Bird-like dinosaur forces rethink, etc (supporting my Gondwanan origins of birds theory)

Here are science news items (which are getting a bit old now and so some of the links may no longer work) with my comments in square brackets.

Bird-like dinosaur forces rethink, BBC, 13 October 2005 ... A rooster-sized dinosaur with a long, slender snout and wing-like limbs is forcing a rethink on bird evolution. The 90 million-year-old reptile belongs to the same sickle-clawed group of dinosaurs as Velociraptor and feathered dinosaurs from China. Buitreraptor gonzalezorum, from the Neuquén Basin in central Argentina may provide tantalising evidence that powered flight evolved twice. Details of the discovery appear in the academic journal Nature. One theory suggests the lineage of dinosaurs the new animal belonged to, the dromaeosaurs, originated in the Cretaceous Period (144 to 65 million years ago). But this discovery suggests their lineage can be traced further back in time, to the Jurassic (206 to 144 million years ago), experts say. ... It would mean dromaeosaurs were around when the present-day continents of Earth were organised into a single landmass [Pangaea]. This giant landmass later split into northern and southern parts, called Laurasia and Gondwana respectively. Buitreraptor, ... The animal was about the size of a rooster "The preservation of Buitreraptor is superb. The rich fauna of this area, known as La Buitrera, includes other carnivorous dinosaurs," said co-discoverer Sebastián Apesteguía ... Until recently, the dinosaur group had only been found in Cretaceous rocks of Asia and North America, continents that were part of Laurasia. The new discovery, named Buitreraptor, provides definitive evidence that dromaeosaurs also lived in South America - part of Gondwana. They must have originated when all of the continents were still assembled in a single landmass - during the Jurassic. When the landmass split in two, the dromaeosaurs diverged into northern and southern groups. ... Analysis by the authors of the Nature paper show Buitreraptor and Rahonavis, a fossil animal from Madagascar previously considered a primitive bird, form a southern branch of the dromaeosaur family tree. This branch is distinct from Laurasian dromaeosaurids, including Velociraptor and some of the famous feathered dinosaurs from China. Birds are commonly thought to have evolved from this group. The authors say the discovery Rahonavis and Buitreraptor have long and wing-like forelimbs could imply that flight evolved twice, once in birds and once among this group of Gondwanan dromaeosaurs. ... [See also Livescience, San Francisco Chronicle, Science News & Washington Post. This is more evidence for my Gondwanan origins of birds theory (as posted to my now-terminated list CED: 01-Mar-03; 03-Mar-03; 21-Jul-04; 22-Jan -05), and the falsification of the "feathered dinosaurs from China" theory! The basic evidence for the theory is: 1) Rattites (the order of primitive flightless birds including the emu, ostrich, rhea) which T.H. Huxley originally proposed as the link between dinosaurs and birds, have a typical Gondwanan (southern hemisphere) distribution; 2) the other large order of flightless birds, penguins, are found only in the southern hemisphere; 3) it is more parsimonious that flying birds originated among Gondwanan flightless birds, and then some flew north to Laurasia, than that flying birds originated in Laurasia and then some flew south to Gondwana and then all lost the ability to fly.]

