway, keep a sharp lookout.

Journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy, and co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007). Her blog is The Post-Darwinist, http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/.

Fox News picks up this AP sotry that creationism and intelligent design are going to be studied at the University of Kansas.

A course being offered next semester by the university religious studies department is titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies."

Paul Mirecki, department chairman, says "Creationism is mythology. Intelligent design is mythology. It's not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is not."

John Calvert is quoted in the short story.

Of course, scientific creationism and intelligent design are treated as being identical.

On the website LiveScience the marvels of Monarch butterfly navigation are revealed. Was this system designed or "designed" by chance?

Michael Behe was interviewed on C-SPAN on Monday. Scroll down to find the 30 minute segment.

The upcoming issue of Newsweek has a story on the controversy, with a photo of Charles Darwin on the cover.

Jonathan Witt, of the Discovery Institute, is a published guest columnist in the Seattle Times.

This op-ed piece nicely balances (in the Seattle Times) the Charles Krauthammer rant of a few days ago.

Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor for Reuters, reports on Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn's remarks on scientific creationism, Darwinism, and Intelligent Design.

The Kansas City Star picks up on a story by Garance Burke of AP, who writes on parents and students fretting over the new Kansas State Board science standards.

It is truly amazing how muddled people's thinking is on this issue. The science standards set forth in Kansas actually now fit in better with the standards in over 40 other states.

Also, wouldn't it be nice if people could just sit down and dialogue in a cordial, gentle, respectful manner instead of setting up strawman arguments and doling out ad hominems attacks? The above usually comes from the Darwinist's side, but not exclusively.

Instead of Kansas "being the laughingstock" of the US, which the other side claims is occurring, the truth is Kansas is falling into line with a majority of the rest of the states, and is taking out a narrow definition of science. That being, that science only looks for the right kind of explanations (materialistic), not the right explanations. Why in other science endeavors, criminology, SETI, archeology is intelligent agent causation allowed, yet in biology it is arbitrarily disallowed? That's the question you should continuously be asking the other side, and demanding an answer.

The New York Daily News reports on a no holds barred attack on the President and ID at an exhibit unveiling on the life of Charles Darwin at a museum event in New York.

Tom Brokaw, one of the museum patrons, was quoted as saying that the exhibit "doesn't attempt to argue the theory of evolution because there is no argument."

And other guests became even more condescending...

Charles Krauthammer opines in the Washington Post on ID....AGAIN!

He didn't get the facts right the first time, and apparently still hasn't boned-up on what ID theory is and is not.

He states, "Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud."

Maybe, with some feedback from ID proponents, his third time (opinion) will be the charm.

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) for Public Policy Research published it's newsletter Friday. In it, a short piece with the above title discusses the subject.

AEI should be taken to task for a statement in the first paragraph, which says, "The Kansas Board of Education recently voted to require that students learn about intelligent design". This, of course, is completely false. The Kansas Board encouraged more teaching of Darwinism, including it's weaknesses as a scientific theory. The words "intelligent design" do NOT appear in the standards.

From BBC News, a remarkable example of design in living creatures.

Yet the final line of the story quoting Dr. Vukusic (who discovered this feature), "When you study these things and get a feel for the photonic architecture available, you really start to appreciate the elegance with which nature put some of these things together."

Yes, it all boils down to a happy series of accidents...

On the Malaysiakini website Dr. Stefen Tan opines on ID and Darwinism.

William Dillon of the Tribune (mid Iowa) reports that 150 faculty of the University of Iowa have signed a statement denouncing the use of intelligent design in science.

The nearly 400 signatures from ISU, University of Northern Iowa and UI accounts for only about 10 percent of the faculty at the three universities.

The materialists are teaching their sectarian theological that God, if He exists, never engaged in special divine action (miracles) in the history of life. If the Iowa universities intend to exclude ID, then they must suppress their sectarian theology, which is teaching macroevolutionary biology.

This column on the EducationNews.org website by Steve Abrams, chairman of the Kansas State Board of Education, is an ABSOLUTE MUST READ for those who engage in dialogue on the subject of teaching all of Darwinism in the public schools.

It shows how the other side is disingenuously engaging in the debate with their cohorts, the media, and the public.

Well...this is not really NEWS...but it's good to be reminded of how truly powerless random mutation and natural selection (that would be Darwinism) are when examined by a brilliant scientist.

In this 1997 book review by Ashby Camp of Dr. Lee Spetner's book Not By Chance!, the odds are shown regarding the evolution of one species into another species.

After reading this, I don't have enough faith to be a true believer in Darwinian theory. How about you?

From the Univeristy of Guelph in Canada, comes a short and simplified description of the "gun cell" of a fungus known as Haptoglossa mirabilis.

Also, see another description and photos by clicking HERE to access information in a supplement to the Fifth Kingdom.

Does this looks irreducibly complex? Surely the Darwinists have come up with a detailed pathway of development! Perhaps, given enough time, anything can happen.

MSNBC reports on James Mellett, a retired professor of biology, geology and paleontology at New York University, and his defense of Darwinism.

Tristan Abbey, executive director of the Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center (IDURC) in Stanford, CA was quoted in the story. Abbey said that "when you go to an intelligent design conference, the discussion is always completely about science. It's important to acknowledge that."

Mellett said, "George Bush, our president, says he doesn't believe in evolution. The next minute, he tells the country, 'We have to watch out for the flu virus.'"

That he can try to get away with conflating micro- and macro-evolution is startling. Or is it?

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, the legendary engineer with a fashion sense*, made the mistake of offering some thoughtful comments on the intelligent design controversy. Of course, P.Z. Myers, a classic Internet Darwinist attacked Adams in the usual graceless way that does so much to encourage people to consider ID, starting with

Scott Adams, the cartoonist behind Dilbert, has written a truly clueless whine about "Darwinism". It's a mess.

Then Scott hits back, pointing out that Darwinist Myers bumbled into precisely the trap he had set - he misrepresented Scott's views:

This blogger, who calls himself PZ, is evidently a highly educated scientist, extremely informed on the topic of evolution, and quite passionate. But for reasons that fascinate the trained hypnotist in me, that brilliance doesn't extend to comprehending The Dilbert Blog. (The curious reader might want to Google cognitive dissonance to understand how something like that can happen.) That makes him the poster child for my point that the average person (me) has no credible source of information on the topic of evolution.

[ ... ]

The people who purport to have evidence of evolution do a spectacular job of making themselves non-credible. And since I don't have any relevant scientific knowledge myself, nor direct access to the data, everything I know has to come from non-credible types. To me, it's like hiring a serial cannibal as a babysitter based on the fact that he PROMISES not to eat your kids despite having eaten all the other kids on the block. It might be a fact that he's telling the truth. The problem is that he's not credible. (The other problem is that he eats your kids.)

* The fashion sense, that is, of an engineer.

(Note: P.Z. Myers crossed my own screen a while back. Speaking of how to defend Darwinism, he announces:

Please don't try to tell me that you object to the tone of our complaints. Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough. The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many schoolboard members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians.

Charming fellow, don't you think ...

Rumour control: The ID-supporting Discovery Institute is NOT paying Myers to act this way. Apparently, the service is free.)

(Additional Note: Dilbert has been, for many years, my favourite strip. Curiously, the workplace mentality at Dilbert's software company - far from originating in the Nineties computer industry, as many suppose - very much prevailed at a publishing company where I was a freelance book editor in the Eighties, well before most of us Canadian editors had ever seen a computer. For example, I recall that one Dilbert episode has employees trying to expand the size of their cubicles by piling stuff outside them. We actually did that ... until management sent round a memo telling us to stop. I tell you, if a spark had lit that place, ... hey presto! Dante's Inferno! ... )

Journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy, and co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007). Her blog is The Post-Darwinist, http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/.

Learning more about the Kansas School Board's definition of science as it relates to other states according to the Discovery Institute.

The naturalistic defintion replaced by the Kansas School Boeard was taken from Ohio's Science Standards, which got the definition from the Ohio Academy of Science. The definition is areligious.

The Louisville Courier-Journal picks up on a story by Mary Beth Schneider of the Indianapolis Star on a intelligent design debate which may heat up in the Hoosier state's House of Representatives.

This op-ed by the editorial page editor of the Jackson (TN) Sun is a fine example of someone with a strong naturalistic bias, using the talking points of Darwinists, pejorative language, and ad hominem attacks. See how many you can find, and think how you would counter each one by asking the right questions. It would be tough to have a conversation concerning ID with this gentleman...

Bill Sulon of the Patriot-News reports that the The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based proponent of intelligent design, wants judge John E. Jones to limit his ruling to the school board's actions. Opponents of the policy want a broad ruling, one that addresses not only the board's decision but the issue of whether intelligent design is science or a new term for creationism.

Jones commented that he had been given "the opportunity to preside over one of the most important trials [on the] First Amendment and the Establishment Clause."

NPR's religion correspondent, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, reports on the Richard Sternberg controversy in All Things Considered.

Eugenie Scott's comments are ridiculous, saying the the incident didn't hurt Sternberg, that he wasn't a real scientist, that he allowed a "creationist" paper to be published, and basically he should get over it.

The propaganda machine is surely working overtime at NCSE.

Douglas Kern, a lawyer, gives five reasons why ID will replace Darwinism as the reigning biological paradigm on the website Tech Central Station.

The article is informative and sometimes very funny (reason 2, ID will win because the pro-Darwin crowd is acting like a bunch of losers).

Learn and enjoy!

The literary Darwinists purport to explain why natural selection preprograms you to like certain literature:

For the common reader, "Pride and Prejudice" is a romantic comedy. His or her pleasure comes from the vividness of Austen's characters and how familiar they still seem: it's as if we know Elizabeth and Darcy. On a more literary level, we enjoy Austen's pointed dialogue and admire her expert way with humor. For similar reasons, critics have long called "Pride and Prejudic" a classic - their ultimate (if not well defined) expression of approval.

But for an emerging school of literary criticism known as Literary Darwinism, the novel is significant for different reasons. Just as Charles Darwin studied animals to discover the patterns behind their development, Literary Darwinists read books in search of innate patterns of human behavior: child bearing and rearing, efforts to acquire resources (money, property, influence) and competition and cooperation within families and communities. They say that it's impossible to fully appreciate and understand a literary text unless you keep in mind that humans behave in certain universal ways and do so because those behaviors are hard-wired into us. For them, the most effective and truest works of literature are those that reference or exemplify these basic facts.

Author D.T. Max writes as if he (or she) would really like to be able to take all this seriously, but then keeps backing away. That's not surprising. Taking it seriously would indeed be a tough job. Get this:

Literary Darwinists use this "deep history" to explain the power of books and poems that might otherwise confuse us, thus hoping to add satisfaction to our reading of them. Take for instance "Hamlet." Through the Literary Darwinist lens, Shakespeare's play becomes the story of a young man's dilemma choosing between his personal self-interest (taking over the kingdom by killing his uncle, his mother's new husband) and his genetic self-interest (if his mother has children with his uncle, he may get new siblings who carry three-eighths of his genes). No wonder the prince of Denmark cannot make up his mind.

Well, that clears that up, I guess. One of the few things Hamlet never seems to think much about (pehaps to Ophelia's fatal frustration) suddenly becomes his primary motivation (the passing on of genes). Incidentally, David Sloan Wilson, co-editor of scholarly anthology The Literary Animal, on literary Darwinism and son of novelist Sloan Wilson, appears in the next item.

Journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy, and co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007). Her blog is The Post-Darwinist, http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/.

David Sloan Wilson, noted above, also wrote an essay about a course aimed at selling Darwinism to students in Binghamton, New York. (Note: This link is a .pdf, so you may not be able to use your back browser button to get back here.)

Much of it is pretty much what you might expect, but note the following:

Choosing the subject of infanticide, I say that superficially it might seem that organisms would never evolve to kill their own offspring, but with a little thought the students might be able to identify situations in which infanticide is biologically adaptive for the parents. I ask them to form small groups by turning to their neighbors to discuss the subject for five minutes and to list their predictions on a piece of paper.

After the lists are collected, I ask the students for some of their predictions to list in front of the whole class. They are eager to talk, and reliably identify the three major adaptive contexts of infanticide: lack of resources, poor offspring quality, and uncertain paternity, along with less likely possibilities, such as population regulation, that can be set aside for future discussion. I conclude by attempting to convey the simple but profound message of the exercise: How can they, mere undergraduate students, who know almost nothing about evolution and (one hopes) know nothing at all about infanticide, so easily deduce the major hypotheses that are in fact employed in the study of infanticide for organisms as diverse as plants, insects, and mammals? That is just one example of the power of thinking on the basis of adaptation and natural selection.

I'm hardly surprised that the students are eager to talk.

Wilson coyly writes that one hopes the students "know nothing at all about infanticide." All I can say is, oh come ON! Many of them know way more than is good for them about the modern version of infanticide, abortion.

Apparently, 52% of all U.S. women who end the life of one of their children by abortion are under 25, and abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures in the United States.

No wonder students get co-opted by a course like this into inventing excuses for prehistoric infanticides. It is for their own actions and those of their friends that they are offering the rationalizations. What I find most intriguing is that we are all supposed to read the account of prehistoric infanticides and act as though North American teens today have never heard of anything remotely like that.

Don't be surprised if this course or one like it is offered at a school near you. It will be offered with taxpayer funding, but you can be pretty sure that no course that addresses post-abortion grief will be offered with taxpayer funding at the same institution. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Darwinists are not kidding, m'kay?

Journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy, and co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007). Her blog is The Post-Darwinist, http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/.

Geoff Brumfiel gets it wrong in this article on the Nature website.

In the first paragraph he states that ID is "the idea that an intelligent creator shaped the course of evolution". He should simply be saying that ID is about making design inferences. The two tenets of ID are that intelligent causes exist, and intelligent causes can be detected empirically. Period. Leave the discovery of the indentity of the designer for another discipline.

On a positive note, Casey Luskin, of the Discovery Institute is give some ink.

A piece by William Ress-Mogg in the London Times reports on the recent news of the Catholic's Church view on Darwinism.

Cardinal Paul Poupard has said that the description in Genesis of the Creation was perfectly compatible with Darwinism, if the Bible were read properly.

The Pope made his views known. For a look, click HERE.

Does the Church support a concept of God-guided Darwinism? And, how would that work, since Darwinism is an unguided, purposelss process that did not have man in mind?

Focus on the Family's Citizen Link reports on the vote in Kansas and the inability of some of the mainstream press to get it right. The standards are all about teaching more about Darwinism, not about teaching ID.

Martha Raffaele of the AP reports that voters ousted eight incumbent Dover Area school board members who favor mentioning ID as an alternative to evolution, replacing them with a slate of eight opponents who want to remove the subject from the science curriculum.

The Seattle Times picked up the story by John Hanna of the AP that the Kansas state Board of Education approved science standards for public schools today that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

The board's 6-4 vote, expected for months, was considered a victory for intelligent design advocates who helped draft the standards.

The website ScienceDaily reports on research conducted at the Wistar Institute. Wow...looks irreducibly complex!!! Read the details and be amazed!!!

A series of articles on ID by Owen Gingerich, professor emeritus of astronomy and history of science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Mass., appear on the website Science & Theology News.

Science & Theology News "takes a look at concepts of ID and presents counterpoints from scientists and theologians alike, without mudslinging or repetitive rhetoric".

ID simply argues that Darwinism, which asserts that random mutation and natural selection are all that is needed for the biological world we see today, is mistaken.

Casey Luskin, lawyer at the Discovery Institute has posted two detailed reports of the end of the Dover trial.

First, he gives a blow by blow description of Scott Minnich's cross-examination. Dr. Minnich runs a lab at the University of Idaho which studies the bacterial flagellum, and has been teaching biology at the college level for 18 years. Read the story by clicking HERE.

Also, Luskin describes the final arguments presented by the ACLU.
Read this story by clicking HERE.

Nancy Haught of the Oregonian reports that two separate panel discussions will take place on November 12th and 13th at the University of Portland.

John F. Haught, whose books include "God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution", and Michael J. Behe, who wrote "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution", will discuss the theories in two separate lectures.

Haught says, "It is not the job of science to talk about ultimate explanations. That is why I object to intelligent design being taught as a science."

I wonder why it's okay to teach Darwinism in science class, since it is an ultimate explanation (from an atheistic standpoint). Darwinism is science as a philosophy, not science as a methodology.

Errol Castens of the University of Mississippi Daily Journal, writes a favorable piece on the ID-Darwinism controversy. Part of the problem ID is having in the current debate is the science vs religion mantra of Darwinists. Castens is the religion editor of the paper, by the way.

Josh Getlin, staff writer for the LA Times, reports on Michael Behe and the Dover trial.

Time and time again we encounter the "genetic fallacy" used by the other side. Just because people who believe in the God of the Bible think ID points to the God of the Bible, doesn't mean ID isn't scientific in every respect. All you Darwinists, please respond to the scientific idea, not the people of faith who back it. It's science vs science not science vs religion.

From Laurie Goldstein of the New York Times, a piece which leans a bit to the Darwinism side.

Russ Pulliam, associate editor for the Indianapolis Star, writes a very balanced opinion piece on ID and Darwinism.

Read the Expert Report filed by Dr. Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute, which was attached to an Amicus Brief filed in Dover trial by clicking HERE.

Read about DI's true role in the trial and Dr. Scott Minnich's testimony by clicking HERE.

The Daily Nebraskan, newspaper of the University Nebraska, reports on a panel discussion titled 'Our Origins, Evolution, Intelligent Design or Creationism?' held November 3rd at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. Kelley Hascall reported that five men from scientific and religious backgrounds, including Dr. Paul Nelson, discussed various topics.

The mischaracterization as this being a battle between science and religion was brought to the fore again. In reality this is a worldview vs worldview battle with plenty of science to go around on both sides.

Laurie Goldstein of the New York Times reports on the Dover trial from the perspective of the defendant's law firm.

Mary Beth Schneider and Robert King of the Indianapolis Star report that Indiana public schools would teach "intelligent design" along with evolution under legislation that some Republican lawmakers are developing for the 2006 legislative session.

A related link in the Indianapolis Star by Michele McNeil on the Governer's take on ID in the public schools can be seen by clicking HERE.

As reported by Steven Ray Haberlin in the Ocala-Star Banner, the Marion County School District has decided to carry two ID friendly resources in its library.

There were no plans to use the materials during classroom instruction. But teachers were provided written and verbal advice on how to deal with the topic of intelligent design.

Revealing the mystery of the bacterial flagellum:
A self-assembling nanomachine with fine switching capability
JAPAN NANONET BULLETIN - 11th Issue - February 5, 2004

Keiichi NAMBA
Professor, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University
(Issued in Japanese: March 25, 2003)

(the online article contains links to many fasinating animations of the bacterial flagellum)

Nature created a rotary motor with a diameter of 30 nm. Motility of bacteria, such as Salmonella and E. coli with a body size of 1 to 2 micron, is driven by rapid rotation of a helical propeller by such a tiny little motor at its base. This organelle is called the flagellum, made of a rotary motor and a thin helical filament that grows up to about 15 micron. It rotates at around 20,000 rpm, at energy consumption of only around 10 to 16 W and with energy conversion efficiency close to 100 percent. Prof. Nambas research group is going to reveal the mechanism of this highly efficient flagellar motor that is far beyond the capabilities of artificial motors.

The flagellum is made by self-assembly of about 25 different proteins. The rotor ring made of protein FliF is the first to assemble in the cytoplasmic membrane. Then, other protein molecules attach to the ring one after another from the base to the tip to construct the motor structure. After the motor has been formed, the flagellar filament, which functions as a helical propeller, is assembled. Precise recognition of the template structure by component proteins allows this highly ordered self-assembly process to proceed without error. The flagellar filament is made of 20,000 to 30,000 copies of flagellin polymerized into a helical tube structure. Flagellin molecules are transported through a long narrow central channel of the flagellum from the cell interior to the distal end of the flagellum, where they self-assemble in a helical manner by the help of a cap complex. The cap is pentameric complex made of HAP2 and has a pentagonal plate and five leg domains, whose flexible stepping movements accompanied by rotation of the whole cap is the key mechanism to promote the efficient self-assembly of flagellin molecules by preparing just one binding site of flagellin at a time and guiding the binding.

Just a reminder that the transcripts of the Dover trial are available on the Pennsylvania ACLU web site. The trial is in day 18.

