This is the fourth in a blog series responding to John Timmer’s online review of the supplementary biology textbook Explore Evolution. The first part is here, the second here, and the third here. 4. Well, the Tetrapods are Monophyletic: Only “Ph.D.” Malcolm Gordon Disagrees, Right?Timmer accuses EE of what he calls the “find a Ph.D.” approach: “if you look hard enough, you can find someone with a PhD who will say anything.” In this instance, Timmer disparages the minority viewpoint of UCLA biologist Malcolm Gordon (a tenured professor, actually), who has argued that the tetrapods may have evolved polyphyletically (i.e., more than once).

Tis the season to creep yourself out with a good story — especially a true story. ID the Future features a special Halloween podcast that delves into the real-life inspiration for a fearful favorite: Click here to listen On this episode of ID the Future, John West shares the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In his book, Darwin Day in America, West examines the experiments Italian scientist Giovanni Aldini conducted on human corpses. His gruesome work provided the inspiration for Frankenstein and foreshadowed the rise of a virulent strain of materialism that attempted to use science to reduce human beings to mere matter in motion.

Vancouver Sun columnist Peter McKnight has suddenly launched a crusade against intelligent design in a series of columns looking at science and religion. In the second part we learn that McKnight is sadly uninformed about intelligent design. He conflates it with creationism, and confines it pretty much to biology. Indeed, the theory goes beyond just biology and encompasses, physics, chemistry and cosmology as well. Intelligent design is not creationism, nor was it developed to get around court rulings. A little history is in order here.