Dolphins sing 'Batman' theme, ABC/Discovery News, Jennifer Viegas, 3 October 2005 ... Scientists have taught dolphins to combine both rhythm and vocalisations to produce music, resulting in an extremely high-pitched, short version of the Batman theme song. The findings, outlined in two studies, are the first time that nonhuman mammals have demonstrated they can recognise rhythms and reproduce them vocally. "Humans are sensitive to rhythms embedded in sequences of sounds, but we typically consider this skill to be part of processing for language and music, cognitive domains that we consider to be uniquely human," says Professor Heidi Harley, lead author of both studies. "Clearly, aspects of those domains are available to other species." ... The researchers first had an adult male bottlenose dolphin position itself in front of an underwater sound projector, called a hydrophone, that produced six different 14 kiloherz, 4 second rhythms. The dolphin was rewarded for performing a certain behaviour to each rhythm. For example, when rhythm 1 played, it waved its pectoral fin and when rhythm 2 played, it tossed a ball. The various rhythms were played at different frequencies and tempos to ensure the dolphin was recognising rhythms instead of just frequencies or sound durations. Another adult male was trained to produce similar rhythms using a pneumatic switch, essentially a small, air-filled ball connected to a computer that then generated sounds whenever the dolphin pressed the switch. "The dolphin was reinforced for producing a specific rhythm to a specific object," .... The dolphin spontaneously vocalised to the rhythms, so the researchers started to reward the male with fish whenever it matched its 'singing' to the rhythms. By the end of the studies, the scientists could show an object, such as the Batman doll, which represented a certain rhythm-vocalisation combo to the dolphin, and it would create the correct sounds both vocally and using the switch. .. Gordon Bauer ... says, "This is the first report, to my knowledge, of a nonhuman mammal's ability to discriminate rhythmic patterns." But Bauer doubts that dolphins realise they are producing what people consider 'music'. "I think music is a human construct," he says. "I doubt that it has pertinence to animals, although the elements of music, such as pitch, time, timbre, rhythm, etc, may be incorporated into animal communication." Harley agrees ... [It is refreshing to hear an animal behaviourist acknowledge that while animals may appear to be doing something similar to humans (in this case "to combine both rhythm and vocalisations to produce music") it is not really music in the sense that the animal is just producing sounds without realizing that it is music. I have added this to my "Problems of Evolution" book outline, PE 14.1.7. "Man ... Uniqueness ...Music" ]

Ancient oceans 'filled with sulphur', The Australian, October 06, 2005 ... THE ocean to Australia's north was once filled with toxic sulphur and contained bacteria that may have made the water look purple, new research said. By examining some of the world's best preserved rocks, once under water and now part of land formations near the Gulf of Carpentaria, an Australian scientist has gained a rare glimpse of what the oceans were like 1.6 billion years ago. Dr Jochen Brocks ... found the sea was inhabited by purple and green sulphur-loving organisms which depended on light to live. Scientists have always assumed that as the earth's atmosphere became more oxygenated, so too did the oceans. But they could not explain why, if that was the case, complex forms of life did not become abundant earlier than about 600 million years ago. Dr Brocks' research, published in the latest edition of Nature, provides the first evidence, independent of isotopic findings, that the oceans remained oxygen-starved and sulphur-choked, even while oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere was increasing. In an ancient rock sample from the McArthur Basin in northern Australia, Dr Brocks found molecular remains of green and purple coloured pigments that were used by the bacteria in photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants, algae, and some bacteria harness the energy of sunlight to produce food. Dr Brocks said the presence of the green and purple sulphur bacteria showed the ocean at that time was filled with sulphur close to the surface, where light could penetrate and keep the bacteria alive. "If indeed the oceans were (full of sulphur) during this middle period of earth's history, it would rewrite much of what we've believed about a fifth of the planet's history," Dr Brocks said. "It would seem that this is the reason why the world was ruled by bacteria for such a long time." The new research provides significant clues to the mystery of the other oceans of Earth's "middle age". "Understanding the world's oceans at this time is an important factor in determining why complex forms of life, such as modern algae and animal life, arose so late in the planet's history," Dr Brocks said. The first animal embryos, still mere clusters of cells, only appeared about 600 million years ago. When the oxygenless and toxic waters finally retreated about 800 million years ago, complex eukaryotes, such as algae, finally conquered the world's open oceans, Dr Brocks said. Their development culminated in the Cambrian Explosion 542 million years ago and marked the sudden appearance of most groups of the animals we know today. ... [Sounds like I could have added "sulphur" to the conclusion of the Animal Physiology major assignment that I did on the Cambrian Explosion:

"All of the above? The above proposed explanations for the Cambrian explosion are not mutually exclusive and some, if not all, are complementary and synergistic. The Cambrian radiation of the animal phyla was a unique event in the history of life and was probably the result of a sequence of environmental, ecological and biological interactions, beginning in the Precambrian and working in combination, including: an increase in the amount of atmospheric oxygen; the innovation and elaboration of Hox genes that enabled the development of complex body plans; and ecological niches empty of organisms with that new complexity (Carroll, 1997, p.348; Knoll, & Carroll, 1999). The Cambrian radiation itself may have been triggered by an environmental perturbation near the Proterozoic-Cambrian boundary which was then amplified by intense ecological interactions within new ecosystems (Knoll, & Carroll, 1999)".]

