In the News

In ENV, Casey Luskin reports that...The news media are reporting on a bill in the Missouri State Legislature that would require "equal treatment for evolution and intelligent design."

As we've mentioned many times before here on ENV, Discovery Institute opposes legislation like this, as it contradicts our longstanding policy to oppose pushing intelligent design in public schools. The Missouri "equal treatment" bill is entirely different from academic freedom bills, which we do support. Well-crafted legislation protecting academic freedom (a) doesn't cover the teaching of intelligent design, (b) seeks to ensure the freedom of teachers who choose to teach about scientific controversies, and (c) does not require instructors to change their teaching in any way.

So why does Discovery Institute - the main organization supporting research into ID - oppose pushing ID into public schools? It's simple. Our priority with ID is to see it develop as a scientific theory and not to politicize it by pushing the theory into public schools.

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Jeffrey Tomkins writes that...New surprises revealing complex bio-engineering keep emerging as evolutionary scientists continue to unwittingly obey the biblical command to "observe the ant"(Proverbs 6:6; 30:25). The latest bio-engineering discovery is that a key component of ant colony survival is based on sound (acoustic) communication systems.

One of the long-standing paradigms of animal communication is the use of airborne chemical messages called pheromones. Ants use pheromones to leave chemical trails that can be followed by other members and to also identify which nest an ant is from, along with its social status in the colony. Now, scientists can add yet another layer of complexity and communication in ant colonies based on acoustics.

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In the Northwest Missourian, Tori Baigi reports that...A newly-proposed Missouri bill pushes the teaching of intelligent design, the idea that life was created in its present form by a form of intelligence, at all levels of public education, including public universities.

If passed, House Bill 291 will require teachers to allow "equal treatment" for curriculum on evolution and intelligent design.

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ScienceDaily reports that...A team of researchers at UC San Francisco has uncovered the neurological basis of speech motor control, the complex coordinated activity of tiny brain regions that controls our lips, jaw, tongue and larynx as we speak.

Described this week in the journal Nature, the work has potential implications for developing computer-brain interfaces for artificial speech communication and for the treatment of speech disorders. It also sheds light on an ability that is unique to humans among living creatures but poorly understood.

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Join Discovery Institute staff and associates in Greater Philadelphia on April 5 and 6 for the 2013 Westminster Conference on Science & Faith. The event will be held at Covenant Fellowship Church, and is headlined by Oxford mathematician and philosopher Professor John Lennox, and leading intelligent design theorist and philosopher of science Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell.

The theme is origins: of the cosmos, of increasingly complex life, and of life itself.

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We shall analyze a skeptic's remarks and consider the future of intelligent design, about which the skeptic is skeptical. Graduate students and advanced undergraduates (and others who qualify) may wish to continue this conversation at Discovery Institute's Summer Seminars on Intelligent Design (apply here), which is aimed at "the next generation of scientists and scholars."

ORIGINS 2013, the joint annual meeting of the Creation Biology Society and the Creation Geology Society, will be held in Pittsburgh, PA on August 2-4.

The CBS and CGS have now offered a call for abstracts.

You can read the announcement for the CBS here:

You can read the announcement for the CGS here.

Technical sessions will be held in conjunction with the ICC meetings. They are currently soliciting abstracts on any geological, or related topic, pertaining to creation.

While the Craig-Rosenburg was not specifically a debate on intelligent design, a few of the points William Lane Craig argues for the existence of a non-contingent, pure being have to do with fine-tuning.

Here is the audio of the debate.

Here is the summary of the debate.