Uncommon Descent just revealed that Michael Behe is coming out with a new book on evolution and intelligent design. Although his has written much in defense of his first book in articles on and offline, this will be his second book after his famous Darwin’s Black Box.

Behe’s book is coming out next year. However, this year intelligent design proponents will be treated to the first in a series of three volumes on the questions of intelligent design by MikeGene. MikeGene, although not necessarily a design advocate, nevertheless has done serious thinking about how intelligent design can be useful in helping us understand more about science.

ResearchID.org, the intelligent design database mentioned on an earlier post here at Sounding the Trumpet, is celebrating their opening day. They are continuing to improve their original articles, and have a bunch of fresh content for their opening day. A couple of their new features are: research on ID as a heuristic for developing new scientific research, a new anthology of essays on topics related to intelligent design entitled Paradigm Dawning, the initiation of a Catalog of Fundamental Facts, plenty of biographical information, and a glossary of ID jargon

With these features continuing to grow, and new collaborative projects on the way, ResearchID.org looks like it will be a dream come true for the ID community and a pain in the neck for ID critics.

Actually, not fairly at all, at least according to Sigemund at The Design Paradigm. Although Olson’s documentary on the intelligent design evolution debate has not been released nationwide, Olson did come through this area to show the film in an advance screening for Cornell’s Darwin Day last February.

Sigemund describes his initial disappointment and some of the techniques Olson uses to bias viewers against ID:

In Flock of Dodos, filmmaker and marine ecologist Randy Olson asks the question, who are the real dodos in the evolution/intelligent design debate: 1) the intelligent design (ID) advocates who disbelieve a purely mechanistic Darwinian explanation for the origin and development of life, or 2) the legions of Darwinist academics who seem unable to connect with and convincingly explain their position to the majority of Americans who stubbornly cling to beliefs in origins that are not solely Darwinian. Flock of Dodos (FOD) is intentionally light-hearted, reflecting Olson’s desire to avoid yet another dreary documentary of droning talking heads, a format which quickly triggers the “Where’s the remote?” reflex in most viewers. Olson is a trained filmmaker, and his stated intent is to connect with his audience on an emotive level. In FOD he succeeds in this, using a combination of often self-deprecating humor, animation and a Charles Kurault-like “on the road” motif.

However, the film is not the impartial assessment of the ID debate as it is sometimes billed. Whether by simply reflecting the filmmaker’s own leanings (he was a tenured professor of evolutionary marine ecology at the University of New Hampshire before turning to filmmaking) or through an intentional desire to do so, the film conveys both explicit and subtle messages that seek to steer viewers at an emotive level against the ID position. I am no expert in ID, having only recently begun to read on the subject. But I have seen enough to conclude that, for whatever reason, FOD mischaracterizes or omits pertinent issues in the ID debate. Some were evident during the film and subsequent audience interaction with Olson; others become more apparent on reflection. In no particular order, I will list some of my concerns:. . . .

Guilt by association Early in FOD there is a “growth segment”, showing us that the filmmaker is open to new ideas and experiences: en route to an ID conference the narrators wonder what kind of ignorant rednecks they are likely to encounter, but are surprised to find well-dressed attendees that speak in complete sentences. They later admit to actually liking ID advocates as great people to sit and chat with. Yet throughout FOD there are subtle guilt-by-association messages, linking ID advocates to “red state” (i.e. Republican/conservative) politics. In fact, the red state/blue state map is shown at one point (although to be honest, a red county/blue county map would have been more accurate, albeit even more daunting to those who regard red as a threat to science and civilization in general). Each time a red state association is made in FOD it is invariably negative, and one can almost hear the Orwellian sheep chanting, “Red state baaaad, Blue state goooood.”

You can read the rest here.

The Design Paradigm has just posted another press release from Cornell’s IDEA club over a very interesting development on campus. Cornell University will offer it’s first class on Intelligent Design this summer.

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, April 9 The Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell would like to applaud Allen MacNeil, the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Department, and Cornell University on this summer’s new course, BioEE 467: Evolution and Design: Is There Purpose in Nature?

Five and a half months after President Rawlings� State of the University address condemning intelligent design, this course is Cornell�s first to focus on the theory from a historical and scientific perspective. Based on books such as Dembski and Ruse’s Debating Design and Behe’s peer-reviewed Darwin�s Black Box, the course purports to sort out the various issues at play, and to come to clarity on how those issues can be integrated into the perspective of the natural sciences as a whole.�

This four credit seminar course, taught by the EEB Senior Lecturer Allen MacNeil, will also take a broader look at the historical disputes surrounding evolution.

Although we have been on opposite sides of many debates, we have always appreciated MacNeil�s commitment to the ideal of the university as a ‘free market-place of ideas.’ We have found him always ready to go out of his way to encourage diversity of thought, and his former students speak highly of his fairness. We look forward to a course where careful examination of the issues and critical thinking is encouraged.

