In the News

Presented by the M.A. Program in Science and Religion, Biola University

(We warmly welcome participants representing diverse viewpoints regarding evolutionary biology)

Featuring Discussion of Discovery Institute's New Supplemental Biology Curriculum

(Free copies for professors considering it for course adoption)

Friday, August 3, 2007, 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. (early bird session 10:00 - 11:15 a.m.)

- Register: Contact Mike Keas, (562) 777-4049, mike.keas@biola.edu.
- Meet in room 112 of Biola's Bardwell Science Building for this free event.
- Guest parking passes are available in Bardwell room 112 where we will meet.

An exciting new supplementary textbook delivers critical thinking at its best: Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and Against Neo-Darwinism (Hill House Publishers, 2007). It is well suited for college
courses in general biology or evolutionary biology designed for either science or non-science majors.

Modules from this curriculum are also appropriate for various advanced biology courses.

Consultation Highlights
- John Bloom, director of Biola's M.A. Program in Science and Religion, will frame the consultation.
- Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution, will survey recent trends in evolutionary biology.
- Mike Keas, primary author of Explore Evolution's auxiliary materials, will introduce the curriculum.
- You, and other participants from various universities, can offer comments and constructive criticism.
- A panel of college students who have completed the Explore Evolution unit will share their opinions.
- Discuss and dine at local restaurants after 4 p.m. until Jonathan Wells gives an optional talk at 7 p.m.

Examine the auxiliary materials (PowerPoint shows, teaching tips, etc.) that accompany the new Explore Evolution curriculum and consider how they might improve your classroom performance. The supplementary textbook Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and Against Neo-Darwinism does not
teach about the theory of intelligent design. You may wish to introduce ID theory through other resources (both pro and con) that we will discuss in the optional early-bird session from 10:00 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.
before our main consultation on teaching evolutionary biology begins at 1:00 p.m. Even if you think that the arguments against neo-Darwinism are inconsequential compared to the case for this majority viewpoint, you will find the supplementary textbook Explore Evolution a useful tool to spark discussion in the classroom. Regardless of your professional opinion on these matters, you will find it difficult to ignore the case both for and against neo-Darwinism that is so winsomely and accurately conveyed in Explore Evolution. If you include this new supplement alongside a standard textbook, your students will have exposure to all sides of the debate as expressed in the words of their most qualified proponents.

Jonathan Wells will also lecture on August 3, 7:00-10:00 p.m., at a related event. You may purchase tickets for this through the Science Teacher Symposium link at www.biola.edu/scienceandreligion. Some
college biology professors may also be interested in the Saturday August 4th Symposium events designed for high school biology teachers, especially if you teach non-science majors at the college level.

More about Explore Evolution

- Authors: Stephen C. Meyer, Scott Minnich, Jonathan Moneymaker, Paul A. Nelson, Ralph Seelke.
- Publisher: Based in Melbourne and London, Hill House is known for its beautifully illustrated lepidoptory volumes. Explore Evolution reflects the high publishing standards of Hill House.

Cells have the remarkable ability to keep track of their genetic contents and - when things go wrong - to step in and repair the damage before cancer or another life-threatening condition develops.

But precisely how cells monitor the integrity of their genomes, identify problems, and intervene to repair broken or miscoded DNA has been one of nature's closely held secrets. Now, however, a report in the journal Science describes a new database developed by a team of researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Harvard Medical School that is providing the first detailed portrait of the army of more than 700 proteins that helps maintain DNA's integrity.

How this complex system could have appeared by random mutation and natural selection is mind-numbing.

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Sarah Kessinger, of the Hutchinson (KS) News, reports that science advocates are urging write-in candidates to contest Kansas state school board member Ken Willard in this summer's election for president of the National Association of State Boards of Education.

Opponents express concern for Willard's push for the teaching of intelligent design...

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In Evolution News & Views, we again simply see what IDT claims. We can make an inference to design, which is scientifically sound, but we may not know who the designer is.

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Evolution News & Views reports on an article in Nature.

"He's a young astronomer with dozens of articles in top journals; he has made an important discovery in the field of extrasolar planets; and he is a proponent of intelligent design, the idea that an intelligent force has shaped the Universe. It's that last fact that Guillermo Gonzalez thinks has cost him his tenure at Iowa State University."

So begins Nature magazine's story. Reporter Geoff Brumfiel goes on to lay out Gonzalez's stellar professional credentials.

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U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, Republican candidate for President, commented on the denial of tenure to Iowa State University Professor Guillermo Gonzales.