The bacterial flagellum, long the "poster child" of the ID movement, is described in stunning detail in a 34 minute movie made by the Nanotechnology Researchers Center of Japan. The link above contains the movie. To read a report, click HERE.

I don't have enough faith to be an atheist...

by Denyse O'Leary, ARN correspondent

What do biology texts bought with tax money teach (or preach) regarding the origin of life?

Most parents do not bother to read the texts their teens study from. Many might be surprised if they did. Today, I want to offer a peek into some of the stuff you can learn from a major US science text about the much-contested origin of life.

In Chapter 4 of Biology, Sixth Edition, "The Origin and Early History of Life," we are told that one of the changes from previous editions is that "The discussion of ideas about the origin of life is now much more open-ended, stressing competing hypotheses and the key role of assumptions for which there is little data."

My first thought, of course, was, well - that's a relief. So they are going to come right out and admit that origin of life is a baffling problem, as OoL researchers have often admitted. Because I have edited a book chapter on the origin of life, and therefore read up on some of this stuff, I know that such observations are mainstream rather than "pseudo"-science.

Now, how does McGraw-Hill's Biology address the problem? For the most part, the authors admit the difficulties. However they do something else, which I think should be a source of concern to parents/students/taxpayers. In the Concept Outline, we are informed,

There are both religious and scientific views about the origin of life. This text treats only the latter - only the scientifically testable.

That sounds like a logical approach to me. The mere fact that the authors are knowledgeable about current science theories, however unsatisfactory, does not qualify them to address religious theories. So far so good. Cobbler, stick to thy last.

But the authors promptly break their promise, as we shall see.

Figure 4.1 shows a lightning strike, and the caption reads

The origin of life. The fortuitous mix of physical events and chemical elements at the right place and time created the first living cells on earth.

That, of course, is a vague statement of faith in materialism or, as it is sometimes called, naturalism. Materialism is an old idea that goes back to the time of Lucretius about two and a half millennia ago, as I point out in By Design or by Chance?.

It is philosophy, not science. Science asks for evidence, for details, for specifics, not for statements of faith in the power of physical events and chemical elements, like this one. And success at explaining the detailed specifics are precisely what is lacking in the current origin of life scenarios.

The authors admit that "The first cells are thought to have arisen spontaneously, but there is little agreement as to the mechanism," and that "there is very little that we know for sure," and that "there is as yet no one answer to the question of how life originated on earth,"

Right. But despite all that, we know that materialism is the answer? How? Is it because the authors' are entitled to promulgate that philosophy in the public school system, irrespective of evidence, whereas other philosophies are forbidden? But why? has the United States established materialism as a religion, in violation of the First Amendment?

The authors also inform us that "By the time this text is published, some of the ideas presented here about the origin of life will surely be obsolete."

I am so sure that they are right about this that I wonder why origin of life is even a current topic in undergrad science, except as an optional project for interested students, just as an examination of "irreducible complexity" should be. But, in fairness to the authors, if they are required, by an unlucky arrangement of the stars or the bureaucrats, to teach OoL, then I suppose they must.

But they might have spared us the following, in Section 4:2:

Special Creation. The theory of special creation, that a divine God created life is at the core of most major religions. The oldest hypothesis about life's origins, it is also the most widely accepted. Far more Americans, for example, believe that God created life on earth than believe in the other two hypotheses. Many take a more extreme position, accepting the biblical account of life's creation as factually correct. This viewpoint forms the basis for the very unscientific "scientific creationism" viewpoint discussed in chapter 21.

(p. 62) (Note: The other two hypotheses referred to above are extraterrestrial origin and spontaneous origin.)

Later, on the same page, the authors concede that special creation might even be true:

This is not to say that the first possibility [special creation] is definitely not the correct one.

But so? I thought we weren't going to get into religion at all. Wasn't that the idea? If we must get into religion, what does it mean to say that special creation is "very unscientific" but also possibly correct?

Is science now at war with correctness, in defense of materialism? But why?

Then, the rest of the chapter speculates as enthusiastically about the origin of life as the tabloids do about movie idols' affairs, pregnancies, and breakups.

Students will learn some useful things, but principally they will learn, I fear, how to build a theoretical castle in the air. If all this stuff is "scientifically testable", just how eludes me.

In those school systems where texts are bought with public funds, this is a strange use of public funds. I am glad that no one has sued, because I think litigation bad in principle. But I am somewhat surprised that no one has sued.

Origin of life is regarded by many capable scientists as exceedingly difficult to research:

"The origin of life on the surface of the Earth is a unique historical event whose character cannot be established by experiments in contemporary laboratories ... Many scientists have taken this position on the origin of life. Jacques Monod, the distinguished French molecular biologist, said as much in 1970 in his elegant book Chance and Necessity. There is no way, he argued, that an event as improbable as the emergence of life on Earth could be analyzed by science, which is able to deal only `with events that form a class. ... A decade later, Francis H.C. Crick, co-originator of the structure of DNA, put the argument more specifically: the chances that the long polymer molecules that vitally sustain all living things, both proteins and DNA, could have been assembled by random processes from the chemical units of which they are made are so small as to be negligible, prompting the question whether the surface of the Earth was fertilized from elsewhere, perhaps from interstellar space. 'Panspermia' is the name for that."

Maddox J., What Remains To Be Discovered: Mapping the Secrets of the Universe, the Origins of Life, and the Future of the Human Race , [1998], Touchstone: New York NY, 1999, reprint, p.131.

==================================

There are substantial problems with most current reasoning around how it happened:

In a dilute prebiotic soup, reactions would be very slow indeed. A wonderful cartoon I recently saw captures this. It was entitled "The Origin of Life." Dateline 3.874 billion years ago. Two amino acids drift close together at the base of a bleak rocky cliff; three seconds later, the two amino acids drift apart. About 4.12 million years later, two amino acids drift close to each other at the base of a primeval cliff. ... Well Rome wasn't built in a day.

(Kauffman S.A., At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity [1995], Penguin: London, 1996, reprint, p.35.)

==================================

The theories currently proposed derive more from existing habits of mind than fresh observation:

In his delightful 1998 essay "Extraterrestrials: A Modern View," [Guillermo] Gonzalez noted,

The kind of origin of life theory a scientist holds to seems to depend on his/her field of specialty: oceanographers like to think it began in a deep sea thermal vent, biochemists like Stanley Miller prefer a warm tidal pool on the Earth's surface, astronomers insist that comets played an essential role by delivering complex molecules, and scientists who write science fiction part time imagine that the Earth was ''seeded" by interstellar microbes.

Ward, Peter D., and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (New York: Copernicus Springer-Verlag, 2000) . p. 69.

==================================

Journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy, and co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007). Her blog is The Post-Darwinist, http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/.

Stuart Pivar has asked Glenn Branch at NCSE to remove "or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurence" from the wording of the "Steve" declaration:

Dear Glenn Branch,

Please consider my suggestion that the Steve List statement of purpose delete the words, "or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurence"
A main point in Goulds message to us regarding how evolution works is that natural selection is not responsible for form, playing only a minor, eliminative role in the selection among a choice of forms produced by other means. You might consider installing the words "or that natural structural processes and heterochony are the major mechanisms in its occurence"

Steve believed natural selection to be an implausible explanation for design, and that those who believe it are Darwin Fundamentalists like Dawkins, Steve's nemesis.

Stuart Pivar

please visit www.stephenjgould.org for Goulds own words on the subject.

I was copied on this communication, and will post any official replies I receive.

Update note, if you just got here: A friend of the late Stephen Jay Gould insists that Gould would not have signed (Darwin lobby) National Center for Science Education's "Steve" statement against creationism - not because he supported creationism but because he disputed the importance of natural selection. Background stories:the J site, advancing the claim; Pivar's comments to me, and NCSE's reply.

A number of people have provided Gould quotes supporting a major role for natural selection, for example:

Natural selection, an immensely powerful idea with radical philosophical implications, is surely a major cause of evolution, as validated in theory and demonstrated by countless experiments. But is natural selection as ubiquitous and effectively exclusive as the ultras propose? (From "Darwinian fundamentalism" (1977) )

But then Pivar replies with

... substantial changes introduced during the last half of the twentieth century, have built a structure so expanded beyond the original core, and so enlarged by new principles of macroevolutionary explanation, that the full exposition, while remaining within the domain of Darwinian logic, must be construed as basically different from the canonical theory of natural selection, rather than simply extended. (page 3) The Structure of Evolutionary Theory , 2002.

Actually, I wasn't surprised to find Gould quotes on both sides of the fence, with the ones on the non-Darwnist side much more guarded. While researching By Design or by Chance?, I'd heard vaguely that Gould was sympathetic to something like structuralism. My focus then was on his well-known opposition to ultra-Darwinism.

I asked Pivar, why was Gould not more forthcoming about structuralism, if he really supported it? He told me that Gould's first book gives a non-selectionist account of evolution, his mid-career books do not discuss it much, and the last book, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory "says it over and over encoded in hyper-professionalese, too dense for the layman."

Well, few will dispute the "too dense" part; I recall a colleague of Gould's complaining about that in a review.

So why didn't Gould say more? According to Pivar,

he was a victim of the anti-antidarwinist forces engaged in genetics which depends on natural selection. Steve could not shoot his mouth off with the public hearing that there is no explanation for design. you could not and still cannot speak against natural selection in the academic situation without censorship, having nothing to do with intelligent design, having to do with the Darwinian synthesis which keeps the research infrastructure funded. no natural selection, no developmental genetics.

So Gould, for all his pugnacity, could not risk stirring up the Darwinists because it might weaken a joint effort against intelligent design theory? Pivar again:

There was an agreement not to discuss the weaknesses of evolution theory publically.

The reluctance to debate creationists has as much to do with the weakness of the argument science has to offer, as with the ostensible reason of the conferring status to creationism. I heard that the ancient pythagorans decided to keep secret the discovery of a fifth regular polygonal solid for fear of undermining the public sense of order.

Yes, I suppose the Pythagoreans thought the vulgar mob would riot on hearing the news. To judge from their recorded comments, many Darwinists likewise think that doubting Darwin compels us to establish a theocracy. Actually, we vulgars are a bit more resilient than that. We have lived through many paradigm changes.

Well, but then Darwinist bullying is famous. Lynn Margulis refers to the neo-Darwinian bullies in Shermer's acount of the World Evolution summit in June 2005. Indeed, it is painful to read,

There were no direct challenges to Margulis in the discussion period that followed, so I once again queried a number of the experts in this area after the lecture. The overall impression I received was that Margulis goes too far in her rejection of neo-Darwinism, but because she was right about the role of symbiogenesis in the origin of the first eukaryote cells, they are taking a wait-and-see approach. One scientist added that since Margulis was to receive an honorary doctorate that afternoon, it seemed inappropriate to challenge her in this venue.

The long knives stay in their sheaths, for now? Nice. If not, maybe structuralist Rick Sternberg can explain what happens next.

As I discuss in By Design or by Chance? Gould's ashes had only barely settled in the urn before the attack on his reputation began:

Gould was much less popular with his colleagues. He was often derided by other Darwinists. For example, leading evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides charged: "We suggest that the best way to grasp the nature of Gould's writings is to recognize them as one of the most formidable bodies of fiction to be produced in recent American letters."

Similarly, John Maynard Smith, a leading evolutionary biologist, said of Gould: "The evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists."

Gould's critics lost no time in their efforts to minimize his legacy after his death. Indeed, evolutionary psychologist David P. Barash, reviewing Gould's major professional work, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, described him as a "literate bio-terrorist" whose work was not for "anyone with anything else to do with his or her life."

(... and much more, p. 110 ff)

I have heard vague rumors that there will be a conference soon examining structuralist theory. It should feature a serious examination of Gould's uncensored views, rather than a useless quote war. Many still live who knew Gould in his last years. I bet there is a book in this for an enterprising young scholar.

Journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy, and co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain (Harper 2007). Her blog is The Post-Darwinist, http://post-darwinist.blogspot.com/.

Casey Luskin, Program Officer of Public Policy & Legal Affairs
Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute, wrote an op-ed piece for Beliefnet. It explains DI's position on what the school board in Dover, PA is attempting to do.

There are also some links to other ID pieces bordering Luskin's piece.

The York Dispatch, in a Q & A with Dover PA school board candidates, not surprisingly, first asked them about ID.

Yesterday, I blogged on the fact that a friend of the late Stephen Jay Gould now says that Gould would never have signed the celebrated Steve list - a list of scientists named Steve who oppose creationism (and, presumably, intelligent design theory?). (If you were directed to this link, see Wednesday's post as well.)

Eugenie Scott, well-known lobbyist at Darwin lobby National Center for Science Education, has replied to my query as follows:

I'm trying to figure out how the parody "Project Steve" is making claims about the creative abilities of natural selection.... I think Steve would have gotten a chuckle out of it. He certainly did not support the creationists, either of the traditional form of the nouveau ID variety.

1) Gould did not credit natural selection with the ability to do very much at all, according to his chemical engineer friend Pivar. Is it at ALL likely then that he would have signed NCSE's statement, which reads in part, "Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence."?

That natural selection is a "major mechanism" may be Scott's view, NCSE's view, and the view of whatever US courts can be got to rule in its favour. And it is certainly Richard Dawkins's view from across the Pond .... but was it Gould's view? His friend says no. The list is named after Steve Gould, not Richard Dawkins.

2) If Scott's list, named after Steve Gould precisely for its political effect, was intended only as a parody, it is hard to see how a misrepresentation of the man's actual views would be any more appropriate.

3) It is irrelevant whether Gould opposed the creationists, if - as Pivar insists - his name is now being used to support a position that he would not have supported himself in his lifetime.

For his part, Pivar communicated with me this morning as well. He is standing by his insistence that Gould would never have signed NCSE's "Steve" list. Indeed, he repeats his contention that Gould opposed the idea that natural selection creates more than minor changes - such as changes in the shapes of the beaks of finches - throughout his life.

Here is what he said:

Steve Goulds life work featured the debunking of natural selection as the cause of anything more important than the differences in the beaks of finches, in his investigation of the causes of evolution. The Steve List is the appropriation of his name in the propagation of a theory which he opposed his entire life long. Every statement SJG ever made rejects natural selection, and none can be found in its support. Is this colossal misunderstanding innocent incompetence, or a soviet style paradigm takeover?

In the categorization of schools of thought in evolutionary biology Steve Gould is considered a Structuralist. Eugenie Scott is a Darwin Fundamentalist like Richard Dawkins, Steve Gould's lifelong foe.

If the Steve list myth enters history, then his life work was for naught.

Last night I spoke with Stuart Pivar, sponsor of the J site, which crusades for a non-Darwinian structuralist theory of evolution, under Gould's name (Gould died in 2002).

[If you were directed to this story, also see the Tuesday story for further developments. See Wednesday's as well. - Denyse]

It turns out that Pivar, a chemical engineer as well as an art collector, was indeed a friend of Gould. He writes,

steve and ronda would spend weekends at my beach house. we were close friends for years. i officiated at his funeral service.

steve lifes work was to understand evolution. His message was that natural selection was merely an eliminative force with no creative role, capable of choosing for survival among preexisting forms which are produced by other natural structural processes.

What's more, he thinks that Darwin lobbyist Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education has hijacked Gould's legacy with its Steve campaign against intelligent design theory. Steve himself would never have signed the statement, he insists, because Gould did not see natural selection as a creative force, as Darwinists do!

Steve Gould (the Ursteve of the famous Steve list of the NCSE) clearly did not believe in natural selection as the primary cause of evolutionary change.

The 600 listed scientists named Steve claim the belief that evolution happened, and that natural selection is the mechanical process which causes it. Stephen Jay Gould would not have signed this list.

(Note: You have to find this key "Steve list" page on the sidebar; I can't link directly to its name. Also, the list says that natural selection is a major mechanical process, not the mechanical process. )

If so, this is a major upset in the current intelligent design wars that will surely damage NCSE's case for teaching Darwinism only in American schools.

TheAge.Com.au reports that Victoria's government schools will treat intelligent design as a religious faith, not science, Education Minister Lynne Kosky has ruled.

In her first statement on the subject, Ms. Kosky reaffirmed the principle that government schools were secular and did not promote any religion.

This ruling again shows where the strategy must focus: it's science vs science, and this message must be spread. Intelligent Design Theory scientifically seeks to find out whether something in the cosmos came to be from natural causation or intelligent agency. The causes of something could be natural or intelligence, or a combination.

Jodi Wilgoren of the New York Times reports that the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association have denied the Kansas Board of Education permission to use their copyrighted materials as part of the state's proposed new science standards because of the standards' critical approach to evolution.

This move comes less than two weeks before the board's expected adoption of the controversial new standards, which will serve as a template for statewide tests and thus have great influence on what is taught.

Expert testimonies from the Dover trial are available for you viewing.

The testimony of Steven William Fuller, Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, England can be viewed HERE.

The testimony of Roger T. Pennock, Professor of Science and Technological Studies at Michigan State University's Lyman Briggs School of Science and Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Philosophy Department can be viewed HERE.

As reported on EurekAlert!, a new book, The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin's Dilemma, Harvard Medical School's Marc W. Kirschner and John C. Gerhart, of the University of California - Berkeley address a key problem in evolutionary theory that has puzzled scientists from Darwin on and which is now under intense scrutiny by proponents of intelligent design: where do the big jumps come from in evolution?

The example given reminds one of the beginning of a fairytale, "Once upon a time..." How did the living tissue develop these remarkable abilities to achieve these complex interactions through random mutation and natural selection? Let's see what discussion comes forth.

In a predictable move, USA Today reports that the AAAS head Alan Leshner announced that without better science standards, students would be unable to tell "intelligent design," which he called a religious viewpoint, from real science.

Looks like Leshner's scientific materialistic philosophy is driving this latest tactic.

John Hanna of AP reports that a retired law professor who's sometimes called the father of the intelligent design movement plans to speak Saturday, October 29th at Washburn University, amid an ongoing debate over how evolution is taught in Kansas' public schools.

Phillip Johnson's visit is sponsored by Christian Challenge, a student group on the Topeka campus. The event is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the university's union.

School Officials Must Answer in Court for Alleged Religious Discrimination

Sacramento, CA In an important legal victory for citizens seeking to improve how evolution is taught in public schools, a federal judge has ruled that California citizens have a Constitutional right under the First Amendment to put proposed evolution policies on the agenda of local school board meetings for public debate and potential adoption, and that school officials who refuse such a request are subject to potential civil rights remedies in federal court.

Said plaintiff Larry Caldwell, "The court's ruling is a vindication of the constitutional right of California citizens to initiate public debate in school board meetings on the question of how we should teach evolution to our children."

Added Caldwell, "This is a crucial educational policy issue that must be addressed if our children are to acquire the critical thinking skills they will need to compete in the Twenty-First Century."

School officials of the Roseville Joint Union High School District have maintained that they have the right to deny citizens the opportunity to have a proposed education policy placed on a school board agenda. The court ruled that such a policy, if proven, would constitute illegal "viewpoint discrimination" under the Free Speech Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The legal ruling came in a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by parent activist and attorney Larry Caldwell, arising out of his year-long effort to persuade the Roseville Joint Union High School District to adopt his Quality Science Education Policy.
The QSE Policy seeks to stimulate the critical thinking skills of students by including both scientific strengths and weaknesses of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in biology classes.

U.S. District Court Judge Frank C. Damrell, Jr. also ruled that school officials who base their refusal on the actual or perceived religious beliefs or affiliations of the citizen proposing the policy also run afoul of the protections against religious discrimination in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In papers filed in the lawsuit, attorneys for school officials have admitted that their refusal for eight months to permit Caldwell's proposed QSE Policy to be debated and voted on at school board meetings was based in part on Caldwell's Christian religious beliefs.

Said Karen England, Executive Director of Capitol Resource Institute, a California pro-family, public policy group, "We are pleased that the court has recognized the constitutional right of California parents to participate in local school board meetings in a pro-active way. It is unfortunate that it has taken a lawsuit to get the leadership of the Roseville high school district to honor the constitutional rights of Mr.
Caldwell and other citizens."

Pacific Justice Institute, the Sacramento-based public interest organization, is acting as co-counsel with Caldwell in the lawsuit.

Check out the link above for talks at the recent conference.

Despite the predictably disparaging reaction of the news media and some established scientists, Wells thought that the conference was a huge success.

