Let me say very clearly here that I’m not denying the EXISTENCE of slam-dunk credible evidence for evolution. What I’m denying is the existence of credible PEOPLE to inform me of this evidence. http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2005/11/intelligent_des_1.html

Students join debate on intelligent design Campus clubs set up to defend concept By Lisa Anderson Tribune national correspondent Published November 25, 2005 ITHACA, N.Y. — Dappled with autumn leaves, the manicured campus of an Ivy League university in upstate New York may seem far from the cornfields of Kansas or the rural towns of central Pennsylvania, but it represents the newest of these battlefields in the growing culture war over the teaching of evolution. The national spotlight recently has focused on school boards in Kansas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere that are grappling with calls for including intelligent design, a concept critical of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, in science curricula. But a significant new front in this cultural conflict is Read More ›

Intelligent Design Network Australia — www.idnet.com.au. The unveiling of this website coincides with the distribution of Unlocking the Mystery of Life to 3000 high schools.

Thomas Lessl: Science and Rhetoric
Interviewed by Paul Newall
http://www.galilean-library.org/lessl.html

Thomas Lessl is Associate Professor in the Department of Speech
Communication at the University of Georgia. His work involves the rhetoric
of science, looking in particular at the meeting of science with the public
sphere. I was fortunate enough to be able to ask him some general questions
about rhetoric as well as focusing on its role in scientific debate.

“… the scientific culture of [the nineteenth century] was committed to
evolutionism long before any scientific theory of development appeared”

PN: How would you define rhetoric and why should we study it?

TL: Most simply I would define rhetoric as the art of public communication.
Anyone who engages in public communication is practicing the art of
rhetoric. Art can also mean a body of principles pertaining to its
practices, and this is true of rhetoric as well. Read More ›

[Update 11/23/05:] The following email is self-explanatory. I had posted it previously, but then withdrew it because it seemed that the rebuttal might still be published. It’s now been weeks and it still hasn’t happened. Note that I’ve blogged about the BAAS before (go here).

Dr. Dembski,

In the recent past the BAAS editor was brave enough to publish our articles and rebuttals. Not anymore. Read More ›

http://web.media.mit.edu/~picard/RUR2.html

Let me humbly suggest that CNN puchase a copy of my book The Design Inference (Cambridge University Press, 1998) to determine whether its explanation for the “X” that flashed over the VPs face during his speech holds up. In particular, what are the odds that this program glitch just happened to kick in right as the VP spoke, no sooner or later, with the “X” marking his face having the appropriate size and thickness and occupying just the right position? See http://www.drudgereport.com/flash5cnc.htm.

Here’s the home page of the professor offering this course: http://members.aol.com/pmirecki/pmcv.htm

U. of Kansas Offers Creationism Study
Tuesday, November 22, 2005

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,176354,00.html

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Creationism and intelligent design are going to be studied at the University of Kansas, but not in the way advocated by opponents of the theory of evolution. Read More ›

The power of evolution to bring about remarkable biological designs never ceases to amaze me. Scratch that. The power of evolution to delude its followers into thinking it can bring about remarkable biological designs never ceases to amaze me. That’s better.

Butterfly’s Navigation Secret Revealed in Flight Simulator
By LiveScience Staff
http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/050504_butterfly_navigation.html

The monarch butterfly is known to use the angle of sunlight as a navigational guide on its annual fall migration from across North America to Mexico. But how it processes the information has been a mystery.

Now scientists have used a flight simulator and peeked inside the butterfly brain to learn that their light-detecting sensors are hard-wired to their circadian clocks, allowing the creatures to compensate for the time of day. Read More ›

The Darwin exhibition frightening off corporate sponsors By Nicholas Wapshott in New York (Filed: 20/11/2005) An exhibition celebrating the life of Charles Darwin has failed to find a corporate sponsor because American companies are anxious not to take sides in the heated debate between scientists and fundamentalist Christians over the theory of evolution. The entire $3 million (£1.7 million) cost of Darwin, which opened at the American Museum of Natural History in New York yesterday, is instead being borne by wealthy individuals and private charitable donations. MORE

The battle of Intelligent Design vs. evolution is popularly cast as Christianity vs. science, religion vs. Enlightenment. At the nation’s largest Baptist university, the battle is Christian vs. Christian, and all the bloodier. . . . MORE

Paul Myers, the Foghorn Leghorn of evolutionary thinkers, offered the following memorable quote a few months back. I preserve it here for the record books. Let the humiliation of ID proponents continue and intensify. Read More ›

Mark Psiaki comments at length on Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings’s state of the university address criticizing ID: http://www.rso.cornell.edu/idea/rawlings_speech_w_mlp_comments.pdf. For earlier postings on Hunter Rawlings’s address, search under “Rawlings” on this blog.

From: “Biosciences” [biosciences @mail.medicine.uiowa.edu]
To: [select U of Iowa faculty — ID proponents were bypassed]

Dear colleagues:

The issue of “Intelligent Design” has received a great deal of attention in recent months. Local interest in this issue spawned a recent panel discussion “Intelligent Design: in your classroom?” sponsored by the student group, U of I Freethinkers. The substantial attendance and lively discussion at this event indicates a strong interest by the University of Iowa community in this important topic. Read More ›