More on this can be found at Allen MacNeil’s own blog, EvolutionList.

Update: Over at Telic Thoughts there has been some very interesting discussion about this course with Allen MacNeil himself. Head over there to check it out.

The IDEA Club here at Cornell issued a press release on the upcoming events this week. In it they have more information on Cornelius Hunter and the other participants:

Ithaca, New York, April 2, 2006 — The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell University is hosting a panel discussion on evolution and intelligent design, with professors Richard Harrison, chair of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at Cornell, Kern Reeve, of the Cornell Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, and Cornelius Hunter, professor of Biophysics at Biola University. Don Bilderback, associate director of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) and a professor in Cornell’s Applied Physics Department, will moderate the discussion. This event is co-sponsored by the Bioethics Society of Cornell, and is free and open to the public.

The panel discussion will be held from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday April 5th at Olin Hall 155. The audience will be given the opportunity to ask questions.

At 5:00 p.m. of the same day in Olin Hall 165 Hunter will also give a lecture entitled Evolution and Intelligent Design: Where we are and how we got here. He will detail the history of evolutionary thought and how modern advances in the biological sciences seriously undermine the neo-Darwinian synthesis.

Cornelius Hunter is an adjunct professor of biophysics at Biola University in Southern California. His research involves optimal estimation and control of nonlinear systems and molecular biophysics. Hunter is the author of several books critiquing evolutionary theory, including the award-winning Darwin’s God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil. He is also a fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, one of the nation’s foremost think tanks researching intelligent design.

The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell University is a student organization dedicated to promoting open and thoughtful discussion on issues related to evolution, intelligent design, and origins. The IDEA Club sponsors public science lectures and forums on the intelligent design evolution debate and holds weekly discussion meetings.

Hat tip: The Design Paradigm

There are a couple neat events coming up next week:

On Wednesday, April 5…

5:00 PM, OH 165
Lecture by Cornelius Hunter, biophysics professor at Biola University and author of Darwin’s God: Evolution and the problem of evil and Darwin’s Proof: The triumph of religion over science.

7:00PM, OH 155
Panel Discussion
Come hear both sides of the story!

Panelists:
Representing Evolution:
Richard Harrison, EEB, Cornell University
Kern Reeve, NBB, Cornell University

Representing Intelligent Design:
Cornelius Hunter, Biophysics, Biola University
______________________________

Sponsored by the Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club and the Bioethics Society of Cornell

I’ve came across a pretty cool site in the last couple weeks — an open source intelligent design research database — or ResearchID.org wiki for short. It’s goal is to make ID research easy to access and provide a host of information to researchers here in America and internationally. As the manager Joseph Campana describes the project:

Imagine a website where…

* … any student or professional, in any field of study, could gain instant access to Intelligent Design research associated with their discipline.

* … every research project related to Intelligent Design is summarized and arranged into highly usable research articles that can be taken straight to the lab or library for research application.

* … all the research resources are set up in a wiki, where anyone interested could collaborate and contribute.

That is exactly what we are doing at ResearchID.org. ResearchID.org is a wiki knowledgebase compiling information and knowledge related to Intelligent Design, written by you!

The wiki is still in the beginning stages, as the official opening day is June 22, 2006. However, if you are at all interested in intelligent design do sign up to contribute.

There’s a new blog here at Cornell put out by our local IDEA club. The authors write:

This blog is not a battle ground– come to our meetings for that! and not political in any way, shape or form. Though at times we may discuss court cases or school board decisions related to the current controversies, the focus here is the science of intelligent design and evolution, and new research and insights into both.

Should be fun. Check it out.

I recently came across this useful source of creation, intelligent design and evolution news, the Creation-Evolution Headlines . Besides offering summeries of the latest news, they also have fun feature — Scientist of the Month. This month it is William Harvey.

I also stumbled across a bunch of great audio and videos on ID. They can be found here at the Teleological Blog. The Teleological blog also linked to this video project which has some fascinating videos online, including Icons of Evolution, Mystery of Life’s Origin, Privileged Planet and many different debates.

To read up on the Evolutionist’s take on this debate, there is of course The Panda’s Thumb and Talk.Origins

Inside Higher Ed has more reaction from the IDEA club at Cornell:

Proponents of intelligent design at Cornell attacked Rawlings. A statement released by Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness, a student group, called the president’s speech “unscrupulous” and “unknowledgeable.”

Rachel Staver, vice president of the group and a nutrition major at Cornell, said that the organization has about 50 students on its mailing list and that 10 students participate in weekly discussions. “It’s very hard to get new ideas introduced into science because of the strength of scientific dogma and orthodoxy,” she said. Staver called Rawlings’s criticism of intelligent design censorship, adding that if science professors “were really confident of evolution,” they would accept the teaching of intelligent design as an alternate theory.