The conference was organized by Charles Thaxton, co-author of the now classic *The Mystery of Life's Origin* (1984), and his hard-working wife, Carole. (The Thaxtons had originally planned to hold the conference several years ago, but their plan was put on hold when Charles lost his leg to
cancer.)

Held in the large hall where the Czech Communist Party used to meet, the conference featured seven speakers from five countries: Stephen C. Meyer (USA), Jonathan Wells (USA), Charles Thaxton (USA), David Berlinski (France), John C. Lennox (UK), Cees Dekker (The Netherlands), and Dalibor Krupka (Slovakia). The proceedings were chaired by Peter Verner, a Czech chemist. The talks (in English) were simultaneously translated into Czech for the audience, and the five main speakers (Meyer, Wells, Thaxton, Berlinski, and Lennox) had provided written summaries in advance that were available in English and Czech.

Stuart Pivar has asked Glenn Branch at NCSE to remove "or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurence" from the wording of the "Steve" declaration. Click the link above for more.

William Dembski, in Uncommon Descent comments on the equivocation of the late Dr. Stephen Jay Gould on the role of natural selection in the macroevolutionary process.

Would Gould have signed "Steve's List"? Maybe. Maybe not.

William Provine, Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, gave a lecture "Evolution and Intelligent Design" at Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at Cornell University.

The lecture came on the heels of Interim President Hunter R. Rawlings IIIs condemnation of the push to teach intelligent design in public schools during the his State of the University Address.

Provine is an avid defender of Darwinism, but believe the public debate should take place between Darwinism and ID, having debated Phil Johnson several times.

On Townhall.com, Monisha Bonsal gives a brief summary on the Washington, D.C. conference this past weekend. It seems it is only a matter of time before the phrase "intelligent design is not science" will wear thin as the public becomes more informed.

Mike Argento in the York Dispatch is good at "attacking the man" and being mildly humorous. We wonder what he really thinks of ID?

Denyse O'Leary blogs on Gould, and his supposed namesake, Steve's list. WWSHD...What would Steve have done?

One of the sessions in the upcoming AAAS Annual Meeting is Anti-Evolutionism in America, What's Ahead?

It is stated that the Dover, PA school board is declaring that teachers study ID in class. This is a total misrepresentation of reality. The biology teachers would be required to read a short statement, and tell students that there is a book in the library they can look at if they wish. That's it! In addition, did the school board state that their objective was to eliminate or restrict the teaching of evolution? We think not!

The Summary of the AAAS session...A Science Teacher's View of the Anti Evolutionary Movement
Recently, the school board in Dover, Pa., declared that teachers were to study intelligent design, a form of creationism characterized by frequent intervention by an unnamed Designer, rather than the all at once creationism of biblical literalism. With this statement, Dover joined a steadily growing U.S. movement at the state and local levels whose objective is to eliminate or restrict the teaching of evolution. The proponents of intelligent design are not attempting to carry out a legitimate scientific debate, rather they are using the teaching of biological and cosmological evolution as a mechanism to attain political objectives. While eliminating or severely restricting the teaching of biological evolution is a primary goal, all of the scientific disciplines, natural and physical, are being affected. Speakers will present an overview on the teaching of biological evolution and where it is headed, clarify the scientific issues; identify other fields, auxiliary to biology, that are directly affected, illustrate the effect of the antievolutionism movement on scientific textbooks and standards, and present the perspective of high school science teachers. The aim of this symposium is to initiate a discussion among science teachers, professional scientists, and people interested in all aspects of science designed to develop an understanding of our mutual interests in supporting the teaching of Darwinian evolution.

Christina Kaufman, of the York Dispatch, reports on the lengthiness of the trial.

Former board member William Buckingham, who resigned to move to North Carolina about two months before the trial started, has been one of the key figures in the trial because of religious comments he reportedly made at school board meetings. He is scheduled to testify Thursday.

Ondrej Hejma, AP writer, appears in the Seattle Post-Intelligence, reporting on the recent ID Conference in the Czech Republic.

About 700 attended the conference, and guess what. There were protestors on hand too.

Carlin Romano of Knight Ridder gives his opinion on the recent book and thoughts of Michael Ruse.

The following is a press release from the Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell concerning Cornell president Rawlings' state of the University address blasting Intelligent Design.

Contact: Hannah Maxson
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tel. 607-253-2803
Email: idea@cornell.edu

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, October 22, The Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell is deeply concerned with President Hunter Rawlings' blatant disregard for the facts concerning Intelligent Design in Friday's State of the University Address. In a speech usually reserved for current university business, he spent over two thirds of his time blasting the emerging Intelligent Design theory as anti scientific and religious in an unscrupulous, unknowledgeable manner.

Intelligent Design (ID) is a scientific theory which holds that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and are not the result of an undirected, chance based process such as Darwinian evolution. It follows the principles of the scientific method, scorns the biases of either religion or naturalism, and attempts to follow all the available evidence to a valid conclusion. ID is testable and falsifiable, and so far its predictions have repeatedly been shown accurate.

The IDEA Club at Cornell holds that the problems with Neo Darwinian evolution can no longer be ignored, and it is time for true research and debate about the issues surrounding the beginnings of life to take place at universities across the country.

Attacking ID as a non scientist and without addressing its scientific claims, Rawlings states that it is religion masquerading as science and is a religious belief at its core. This gross misstatement is a disservice to unbiased discourse, besides being an insult to people of faith throughout America. Ad hominem attacks and confusing people's religious beliefs with their scientific research is not befitting a university president. We would hope Rawlings will instead follow Cornell's often lauded commitment to a free and open exchange of ideas.

Below is a collection of articles on the Dover trial.

For an editorial from the York Dispatch, click HERE.

For an article from MSNBC by AP, click HERE.

For an editorial in the Morning Call by a proponent of ID, Donald Hoffman, click HERE.

For an article from the Patriot-News by Bill Sulon, click HERE.

This article on the website Top Tech News delves into Michael Behe's academic sojourn at Lehigh University.

John Bright, a postgraduate humanities fellow at Lehigh, said, "frankly, just from a humanities point of view, it's considered good to challenge the conventional wisdom. It's inherently respectable." Bravo to Mr. Bright!

Alan Leshner, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, characterizes ID proponents as "mostly fringe players." We wonder if Leshner lived in the time of Galileo, would he have called Galileo a "fringe player". Too bad ad hominem remarks like Dr. Leshner's still seem to work.

-

"There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows."
(Francis Darwin (editor), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (New York: D. Appleton, 1887), Vol. I, pp. 278-279.)

-

"Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned."
(George Gaylord Simpson [major mid-20th century Darwinian evolutionist], The Meaning of Evolution, revised ed. (Yale University Press, 1967), p. 345.)

-

"We have established scientifically some disquieting facts: (1) human beings have evolved from nonhuman life forms, meaning that (2) at one time we did not exist, and that (3) according to paleontological and astronomical evidence, at some time in the future we shall cease to exist. Furthermore, from a scientific standpoint, there is no discernible reason that we had to evolve in the first place, and there is no guarantee that we shall continue to evolve successfully; more hominid species have become extinct than have survived. The price of such knowledge has been the gnawing question of whether human existence has genuine meaning if it was constructed with cranes rather than supported by skyhooks, as Daniel Dennett says.

"The problem of meaning is easily resolved for those who embrace a preconstructed system of meaning such as religion. However, religion cannot help us find meaning in any honest sense unless it can assimilate the truth about where human beings have come from, and the only real knowledge we have about where we came from we have acquired through science."
(Barbara Forrest [current Darwin lobbyist who testified in the current Dover case], "The Possibility of Meaning in Human Evolution," Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science 35.4 (Dec 2000), 861-889, p 862, notes omitted.)

This last comment, by Forrest, is interesting because it is incompatible with any "revealed" historical religion such as Christianity, Islam, or Judaism, all of which insist that the most important knowledge of who we are and where we come from is received through revelation. Actually, Buddhism would claim that too, if we go by the importance attached to the Buddha's sermons This is fundamental to understanding the public opposition to Darwinism (as opposed to various theories in science advanced against it, such as Behe's concept of irreducible complexity).

-

From By Design or by Chance?:

Many of the greatest scientists of previous centuries, for example, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Pascal, Newton, Faraday, and Kelvin, believed that the universe was intelligently designed, and that its design was detectable.21 So great was the influence of these men that key terms or units of science measurement are named after them (e.g., the Galilean moons of Jupiter, the Copernican solar system, and units of measurement such as the pascal, newton, farad, and kelvin.) Newton, who died in 1727, is widely regarded as the greatest Briton who ever lived.
(Denyse O'Leary, By Design or by Chance?: The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2004), p. 193.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

em>Opposition to Schonborn from Vatican science advisor:

Here's Professor Nicola Cabibbo, for twelve hears head of the 78-member Pontifical Academy of Sciences, an expert panel which advises the pope on science, in interview with National Catholic Reporter's John L. Allen Jr.:

When Cardinal Schonborn says that purpose and design can be clearly discerned in the natural world, would you agree?

Not scientifically. As a scientist, I cannot draw this conclusion. What I can say is this: If the will of God was to create man, he certainly organized things in a beautiful way to do it. Of course, we know by revelation that God wanted to create man, but we don't know how he did it. This is what science attempts to explain. There cannot be any clash or controversy between science and religion, because they work on different planes.

Does the scientific understanding of how life was created and how it evolved, in and of itself, demand belief in a creator God?

I would say no. Scientifically, we don't know. We know the universe is highly complex, and we have no reason to believe there is only one universe, the one we can see around us. Theoretically this could happen in two different ways: some interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest the idea of parallel universes, with histories different from our own. Cosmologists speculate on a multiplicity of "Big Bangs", giving rise to a multiplicity of universes. These are fascinating ideas and we find ourselves in a situation similar to that of Giordano Bruno when he proposed that stars are really suns, that there may be other planets and other solar systems, that the universe is much larger than previously thought. This was part of what got him into trouble! We really don't know. Science is incapable of supplying answers to ultimate questions about why things exist and what their purpose is.

Hmmm. It strikes me that the problem here is not a conflict between Cabibbo and Schonborn but between Cabibbo and the plain meaning of key passages in the Bible. Paul the Apostle says, for example, in Romans,

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Rom 1:18-20, NIV)

Most Christians would be more inclined to listen to Paul than to Bruno, a scientist and freelance theologian who was burned at the stake four centuries ago for heretical doctrines. (If you think having an alternative viewpoint is bad now, you should have lived back then!) Some of Bruno's science speculations hit pay dirt, as Cabibbo notes.

But more and more I am beginning to see why the Vatican will have to revisit this whole area. The only reason that science and religion can't be in conflict, in Cabibbo's formulation, is that they are on different "planes" and neither can apparently enable us to draw firm conclusions about the real world. But, faced with a choice, the Church should prefer current expert opinion to the wisdom of the ages?

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

In case you wondered why there is an intelligent design controversy, here is a quotation from a textbook of recent memory:

"Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless--a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit."

"Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us."

I am utterly fascinated by the people who insist that we all ought to support this stuff with our tax money and - now that I am a member of The Writers' Union of Canada - I am thinking of applying for a Canada Council grant to study them! So please write in and make the case that I have a moral obligation to support philosophical materialism with my tax money, even though it is not the established religion of my country, let alone the one I belong to (as if that matters). By doing so, you will help get ME tax money in order to question the obligation.

Alternatively, if the Comments box does not fill up in the way that helps my case, I could try financing my opinions on publishers' advances ... hey, maybe that makes more sense because then no one who hates my ideas is forced to support them (which I wouldn't really want anyway), and in any event I am good at dealing with publishers and don't have trouble getting decent advances ... Now how shall we convert the Darwinists to that system?

Oh, and here's another good one, maybe even better:

Many investigators feel uneasy about stating in public that the origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they freely admit that they are baffled. There seems to be two reasons for their unease. Firstly, they feel it opens the door to religious fundamentalists and their god-of-the-gaps pseudo-explanations. Secondly, they worry that a frank admission of ignorance will undermine funding, especially for the search for life in space. (Paul Davies, The Origin of Life , Penguin Books, London, 2003, p. xxiv)

(Note: I just finished shuffling through a bunch of textbooks' chapters on the origin of life, and I never saw anything there like this blanket admission that experts "are baffled". Having recently edited a textbook chapter on origin of life myself, I am not sure why it is a suitable subject for discussion at the high school/first year U level, except as a fun item for speculative projects (and I am all for that, as long as we understand the level of uncertainty we are dealing with).

I am not claiming that OoL is unresearchable or a miracle. But when you don't know and don't really know how to find out, it is better to admit the problem than to speculate.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Inside Higher Education News provides a look at how UCal Berkeley plans to defend promoting liberal (as opposed to conservative) religion on its evolution Web site. Professor Roy Caldwell* is reported by Inside as saying,

"I am a scientist, and I understand what science is. It is fact-based. It involves hypothesis testing. It is not faith-based," he said. The Web site was designed to help teachers - especially those who may feel pressure because of the current attacks on evolution - better explain the science. The information about religious views was included on the Web site not out of a desire to change anyone's religious beliefs, Roy Caldwell said, but because many teachers ask for advice on how to deal with this issue, since their students ask them about it.

The information about religious groups is strictly factual, he said. "The fact is that there are many people who recognize that religious faith and science are not necessarily incompatible," he said.

(*Note: One of the professors running the Berkeley site is Roy Caldwell, who is not to be confused with Larry Caldwell, the lawyer who is suing UCal Berkeley.)

Well, fair enough, Roy Caldwell, but does the Berkeley site also offer links to dissent from Darwinism, such as that of Catholic Cardinal Schonborn or similar statements by many American religious denominations? You can't get away with claiming that you are simply "providing information" if it is entirely one-sided and clearly involves a religious issue.

Larry Caldwell asks,

Whatever happened to the National Center for Science Education/ACLU mantra that teaching about religious beliefs on evolution may be appropriate in a comparative religion class, but never in biology class? Come to think of it, aren't the NCSE and ACLU currently using that very argument in their lawsuit against the Dover, Pennsylvania school district - that the mere mention of intelligent design in biology class purportedly violates the Establishment Clause (since NCSE/ACLU incorrectly deem intelligent design to be a religious doctrine, rather than a scientific theory)?

Yeah really. It sounds as though the UCal position may be evolving into a much simpler rule:

- Anything diehard supporters of Darwinism say is science - even when they are quoting from the Bible.

- Anything critics of Darwinism say is religion - even when they are quoting from peer-reviewed science journals.

- Any questioning of Darwinian evolution is suspect as criticism of science in principle.

Well, I guess we will see the whole gang in court - not that a court will settle the issue, of course. But that's the next round.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

California attorney Larry Caldwell, who is currently suing evolution groups over the use of tax money to promote liberal religious views over conservative ones, has drawn my attention to a clear instance of introducing religion in biology class, but this time, sure enough, the purpose is to promote evolution and an old.Earth, from a presentation at a recent Geological Society of America meeting:

Modern Biblical scholarship indicates that interpreting the Genesis texts as historical or scientific documents, as done by biblical literalists, is inappropriate. Genesis contains two different creation accounts; Genesis 1 dates from the Babylonian exile (6th century BC) whereas the Genesis 2 story dates from the reign of King Solomon (10th century BC). These accounts differ in such aspects as language, emphasis, and mode and sequence of creation. In addition, the Bible includes several other widely differing creation accounts (e.g., Proverbs 8, Psalm 74, Job 26). Inclusion of such varying accounts in the Old Testament indicates that the writers did not intend them as historical, scientific narratives.

I find this outrageous. Let me be up front about my own commitments: I don't particularly doubt current conventional dating of the Earth or common ancestry of apes and humans. I do think that Darwinism is a passe materialist ideology and am merely waiting to see whether ID or some kind of structuralism - or something else altogether - will replace it.

But, I don't think that biology teachers have any business doing the clergy's job for them by explaining to their students how to understand biblical texts! UNLESS, that is, the teachers are prepared to give equal time to those who promote other understandings of the same texts. How many biology teachers have any significant background in exegesis of the Bible anyway? How many even want to get involved? My guess is, about as few as the number of biology teachers who want to read the Dover disclaimer to their students.

I think that today's science curricula should include a history of science module that teaches models for addressing conflicts in society over science findings. Intelligent design is hardly the only such conflict; what about global warming, new biotechnologies, spyware, and bioterror/pandemics? Another thing: Should New Orleans really be rebuilt on its present site? No doubt there are other good questions I can't think of just now, that integrate science knowledge into social issues.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

In an interesting article in Current Biology (September 20), paleontologist Simon Conway Morris argues that human-life creatures would have arisen even if the dinos had not gone extinct:

The bolide misses and the dinosaurs go home for tea... You know the mantra: no K/T impact, no dinosaur extinctions, so no mammalian evolutionary radiations, so neither primates nor in due course apes and so ultimately no us. True, but trivial. Imagine a counterfactual Earth, with no K/T impact. Twenty million years later the planet still sails into major glaciations. Dinosaurs are doing fine, thank you, but look what's happening in the cooler temperate and polar regions. Warm-blooded critters are taking the initiative. Both birds and mammals are intelligent, social and have a tendency to make tools. This means that sooner or later a sentient species with technology will emerge: the demise of the heavy brigade is inevitable. Mass extinctions may accelerate (maybe postpone), but they never cancel.

This is, of course, the opposite of Stephen Jay Gould's position, espousing radical randomness of outcomes for evolution, as exprssed in Wonderful Life.

Morris also weighs in on whether extinctions are periodic:

Discussion of whether mass extinctions are cyclic ebbs and flows. At the moment most pundits say 'no', but the evidence remains intriguing. If correct, either biological diversity has some weird internal motor, or more likely the fossil record is telling us something about galactic history. Recall that presently the Solar System is embedded in what astronomers call the Local Bubble, but in the past-and future- when the Solar System encounters interstellar clouds, the heliosphere will shrink, with consequences such as a change in cosmic ray flux. Now that is beginning to sound interesting.

Yes, it begins to sound interesting. And in even speculating about a "weird internal motor", Conway Morris is beginning to sound like the ID advocates he has no use for. I suspect, along with the late David Raup, that critical to understanding evolution is understanding extinction.

(Note: You have to get CB through a library if you don't subscribe.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

I received this press release today:

News Release

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.

"In this stunning example of hypocrisy, the same people who so loudly proclaim that they oppose discussion of religion in science classes are clamoring for public school teachers to expressly use theology in order to convince students to support evolution," said Larry Caldwell, President of Quality Science Education for All, who is co-counsel in the suit with the Pacific Justice Institute.

Called "Understanding Evolution," the website identified in the lawsuit directs teachers to doctrinal statements by seventeen religious denominations and groups endorsing evolutionary theory. A statement by the United Church of Christ, for example, declares that evolution is consistent with "the revelation and presence of... God in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit."

The website further suggests classroom activities that explicitly use religion to promote evolution. In one suggested activity, teachers are supposed to share with students statements by religious leaders on evolution, but only those "stress[ing] the compatibility of theology with the science of evolution." In another activity, students are assigned to interview ministers about their views on evolution, with the purpose of showing students that "Evolution is OK!" Teachers are cautioned, however, that this particular activity may not work if they live in a community that is "conservative Christian."

"While the government has a legitimate purpose in educating students about the science of evolution, it's outrageous that tax dollars would be spent to indoctrinate students into a particular religious view of evolution. There are many different religious views about evolution. How dare the government tell students which religious view is correct!" said plaintiff Jeanne Caldwell. "This is propaganda, not education."

The lawsuit alleges that the state and federal government are promoting religious beliefs to minor school children through the website in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The suit seeks injunctive relief to remove these government endorsed religious beliefs from the website.

The lawsuit also alleges that the website is being used to further the religious agenda of a private organization, the National Center for Science Education (NSCE), which has a "long history of religious advocacy" on the evolution issue. According to the suit, the NCSE, which helped design the website, provides religious "outreach" programs and "preaching" on evolution to churches, all aimed at convincing people of faith that there is no conflict between their religious beliefs and evolution.

"It turns out that the NCSE and its allies in the scientific and educational establishments don't mind having religious beliefs discussed in science class, as long as those discussions are aimed at convincing students to convert to the religious beliefs favored by the NCSE", added attorney Caldwell. "Their willingness to flagrantly violate students' constitutionally protected religious freedoms in order to sell evolution to our children is the height of hypocrisy.