"When I was informed that Professor Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure, I was puzzled given his excellent academic record of achievement and faithful service..."

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As pointed out in the Creation-Evolution Web site, imagine a book written in a language where there were no spaces, and every word was three letters long. Now imagine that you could get one story by starting at the first letter, and a different story by starting at the second letter, and another by starting at the third letter. That's the situation with some genes in the genetic code. DNA can code for one protein in the first reading frame, but a different protein in an alternate reading frame. Since the DNA language has three nucleotide "letters" per codon "word," and since the opposite strand has three more reading frames, there are potentially six reading frames per gene. How commonly are alternate reading frames used by an organism?
A paper in PLoS Computational Biology hints that there may be widespread examples of alternate reading frames (ARFs) in mammalian genomes.

More... on the design staring us in the face.

Can watch parts be placed in a box, shaken vigorously, and result in a fully assembled watch? The Paley Watch Company in Eugene, Oregon says yes! They are applying natural selection in a controlled environment to assemble their watches thereby reducing required personnel. The savings are passed to the customer.

In what is now universally recognized by true scientists as a stupid comment, William Paley (1743-1805) wrote that watches could not be assembled using Darwinian mechanisms.

Today, we know that Paley's conjecture was stupid, and stochastic procedures such as box shaking are accepted as viable approaches to engineering design. Sir Oliver Witherspoon chronicles Darwin's initial questioning of Paley's claim, and Darwin's attempt to assemble a watch by box shaking.

Indeed, The Paley Watch Company in Eugene, Oregon, assembles watches using this method.

"The principle is a straightforward application of natural selection," claims Tristran Korpulous, chief engineer for the Paley Watch Company. "Watch parts are placed in the controlled environment of a shaker. Although the probability the parts will assemble is small, the chance is there. Given enough time, the Law of Large Numbers dictates the watch will, indeed, be ultimately assembled. This is a process familiar to all true evolutionary scientists."

Korpulous' watch making business is financed unconventionally. After repeated rejection by venture capitalists as infeasible, he circulated his natural selection based business plan among today's most prominent evolutionary scientists and quickly raised the needed funds. The scientists shared Korpulous' enthusiasm for the first business application of applied natural selection.

It's hard to tell if this new book means ID has finally made it out of the ivory towers to the man on the street, or if the book was written for the guys in the ivory towers. Either way most people will find something of value in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design. A brief review of this book and other recent ID news of interest can be found in the May edition of the ARN Announce email newsletter.

Professor Steven Kawaler, the Program Coordinator for astronomy in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at ISU, actually signed the statement, and he provides a link to both the statement and an article about it on his website.

University Professor Lee Anne Willson, meanwhile, is married to ISU mathematics professor Stephen J. Willson, who also signed the anti-ID statement.

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In Evolution News & Views the surprising story from Iowa.

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On Sunday 13 May 2007, at 7:00 p.m., Earl Staelin and David Eller, and Doug Groothuis will discuss Intelligent Design and Darwinism at the First Universalist Church of Denver: 4101 E. Hampden Ave., Denver CO 80222-7262.

Does a proper understanding of some aspects of biology require a designing intelligence?

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Biola University's M. A. Program in Science and Religion and the Department of Education will present a Science Teacher Symposium on August 3rd and 4th, 2007.

The symposium is specifically designed for high school biology teachers, but anyone may attend.

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Anna Scott of the Lakeland Ledger, reports that school districts that do everything right will have unprecedented freedom starting next school year to choose textbooks, ignore the state-mandated 90-minute reading block - even avoid some of the state's spending requirements.

Allowing school districts to choose textbooks that are not on a state-approved list prompted fears. One lawmaker said the proposal would allow schools to buy science books espousing the theory of intelligent design, a teaching that credits the creation of the world to an intelligent being rather than evolution, while remaining silent on subjects such as the Holocaust or black history.

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The answer to this question asked in Evolution News & Views is likely, "Yes."

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Lucy Sheriff, in The Register, brings up the old question: how does light make its way through all the retinal layers to finally strike the light sensitive cells at the back of the eye?

A group of researchers at the Paul-Flechsig-Institute of Brain Research, Universitat Leipzig in Germany, thinks it has the answer. They have demonstrated that light is collected and funnelled through long cells called Muller cells. These work almost exactly like a fibre optic plate: a "zero-length window" that optical engineers can use to transmit an image without using a lens.

My...how well designed is the eye!

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