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Education

Agnosticism Loses: Arkansas Science Must Be Atheistic
March 18, 2005
Updated 05/08/2005:  “What I’m trying to do here is not to deal directly with the existence or non-existence of God, but restore to science the agnostic viewpoint that there could be or could not be rather than the dogmatism that actually currently exists… that absolutely precludes the existence of God.”  These were the words of […]
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Cell Biology

The Future of Biology: Reverse Engineering
March 14, 2005
Just as an engineer can model the feedback controls required in an autopilot system for an aircraft, the biologist can construct models of cellular networks to try to understand how they work.  “The hallmark of a good feedback control design is a resulting closed loop system that is stable and robust to modeling errors and […]
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Cell Biology

Bacterial Engineering On Par With Higher Life
March 11, 2005
Bacteria aren’t the simple life-forms microbiologists used to envision, writes Zemer Gitai in Cell.1 Recent advances have demonstrated that bacterial cells have an exquisitely organized and dynamic subcellular architecture.  Like their eukaryotic counterparts, bacteria employ a full complement of cytoskeletal proteins, localize proteins and DNA to specific subcellular addresses at specific times, and use intercellular […]
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Intelligent Design

Darwinists Dig In Heels Against I.D.
March 7, 2005
“We aren’t going to convince them and they aren’t going to convince us,” said Vittorio Maestro of Natural History magazine, quoted at the end of a piece entitled, “US scientists battle over challenge to Darwinism” in ABC News Online.  The article gave quite a bit of space to quotes by Michael Behe and Jonathan Wells, […]
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Intelligent Design

Visual Aid: Chance or Design?
March 1, 2005
A TV commercial for the Honda Accord has been circulating around the net as a popular download (see Steel City’s Finest).  It shows the parts of a car, without human intervention, interacting in strange ways like a Rube Goldberg device, resulting in a finished car rolling off the ramp.  Garrison Keillor adds the punch line, […]
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Intelligent Design

ID. Article Makes N.Y. Times
February 7, 2005
Michael Behe got a full-length column in the New York Times (reproduced at Discovery.com) to present the case for intelligent design.  The EvolutionNews blog says it is the second most emailed article from that day’s edition, and asks, “Who says there’s no controversy?” Which side wants to air the debate?  Which side wants to shut […]
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Education

Editorials Lukewarm to ID, but Not as Hot to Darwin
January 31, 2005
A subtle shift seems to be taking place in media coverage of intelligent-design controversies in school boards across the country.  Darwinists used to be the unchallenged kings of the hill.  Alternatives, whether creationism or intelligent design, were disqualified before they reached the starting gate.  It also used to be “open season” on anti-Darwinists.  No vituperative […]
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Education

Newspaper Editorials Lead Revolt Against King Charles
January 24, 2005
Some columnists and editorial writers are gaining boldness to attack the Darwin-only rule in science education.  Some examples: Senator Rick Santorum (R., Pennsylvania) in The Morning Call advocated a balanced approach to teaching evolution. Brian Fahling in The Union Leader took up the charge to defend Georgia’s “critical thinking” stickers (see 01/13/2005 entry). Neal McCluskey, […]
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Education

Dover, PA Administrators Will Read ID Statement
January 11, 2005
In a compromise aimed at relieving recalcitrant teachers, the Dover, Pennsylvania school board decided that administrators will read a four-paragraph statement about evolution and intelligent design (ID) to high school students for any teachers that want to “opt out” of the new policy (see 11/04/2004 headline).  The decision, according to the York Daily Record, was […]
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Intelligent Design

ID Blog Opens
January 5, 2005
The Discovery Institute, an Intelligent Design think-tank in Seattle, has initiated a new blog, Evolution News & Views, that analyzes how evolution is presented in the media (see mission statement).  One of the first entries concerns how a PBS station in New Mexico censored the showing of the film Unlocking the Mystery of Life after […]
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Amazing Facts

Cellular UPS Gets Right Packages to Chloroplasts
January 1, 2005
If all your packages were sent correctly over the holidays, consider the job a plant cell has getting 3000 proteins into a chloroplast.  Mistakes are not just inconvenient.  They can be deadly, or at least bring photosynthesis to a halt.  To guarantee proper delivery of components, plant cells have a remarkable shipping system, described in […]
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Intelligent Design

Debate:  Should Schools Teach the Controversy Over Darwinism?
December 14, 2004
The San Francisco Chronicle published a written debate between Stanford evolutionist Robert Sapolsky and Discovery Institute fellows Stephen Meyer and John Angus Campbell.  The subject is whether schools should “teach the controversy” over evolution.  Both articles can be read on the Discovery Institute website.     Meanwhile, the ACLU is suing another school district, this […]
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Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design Evidence Convinces Atheist of Designer
December 9, 2004
According to an AP report on ABC News, a famous British atheist now believes in God based on scientific evidence.  “At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe.  A super-intelligence is the only good explanation […]
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Intelligent Design

Nature Takes Note of Religious Influence
December 9, 2004
The surprisingly strong show of support for moral issues in the recent U.S. election has been the talk of the news for weeks now, and Big Science can’t ignore it.  “The voices of religion are more prominent and influential than they have been for many decades,” begins a prominent editorial in Nature1 Dec. 9, entitled […]
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Cell Biology

Bacterial Flagellum Reveals New Structural Complexity
October 27, 2004
The bacterial flagellum, the unofficial mascot of the Intelligent Design movement, got more praise from the evolutionary journal Nature this week: Samatey et al.1 analyzed the hook region in detail and found that it is composed of 120 copies of a specialized protein that “reveals the intricate molecular interactions and a plausible switching mechanism for […]
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