###

I was also given a link to an astonishingly ugly cartoon that makes the mindless evo guy shake hands with the mindless religion guy, as if they were two child molesters agreeing to lie for each other. See "Misconceptions: 'Evolution and religion are incompatible'" The idea seems to be that two mindless ideas can work together fine. You know what? People like that can't win. (Anyway, who can take seriously people who shake left hands?)

There is also a link to a bunch of religious groups that don't see any problem with Darwinism. My friend, the Relapsed Catholic, calls them "the churches nobody goes to any more."

Virtually all religions teach that human beings were created for a purpose, which contradicts the key claim of Darwinism.

According to my information, the lawsuit alleges that officials are using government funding and resources to actively promote the religious beliefs held by a private organization, the National Center for Science Education, which has a "long history of religious advocacy" on the evolution issue. The contact is attorney Larry Caldwell, President of Quality Science Education for All, (http://www.qsea.org) or Pacific Justice Institute (http://www.pacificjustice.org/)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Student Josh Dill kindly sends me an account of what happened when he started asking questions at Highline Community College in Washington State:

I recently left Highline Community college after receiving my AA. While at Highline I had an interest in Biology, specifically evolution and natural selection. A few of the classes I took were intro to Biology, where we discussed natural selection, evolution, and origin of life. I took Anthropology where we learned about human evolution, and our close relationship with chimpanzees, I even went to Central Washington University to the chimposium and observed the chimpanzees (not an assignment). I also took a class called 'Genetic Revolution' where we learned about the genome, genetic traits, protein synthesis, and I even did a presentation on human evolution to that class. I followed the textbook for the presentation in fear of my grade. This professor had written a few articles criticizing Intelligent Design. But after hearing "we are 98.8% chimpanzee" almost every single day, I used an article from National Geographic about lab rats and their genome. I applied the same method used in the chimp example and stated "we are 60% rat". The students laughed, but the professor didn't.

Naughty Josh. According to a learned rabbi we are also thirty percent banana. But you are not to draw any conclusions from that, do you understand? You are only supposed to draw the conclusions you are told to draw.

Anyway, Josh took to reading literature written by intelligent design theorists, a dangerous practice. He then booked a room at the end of the year and showed two videos, Icons of Evolution and Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Two biology profs attended. Here is Josh's account of what happened next:

I offered asked if they would like to say a few words in response to the videos (I did this out of respect to them coming to my event), but they declined and asked me to take questions from the students. I took a couple of questions from the students, but then an interruption came out, it was one of the professors.

He lambasted me with accusations of having a religious agenda, that I was just simply a creationist. He had immediately lost his temper with me and shouted at me in front of an audience of students. He accused me of misleading the students, "you should be ashamed of yourself ... what you're doing is criminal!"

He belittled me saying "just because you take a couple science classes doesn't give you the right!" I kept my composure and a good attitude. I tried to ask him science questions, after all, the event was intended to be about Intelligent Design, and evolution, not creationism or Christianity.

I asked the professor about embryology, he said "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny!" I questioned "well then why are the earlier stages, which we are not shown, different when those would be the ones that are the most important?" He said "yes they're different but that doesn't matter!"

I asked him to explain how natural selection can account for fossils in the Cambrian explosion where nearly thirty-five of the forty total phyla are found in a geologically short time span of ten million years with no precursors, and given the novel genes, thousands of novel proteins, and novel body plans needed for these organisms how can natural selection be applied? He avoided answering and asked me to take someone else's question.

He abstained from giving any explanation to how genetic material within our cells could have originated, he said "that's a different question, I'm talking about evolution!" He then looked at all the students and urged them that "the truth is that evolution is nailed down flat, its secure as gravity, I can't emphasize that enough."

The professor claimed that any scientist skeptical of Darwin's theory are only questioning because of religious motivations. I held up the list of names of 400 scientists who question the power of natural selection and asked him if he could account for every single one of those people, and he said "I would bet my pensions on it!"

I asked him how micro-evolution could be extrapolated to explain macro-evolution. He replied "well extrapolation is a good word, you have to use your imagination. Given the amount of time you have." I insisted that the probabilistic resources are not evident to allow for the scale of macro-evolution required by the theory of Darwinian Evolution. He didn't have an answer to this either. Now when I look back, I still can't believe he answered "you have to use your imagination." That should be a bit discerning to some scientists.

I think Josh means "disconcerting" here. (I'd be disconcerted too if I were paying good money to have these fellows teach me. As a writer, I am all for using one's imagination, but in my line of work we make a clear distinction between fiction and non-fiction.)

Anyway, after one of the bio professors attacked Josh's character, a political science prof stepped in and defended him. The meeting ended on that note, but there was an interesting followup:

A couple of weeks later, the professor that I had an exchange with e-mailed me and was interested in meeting me one on one to have a discussion. I agreed and was thankful for his interest. I figured that in a one on one meeting he wouldn't be as irate and personally aggressive as he was in our first encounter, but I was wrong. He stayed resolute in stating that I am a dishonest person, and that I shouldn't have done what I did. He accused me of encouraging students to rebel in their science classrooms. I never asked students to question their professors in class. I never encouraged disobedience or disrespect, but he insisted that it was wrong. He told me that I should have opened with a preamble, telling students not to bring these questions into the classroom.

Well, there you have it. If you are a student who questions Darwinism, do not bring your questions into the biology classroom. Just memorize and reiterate the party line, and find out the true state of the evidence somewhere else. No wonder there has been a boom in ID-related books lately ...

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

University of California at Santa Barbara's Art Battson has come forward to say that he is the person behind the Cambrian explosion page linked below, that was taken off the UCSB site by a neo-Darwinist profbot (it still works at the link I gave you). He has asked me not to mention anyone else by name. I won't.

Here is his story:

My new boss (PhD in anthopology with undergrad work in sociology who still takes neo-darwinism seriously) shut down my ORIGINS QUOTES AND COMMENTS website unannounced earlier this week. He told me he had received a complaint from somebody in a university in Illinois and that the material was not related to ID (Instructional Development). I told him it was indeed related to ID but he didn't laugh as much as I would have liked. The bottom line is that he removed the faculty/Staff Christian Forum website along with the Veritas Forum website while leaving other websites that are also unrelated to Instructional Development. (We all have rented space on the ID server for years.)

Battson plans to file a complaint about viewpoint discrimination. Meanwhile, my advice to anyone who has a special interest in the Cambrian explosion or other probably non-Darwinian events in the history of life, download or print out the page linked below. Based on the Sternberg case that drew in the US federal government and the Gonzalez case, which I plan to blog soon, this is stuff that traditional materialists/naturalists/Darwinists do not want you to know, and - to the extent that they have power at universities and science institutions - they may have means of preventing you, if not now, then later.

Let's be grateful that none of this involves a loved one's health or something like that. If the Darwinists must go down fighting, let's just make sure they do not take anyone with them.

Now here's the original story with key link:
Yesterday, I noted that the controversial Privileged Planet filmmaker, Illustra Media, is making a film about the Cambrian explosion of life forms about 525 million years ago, which ID advocates think will help sink the ship of Darwinism.

Here's a site at the University of California at Santa Barbara that provides revealing statements about the Cambrian explosion from well-known paleontologists. A sample comment:

The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history -- not the artifact of a poor fossil record.

Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I. (1982)
The Myths of Human Evolution
Columbia University Press, p. 59

Other hot topics in evolution are addressed here too.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Los Angeles-based filmmaker, Illustra Media best known for The Privileged Planet, whose showing at the Smithsonian took "uproar" to a whole new level, is now working on a documentary The Cambrian Explosion:

The Cambrian Explosion will examine what many consider to be, the single most powerful refutation of Darwinian evolution-the fossil record . When he wrote his book, Charles Darwin realized that the 19th century fossil record did not support his theory of gradual, step-by-step evolutionary change. Yet, he hoped that future generations of scientists would make the discoveries necessary to substantiate his ideas. Today, after more than 150 years of digging, fossil evidence of slow, incremental biological change does not exist. Instead, we find a pattern pf rapid, dramatic appearances of fully developed, complex organisms in the ancient rock strata of the world. A pattern that is best explained by the work of a transcendent intelligence.

Well, this should be interesting. What you never heard about the Cambrian explosion is mostly surprising. While I am here, I may as well shill books on the subject: Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life and Simon Conway Morris'sThe Crucible of Creation are both good reads, in my experience.
(Consumer intellectual safety warning: These books take opposite positions on key issues. Intellectual freedom required. The Darwinian thoughtbot suffered an engineered mishap this afternoon, while mistakenly left in O'Leary's thoughtful care, so no establishment-backed "we-tell-you-what-to-think" service is currently available, except possibly from the Comments box. No warranties available under the circumstances.)
(Notes: Emphases are Illustra's not mine. I don't currently have a link for this information. It came by post.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Jeff Jacoby weighs in at the Boston Globe on teaching about the intelligent design controversy:

How things have changed. When John Scopes went on trial in Tennessee in 1925, religious fundamentalists fought to keep evolution out of the classroom because it was at odds with a literal reading of the Biblical creation story. Today, Darwinian fundamentalists fight to keep the evidence of intelligent design in the diversity of life on earth out of the classroom, because that would be at odds with a strictly materialist view of the world. Eighty years ago, the thought controllers wanted no Darwin; today's thought controllers want only Darwin. In both cases, the dominant attitude is authoritarian and closed-minded - the opposite of the liberal spirit of inquiry on which good science depends.

I am glad that when I was a kid, teachers felt free to bring up all kinds of topics in science class, including "Was there really a worldwide flood?" "Was there really only one big continent at one time?" [At that time, this was a controversial idea.] "What would happen if the Russians bombed Canada?" "What would happen if the Americans bombed Canada?" "How would evolution change humans over a million years?" "Is the paranormal real or fake?"

How come we didn't all end up screwed up or brainwashed? Because in those days the teacher was expected to be a professional of good character, whose performance was evaluated by peers, not by people looking for something to sue the school board about. I regret that students cannot have that kind of education today.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

On the subject of whether humans are almost chimps (or versa vice), Rabbi Belovski notes:

A while ago, I heard a radio broadcast in which a Californian academic with quite impressive credentials noted that as monkeys have over 90% of the genes of humans, they should be accorded rights in the same proportion. By this, he meant 90% of the healthcare facilities, social services etc. We may assume that in response, our simian friends will have to bear 90%% of the responsibility of humans - i.e. taxation and service in the armed. Presumably, in the future, we can expect to share hospitals wards, army barracks and dole queues with monkeys. Criminal monkeys will serve 90% of the prison sentences of their human counterparts and will be required to attend 90% of their quota of schooling. It may also means that a human who steals a banana from a monkey will be condemned to 90% of the consequences of robbing a fellow human. An old joke comes to mind - a monkey that has escaped from its cage is eventually found in a library holding a Bible in one hand and Darwin's 'The Origin of Species' in the other. When questioned about its behaviour it responds, 'I am wondering if I am my brother's keeper or my keeper's brother.'

A thought occurred to me on this theme - since bananas share some genes with humans, would it not be logical to accord them say 30% of the rights of people? Where is the line? Some people might even prefer sharing a prison cell with a banana than a monkey, although I think we can assume that the monkey would prefer to share with the banana!

There's also an adorable graphic of a girl chimp getting her hair done.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

I haven't been posting many columnist links recently, so let me redress the balance. Here are some opinion pieces that crossed my radar screen in recent weeks:

Bill Buckley: "The planted axiom being encouraged by the secular community is that an acknowledgment of biological evolution not only acquiesces in scientific certitudes, it cannot coexist with any thought of intelligent design." In the National Review, Buckley also asks, In the United States, the battlefront is in the schools, on the question of evolution and creationism. If a 14-year-old student is introduced to the contingent possibility that life evolved as it did because its creator so willed it, which of the following risks, from the hard-line evolutionists' point of view, is that student taking? 1) His intellectual disqualification by admitting creationism, for which there is no scientific no warrant, into his thinking? 2) A lifelong intellectual confusion, perhaps disabling in its consequences, which will keep him from prevailing as a responsible thinker and actor? Or perhaps, 3) a lifetime as an agent of teleological confusion, with the result that he will not only mislead himself, but also mislead others? "

Jonah Cohen:

"I am not persuaded by intelligent design arguments, not because the theory of evolution is unassailable - it most certainly has weaknesses - but because I don't think anyone has successfully answered the criticisms of intelligent design offered by Hume, Kant and Kiergegaard. If those secular fundamentalists who wish to gag intelligent design theories are so worried about future generations, let them demand, then, that we also teach Hume, Kant and Kierkegaard in our public schools - rather than censorship! Our students should be exposed to this great discussion in all its dimensions, so that they can make up their own minds." [I hadn't heard of this guy, writing in The American Thinker, but he's good.]

John Derbyshire
"And what should we teach our kids in biology classes, concerning the development of living things on earth? We should teach them Darwinism, on exactly the same arguments. There is no doubt this is consensus science." Incidentally, Patrick O'Hannigan, the Paragraph Farmer, deconstructs Derbyshire.

Sally Jenkins: First, let's get rid of the idea that ID (intelligent design) is a form of sly creationism. It isn't. ID is unfairly confused with the movement to teach creationism in public schools. The most serious ID proponents are complexity theorists, legitimate scientists among them, who believe that strict Darwinism and especially neo-Darwinism (the notion that all of our qualities are the product of random mutation) is inadequate to explain the high level of organization at work in the world. Creationists are attracted to ID, and one of its founding fathers, University of California law professor Phillip Johnson, is a devout Presbyterian. But you don't have to be a creationist to think there might be something to it, or to agree with Johnson when he says, "The human body is packed with marvels, eyes and lungs and cells, and evolutionary gradualism can't account for that."

Tony Snow: "Evolutionary theory, like ID, isn't verifiable or testable. It's pure hypothesis - like ID - although very popular in the scientific community. Its limits help illuminate the fact that hypotheses are only as durable as the evidence that supports them."

Jacob Weisberg:
"That evolution erodes religious belief seems almost too obvious to require argument. It destroyed the faith of Darwin himself, who moved from Christianity to agnosticism as a result of his discoveries and was immediately recognized as a huge threat by his reverent contemporaries.
... So, what should evolutionists and their supporters say to parents who don't want their children to become atheists and who may even hold firm to the virgin birth and the parting of the Red Sea? That it's time for them to finally let go of their quaint superstitions? That Darwinists aren't trying to push people away from religion but recognize that teaching their views does tend to have that effect?"

George Will: "The problem with intelligent-design theory is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable: Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet-a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum."

There, half a morning's reading for you on the ID controversy.
P.S.: Many, many assorted and relatively anonymous loons have announced recently either that 1) armed and dangerous fundies are massing in the North Woods to march against civilization or, alternatively, that 2) God is at risk in this matter, and he's mad about it. Anyone who wants that sort of thing knows where to find it. Or if they don't, well, tuff.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

I like this cartoon, riffing off the baffling tax code. Of course, the difference between the tax code and a cell in your body is that you work fo the tax code and the cell works for you. Let's keep the hierarchy straight here. Does anyone really believe that the tax code is as functionally effective as the cell? Sir, your government commends your faith in this matter.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Recently, Phil Skell, a National Academy of Sciences member, published a critique of the usefulness of Darwinism in present-day biology, under the title "Why Do We Invoke Darwin?" in The Scientist.

In Skell's view, "evolution" is invoked in many science papers in much the same way as a bureaucracy hounded by political correctness might invoke Aztec cosmology - relevant to the politics, certainly, but not to the findings.

In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word - "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.

The huge response prompted a comment, "Let's Talk About This," from the editor of that publication:

Inadvertently, while I was still looking for evidence on the subject, The Scientist tested the quality of scientific discourse. The opinion of Philip Skell which ran in the Aug. 29, 2005, issue generated a staggering volume of comment. We have given over most of the Letters and Opinion pages in this issue to it, and even then we're not doing the reaction justice. The vast majority of the correspondence was negative, but it was also rational, reasonable, and detailed, with only a couple of letter writers resorting to abuse ...

Abuse? Oh my stars. The fact that so much negative opinion would follow Skell's completely obvious point tells us pretty much what we need to know about the cult of Darwinian evolution in biology today.

In both popular and semi-professional literature today, as well as professional literature, all kinds of silly ideas seep into public discourse because they claim to be natural consequences of Darwinian evolution. Just think of all the people who would be stuck for a pat answer to human dilemmas otherwise.

It is one thing to establish a religion when most people believe it, quite another to establish a religion when most people don't.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Blogger Mark Shea, who gets way more mail than I do, and responds to it more faithfully, answers the Darwinoids who camp on his list. He says, among other things.

We *never* look at the text of Hamlet, or Michaelangelo's David, or the code for Windows XP and try to give an explanation for these things as products of non-reason. The only time we do it is when we look at the staggeringly specified complexity of living systems. And we do so in obedience to a dogmatic philosophy of materialism. Here alone, in obedience to the priesthood of the Atheism of the Gaps, acolytes must crush their normal tendency to intuit the obvious by repeating the Spiritual Exercises of St. Francis Crick and reciting the creed: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved."

Note that word, "rather". It speaks volumes about the metaphysic being promulgated.

As to examples of specified complexity in biology, there are not ten but ten billion. There is no living system that is *not* highly complex and highly specified.

Then I get a mysterious question: "Isn't a rattlesnake fang/venom system complexly specified? Yes or no? Do you know? Does the DI? Do they care?"

I'm not sure what that means. Is my interlocutor suggesting that this system is *not* enormously complex and extremely specified? Is he saying that a good God would never make venomous snakes? Beats me. Then, in crowning incoherence, DI [Discovery Institute, an ID think tank] is compared to Jimmy Swaggart. But that's not an ad hominem argument or anything.

Mark provides some useful responses from the Catholic philosophical tradition.

(Note: "Shut up, he explained" is from a Ring Lardner short story. It is often used as a sort of Zen koan to teach writing skills. A person who doesn't "get it" should not try to make a living as a writer. Their connection to the rest of humanity, while it may be both broad and deep, is not mediated through language.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

When a person has become a pure cultural commodity, you can say what you want about them. The thriller by Pulitzer Prize-winner John Darnton is perceptively reviewed by Books editor Marjorie Kehe of Christian Science Monitor. She remarks that

Darwin never really goes out of fashion. Just when you think that maybe he's slipping from public view a bit, there's some kind of a trial, public hearing, or cultural disruption that shifts him and his everlastingly disputed findings back into the spotlight.

So John Darnton probably made a wise choice when he tapped the ever-controversial naturalist to serve as one of the protagonists of his new novel The Darwin Conspiracy.

[ ... ]

Clearly Darnton did his homework and the biographical information woven in about Darwin is interesting, but here he more nearly resembles a character in an Indiana Jones film than a man still rocking intellectual and theological boats.

Fair enough, but my sense is that Darnton's salable idea only works when the worldview itself has come under fire. It wasn't so long ago that Richard Dawkins wrote:

Living organisms had existed on earth without ever knowing why for 3000 million years before the truth finally dawned on one of them. His name was Charles Darwin.

(Ben Wattenberg quoted Dawkins to himself as saying this, on PBS's Think Tank (November 8, 1996), apparently reading from Dawkins's The Selfish Gene.

Wittenberg comments,

That sounds to me like a religious statement. That is a - that is near messianic language. And you are making the case that these other people have this virus of the mind. That tonality says, I found my God.

Dawkins's response is interesting.)

Even back then, Wattenberg felt compelled to protest. Today, a lot more people are asking questions about the Darwin cult in biology.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Fellow Canadian blogger Kathy Shaidle, the "Relapsed Catholic", wrote recently on Whittaker Chambers, the uncool 1950s guy who blew the whistle on a bunch of American country club Cools who were traitors to the country that had afforded them a fine lifestyle.

Kathy unerringly singles out a stunning passage in Chambers's journey of understanding:

...I date my break from a very casual happening. I was sitting in our apartment on St. Paul Street in Baltimore. It was shortly before we moved to Alger Hiss's apartment in Washington. My daughter was in her high chair. I was watching her eat. She was the most miraculous thing that had ever happened in my life. I like to watch her even when she smeared porridge on her face or dropped it meditatively on the floor. My eye came to rest on the delicate convolutions of her ear -- those intricate, perfect ears. The thought passed through my mind: 'No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature (the Communist view). They could have been created only by immense design.' The thought was involuntary and unwanted. I crowded it out of my mind. If I had completed it, I should have had to say: Design presupposes God. I did not know that, at that moment, the finger of God was first laid upon my forehead.