The Cornell student group is one of 23 that have been created recently at colleges and universities in the United States.

Here is IDEA at Cornell’s recent press release. It concerns President Rawlings’ state of the University address where he blasts Intelligent Design:

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, October 22 — The Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell is deeply concerned with President Hunter Rawlings’ blatant disregard for the facts concerning Intelligent Design in Friday’s State of the University Address. In a speech usually reserved for current university business, he spent over two thirds of his time blasting the emerging Intelligent Design theory as anti-scientific and religious in an unscrupulous, unknowledgeable manner.

Intelligent Design (ID) is a scientific theory which holds that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and are not the result of an undirected, chance-based process such as Darwinian evolution. It follows the principles of the scientific method, scorns the biases of either religion or naturalism, and attempts to follow all the available evidence to a valid conclusion. ID is testable and falsifiable, and so far its predictions have repeatedly been shown accurate.

The IDEA Club at Cornell holds that the problems with Neo-Darwinian evolution can no longer be ignored, and it is time for true research and debate about the issues surrounding the beginnings of life to take place at universities across the country.

Attacking ID as a non-scientist and without addressing its scientific claims, Rawlings states that it is religion masquerading as science and is a religious belief at its core. This gross misstatement is adisservice to unbiased discourse, besides being an insult to people of faith throughout America.Ad hominem attacks and confusing people’s religious beliefs with their scientific research is not befitting a university president. We would hope Rawlings will instead follow Cornell’s often lauded commitment to a free and open exchange of ideas.

The Cornell Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness Club (IDEA), which was started up by Intelligent Design advocates last semester now has their website in order. Click here to check it out. Their goal, as stated on their website is to “sponsor monthly discussions, debates or lectures on topics relating to origins, intelligent design, or evolution”. I have also added a link to their site with other Cornell student organizations under Our Backyard.

Moderate Andy Guess (Cornell Sun’s editor emeritus) has decided to vote ‘non’ in the upcoming Swiss referendum on EU membership this September. Good for him.

Another new intelligent design blog has debuted — Intelligent Design The Future. It’s written by some of the giants in the intelligent design movemet, including the biologist Michael J. Behe author of Darwin’s Black Box and the mathematicion William A. Dembski, as well as other scientists and philosophy professors.

On a side note, a couple students at Cornell (myself included) have started the first ever pro-intelligent design club on campus, Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club. If you’re a student or faculty member who wants to join or someone else who wants to donate, the president’s e-mail address is here.

(Courtesy of Joanna Veith at World Magazine blog). One of their commentators suggests the Intelligent Design blog should install a commenting feature. I agree — I’m sure it will lead to some very interesting discussions. I know I have often learned the most in the comment section.

Evangelical Outpost noticed a compelling speech by Michael Crichton at Caltech on the role of concensus in science. As Crichton writes:

. . . .I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy. . . .

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.

In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases.

Chrichton brings his speech on consensus to bear on environmental warming, but what does this say about Macro Evolution, where concensus is the main defence.

Read the whole thing here.

Evangelical Outpost has an interesting post about Richard Sternberg, the editor of a peer-reviewed biology journal who was undiscerning enough to permit an article –”The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories.”–which laid out some of the evidence for intelligent design– to be published. Never mind that it did pass the peer-review process– how could he allow such a thing?

I guess there are some things that can’t be questioned in scientific circles.

U. S. District Judge Clarence Cooper has just (13:02 ET) ordered that the Cobb County School District must remove the stickers from their biology textbooks that say:

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with a open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

Approved by
Cobb County Board of Education
Thursday, March 28, 2002

The judge ordered that they be removed, because he thought that they were promoting religion. In the 44 page court document he states that even if this is not what the board of education intended (although he thinks it is):

…an informed, reasonable observer would understand the School Board to be endorsing the viewpoint of Christian fundamentalists and creationism that evolution is a problematic theory lacking an adequate foundation…

Well, I guess I learn something new everyday, if Cooper is telling the truth, I am not a reasonable observer! First of all, lot’s of secular people (one example is Anthony Flew) believe that evolution is a problematic theory, lacking an adequate foundation. Besides secular people, other religious people besides “Christian fundamentalists”– for example all Muslims & Jews who truly believe their scriptures– also believe that evolution is untrue. (see The Cattle 6.1, and Genesis 1.1 respectively). Since secular people, Christians, Muslims and Jews all unite in believing that the theory of evolution is flawed, the suggestion that the material be approached with a open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered. can not be a religious suggestion.

We could also say that “You shall not murder” is a religious viewpoint, (Also held by fundamentalist Christians) but that does not stop even our federal government from endorsing it, at least not so far.