A braney theory, The Economist, Oct 6th 2005 An explanation for the anthropic principle comes a little closer. DID God have a choice? Or, to put the matter less theologically, does the universe have to be the way that it is? The answer to this question, posed by Einstein among others, remains elusive. But it is important, not least because a universe with laws only slightly different from those actually observed would be one in which life-and therefore human life-could never have come into existence. That observation, known as the anthropic principle, disturbs many physicists because they cannot see any fundamental reason why things could not be different. In particular, they cannot see why space has to have three dimensions. But a paper due to be published this month in Physical Review Letters by Andreas Karch ... and Lisa Randall ... suggests that the laws of physics may, indeed, be biased towards three-dimensions. Curiously, though, they have a similar bias towards seven-dimensions. The idea that there may be more dimensions than the familiar ones of length, breadth and height (and also, to be strictly accurate, the fourth dimension of time) is a consequence of attempts to solve an old problem in physics. Ever since Einstein developed his theories of space, time and gravity, physicists have sought a "theory of everything" that would unite those theories with quantum mechanics-the part of physics that describes electromagnetism and the forces that hold atomic nuclei together. ... To date, the best candidates for a theory of everything are various versions of a branch of mathematics called string theory. Unfortunately for common sense, these theories require the universe to have ten or even 11 dimensions rather than the familiar three of space and one of time. To get round this anomaly, some physicists propose that the familiar dimensions are "unfurled", while the other six or seven are rolled up so tightly that they cannot be seen, even with the most powerful instruments available. ... A second interpretation of multidimensionality, however, is that the extra dimensions are not always rolled up, but that even when they are not humans cannot readily observe them because they are not free to move in them. In this version, the space inhabited by humans is a three-dimensional "surface" embedded in a higher dimensional landscape. The particles of which people are composed, and the non-gravitational forces acting on them, are strictly confined to this surface-called a brane (short for membrane)-and, as such, have no direct knowledge of the higher dimensional space around them. Only gravity is free to pervade all parts of the universe, which is one of the reasons why it obeys a different set of rules from the other forces. It is this second interpretation that is invoked by Dr Karch and Dr Randall. They assume that, initially, the universe was filled with equal numbers of branes and anti-branes (the antimatter equivalent of a brane). These branes and anti-branes could take any number of up to ten different dimensions. [They] then demonstrated, mathematically, that a universe filled with equal numbers of branes and anti-branes will naturally come to be dominated by 3-branes and 7-branes because these are the least likely to run into their anti-brane counterparts and thus be annihilated. This result is interesting for two reasons. It is the first piece of work to show that branes alone can explain the existence of hidden dimensions. They do not have to be rolled up to be inaccessible. It is also the first to suggest an underlying preference in the laws of physics for certain sorts of universe, and thus perhaps provide a solution to the anthropic principle. Yet it is not a total solution. Other realities, whether three- or seven-dimensional, could be hidden elsewhere in the landscape. And life in seven-dimensional space would look very different from life on Earth-if, indeed, it existed at all. That is because the force of gravity would diminish far more quickly with distance than it does in this world. As a result, seven-dimensional space could not have planets in stable orbits around stars. Like dark matter and dark energy, therefore, the anthropic principle is still grinning from the sidelines, taunting physicists to explain it. ... [So where did the "universe filled with equal numbers of branes and anti-branes" come from? Or is it branes all the way down?:

"As our ideas developed, a monstrous spectre kept beckoning. Just as the brain of Shakespeare was necessary to produce the famous plays, so prior information was necessary to produce a living cell. But information from where? From some pre-existing life-form, one is tempted to answer, but this would be to incur the ire of Tommy Gold, who tells the following story. A male lecturer had spoken about the nature of the Earth and planets. Afterwards, an old lady came up to him from the audience, claiming she had a theory superior to the one he had described. 'We don't live on a ball revolving around the Sun,' she said, 'we live on a crust of earth on the back of a giant turtle.' Wishing to humour the old lady the lecturer asked, 'And what does this turtle stand on?' 'On the back of a second, still larger turtle,' was the confident answer. 'But what holds up the second turtle?' the lecturer persisted, now in a slightly exasperated tone. 'It's no use, mister,' the old woman replied, 'it's turtles all the way down.' Which epitomizes the conundrum of life. So long as living cells come from pre-existing cells we are calling on support from another turtle. The issue is where do the turtles stop? The conventional answer is that the turtle pile floats on a sea of organic soup, an answer as scientifically improbable as Tommy Gold's story makes it sound." (Hoyle F. & Wickramasinghe C., "Evolution from Space," [1981], Paladin: London, 1983, reprint, pp.164-165)