Shaidle goes on to say:

Today, some of us battle the same enemy Chambers did, just with a different name. Others among us insist, as they did then, that docility and appeasement are the answer -- on our part, naturally, since the real enemy is "us". Despite the book's apocalyptic tone, Witness does not depress, because we have Chambers at an advantage: we know how the story ended, decades after the author's death -- with the fall of a wall "experts" believed, right up to the moment the first sledgehammer struck, would never crumble. A civilization that could produce a book like Witness is one worth fighting for. Chambers' masterpiece teaches us not just why we should fight, but how one man fought: as a lonely, despised herald to the painful truth that eventually set millions free.

What I find interesting about this is the way people are beginning to connect the dots. What might design mean? What might no design mean? Whether you believe in God or not, evidence of design underwrites moral responsibility because it implies that there really could be truth, as opposed to competitive lies.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

This essay in the Boston Review, first published in 1997, seems eerily prescient now:

... current knowledge of genetic change is fundamentally at variance with neo-Darwinist postulates. We have progressed from the Constant Genome, subject only to random, localized changes at a more or less constant mutation rate, to the Fluid Genome, subject to episodic, massive and non-random reorganizations capable of producing new functional architectures. Inevitably, such a profound advance in awareness of genetic capabilities will dramatically alter our understanding of the evolutionary process. Nonetheless, neo-Darwinist writers like Dawkins continue to ignore or trivialize the new knowledge and insist on gradualism as the only path for evolutionary change.

The whole essay captures very well the issues in interpreting the history of life that have come to the fore, despite all attempts to obfuscate them.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

In an article in the London Spectator (August 27, 2005), British historian Paul Johnson brands British Darwinist Richard Dawkins the "ayatollah of atheism". Johnson writes,

The likelihood that Darwin's eventual debacle will be sensational and brutal is increased by the arrogance of his acolytes, by their insistence on the unchallengeable truth or the theory of natural selection - which to them is not a hypothesis but a demonstrated fact, and its critics mere flat-earthers - and by their success in occupying the commanding heights in the university science departments and the scientific journals, denying a hearing to anyone who disagrees with them. I detect a groundswell of discontent at this intellectual totalitarianism, so unscientific by its very nature. It is wrong that any debate, especially one on so momentous a subject as the origin of species, and the human race above all, should be arbitrarily declared to be closed, and the current orthodoxy set in granite for all time. Such a position is not tenable, and the evidence that it is crumbling is growing.

This is one of the best articles I have read for capturing the mood of the intelligent design community, the sense that bloviating boffins may convince people new to the controversy, but the more you know, the less you believe, and that disbelief will only grow.

In particular, Johnson mentions a current critique by Rutgers University philosopher Jerry Fodor of the least believable of all the efforts to prop up Darwinism, "evolutionary psychology" - the belief that current events can be best understood by a trip back to the Old Stone Age.

I am a post-Darwinist rather than a Darwinist, but if I were advising Darwinists, I would tell them: CUT that rotting branch pronto, before your whole tree is condemned by City Forestry! But of course, they won't listen, so they are probably doomed. (Shrug. Yawn. I wonder what the history of life really looks like, after the fog clears.)

Fodor says, among other things,

The canonical Evolutionary Psychology literature contains a number of ideas about how a creature's behaviour might be explained by attributions of motives that it doesn't have. I confess that they seem to me to be simply bizarre. Daniel C. Dennett suggests that, if Jones's behaviour is an adaptation, then it's (not Jones but) "Mother Nature" who is concerned about his contribution to the gene pool. But you might as well blame the Easter Bunny. There isn't any Mother Nature; and if unattached motives can't explain behaviour, neither can the concerns of fictitious persons. Richard Dawkins suggests that, if Jones's behaviour is an adaptation, then it must be (not Jones but) Jones's "selfish genes" that wish to maximize reproductive success. Steven Pinker seems to have swallowed Dawkins whole.

"Dawkins explained the theory . . . . People don't selfishly spread their genes, genes selfishly spread themselves. They do it by the way they build our brains . . . . Our goals are subgoals of the ultimate goal of the genes, replicating themselves . . . . The confusion between our goals and our genes' goals has spawned one muddle after another."

It has indeed.

It could be worse. To give you some idea of the kind of rot that infests evolutionary psychology, last Sunday I sent up a completely ridiculous evo psycho puff piece in National Geographic News in which some worthy loon chose to hold forth on the relationship between Canada and the United States, in terms of evolutionary psychology.

It seemed to have eluded the quotable southern loon that Canada and the United States are both nation states, not tribes. As the eminent political philosopher, Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) would point out, had she lived so long, there is nothing for genetics to do in understanding the current relationship between two nation states because they are specifically defined by territory and style of government, and not by inherited characteristics of their populations. So evo psycho is completely irrelevant, and any educated person should realize that.

Yes, yes, sweetie hoo, we all descend from the Old Stone Age, but they didn't have nation states back then. So it is unlikely that anyone from back then could advise or influence the ways in which Canada and the United States manage their relationship. I humbly suggest that you would even have difficulty explaining it to them.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Here's another Chuck Asay cartoon, lampooning the media in the ID controversy. Chuck shows a sophistication rare among cartoonists here, as he highlights the way in which media tend to hone in on the bizarre and miss the significant.

I certainly know what Asay means. Just recently, I have been fielding calls from Canadian media about the lawsuit in Dover, Pennsylvania (which I will get around to addressing if my inbox does not explode first). One and all, they seem to want to hear that gangs of weirdoes are marching down from the North Woods. Seem so disappointed when I tell them no.

Aw, don't worry, fellow hacks. Your hot patooties are SAFE. Honest. Order yourself another frappachingo (frappachatte? frappalatte? frappadammitall? Personally, I'd rather have a coffee, but hey ... )

Yeah, lots of people think there is good evidence that the universe and life forms show intelligent design. They're not happy when educational systems promote the opposite view. They're also not happy with paying taxes to support institutions that persecute scientists who are willing to research or even be fair to the idea.

Whatsamatter with them? Why don't they just bring their tax dollars humbly and obediently any more? Didn't used to be so uppity.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Bill Dembski, the unofficial leader of the ID pack and, sometimes, bad boy, has introduced a computer game that bops ugly mechanical pandas, clearly a swipe at the anti-ID Panda's Thumb blog. (If you click on it, you may not be able to get back using the Back Browser button.) I think Panda-monium is a hoot, and I fully expect that the Thumbsmen will reply with a game of their own, maybe scrubbing bacteria, for example, given that the bacterial flagellum is the unofficial logo of the ID community. Dembski offers the rankings for bopping pandoids as well.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Neuroscientist Christof Koch thinks that maybe consciousness will be explained in our lifetimes:

These are heady times for neuroscientists. Our growing ability to monitor the brain's activity at the cellular level with unprecedented precision and breadth, and precisely manipulate these networks opens the stunning possibility that the quest to understand the oldest of all epistemological problems will come to an end in our lifetime.

If you read the article, "The Inchoate Science of Consciousness" (September 12, 2005) carefully, it doesn't look as though they are getting very far, despite the hype.

For example, Koch writes, regarding an animal experiment,

Strikingly, the reintroduction of one specie of molecule into a single brain region rescued certain complex exploratory and social behaviors. While the β2 knockout animals move rapidly through a novel terrain with little exploration, animals in which nicotinic transmission has been restored in the VTA show more adaptive behavior that, if observed in humans, would be associated with planning and consciousness.

Well, sure, but we associate human behaviour with planning and consciousness because we know that humans plan and are conscious. We know that mice plan to some extent, though it is not clear whether they are conscious in the sense that humans are. And no one doubts that certain chemicals and brain regions are associated with consciousness, such that interference with them can cause its loss.

The real problem, it seems to me, is that there is only so far one can get with studying something like consciousness for the purpose of explaining it away as random actions within the brain. My guess is that one learns a lot of interesting, even useful stuff about mice, and then confronts once again, the huge gap between mouse consciousness and human consciousness.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

According to a recent article in National Geographic News, the development of the spear led to an era of peace among early humans. So thinks University of Michigan anthropologist Raymond Kelly, who argues, in "Spear Led to Era of Human Peace, Expert Says" (September 6, 2005),

The ability to kill from a distance and the use of ambush tactics significantly affected border interactions.

The size of a group was no longer a guarantee of success, and the potential of being seriously wounded or killed increased.

Kelly believes the change in circumstances forced early humans to come up with new ways to resolve conflicts and to maintain friendly relations.

But Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham disagrees, saying,

"Maybe it did, but it seems to me unlikely to have done so," said Richard Wrangham, an anthropologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It is easier to make surprise attacks with weapons than without, and hard to defend against them."

For example, here's a gem from the same article, where Kelly holds out a "ray of hope" for peace, allegedly based on human evolution:

"The U.S. was at war with Canada in 1812 and with Mexico in 1848 but has managed to live in peace with its neighbors for the past 150 years," he said. "So we clearly have the capacity to maintain peaceful relations with neighbors over extended periods."

"These capacities are as much a product of [human] evolution as the capacity to engage in lethal intergroup violence."

Canada has almost no military power. Therefore, even though we do have some serious issues with the United States, war is out of the question for us, never mind what direction "evolution" supposedly points Canadians in.

Also, there's the fact that Canada's economy depends almost entirely on trade with the United States, AND our economy is now mostly American-owned. So if the Americans attacked Canada, they would, for the most part, be killing their own employees and service providers and destroying their own property.

And if we Canadians attacked the United States, we would be violating a fundamental rule around here, formulated in the days when the Hudson's Bay Company traded with the First Nations (Indians): Never shoot the customer, no matter how much of a pain in the neck he is.

Of course, an evolutionary psychologist would undoubtedly say that relations between Canada and the United States are the inevitable outcome of "human evolution." Sure. Just tell him about your complex historical circumstances, and he will explain them based on something chimpanzees do or early humans supposedly did.

Why does the Darwinist think this way: The Darwinist does not believe that human intelligence is a human version of the intelligence behind the universe. He believes that it is the evolutionary outcome of accidentally overdeveloped brains, possibly but not certainly selected by natural selection.

As a result, he cannot accept that humans actually have consciousness or free will, or that our current circumstances largely result from the exercise of these functions. Rather, he needs to find the answers in the unthinking behavior of non-humans and pre-humans. Otherwise, he thinks we have not found an answer. And, here's the kicker, any explanation of that sort, no matter how ridiculous, will always make more sense to him than any explanation based on the effects of intelligence, as a creative force in its own right.

As I say, entertain yourself with this stuff if you like, but don't call it science.

(Note: The only finding for which we have hard evidence from history is that superiority in weaponry can go either way. Europeans destroyed many native American civilizations because they had guns. Arguably, the diseases they brought destroyed more people than the guns, but it was the spread of guns, not disease, that drove colonial policy. On the other hand, a huge empire typically suppresses local warfare because it is overwhelmingly more powerful than petty warlords. So it can be a force for peace - until it gets into a war with another empire.)

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Bishop Donald Wuerl of the Diocese of Pittsburgh published an article in the Pittsburgh Catholic, in which he makes the point that great foundational thinkers in the Western tradition have generally come to the evidence-based conclusion that the cosmos is designed, without making use of theological arguments. Many were not Christians or theists.

On the one hand, in the years since Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1855, some scientists offer the theory that the best explanation for the existence of all life is random selection and the natural evolution of species.

On the other hand other scientists support the theory of intelligent design. This explanation of natural phenomena goes back, in a well documented manner, to the time of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers. The great Greek philosophers and naturalists lived some 300 years before Christ and attempted to explain the cosmos solely from the light of human reason.

That's worth keeping in mind when we hear "culture wars" interpretations of the controversy.

It is not a conflict between fundamentalism and science; it is a conflict between the consensus position of Western civilization (in favour of design) and naturalistic materialism, which has attempted to gain a monopoly in science and suppress all evidence against itself.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

The recent Guardian profile of British philosopher Mary Midgeley, basher of ultra-Darwinist Richard Dawkins, is interesting for the way in which it seems to withhold praise for a generally admirable woman who made the mistake of questioning ultra-Darwinism during her philosophy career.

"I'm not anti-science," she maintains. "What I object to is improper science sold as science. I understand Dawkins thinks he was talking about the survival potential of certain lines rather than the motives of the genes themselves, but I believe he is mistaken. Scientists in this country have little cultural overlap with the arts and humanities and ... they are unaware of when they start bringing their own political and psychological views into the argument. There's nothing wrong with scientists having such views as long as they are aware of what they are doing ... Dawkins may argue that he is using selfishness as a metaphor but he must have been aware of how the concept might be interpreted and used. And Dawkins has to take some responsibility for that."

Obviously, naturalism (materialism) is an impotent ideology if any genuine criticism, on whatever ground, is seen as "anti-science." In fact, evolutionary psychology (EP), which Midgley rightly criticized in her disaproval of the "selfish gene", would be a big embarrassment to Darwinism IF the latter were itself more securely founded on fact.

You know the kind of thing we hear constantly from EP: If kids don't eat their greens, that's because "evolution" is protecting them from poisoning. Or if they do, well that must be because "evolution" is encouraging them to have strong bodies. Yeah right.

(Avoidance of chewy, non-greasy vegetables with complex flavours couldn't have anything at all to do with easy access to soft, greasy, sugary fast food in recent years. It must be shipped back hundreds of thousands of years in the past and called "evolution," ... possibly to assuage guilt?)

One reason I know Darwinism is on the way out is that Darwinists do not seem anxious to rise up, as a group, and drive this stuff off the scene. That fact alone implies that most arguments for Darwinism are similarly poorly founded.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

An American lawyer who is active in intelligent design issues has written me to say that the National Association of Biology Teachers, far from foreswearing atheism, has in fact merely moved some of its former upfront atheistic tenets to the supporting material under its current grand (and relatively innocuous-sounding) statement.

From the May 2004 version:

NABT endorses the following tenets of science, evolution, and biology education. Teachers should take these tenets into account when teaching evolution.

Essential Concepts of Biological Evolution

- The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of biological evolution - an unpredictable and natural process of descent with modification that is affected by natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, migration and other natural biological and geological forces.

A number of well-respected scientists who, incidentally, do not align with the intelligent design theorists, would dispute the view that evolution is unpredictable, notably Michael Denton and Simon Conway Morris.

Also, if one claims that biological evolution is unpredictable, it may also be untestable and unfalsifiable. That's too bad. I had hoped it would be more than nice graphics. I especially hoped that because I have just finished tickng off playwright Paul Rudnick on account of the fact that I thought his treatment of the subject is shallow. But if it's not science after all, maybe shallow wins.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Here is playwright Paul Rudnick's take on the intelligent design controversy in the New Yorker, featuring way, way too many gods. It's clever, and it picks up an interesting theme: Does intelligent design mean that there are many gods? Not likely, but my sense is that, in any event, clever is about all that Rudnick's work on this subject is. It doesn't tell me or remind me of a single thing I really needed to know. If anything, it demonstrates the bankruptcy of the current intelligentsia. Still, they must obsess about intelligent design, which will bury them.

I would love to see a play about something real and important in the ID controversy, for example, about the stirring struggles of, say, Richard Sternberg or Guillermo Gonzalez, to open a window of intellectual freedom in a world stifled by materialist dogma.

Sorry, Paul, cute is cute, but cute doesn't cut it.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Here's a kid tee perfectly suited to the Darwinist activist mom, though it is anybody's guess what it would do for the kid.

From what I have seen, most kids who ask "Where did I come from," are expecting the, um, Big Talk. They sort of know there is something to know or they wouldn't even be asking.

Telling them they come from a slime mold or something isn't going to cut it. Most likely response: "So what? Can we get to the part about how people, um, do it." (Even if slime molds "do it," who really cares?)

It all reminds me of the Canadian kid who recently asked the "where did I come from" question. His devoted dad huffed and puffed his way through the complete (and politically correct) lecture, only to have the little swine respond, "Wow, Dad, that's way amazing. But ... I still don't understand. See, the reason I asked is that our new goaltender, Chung An, comes from Vancouver ...."

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Okay, here's a Frank and Ernest on the intelligent design controversy. Now, much as I like F&E, I didn't find this one particularly amusing. Frankly, I think all the "unintelligent design" jokes have been told, so any hack who chooses to title a new piece on the subject "unintelligent design" or riff on that theme is definitely an unintelligent hack - and that is no one's fault but his own. Quit beating the corpses of cute but dead intros. Be original, be relevant, and if you are a comic, be funny. Earn your keep.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

The trouble with being a secular evolution saint is that, a couple years down the road, you don't get no respect at all. Have a look at "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism," a site (herafter called the J site) that uses Gould's name to market an anti-Darwinian self-organization theory of the development of life that I don't know if Gould ever endorsed. Gould died in 2002.

(The basic idea behind self-organization is the claim that order can take hold at the boundaries of chaos. Some argue that this accounts for the origin and development of life. The best-known exponent of the idea is Stuart Kaufmann , associated with the Santa Fe Institute but lately in Banff, Western Canada, according to his CV.)

The message at the J site is addressed to the 400 scientists who signed Discovery Institute's dissent from Darwinism. To them, J prophesies in a loud voice,

You are in accord with most evolutionary biologists who have long since relegated natural selection to micro-evolution at best. Leading among these was Stephen Jay Gould, although he was careful not to pronounce publicly for fear of its misuse by the Intelligent Design movement which is based on the claim that the only alternative to natural selection, or Darwinism, is God.

If anyone out there knows for sure why this is/is not an accurate summary of Gould's thinking, I hope they'll blog on it, so I can link to them. I have not read Gould's doorstop, Structure of Evolutionary Theory , in which he would have made such a point, if he ever did anywhere. It's no secret that Gould fell out with Darwinian fundamentalists (he may well have coined the term himself) like Richard Dawkins. But I've just never heard that he embraced self-organization theory as a consequence.

An urgent note is struck at the J site, regarding the crisis of Darwinism:

This may be the most important issue ever to face science. On its outcome depends nothing less than academic freedom in America. Some overzealous Darwinians have been using extreme means to suppress dissent. Some individuals who have published opposing views have been hounded and their careers threatened or smashed. This issue is soon to be tested in a number of legal cases which may rival the Scopes trial in impact. Most notably I call your attention to the case of Richard Sternberg vs. the Smithsonian Institute.

Okay, you got my attention, J. But then, following the prophecy is a warning:

While the list of 400 is impressive, its possible usefulness to scientific debate is compromised because it is published by the neo-creationist Discovery Institute, and includes individuals who believe that the vacuum caused by the failure of Darwinism should be filled by God, with no third possibility. It is impossible to determine who's who. Your name on this list may compromise your scientific credibility. If, in fact you believe in creationism, this letter does not pertain to you. Otherwise, you suffer guilt by association.

Funny, isn't it, that J claims to be concerned about intellectual freedom but then, in the very next paragraph markets the infamous notion of guilt by association, but let's move on.

We are told that intelligent design is winning the culture wars, with a theocracy shortly to follow.

You know, J, that theme's been, like, done, eh? Canadian literata Margaret Atwood beat the whole idea to death in The Handmaid's Tale thirty years ago, and she can write you into a corner any time. They even made her novel into a movie and I saw the Handmaid's neat red costume at a sci-fi exhibit in Ottawa a few years ago. And that's all that ever came of the theocracy.

We are then told that neo-Darwinism is a bust, because "Evolutionary biologists no longer believe that natural selection is the prime mechanism of evolution." They don't? That's not what most of them have been saying, but I better check my inbox.

Now J may be right, of course. They could know it's a bust and fail to admit it, the way directors of a failing company do. J goes on to mention something I had been meaning to draw attention to myself, and he almost beat me to it. But he says it in a kind of confused way, so I am going to say it in a clear way:

If you look at Michael Shermer's and Ricki Lewis's accounts of the "Woodstock of Evolution," the World Evolution Summit on the Galapagos last June, it is evident that Darwinian theory is indeed falling apart.

Now don't bother telling me that it is normal for scientists to have disagreements. Sure it is. But the reported disagreements were about such fundamental matters as the level at which natural selection occurs (yes, see Lewis's report), whether sexual selection even occurs, whether there really is a universal common ancestor, et cetera. Well, if after a century and a half, they are not even sure at what level natural selection occurs or whether sexual selection occurs or whether universal comon ancestry is true, I am not sure that what we are looking at is even a discipline, as opposed to a series of naturalistic speculations about the origin and development of life.

