Month: June 2010
Op-Ed Defends Louisiana Academic Freedom Law
Gene Mills of the Louisiana Family Forum recently published an op-ed in the Shreveport Times defending the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), passed in 2008. Titled “Law provides framework to handle controversial scientific issues,” his article explains that criticisms of the LSEA made by an ACLU-affiliated lawyer are logically and legally baseless. Charles Kincade’s op-ed June 19 in The Times shamelessly belies that contempt, demanding censorship over academic freedom! Anyone who repeats Kincade’s tired old line that the LSEA will “permit the teaching of religious creationism” needs to be administered either a literacy test or a lie detector test: the statute expressly prohibits, at Louisiana Family Forum’s (LFF) insistence, “discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.” Besides, who would oppose Read More ›
Scott F. Gilbert, Developmental Biology, and Michael Behe
Scott F. Gilbert’s “Developmental Biology” (eighth edition) provides a stunning overview of the elegant biochemical mechanisms controlling the development of organismal form during ontogeny. The final section of the book, chapter 23 (“Developmental Mechanisms Of Evolutionary Change”) is devoted to a discussion of the new evolutionary synthesis, encompassing the new science of ‘evo devo’ (short hand for ‘evolutionary developmental biology’). The book even contains a short rebuttal directed at proponents of intelligent design and, in particular, Michael Behe.
“Junk DNA” Takes Yet More Heavy Blows
A paper has just been published in Nature which uncovers a host of new coding-independent functions for pseudogene mRNAs, including a role in tumor regulation. More exciting is that Poliseno et al. describe an entirely new regulatory function of RNA. This stands in contrast to conventional wisdom which maintains that the only function of mRNAs is encoding for proteins. According to the abstract, The canonical role of messenger RNA (mRNA) is to deliver protein-coding information to sites of protein synthesis. However, given that microRNAs bind to RNAs, we hypothesized that RNAs could possess a regulatory role that relies on their ability to compete for microRNA binding, independently of their protein-coding function. As a model for the protein-coding-independent role of RNAs, Read More ›
Article on Evolution Education in Science Endorses Teaching Students Evidence “That Supports … Or Does Not Support”
In a recent article in Science titled “Arguing to Learn in Science: The Role of Collaborative, Critical Discourse,” education theorist Jonathan Osborne explains the importance of using debate, argument, and critique when teaching science. In fact, he laments that these teaching strategies not employed more often: Argument and debate are common in science, yet they are virtually absent from science education. Recent research shows, however, that opportunities for students to engage in collaborative discourse and argumentation offer a means of enhancing student conceptual understanding and students’ skills and capabilities with scientific reasoning. As one of the hallmarks of the scientist is critical, rational skepticism, the lack of opportunities to develop the ability to reason and argue scientifically would appear to Read More ›
What a Difference a Year Makes: Signature in the Cell Now Available in Paperback
Several years in the making, the book arrives just as the information age is coming to biology and scientists are delving deeper into the mystery of the origins of life. In Signature in the Cell Dr. Meyer lays out a radical new and comprehensive argument for intelligent design that readers will likely never have encountered before, and which materialist scientists cannot counter. That was written in this space exactly one year ago today when Signature in the Cell: DNA and Evidence for Intelligent Design arrived in book stores and since then has been named a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, an Amazon.com best-selling science book and began to change the shape of the debate over intelligent design. Now, Read More ›