In the News

Sir John Templeton, the American-born investor and philanthropist who devoted his later life to funding the scientific study of religion, died July 8 at Doctors Hospital in Nassau, Bahamas. He was 95.

The John Templeton Foundation, his charitable organization, said the cause of death was pneumonia.

Once called "arguably the greatest global stock picker," Templeton founded a prize for "progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities" in 1972. He sought to make the million-dollar Templeton Prize the world's largest annual award bestowed on an individual, always exceeding the monetary value of the Nobel Prize.

In 1987, Templeton, a Presbyterian, set up an eponymous foundation dedicated to exploring what he called the "big questions" of science and religion: God's plan, man's faith, and the order of the universe.

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IDURC Announces 2008 Casey Luskin Graduate Award

The Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center (IDURC) is proud to present the 2008 Casey Luskin Graduate Award, presented annually to a deserving college graduate for excellence in student advocacy of intelligent design.

The recipient of the 2008 Casey Luskin Graduate Award will remain anonymous for the protection of the recipient. The many students, professors, and scientists who have been denied degrees or tenure and removed from positions and jobs for no other reason than acceptance of - or even sympathy to - intelligent design theory is very telling of the importance of keeping these bright young minds out of the crosshairs of those opposed to open-minded investigation and critical thought.

The recipient of this year's award is a graduate earning a degree in history. This student has demonstrated great courage in promoting intelligent design and academic freedom, working previously with the IDURC and also serving as an IDEA Club president. The recipient will receive a certificate of achievement, a $100 award, and an autographed copy of Dr. Michael J. Behe's newest book, The Edge of Evolution: the Search for the Limits of Darwinism.

The Casey Luskin Graduate Award was established in 2005 and in 2007 its name was changed from the "IDURC Graduate Award" to the "Casey Luskin Graduate Award." The award is named for Mr. Casey Luskin, a graduate of the University of California at San Diego, who was the first student truly to step out of his comfort zone as an undergrad and take a stand for intelligent design - a stand that would be seen across the nation. His founding of the Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center has been a great step forward for the intelligent design movement and, more importantly, for academic freedom everywhere. Today, Luskin continues his work with the ID movement as a lawyer and legal analyst for the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture in Seattle, Washington. Students everywhere today are indebted to the work that Luskin has done.

Each July, the IDURC will present the Casey Luskin Graduate Award to an outstanding student who has just completed his or her undergraduate degree and has demonstrated exemplary dedication to both the rigorous investigation and the widespread promotion of intelligent design. This year's recipient joins the recipients from past years, since the award was initiated in 2005, in demonstrating such excellence.

Much thanks needs to be given to the board of directors at the IDURC for their work in preparing this year's award and for their efforts year round. A very heartfelt thank you also goes to Dr. Michael J. Behe of Lehigh University for his support of the work we do at the IDURC and for his autographing and inscribing The Edge of Evolution for this award.

As always, I must thank Mr. Dennis Wagner and Access Research Network for the donation of the $100 prize money and for their continuous and generous financial support of the IDURC.

ScienceDaily reports that Berkeley Lab scientists have for the first time pieced together the three-dimensional structure of one of nature's most exquisite pieces of machinery, a gossamer-like filament of proteins in the inner ear that enables the sense of hearing and balance.

"It's one of the most beautifully deigned systems in the body," says Manfred Auer of Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division. "But how it really works remains a mystery. Our goal is to determine what the system looks like, so we can determine how it functions."

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Interesting how the scientists cannot seem to get away from the word "designed". To the materialist, the "design" is accomplished by time, chance, and natural selection. Materialist bow at the alter of time. For ID proponents the apt phrase is, "If it looks designed, maybe it is!"

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"Okay ID proponent, who designed the designer?" This is a question often asked. There comes a point where we look to the best candidate for ultimate explanation.

Jay Richards provides a brief podcast on the ultimate explanation. Is it a designer: a personal, immaterial, eternal mind, or nothing? The materialist is backed into a corner, having to assert that physical reality came from absolutely nothing: no space, no time, no matter, no energy...nothing. Bertrand Russell, and many other atheists and agnostics, are willing to take this radical leap of faith.

On the other hand, a personal, immaterial, eternal mind is the likely stopping point. Every existing thing has a explanation for its existence, either in an external cause, or in the necessity of its own nature. As the saying goes, from nothing, comes nothing. It's either everything from absolutely nothing, or the self-existent mind. Which takes more faith to believe in?

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