Apparently, at the gathering, evo-devo earth mother Lynn Margulis proclaimed the neo-Darwinian synthesis (= standard evolutionary theory, currently being rammed into kids' heads in schools, by law) to be dead - nonetheless proclaiming triumphantly, "I am a Darwinist". In the context, I guess she meant "I am a philosophical naturalist."

Which is precisely my point. If that's all that holds them together, it is not a science discipline; it is a band of believers.

Anyway, back to the J site: We are offered "The origin of species without Darwin or God." and a booklet called "Biological Self-Organization" which you can read online. There is also a book available, called Lifecode by art collector Stuart Pivar, who seems to have been a friend of Andy Warhol and is no slouch in biology. Lifecode is listed among self-organization books.

One problem with knowing what to make of all this is that an official Stephen Jay Gould site doesn't currently seem to be online, so I don't know that there is any public record of what the keepers of his official legacy would say in response. If I learn anything more of interest, I will post it.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

TheNobel laureates say pretty much what you might expect, about Darwin's theory being "indispensable," which of course it isn't - any more than Freud's theories were indispensable - but, what is interesting is that the linked Kansas Lawrence Herald article notes, about intelligent design,

That increasingly popular theory argues that some features of the natural world are best explained as having an intelligent cause because they are well-ordered and complex. Its followers attack Darwin's evolutionary theory, which says natural chemical processes could have created the basic building blocks of life on Earth, that all life had a common ancestor and that man and apes shared a common ancestor.

YES, the intelligent design hypothesis argues that "some features of the natural world are best explained as having an intelligent cause because they are well-ordered and complex."

NO, Darwin's theory does NOT say that "natural chemical processes could have created the basic building blocks of life on Earth." Darwin was too smart to commit himself to anything as ambitious as an origin-of-life theory. He was only attempting to write, as the title of his key work indicates, On the Origin of Species. It was left to later researchers to reach a complete impasse on the origin of life.

NO, intelligent design theory does NOT entail rejection of common ancestry. In the context of ID, common ancestry stands or falls on its explanatory merits. Darwinism absolutely requirescommon ancestry because the possibility of design does not exist. ID does not require it because the design is considered an alternative (not a requirement, but an alternative). As a result, ID proponents differ from one another on the subject of common ancestry.

Anyway, hats off to the Lawrence Herald for getting at least one point right. Now let's work on some of the others ones, so we can have a real discussion.

As for the Nobel laureates, it is hard to believe that they would put their collective foot in their mouths by writing this:

Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.

but that's exactly what they did. (Note: If you click the link, you might not be able to use your back browser button to return.)

How do they know that the process is "unguided" and "unplanned"? They don't. It is merely a religious (well, anti-religious) assumption that they intend to impose on the school board. Even if no one believes it but them.

The good news is that, by writing this, they are helping to clarify what is really happening in Kansas. The school board is trying to get THAT stuff out of the system.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Well, if you don't believe in Darwin fandom, don't read this piece, in which Pulitzer Prize journo John Darnton writes,

Some years back, I was given a tour of Down House, Charles Darwin's country estate, and allowed to sit in the special chair in which he wrote "The Origin of Species" and other revolutionary works. The chair was one he had devised himself: High-backed, stuffed with horsehair, it had casters attached so that he could scoot around his study to reach his books, his working table and his microscope. He had fashioned a cloth-covered board to fit over the arms as a writing surface.

Once ensconced there, with the board lowered in place, I felt an indescribable thrill, like a child settling into the swing at a country fair when the bar descends to lock him in place. What a giddy ride Mr. Darwin has given us!

To listen to Darnton, you would think that Darwin was some kind of saint, and all his troubles came from the cruelty of the world around him. Historically, that's all bosh, of course, as such claims always are, when made about major historical figures. (If a child is killed by a drunk driver at five years old, maybe we can make that claim, but not otherwise.)

Interestingly, having treated Darwin as a sort of victim of his times in this article, Darnton is about to publish/has just published a novel, which promises to "reveal the secrets" of Darwin. According to a reviewer at Amazon, "this grandly ambitious novel goes a few steps further to intimate that he was a fraud - and a murderer." That's more than a few steps, in my view; it'll be interesting to see the reaction of those, like Dawkins, for whom Darwinism made it intellectually fulfilling to be an atheist.

This stage is not so surprising, really. As Darwinism slowly dies as a theory for understanding life, its founder is gradually being transformed into a folk figure, like Freud or Che Guevara - all the more recognizable - and a suitable subject for pure fiction - as he becomes more irrelevant.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Here's an encouraging development: A reasonable discussion of the question of evil in a science journal:

Theology and disaster studies: The need for dialogue
David K. Chester
Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, Volume 146, Issue 4 , 1 September 2005, Pages 319-328. Chester is at the Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK

Here's the abstract:

In hazard analysis the conventional wisdom holds that disasters are features of either human vulnerability and/or de-moralised nature. The notion of the 'Act of God' has been almost completely replaced. Using examples of volcanic eruptions and Christian theology, it is argued that many actual and potential victims of hazards continue to explain losses in theistic terms; even in societies where individuals are aware of alternative scientific and social explanations. In Christianity attempts to reconcile God's love, justice and omnipotence on the one hand and human suffering on the other, is termed theodicy, and it is proposed that recent developments allow more fruitful dialogue to take place between hazard analysts and theologians than has been the case hitherto. During the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (1990*2000) a consensus emerged that, if responses to disaster are to be successfully managed, then an awareness of local culture is vitally important. This consensus has continued, as research agendas are currently being formulated for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. In many disaster prone regions, religion is an essential element of culture and must be carefully considered in the planning process, and not simply dismissed as a symptom of ignorance, superstition and backwardness.

Apparently, the author references classic publications on the subject by C.S. Lewis and Alvin Plantinga, for example.

(Note: I can't see how to get this online for love or money, but this is the author's Web site.)

Why do I see this article as an encouraging development? Because, while covering the intelligent design controversy, I felt frustrated by a high level of backwardness and a double standard in dealing with theological argument in science journals.

For example, a scientist trashing Behe's or Johnson's pro-intelligent design writings, can carry on about the cruelties of nature, insisting there can't really be intelligent design because ... (insert problem here), and that's just fine.

But, one rarely sees a paper from a scientist trained in theology summarizing a variety of theological perspectives on the cruelties of nature or studying how they are commonly addressed. No doubt many editors would reject it on the grounds that it was "beyond the scope of science."

In other words, theology is within the scope of science when it is badly done by an amateur, on the fly, for the purpose of trashing a book he dislikes. Anyway, the volcanology journal seems to be a happy departure from that.

If people are going to point to evil or bad design as proof that there is no design at all in nature (a questionable assumption at best), experts in the study of cosmic dysfunction should be allowed to offer perspectives.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

You can sure tell that an idea is taking hold: All kinds of people offer an opinion who are not embarrassed by knowing nothing about it. Roger Ebert who, like A. O Scott , is reviewing the recently released pitchfork opera, The Exorcism of Emily Rose - which has nothing to do with intelligent design - opines:

The church is curiously ambivalent about exorcism. It believes that the devil and his agents can be active in the world, it has a rite of exorcism, and it has exorcists. On the other hand, it is reluctant to certify possessions and authorize exorcisms, and it avoids publicity on the issue. It's like those supporters of Intelligent Design who privately believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis, but publicly distance themselves from it because that would undermine their plausibility in the wider world.

Now first, just for the record, the Catholic church is not ambivalent about exorcism; it is discreet about exorcism, and with good reason. Some people out there are obsessed by demons (not possessed, just obsessed). Avoiding publicity over the rare cases where exorcisms are done is prudent.

But on the main point, would Ebert like to say which supporters of intelligent design he is talking about? The major "literal interpretation of Genesis" group is Answers in Genesis. AiG has, famously, slammed the ID folks, for not relying on the Bible. I have interviewed and listened to many supporters of intelligent design, and those who are young earth creationists admit it.

It's no secret, I suppose, that a major source of controversy among actual ID scientists has been the demand by some that the few literalists in their midst (usually called "young earth creationists") be expelled, a demand that has so far been resisted. But those YEC scientists also admit that they are YECs. So I have a professional interest in knowing who Ebert is talking about - if indeed, he does himself.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

An article by Ker Than goes a bit deeper than most on the website LiveScience.

It looks into the twin pillars of ID, irreducible complexity and specified complexity, and says both are wanting. Than buys into the co-option argument to "refute" irreducible complexity, and "refutes" specified complexity with the "nylon problem".

Both have been ably defended as not being examples of Darwinism.

For more on the "nylon solution", click HERE,

and HERE.

It is worth your while to read ID proponent Stephen Jones's replies to Austrailian science organizations against ID.

They pull out every old sound bite in the atheist/agnostic/freethinker playbook, including "dressed up in a cheap tuxedo"!

William Kates of the AP reports that Hunter Rawlings III, felt it imperative to use his state of the university address, usually a recitation of the school's progress over the last year, to speak out against intelligent design, which he said has put rational thought under attack.

Straight from the talking points of scientific materialists, Rawlings causes those who have delved deep into the subject to yawn, and to hope that the students at Cornell are intelligent enough to see past the rhetoric.

Michael Powell of the Washington Post reports that there is little, if any, resemblance between the Scopes Trial and the Dover Trial.

Behe impressed! But, we knew he would.

The graphical header shows a man. he symbolizes the Essence of manifestation. He is admiring the starred sky upon him. The drawing on the right shows a woman. She symbolizes the Substance pole of manifestation. (Both drawings made by Leonardo da Vinci). In the middle, there is a glimpse on the universe, which stays between (and is composed of) Essence and Substance (photo of the Dark nebula Horsehead in Orion). The vibration on the photo symbolizes an echo of the Big Bang (Substance, matter and energy) and Big Installation (Essence, information) due to the initial Fiat Lux.
The Intelligent Design label stays on a clear background (it is near the truth). The Evolution text stays on a dark background (it is far from the truth). ID is correct, evolutionism is wrong.

The articles are a mix of English and Italian.

A most important and decisive book that defends a "non-evolutionist" position is back in print. Douglas Dewar's "The Transformist Illusion" exposes, scientifically, all the maneuvers undertaken by those that prop up Darwinism. Nobody ever demonstrated scientific evidences that a species "developed" from another, and Dewar shows this. The book is available from Barnes and Noble.

PRNewswire reports on the upcoming ID Conference in Europe this weekend which is expected to draw around 1000 people from around the world.

Continue to follow the Dover trial from the perspective of the Discovery Institute, which has three staff members attending the trial.

Transcripts of the Dover trial are available on the Pennsylvania ACLU website, including Dr. Michael Behe's expert testimony.

As we have said for quite some time..."junk" DNA is not junk.

Peter Andolfatto, an assistant professor of biology at UC-San Diego, says such DNA plays an important role in maintaining an organism's genetic integrity. Read about it on ScienceDaily.

The Philadelphia Enquirer op-ed page featured opinions on both sides of the trial issue. Read about it on the DI website.

We are wrong...Darwinism has been caught on tape. Not!

Dr. Michael Behe has been on the witness stand as the defense's star witness.

For a report from the York Dispatch by Christina Kauffman, click HERE.

For a report from AP on MSNBC, click HERE.

It is amazing that the American Physical Society (APS) can get it so wrong when it comes to ID and Biblical Creationism.

ID only states that something is designed because it exhibits certain characteristics. The identity of the designer doesn't even come up.

For their statement on the Kansas State Board decision written in 1999, click HERE.

Christiana Kauffman of the York Dispatch reports that the defense has begun to present its case supporting the Dover Area school board's decision to include intelligent design in biology classes. Attorneys will set out to undo the past three weeks of testimony from expert scientists, former board members and parents.

John Staver, a fellow of the AAAS, delivered a statement at the monthly meeting of the Kansas State Board of Education in Topeka. The board is expected to give final approval to the new standards, which greatly trouble AAAS, in a vote in October. Read the statement in the AAAS news archives in the link above.

This article recently published in Accounts of Chemical Research discusses some key considerations for understanding how proteins bind in cellular machines, and offers a new approach to predicting binding. It provides some of the quantitative basis needed for putting irreducible complexity on a quantitative basis. Notably the authors seek to document the effect of mutations on reduced specificity of binding: "We have found that introducing mutations can significantly reduce specificity by introducing an additional binding mode." which reduction in specificity would be the first stage in the failure of a reducibly complex machine.

Worth reading both by those looking at the biochemistry and biology of protein machines and those pursuing the probability arguments of Intelligent Design.

Acc. Chem. Res., ASAP Article 10.1021 ar040204a S0001 4842(04)00204 3
Web Release Date: October 15, 2005
Copyright 2005 American Chemical Society
Mechanisms of Protein Assembly: Lessons from Minimalist Models
Yaakov Levy and Jose N. Onuchic
Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, Department of Physics, University of California at San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093

Received May 26, 2005

Abstract:
Many cellular functions rely on interactions among proteins and between proteins and nucleic acids. The limited success of binding predictions may suggest that the physical and chemical principles of protein binding have to be revisited to correctly capture the essence of protein recognition. In this Account, we discuss the power of reduced models to study the physics of protein assembly. Since energetic frustration is sufficiently small, native topology-based models, which correspond to perfectly unfrustrated energy landscapes, have shown that binding mechanisms are robust and governed primarily by the protein's native topology. These models impressively capture many of the binding characteristics found in experiments and highlight the fundamental role of flexibility in binding. The essential role of solvent molecules and electrostatic interactions in binding is also discussed. Despite the success of the minimally frustrated models to describe the dynamics and mechanisms of binding, the actual degree of frustration has to be explored to quantify the capacity of a protein to bind specifically to other proteins. We have found that introducing mutations can significantly reduce specificity by introducing an additional binding mode. Deciphering and quantifying the key ingredients for biological self-assembly is invaluable to reading out genomic sequences and understanding cellular interaction networks.

Introduction
The life of cells is orchestrated by a network of chemical reactions involving numerous proteins and nucleic acids and the transport of those molecules between cellular compartments. The remarkable efficiency of organizing these processes to yield a cellular function presents a major theoretical puzzle given the large number of molecular species and the crowded environment they inhabit. In the recent years, we have come to understand the assembly of the individual actors in this drama thanks to many cooperative efforts between experiments and theory. We now understand the main principles of folding kinetics[1,2] can often predict monomeric protein structure[3] and can even design novel protein structures.[4] However, knowing everything about isolated monomeric proteins does not give a complete understanding of function. Function requires change of structure and specific recognition to form large assemblies. These processes must be governed by the information stored in their sequences and structures. Furthermore, biomacromolecules are flexible with a rich repertoire of movements on various length and time scales. These motions are essential to determine the ability of a protein to bind different ligands at the same or different binding sites.[5,6] Deciphering the molecular and structural origins of high specificity as well as the catalytic promiscuity and multitasking of proteins is prerequisite for a quantitative understanding of the complexity and multidimensionality in genomes. This cooperation of many proteins and nucleic acids, which is largely "wireless", is quite intricate. Understanding the principles of biomolecular assembly in quantitative detail constitutes the basis for the molecular theory of biological networks.

Theoretical and computational studies of protein binding have concentrated on analyzing the structural and chemical properties of interfaces[7,8] as well as predicting the structure of the formed complexes and their binding affinity.[9,10] Understanding the organization of proteins into large complexes is required to understand their function and irreversible aggregation. The challenge of predicting the complex formed between pairs of proteins has been addressed for several years by docking two proteins using various models, which range from reduced models11[12] to atomistic ones[9] and include different flavors. Approaches to predict the structures of higher complexes, which are often defined as cellular machines, have been recently developed too. These approaches include, for example, combinatorial docking schemes[13] or fitting to cryo density maps at low resolution.[14] Some progress has been made in recent years in the performance of docking algorithms, yet their successes in predicting the structure of the protein complex are limited mainly to docking of the bound conformations of the complex subunits.

The inferiority of binding prediction to folding prediction is surprising because the conformational search required in binding processes of two folded proteins is smaller than that involved in protein folding. This shortcoming suggests that the physical and chemical principles of protein binding have to be revisited. The poor predictions of docking when using the conformations of the free subunits obviously indicates that protein flexibility is an important component in binding. Several docking approaches have introduced side-chain flexibility by using a rotamers library; however, it seems that backbone flexibility cannot be ignored.[15] It is likely, thus, that flexibility effects are still grossly underestimated as suggested from our recent association studies.[16-18] Solvent is also a critical component in protein association. While the protein cores are usually dry and contain a few water molecules, the interfaces in protein complexes are often very wet[19] (see Figure 1). Recently, it was found that a funneled potential for binding between proteins was obtained only upon solvation of assembly interfaces.[20] These observations provide a strong indication that water can be indispensable in protein assembly and undoubtedly in protein binding to DNA due to its highly charged surface.

NEWS RELEASE:
Contact: Intelligent Design network, inc.
John Calvert, Managing Director
913-268-0852

IDnet Announces Establishment of IDnet of Ohio

Shawnee Mission, KS. - IDnet announced that it had re-established its Ohio division through an office in Cincinnati. The new division will be managed under the direction of attorney Roddy M. Bullock. Mr. Bullock was also elected to the IDnet Board of Directors and IDnet Executive Committee at a special meeting of the Board on October 15.

IDnet currently has offices in Kansas City, Albuquerque, and Minneapolis. The reopening of its Ohio office reflects a renewed interest in furthering institutional objectivity in teaching origins science in Ohio schools.

In addition to practicing patent law with a Fortune 100 corporation in Cincinnati, Mr. Bullock is a degreed mechanical engineer (BSME and JD from The University of Texas, Austin) and an author. Married with four children raised in public schools, Mr. Bullock has a passion for excellence in science education in Ohio and around the nation.

"I am excited about helping the citizens of Ohio capitalize on the outstanding work accomplished by others over the few years to permit teachers to open up the classroom discussion about origins," said Mr. Bullock. "Although great progress has been made by people dedicated to excellence in science education, a kind of scientific fundamentalism continues to hinder Ohio teachers from teaching Darwinism fully and honestly. That is not healthy for good science or good science education," continued Bullock. "We need to take fear out of the biology classroom and empower teachers to candidly discuss both sides of the current scientific controversy over evolution."

"The new science is generating an exciting new 21st century perspective on origins. 20st Century concepts of random mutation and natural selection are being replaced by new ways of looking at a genome that exhibits indescribably complex information processing systems," said John Calvert. "The old way of thinking about origins is going to need major revision as the new data is changing the way we think about both the operation and evolution of the genome."

*******

Intelligent Design network, inc. is a nonprofit national organization that seeks institutional objectivity in origins science. Intelligent design is a scientific disagreement with claims that the apparent design of certain natural phenomena is an illusion that can be adequately explained by random mutation and natural selection. Objectivity is necessary because many institutions systematically suppress any objective consideration of that disagreement.

It continues to amaze us how writers can keep on misrepresenting what ID actually is, conflating it with Biblical creationism. In a Yahoo News article by Lisa Anderson Tribune, it is reported that efforts continue by museums around the country to legitimize Darwinism at all costs.

Mentioning the Dover PA trial, the tired phrase that the school board wants to teach ID is restated. In that school district the proposal is for a short statement to be read in 9th grade biology classes saying that ID is another theory of origins, and the student can look at a book in the library if they wish to do so. That hardly constitutes "teaching" ID.

The spotlight in the Dover trial turned to Jonathan Well's book Icons of Evolution and the companion DVD. Learn more in this article in the York Dispatch by Lauri Lebo.

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is hosting a conference in Washington, D.C. on Friday, October 21st. Heavyweights on both sides of the debate will be present.

Don Cicchetti, a musical artist and free-lance writer, has dialed into the ID movement, like many others around the world, by setting up a blog. Way to go, Don!

Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have identified an elusive protein that performs a necessary step in the production of human chromosomes.

The new study appears in the most recent issue (Oct. 7) of the journal Cell.

The study found that a protein called CPSF73 acts like scissors to cut strands of histone messenger RNA (mRNA) in the cell nucleus. This cutting action produces the mRNA needed to create histone proteins that combine with DNA to form chromosomes.

Just another example of irreducible complexity rampant in biology.

Most guys going through midlife crisis buy a convertible. Austrialian Stephen E. Jones went back to college to get a biology degree and is now a proponent of ID and common ancestry.

Australian biologist Stephen E. Jones maintains one of the best origins "quote" databases around. He is meticulous about accuracy and working from original sources.

Don Cicchetti blogs on: Culture, Music, Faith, Intelligent Design, Guitar, Audio

Jonathan Well's response to The New Republic article by Jerry R. Coyne, evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago, is up on the Discovery Institute website.

Subject: Lawsuit: Federally-Funded Website Uses Religion to Sell Evolution to Students

News Release

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.

"In this stunning example of hypocrisy, the same people who so loudly proclaim that they oppose discussion of religion in science classes are clamoring for public school teachers to expressly use theology in order to convince students to support evolution," said Larry Caldwell, President of Quality Science Education for All, who is co-counsel in the suit with the Pacific Justice Institute.

Called "Understanding Evolution," the website identified in the lawsuit directs teachers to doctrinal statements by seventeen religious denominations and groups endorsing evolutionary theory. A statement by the United Church of Christ, for example, declares that evolution is consistent with "the revelation and presence of... God in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit."

The website further suggests classroom activities that explicitly use religion to promote evolution. In one suggested activity, teachers are supposed to share with students statements by religious leaders on evolution, but only those "stress[ing] the compatibility of theology with the science of evolution." In another activity, students are assigned to interview ministers about their views on evolution, with the purpose of showing students that "Evolution is OK!" Teachers are cautioned, however, that this particular activity may not work if they live in a community that is "conservative Christian."

"While the government has a legitimate purpose in educating students about the science of evolution, it's outrageous that tax dollars would be spent to indoctrinate students into a particular religious view of evolution. There are many different religious views about evolution. How dare the government tell students which religious view is correct!" said plaintiff Jeanne Caldwell. "This is propaganda, not education."

The lawsuit alleges that the state and federal government are promoting religious beliefs to minor school children through the website in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The suit seeks injunctive relief to remove these government endorsed religious beliefs from
the website.

The lawsuit also alleges that the website is being used to further the religious agenda of a private organization, the National Center for Science Education (NSCE), which has a "long history of religious advocacy" on the evolution issue. According to the suit, the NCSE, which helped design the website, provides religious "outreach" programs and "preaching" on evolution to churches, all aimed at convincing people of faith that there is no
conflict between their religious beliefs and evolution.

"It turns out that the NCSE and its allies in the scientific and educational establishments don't mind having religious beliefs discussed in science class, as long as those discussions are aimed at convincing students to convert to the religious beliefs favored by the NCSE", added attorney Caldwell. "Their willingness to flagrantly violate students'
constitutionally protected religious freedoms in order to sell evolution to our children is the height of hypocrisy."

Dave Dentel, copy editor for the York (PA) Dispatch, is a clear thinker who gets it absolutely right when describing the tactics of the Darwinists on trial. He shows their disingenuousness and wrongheaded thinking.

Cristina Bautista of UC Berkeley's Daily Californian reports on the UC Berekely's involvement in the ID controversy.

UC Berkeley integrative biology professor Kevin Padian is currently working as an expert witness in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District, where he is assisting 11 parents from Dover, Penn. who argue that the school district is violating their First Amendment rights by imposing religious beliefs through the inclusion of intelligent design in their children's science curriculum.

The pro-ID side is fairly well represented in the article, mentioning Phil Johnson, and senior Tom Kim, who started up the UC Berkeley chapter of Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness this fall to provide a forum for like-minded students on campus to openly discuss their views without fear of insult.

Jeff Jacoby, op-ed writer for the Boston Globe, recently gave his pro-ID take on the controversy. He basically says what we have been saying all along. You will need to register with the Boston Globe to read the piece.

Discovery Institute has set up a resource page for the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District federal court trial that began Sept 26, 2005. The page includes transcripts from the case, press release summaries and amicus briefs.

According to lawyer Douglas Kern the future belongs to ID. The only remaining question is whether Darwinism will exit gracefully, or whether it will go down biting, screaming, censoring, and denouncing to the bitter end.

He expounds on the following five reasons in his article at Tech Central Station:

1) ID will win because it's a religion-friendly, conservative-friendly, red-state kind of theory, and no one will lose money betting on the success of red-state theories in the next fifty to one hundred years.

2) ID will win because the pro-Darwin crowd is acting like a bunch of losers.

3) ID will win because it can be reconciled with any advance that takes place in biology, whereas Darwinism cannot yield even an inch of ground to ID.

4) ID will win because it can piggyback on the growth of information theory, which will attract the best minds in the world over the next fifty years.

5) ID will win because ID assumes that man will find design in life -- and, as the mind of man is hard-wired to detect design, man will likely find what he seeks.

This is from a Letter to Nature in the October 6, 2005 issue.

Nature 437, 862-865 (6 October 2005)

Microscopic artificial swimmers

Remi Dreyfus, Jean Baudry, Marcus L. Roper, Marc Fermigier, Howard A. Stone and Jerome Bibette

Abstract: Microorganisms such as bacteria and many eukaryotic cells propel themselves with hair-like structures known as flagella, which can exhibit a variety of structures and movement patterns. For example, bacterial flagella are helically shaped and driven at their bases by a reversible rotary engine, which rotates the attached flagellum to give a motion similar to that of a corkscrew. In contrast, eukaryotic cells use flagella that resemble elastic rods and exhibit a beating motion: internally generated stresses give rise to a series of bends that propagate towards the tip. In contrast to this variety of swimming strategies encountered in nature, a controlled swimming motion of artificial micrometre-sized structures has not yet been realized. Here we show that a linear chain of colloidal magnetic particles linked by DNA and attached to a red blood cell can act as a flexible artificial flagellum. The filament aligns with an external uniform magnetic field and is readily actuated by oscillating a transverse field. We find that the actuation induces a beating pattern that propels the structure, and that the external fields can be adjusted to control the velocity and the direction of motion.

Could it be that the theory of evoltuion's judicially sanctioned monopoly in the classroom has backfired? That is the question asked by science writer Michael Balter in his commentary in the October 2, 2005 issue of the Los Angeles Times. He concludes that the most effective way to convince students that the theory is correct is to confront the challengers, not avoid them. We agree. So let the rumble begin. Let's teach the controversy and may the best theory win.

Academic freedom is a cherished value in our institutions of higher learning--that is until the cherished ideas of the university gatekeepers come under attack. Here are a few examples of the persecution suffered by those who have dared to challenge the Darwinian worldview in our universities:

University of Idaho

San Francisco State University

Mississippi University for Women

Geogre Mason University

Baylor University

Ohio State University

Iowa State University (faculty)

Texas Tech and Iowa State (students)

Research by ophthalmologists has clearly shown why the human retina must employ what is called the "inverted" design. An inverted retina is where the photoreceptors face away from the light, forcing the incoming light to travel through the front of the retina to reach the photoreceptors. Read this report by Jerry Bergman and Joseph Calkins. Jerry Bergman is on the Biology faculty at Northwest State College in Ohio. Joseph Calkins is an Ophthalmologist in private practice, formerly Professor of Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University.

"This week, the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District opened in federal court. The ACLU is suing the school board of Dover, Pennsylvania for adopting a policy which requires that teachers read to students a three-paragraph statement about the theory of intelligent design. In his opening statement, Eric Rothschild, the attorney for Kitzmiller, argued against the legitimacy of intelligent design (ID). Unfortunately for Rothschild, the testimony of Kenneth Miller-a Roman Catholic biology professor from Brown University who staunchly defends evolution-has already refuted his argument. And even more unfortunately, Miller was his expert witness."

Read the rest of Joe Manzari's report on highlights from the first few days of the trial.

Paul Nussbaum writing in the Philadelpia Inquirer sees the Dover trial as a test of values between the likes of William Dembski:

"Naturalism is the disease. Intelligent design is the cure," William Dembski, director of the Center for Science and Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., wrote in his book Intelligent Design. "... Darwin gave us a creation story in which God was absent, and undirected natural processes did all the work. That creation story... is now on the way out. When it goes, so will all the edifices that have been built on its foundation."

and Dover plaintiff Frederick Callahan:

"One of the Dover plaintiffs, Frederick Callahan, made the link between belief in evolution and support for separation of church and state on the witness stand.

'I've come to accept that we [believers in evolution] are in the minority. I've seen the polls,' he said. 'And we've been called intolerant.'

'What am I supposed to tolerate? A small encroachment of my First Amendment rights? I will not.'"

Transcripts for the federal court case filed against the Dover Area School District and its school board over mention of intelligent design in biology classes are now available.

The parents, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, were expected to argue that the school board had religious motives in requiring a statement about intelligent design to be read in biology classes. They also contend intelligent design is based on religion.

Since the time of Darwin, scholars have resisted design in nature, but throughout the twentieth century new discoveries have forced a reappraisal and revived an interest in design. The aim of this international science conference is to review evidence for intelligent design, drawing upon results in astronomy, physics, mathematics, biochemistry, biology, genetics, and paleontology.

Prague Congress Centre, Prague, Czech Republic
October 22, 2005

8:30 Registration and Welcome
9:00 Jonathan Wells, Ph.D.Icons of Evolution (genetics)
10:00 John C. Lennox, Ph.D., D.Sc.Design Features of the Universe (mathematics)
11:00 Coffee Break
11:45 Charles B. Thaxton, Ph.D., FAIC Origin of Life (biochemistry)
12:45 Lunch
2:15 Stephen C. Meyer, Ph.D. Information and the Cambrian Explosion (paleontology)
3:15 Responses
Panel Discussion
5:30 Snack
6:30 Michael J. Behe, Ph.D. Molecular Machines (molecular biology)
7:30 Closing

Popular Mechanics BREAKTHROUGH AWARDS 2005 salute the innovators who are shaping the world's future through science and technology-and new products that represent benchmarks of engineering. The Young Achiever Award went to Sarah Mims, an amateur scientist who is a sophomore in college, and an advocate of intelligent design, for her discovery that living fungal spores and bacteria are found in abundance in the smoke from distant biomass fires.

Conventional wisdom had always indicated that burning crops was a good way to kill disease. Not so fast, said this student who demonstrated that smoke can carry living organisms. The formal paper about Sarah's discovery is: Sarah A. Mims and Forrest M. Mims III, Fungal spores are transported long distances in smoke from biomass fires, Atmospheric Environment 38, 651-655, 2004.

In a October 4, 2005 Letter to the University of Idaho Faculty, Staff and Students, University President, Timothy P. White legislates that only evolution will be taught:

"Because of recent national media attention to the issue, I write to articulate the University of Idaho's position with respect to evolution: This is the only curriculum that is appropriate to be taught in our bio-physical sciences."

To check out Time magazine's take on the trial in Harrisburg, PA, click HERE.

On October 14, Denyse O'Leary, well known Canadian author, will be at Biola University in Los Angeles, leading a breakout session on blogging on the intelligent design controversy.

The organizers want her to tell how blogs and the blogosphere have helped a small group of ID advocates circumvent and frustrate a formidable intellectual orthodoxy.

For more details on Christianity.ca, click HERE.

The week long on-line debate between Francis J. Beckwith, Associate Director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, and Associate Professor of Church-State Studies at Baylor University and Douglas Laycock, holding the Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law at The University of Texas at Austin has come to a close.

To look at the debate, click HERE.

The New York Times published a piece on the continued wrangling in Kansas over science standards in public schools.

Seems the Nobel prize winners don't quite have it right when it comes to ID.

For the brief article (you will need to register with the NYT), click HERE., or in the Kansas City Star (you will need to register), click HERE.

Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, rightly points out that Darwinism (or what he calls the theory of evolution) is tightly bound to a philosophical creed. The entire paradigm, thus, resembles the methodology of Biblical creationism. However, ID is an a posteriori argument; it is the inference drawn from examination of complex structures in living organisms and the universe.

For the article in AgapePress, click HERE.

There was a debate in Washington, DC on the legal/constitutional issues surrounding the teaching of ID in schools.

It was sponsored by several major organizations (Pew Forum, Federalist Society, The Constitution Project). Around 100 people attended with press in attendance as well.

To read a transcript of the event, click HERE.

Johnathan Witt, of the Discovery Institute, is attending the trial in PA, regarding the "teaching" of ID in York, PA.

For his summary of the proceedings, click HERE.

Christina Kauffman of the York (PA) Dispatch is well aware of the importance of THE trial that began in Harrisburg.

For the story in the local paper, click HERE.

Joe Manzari, in the online version of American Enterprise, gives a plug for the persecution taking place against ID proponents in education throughout the last several years.

To read the article, and especially the last sentence, click HERE.

An on-line debate will take place this week. The participants are
Francis J. Beckwith, Associate Director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, and Associate Professor of Church-State Studies at Baylor University, and Douglas Laycock, the Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law at The University of Texas at Austin.

To follow the debate in the Legal Affairs magazine, click HERE.

Livescience.com and writer Ker Than take a swipe at ID in his two part series.

Judge for yourself regarding the barbs thrown, and old rebuttals, such as cooption which claims to refute irreducible complexity.

For the series, click HERE.

The court case in Pennsylvania will surely draw increasing national media attention next week.

Aided by the ACLU, 11 parents of Dover, Pa., schoolchildren have filed a federal lawsuit against that town's school board, accusing it of violating the principle of separation of church and state. The school board requires that at the beginning of the 9th grade unit on evolution, teachers are supposed to read a statement to a biology class: "Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact...Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view."

For the full story in the Wall Street Journal by Suzanne Sataline, click HERE.

For an interesting twist on ID from a sports perspective, reading Sally Jenkins column in the Washington Post by clicking HERE.

For a list of recent stories on the Darwinism v ID (creationism) debate compiled by Christianity Today click HERE.

Charles Colson, long time Christian apologist and commentator on culture weighs in on the Darwinism v ID debate again.

To view his most recent commentary and other Breakpoint commentaries, click HERE.

Museum lecturers and docents are frequently being confronted by small groups of creationists challenging Darwinism.

The National Science Foundation, sponsoring evolution-themed exhibits at six museums of natural history across the nation, includes training for docents and staff members in how to respond to creationists.

To see an example of the docent training, click HERE.

WorldNetDaily reports that a federal court of appeals ruled that Wisconsin prison officials violated an inmate's rights because they did not treat atheism as a religion. There is a precedent for the ruling.

The Supreme Court has said a religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a supreme being. In the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, the court described "secular humanism" as a religion.

So, if we are going to keep religion out of the public school science classroom, let’s keep all the religions out, including Darwinism, which has atheistic metaphysical implications.

For the full article, click HERE.

For American Atheist's and Freethinker's comments, click HERE.

An article by Christina Kauffman of the York Dispatch points out again what has been known for quite some time.

The Discovery Institute issued a policy position against Dover in its upcoming court case. John West calls the Dover policy "misguided" and "likely to be politically divisive and hinder a fair and open discussion of the merits of intelligent design."

For the full article, click HERE.

The NCHRA (National Coalition of Human Rights Activists) has officially denounced "Intelligent Design" as a violation of students' human right of religious freedom. However, several members of the NCHRA also consider ID blasphemous.

Nevermind, that Darwinism is also a worldview with metaphysical implications.

The article generates more "heat" than "light", and portrays IDers as sneaky and mostly ignorant.

For the article from Pressbox.co.uk, click HERE.

An insightful journal article (Journal of Geoscience Education) by Mr. Marcus Ross of Liberty University clears up confusion on different scientific worldviews.

Mr. Ross claims, and rightly so, the demarcation of scientific vs non-scientific worldviews by Scott and Wise is illegitimate.

He proposes a Nested Hierarchy of Design, which "is meant to classify teleological positions based on the relative strength of design claims.

This article is a must read for all concerned with origins issues, and shows you formal definitions of the ten teleological positions, including ID.

For a free download of this article (this link begins downloading immediately and is 5.3MB !!!), please click HERE.

A 25-year old man from Oregon has taken the web world be storm with his clever and satirical website which takes on ID. Bobby Henderson believes in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His creative powers, and wants you to believe as well.

For a look at the FSM site, click HERE.

For a rebuttal letter from a university student, read on...

Philosophical Foundation for a FSM Worldview

Dear Mr. Henderson,

First, let me compliment you on your creative website. After viewing a theory which you disagree with, you have responded with parody, sarcasm, and satire, much as the ancient Greeks did. However, in combating one theory, you invented a second which can now be subjected to its own criticisms and complaints.

My first criticism: your theory is self-defeating. You say that there exists a power that both can and does replace true information in one's mind with false information. In saying that, you immediately open the door to the possibility that the information about your Flying Spaghetti Monster is simply false information in your mind replacing the truth about reality. And if that were the case, then the existence of the FSM would be false. In other words: If you argue that information enters the mind against its own will that alters the truth about reality, then of course, one can use your own argument against you proving that the theory you just presented was merely implanted in your head. Therefore, a Being that freely implants false information in the minds of humans cannot rationally exist. This appears to be a discrepancy in your COVERT attempt to compare the FSM to the Mono-theistic God of Judeo-Christianity as the primary basis of the existence of our knowledge of that all-good God is the creation of free-will.

Second: Darwinian evolution (the belief that all of life can be explained by the mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection) is the primary origin belief of atheists (would you agree?) as there is no other currently widely accepted belief that does not involve a deity of some sort. As of three weeks ago, atheism was declared a religion by the U.S. 7th court of appeals. Darwinism would now appear to violate the wonderful, though falsely based, separation of church and state which you seem to be a heavy advocate of, and should hence be removed from all classrooms across the country. Am I mistaken in thinking that you really only want "just science" taught in the science classroom?

Third: If you don't think that "faith-based theories should be taught in the classroom" then you really shouldn't be advocating Darwinian evolution and all it entails. Darwinian evolution requires MUCH more faith than any other theory. Given the scientific evidence seen both cosmologically and molecularly, at this point in time, even your FSM theory would be more reasonable than believing the universe existed infinitely. Of course, in there we discover another fatal flaw in your theory in that the FSM, although invisible, is materialistic. It exists in this universe as evidenced by its "noodley appendage." For it to create the universe (and the time/space/material) limits that the universe represents, it would have to be immaterial and transcend time and space. This would of course rule out your flying-spaghetti monster as #1 it's made of spaghetti (material) and #2 it is always flying from place to place inside the universe (space).

Fourth: Your tomes of historical knowledge. How do we know they are the words of a supernatural being? Do we have some sort of accurate and specific prophesies in there that can be verified as written prior to the happenings? Also, referring to my earlier point, any writings in your tome would of course be subject to being just false information implanted by your FSM. In which case, they would not prove the existence of a FSM.

Finally: If you would like a philosophical, scientific, and rational argument arguing as to why Darwinian evolution requires faith then I would recommend reading Norman Geisler’s "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist." I understand that you are currently unemployed and therefore may not wish to spend the money to purchase a copy of this book. If that is the case, please respond to this e-mail, and I will be happy to send you my copy free of charge. Also, please feel free to post this on your website (although please credit many of my arguments to Mr. Geisler and his book). I don't see why you would consider this hate mail since I'm merely disagreeing with your theory, but seeing as similar e-mails have made it onto that page, I'll look forward to finding mine there as well.

Tom Long, of Citizen's Voice, reports on a school district in northeast Pennsylvania that is considering teaching ID.

For the full story, click HERE.

Paul Nelson and Michael Ruse will discuss "Design by Evolution or Evolution by Design?" tonight (9/15) at the University of Miami, in a program sponsored by the Department of Philosophy.

For more on the program for those who wish to attend from the south Florida area, click HERE.

Maybe you need to relieve a little stress...

Have fun by clicking HERE.

A recent newsletter of ISCID reminded us of an upcoming conference, Applications of Methods of Stochastic Systems and Statistical Physics in Biology October 28-30, 2005 Presented by the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Biocomplexity at Notre Dame.

Its purpose is to stimulate new interdisciplinary collaborations between physicists, mathematicians, biologists, chemists and engineers with interests in modeling stochastic behavior in biology. More information by clicking HERE.

ISCID's featured book

"Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom"
click here
by Sean B. Carroll

is a look at the development of organisms, discussing the "toolkit genes" and "genetic switches" which shape and control the forms of biological life.

Two papers on the origin of man by Casey Luskin and Willaim Dembski are also offered:

Casey Luskin

William Dembski

The Guardian Unlimited (UK) chatted with Michael Behe on the ID movement. It must have drove the Darwinists crazy. There was no rebuttal in the piece.

To read the interview, click HERE.

Denyse O'Leary has been named "Recommended Canadian Author of the Year", in large part for her award-winning book By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004)

"The award was a complete surprise, as I did not even know I had been nominated," O'Leary said, when informed, on arriving at the Ottawa Congress Centre the following afternoon. "I had only come up to give a workshop."

The CBA Canada booksellers determine the award by a private in-group poll. Results were announced on August 28, 2005.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Good question, where are all the space aliens that Carl Sagan though populated our galaxy by the thousands of civilizations? At one time, it was rude to express skepticism about their existence. That implied you weren't keeping up with the progress of science.

But now, even a science writer is permitted to wonder. "You never write, you never call," complains Tim Radford (August 25, 2005) - with considerable justice, because - as he engagingly points out - the idea that there could be alien civilizations inhabiting other parts of our universe was first proposed in 300 B.C.

Actually, though Radford doesn't mention it, in mediaeval times, people happily believed that life on other planets was much nicer than on Earth, a view that modern science unfortunately confutes. ("There's no life there, but if there is, it would be hell, not heaven.").

But then Radford goes on to say,

If life exists on Earth - a nondescript planet orbiting an undistinguished star in a neither-here-nor-there galaxy in an ordinary corner of the universe - then it ought to exist on at least some other planets around a proportion of other suns in at least a selection of other galaxies. There are at least 200bn galaxies, and each may be home to 200bn stars. Even if the evolution of a sentient, intelligent, technologically aware civilisation is rare, the firmament should still be fizzing with life.

Uh, wait a minute. As Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee have amply demonstrated in Rare Earth, Earth is quite an unusual planet. Not necessarily unique, but very unusual. As Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards have demonstrated in Privileged Planet, Earth occupies an unusual position in the galaxy. If we start with questionable assumptions ("nondescript planet" "undistinguished star" "neither here-nor-there galaxy"), we may well wait forever to get good answers.

One explanation that Radford introduces for the fact that the aliens never return our calls is that our signals are not getting through. The aliens too far away. The signal gets lost.

That could be all it takes to keep the neighbours from getting the message or putting a call through, say engineers such as Christopher Rose of Rutgers State University, New Jersey, in the journal Nature, and biologists such as Clive Trotman at the University of Otago in New Zealand, who did a similar set of sums in his book The Feathered Onion last year. You can't just broadcast a message saying, "Is anybody out there?" The signal dissipates as the square of the distance. By the time you get to Pluto, it's already vanishingly faint.

Okay, Tim. If we need to believe, that's a good enough reason I guess. But why do we need to believe? Tell me again, okay?

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Well, Richard Sternberg wasn't wrong when he figured his bosses at the Smithsonian were out to get him, after he permitted the publication of a peer-reviewed ID-friendly paper in a Smithsonian journal. As David Klinghoffer recounts in National Review, Office of Special Counsel attorney James McVay has found that (August 5, 2005):

Our preliminary investigation indicates that retaliation [against Sternberg by his colleagues] came in many forms. It came in the form of attempts to change your working conditions...During the process you were personally investigated and your professional competence was attacked. Misinformation was disseminated throughout the SI [Smithsonian Institution] and to outside sources. The allegations against you were later determined to be false. It is also clear that a hostile work environment was created with the ultimate goal of forcing you out of the SI.

Interestingly, Sternberg has never claimed to be an ID supporter, but he enjoys considering new ideas. As he told Michael Powell of the Washington Post, ""I loathe careerism and the herd mentality," he said. "I really think that objective truth can be discovered and that popular opinion and consensus thinking does more to obscure than to reveal." Powell's excellent piece on Sternberg reveals the shameful role that National Center for Science Education, a seriously mission-challenged organization, played in promoting the persecution. NCSE's alleged purpose is to promote Darwinism in the public school system, not hound a productive scientist at a research institution. (Note: For an interview with Sternberg, go here.)

But the most encouraging news is, Sternberg has just co-authored a paper. (Note: If you click this link, you may not be able to get back using the back browser button. ) So they didn't ruin his career after all. Here's the abstract:

Why repetitive DNA is essential to genome function
Biol. Rev. (2005), 80, pp. 227-250. f 2005 Cambridge Philosophical Society 227 doi:10.1017/S1464793104006657

James A. Shapiro 1,* and Richard von Sternberg 2,3

There are clear theoretical reasons and many well-documented examples which show that repetitive DNA is essential for genome function. Generic repeated signals in the DNA are necessary to format expression of unique coding sequence files and to organise additional functions essential for genome replication and accurate transmission to progeny cells. Repetitive DNA sequence elements are also fundamental to the cooperative molecular interactions forming nucleoprotein complexes. Here, we review the surprising abundance of repetitive DNA in many genomes, describe its structural diversity, and discuss dozens of cases where the functional importance of repetitive elements has been studied in molecular detail. In particular, the fact that repeat elements serve either as initiators or boundaries for heterochromatin domains and provide a significant fraction of scaffolding/matrix attachment regions (S/MARs) suggests that the repetitive component of the genome plays a major architectonic role in higher order physical structuring. Employing an information science model, the 'functionalist'perspective on repetitive DNA leads to new ways of thinking about the systemic organisation of cellular genomes and provides several novel possibilities involving repeat elements in evolutionarily significant genome reorganisation. These ideas may facilitate the interpretation of comparisons between sequenced genomes, where the repetitive DNA component is often greater than the coding sequence component.

While we are at it, what about the ID-friendly paper that NCSE and the Smithsonian boffins tried to ruin his career over?

Apparently, it has received way more publicity than it ever would have otherwise.

Good thing, too. Now that the bullies are (we hope) leaving town by a slow train, maybe we can start to have reasonable discussions about the way in which the Cambrian explosion fails to support the predictions of classical Darwinism.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

In a review of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, yet another pitchfork drama, reviewer A.O. Scott weighs in on the question of whether Emily Rose could in fact have been dancing with the devil, so to speak, prior to her death during an exorcism:

[Exorcist] Father Moore insists that Emily was in the grip of the Devil's minions, even as the prosecution presents an array of expert witnesses arguing that she suffered from a medical rather than a spiritual condition. Erin, in turn, unearths an anthropologist (Shohreh Aghdashloo) who studies demonic possession and is studiously noncommital as to whether it really exists.

The movie pretends to take the same tolerant, anything's-possible position. While not especially good - judged strictly on its cinematic merits, it ranges from O.K. to god-awful - it is still a fascinating cultural document in the age of intelligent design. Its point of view suggests an improbable alliance of postmodern relativism and absolute religious faith against the supposed tyranny of scientific empiricism, which is depicted as narrow and dogmatic.

The sincerity of a believer - Father Moore, in this case - is conflated with the plausibility of his beliefs. The doctors, meanwhile, seem so sure of themselves. But of course, the movie says, no one can ever be completely sure, and thus superstition becomes a matter of reasonable doubt. Meanwhile the clocks stop, the wind howls, and we are encouraged to believe - or at least not to disbelieve - our own eyes. Father Moore knows what he saw. So do I: propaganda disguised as entertainment.

Scott is clearly seriously confused about the nature of the intelligent design hypothesis. The ID theorists do not see design as a form of supernaturalism but simply as part of the nature of the existing universe. In other words, design is not a mere illusion, as materialists and naturalists would insist.

In fact, the universe could be intelligently designed without exhibiting any supernatural or spiritual forces at all. Obviously, the source of the design must be outside the universe in that case, but a design model without supernaturalism within the universe is quite plausible. A person who accepted such a model would be in conflict with the teachings of most Western religions, because they insist that some truly supernatural events have occurred. But the conflict is not with ID theory.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

A friend brought this one to my attention from Better Homes & Gardens ( January 2004, 111):

DARWIN'S FUSSY EATERS. The next time the kids are fussing about eating anything other than Mac and cheese, bear in mind that they may be hardwired to be picky. British scientists recently theorized that young children shun many vegetables and strange meats because of an evolutionary safeguard that protected them from toxic plants and food poisoning. Knowing this won't convince them to eat broccoli, but you can at least take comfort in the fact that it's not your cooking.

Wow. Evolutionary safeguards are pretty awesome. Not only did natural selection discourage kids from eating many nutritious vegetables and meats (or so we are told) but it actually managed the feat before macaroni and cheese had evolved.

Actually, I have nothing against evolutionary psychology because I like folk tales as well as anyone. But calling it a science discipline is another matter. Actually, it's part of the reason the public is skeptical of Darwinism. Read enough of this stuff and the same thoughts will occur to you as occurred to me and to Jerry Coyne, a Darwinist who would likely disagree with me on just about everything else:

In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. For evolutionary biology is a historical science, laden with history's inevitable imponderables. We evolutionary biologists cannot generate a Cretaceous Park to observe exactly what killed the dinosaurs; and, unlike "harder" scientists, we usually cannot resolve issues with a simple experiment, such as adding tube A to tube B and noting the color of the mixture. The latest deadweight dragging us closer to phrenology is "evolutionary psychology," or the science formerly known as sociobiology, which studies the evolutionary roots of human behavior. There is nothing inherently wrong with this enterprise, and it has proposed some intriguing theories, particularly about the evolution of language. The problem is that evolutionary psychology suffers from the scientific equivalent of megalomania. Most of its adherents are convinced that virtually every human action or feeling, including depression, homosexuality, religion, and consciousness, was put directly into our brains by natural selection. In this view, evolution becomes the key--the only key-- that can unlock our humanity. (Jerry A. Coyne, [Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago], "The fairy tales of evolutionary psychology." Review of A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion, by Randy Thornhill & Craig T. Palmer, MIT Press, 2000. The New Republic, March 4, 2000.).

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

In a an August 29 article in The Scientist, eminent (now retired) chemist Phil Skell weighs in on the actual importance of Darwinism in modern biology, as opposed to the dramatic claims made - "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution," "cornerstone of biology", et cetera.

Skell quotes A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one." He then comments,

I would tend to agree. Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.

In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word - "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.

I would add that persecutions of scientists like Richard Sternberg, simply for considering viewpoints other than Darwinism in interpreting historical biology, should be met not only with skepticism but disdain.

While Prof. Skell doesn't say so, the apparent reason Darwinism is currently so important in biology has nothing to do with science as such. Darwinism enables an atheistic naturalist to use the publicly funded biology curriculum to promote his or her religious and political views.

For example, on the web site of Florida Citizens for Science, a state Darwin lobby, note the link to "Zealots are determined to create a theocracy". This ignorant and spiteful politico-religious rant is largely unrelated to the issue of Darwinism vs. design. FCS should not link to it as an article "of interest" if it wants to persuade anyone that it represents the public at large. Otherwise, the group should change its name to Florida Citizens for Divisiveness (Not Diversity) in Religion.

posted by Denyse O'Leary, author of By Design or by Chance?
http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b088sk.htm

Just as cartoonists are discovering the fun in the intelligent design controversy, its concepts are creeping into popular newswriting.

For example, Newsweek devoted a recent cover story to a serious examination of spirituality in America.

One comment that newswriter Jerry Adler makes is,

If you experience God directly, your faith is not going to hinge on whether natural selection could have produced the flagellum of a bacterium. If you feel God within you, then the important question is settled; the rest is details.

As it happens, I vehemently disagree with the approach to religion that Adler describes, but that's a discussion for another time. I want to draw attention to the fact that Adler assumes that the average reader knows both the meaning and the significance of "flagellum of a bacterium." That certainly would not have been the case ten years ago. So, clearly, the intelligent design controversy is affecting popular culture.

Here’s another cartoon on the ID controversy, mocking mammoth science textbooks. As one who has helped assemble these monsters, I can tell you what the problem is: The textbook publisher has a number of constituencies to please. But the student is not of those constituencies. So the publisher naturally tries to cram in whatever any teacher lobby wants, because their opinion counts. I used to be an expert at this, actually. I would fill in huge charts, illustrating my misdeeds, as the book grew to the size of a doorstop for a government building.

My advice, if anyone wants it: Today’s textbook should morph into a slim introduction to the topic, with a CD-ROM/DVD (with additional material, tutorials etc.) in the back jacket, plus a Web site the student can consult. Of course the big fight would then be over how much attention to give to each topic, but at leastt he student is not burdened with that. How much does 50 extra megs of information weigh, after all?

Re cartoons on the intelligent design controversy: Too much of the stuff I see is off target, blandly predictable, or weakly political. My guess is, that will change as more cartoonists become aware of the depth of the controversy. Here is some stuff I thought was fun, not in any order.)

Gary Huck Toons for Teachers (This one’s a hoot, as the stunned fish plops/plods uncertainly plops/plods to his destiny ...).:

Larry Wright of the Detroit News encourages children to ask the Really Big Questions about intelligent design.

“Liberty News” asks how soon US President Bush will allow intelligent design to be studied in relation to ...

Canadian cartoonist John Fewings muses in a similar vein on Bush’s possible reasons for his support for teaching ID in the schools:

Steve Kelley knows who needs intelligent design the most:

This is one of my favourites, as Curious George ponders a possible personal future :

Gary Varvel of the Indianapolis Star captures the quandary of the simian lab assistants. (Everyone needs simian lab assistants.)

Tom Toles on “Intelephant design” is one of my faves - a sharp enough razor to cut with:

I don’t have to agree with you. I just want you to be funny.

“The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” will air a four-day report on the controversy over evolution.

“Evolution Schmevolution” will air nightly at 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central.

To view the details, courtesy of the Lawrence (KS) Journal World please click HERE.

A recent opinion in the Fredericksburg (VA) Free Lance-Star by an average person who is a theist evolutionist (TE) can be instructive.

Sarah Marcus says that Dr. Ken Miller, a theist evolutionist, absolutely debunks the research done by Dr. Michael Behe. Hardly the truth, but you are free to believe anything you want Sarah.

Sarah is a Christian, and a theistic evolutionist. She believes in an intelligent designer (God) who uses "evolution" to accomplish what we see in biological history and the current biologicial system.

One flavor of theistic evolution has nothing to do with Darwinism, because Darwinism, by definition, is a random, undirected process (random mutation and natural selection (no God need apply)). Proponents of this type of TE say God "tinkers" with the evolutionary process, and hides His "tinkering."

Another flavor of theistic evolution, which some Christians hold to, claims that God designed the cosmos in such a way that life would inevitably originate and evolve from the properties of chemistry and physics initially "programmed" into the Creation Event, with no further "tinkering" necessary. The Christian Bible does not suggest this frontloading, but rather a progressive creation over time, be it days or eons. The difference between this view and atheistic Darwinism is that the TE frontloads the cosmos with properties ordained by God, while the Darwinist says this cosmos and life are effects of a lucky throw of the dice. Of course, initially, the Darwinist has to make the incredible blind leap of faith that this universe, or whatever it came from, arose from absolute nothing. And NOTHING is literally NOTHING...no space...time... energy...matter.

Sarah goes on to say that "acceptance of evolution does not require a person to believe that life is without meaning, or that the development of life totally lacked direction". Here is where she gets herself in trouble with an equivocal term. Her word "evolution" can have so many different definitions that you don't know what she means. Substitute the word "Darwinism" for "evolution", and the statement is nonsense, because life ultimately has no meaning, value, and purpose if atheistic Darwinism is true. You can make-believe there is meaning, or say there is temporary meaning, but, ultimately, there is none. She does mean God-directed "evolution", which is not Darwinism, but simply either a mix of God-ordained physics and chemistry and millions or billions of miraculous, yet hidden interventions, or a frontloaded cosmos where life and evolution are inevitable. What would be the motive of God to have random mutation and natural selection take place, and concurrently make millions or billions of miraculous non-random selections, and then totally hide those interventions for human view? And, if an intelligent designer frontloaded the cosmos with all the properties for life to orginate and evolve, and then let it go, He would have no control over the evolution of life forms (random chance and natural selection). He would be limited, and certainly not the Christian God. The ultimate kickoff question should be, from what did the cosmos spring?...a transcendent intelligent designer, or nothing? And let's follow the evidence where it leads.

Be careful when you use the word "evolution". When discussing the debate of Darwinism vs ID, use the terms "Darwinism" or Darwinist theory", and know what it means.

For the full opinion, click HERE.

The Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center (IDURC) is proud to
announce the first-ever Graduate Awards to two of its most respected members. Their names are being deliberately withheld. The recent cases
of Rick Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, and others testify to the
importance of these bright minds remaining out of the crosshairs of
those opposed to open-minded investigation.

Tristan Abbey, the director of IDURC, congratulated the winners with
this message: "Only honest, rigorous, scientific investigation of
intelligent design will determine its status in ten years: whether it
will be taken seriously as a scientific theory or merely regarded as a
quaint set of assertions. These two will be shining examples for years
to come of what it means to have an open mind. Live bravely, friends,
but also wisely."

Each summer, IDURC will present Graduate Awards to outstanding
students who have just completed their undergraduate degrees and have
demonstrated exemplary dedication to both the study of science and the
rigorous investigation of intelligent design.

This year, award-winners will each receive a one-time grant funded by
Access Research Network (ARN) to be used however they wish, and an
autographed copy of Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA, inscribed
by William Dembski.

The Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center (IDURC) is proud to
announce the first-ever Graduate Awards to two of its most respected members. Their names are being deliberately withheld. The recent cases
of Rick Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, and others testify to the
importance of these bright minds remaining out of the crosshairs of
those opposed to open-minded investigation.

Tristan Abbey, the director of IDURC, congratulated the winners with
this message: "Only honest, rigorous, scientific investigation of
intelligent design will determine its status in ten years: whether it
will be taken seriously as a scientific theory or merely regarded as a
quaint set of assertions. These two will be shining examples for years
to come of what it means to have an open mind. Live bravely, friends,
but also wisely."

Each summer, IDURC will present Graduate Awards to outstanding
students who have just completed their undergraduate degrees and have
demonstrated exemplary dedication to both the study of science and the
rigorous investigation of intelligent design.

This year, award-winners will each receive a one-time grant funded by
Access Research Network (ARN) to be used however they wish, and an
autographed copy of Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA, inscribed
by William Dembski.

Jay Richards of the Discovery Institute is on the radio show "The Bible Answer Man" with host Hank Hanegraaf Tuesday, Sept. 6th and Wednesday, Sept. 7th. Check your local listings, OR check out or purchase the programs at:

OnePlace.

or at:

Christian Research Institute.

Rebecca Keller, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of New Mexico, is president of Gravitas Publications of Albuquerque and writes elementary and middle-school science textbooks.

Dr. Keller writes a commentary on the proper role of science, and the science vs science controversy regarding Darwinism and ID.

To read her excellent commentary, click HERE.

John West of the Discovery Institute gets some ink in the Dallas Morning News.

The article is a brief description of what ID is, and is not, and what the movement is trying to accomplish. It also shows some of the disingenuousness of Darwinists regarding the debate.

To read the article (you must register with the paper), click HERE.

Reid Forgrave, of the Des Moines Register, gives a detailed look at the life and worldview of Dr. Gonzalez, and some of the thoughts of rivals Hector Avalos, an associate professor of religious studies at Iowa State who is also the faculty adviser for the ISU Atheist and Agnostic Society, and Jim Colbert, an associate professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology at ISU.

"Anytime you incorporate the possibility of a supernatural explanation, you can't accumulate any evidence," said Colbert. We're not saying no one should believe in intelligent design. It's just that you can't accumulate evidence, so it's not science," he further added.

These are odd assertions from a learned professor, since ID professes that there is an intelligent designer, without pursuing the identity of the designer. The precise identity is, indeed, beyond science. What Colbert is saying is that we could never determine whether a person with five bullets holes in his chest died of natural causes or was the victim of a malevolent intelligent agent, because we could never gather any evidence from the crime scene to determine whether there was a crime committed. We could never determine if Mt. Rushmore came to be from the natural forces of rain, snow, and wind, or if a talented sculptor and his assistants took years to carve out the rock, because we could gather no evidence to determine the cause (natural or agent causation) of the effect (Mt. Rushmore).

The ISU petition against ID said "it's becoming increasingly clear to some of us that Iowa State University is being marketed as an intelligent design research center."

This is interesting, because on one hand people from NCSE (Glenn Branch and Eugenie Scott) tell ID theorists and researchers to get busy, do the work and get it through the peer-review process, but the idea of a ID research center is out-of-bounds. Who is being disingenuous?

For the full article, click HERE.

In the 7:30 Report on ABC in Australia, Geoff Hutchinson has a discussion about the current mindset of ID opponents and proponents.

To read the transcript of the show, click HERE.