See tagline for a long, humorous dialogue-style, but helpful (at least to me) quote by the mathematician Ian Stewart on branes and string theory in his book Flatterland (an update on Edwin Abbott's mathematical fiction book Flatland). I found it interesting that string theory has settled on a 10-dimension space-time and that is 3+7.]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
"Problems of Evolution"

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"So what ... do you think we are missing? What would tie the whole picture together? That's right. String. `Superstring, actually,' said the Space Hopper. `If you want to bring gravity into the scheme of things, you can't keep the Standard Model exactly as it is. You have to be prepared to modify it a little. ... but that "little" includes a complete rethink of the structure of spacetime. Not just a supersymmetric add-on. Something more significant than that.' It seemed to Vikki that this was going Over The Top. `Why does spacetime have to change, Hopper?' 'Because when you try to quantize gravity, it turns out that particles can't actually remain particles. That just doesn't work - pointlike objects just don't fit all the requirements. So they have to be replaced by something else.' `What?' 'Like I said: superstrings.' `Yes, I know that's what you said, but it made no sense then and it doesn't make any more now!' The Space Hopper gave the criticism due consideration. `Very well,' he said. `A particle is a point or, at least, it looks like a point, with no internal structure. It's a pointlike object, yes?' 'Sure. `Moving up in dimensions, you could replace a pointlike particle by a curve - a string. ... So what happens to quantum strings without ends?' 'They loop round and form a closed loop. A topological circle.' `Ah.' `That's most of them, actually.' `Tidier that way. Otherwise the ends would flap around.' `They can, in some string theories. Anyway, curves are intrinsically one-dimensional. The next step up from curves leads to two-dimensional surfaces membranes. Perhaps with exotic topologies, like Moobius, or the Projective Plain, or a doughnut.' ... `Beyond membranes,' the Space Hopper said ... `are three-dimensional analogues of surfaces, which the Planiturthian physicists insist on calling 3-branes. And then come 4-branes, 5-branes and so on. They also insist on using the symbol p for an arbitrary number of dimensions, rather than the customary N ... and I think I know why. Guess what you get in dimension p?' 'Oh no! p-branes?' 'Absolutely.' `So a surface is a 2- brane?' 'Yes.' `And a string is a 1-brane?' 'Naturally.' `Which makes an ordinary particle, with dimension zero, into a no-brane?' 'I had a feeling that's where you were headed', said the Space Hopper. `You said "superstrings",' Vikki remembered. `You've only explained strings.' `Well, you remember that particles - no-branes in your terminology - are accompanied by ghost extensions into superspace?' `Yes. You mean superstrings are strings that extend into superspace as well as ordinary space?' 'Correct. It's quantum string, it can do that.' `Quantum things can do anything you want, it seems to me. Where do you find these superstrings? At a superstationers?' 'In yet another extension of ordinary space, Vikki. Good job I updated the VUE's HyperZoom facility. .... Follow me!' And down they went, into the smallest scales of the Planiturthian universe - into a world where an electron was too huge to contemplate, where its component quarks glistened like tiny jewelled specks. `Right now we're at the limits of the VUE's spatial resolution,' said the Space Hopper. `Down at the Planck length, where quantum effects make space so fuzzy that it's not even clear that space really exists at all.' `It's frothy,' said Vikki, `not fuzzy.' `That's quantum foam - particles springing into and out of existence, creating space and time along with themselves. Try some, it's quite tasty.' `No thanks!' `Go on. It's a bit like chicken.' `I'm not hungry.' `Suit yourself. See those bright specks?' 'Yes. They're quarks, aren't they?' 'Among other things, yes. What do they look like on this scale?' 'Dots. Points. Nobranes' `Yes. And yet, those points have to support all sorts of quantum states. Spin, charge ... would there be room for such diversity on a no-brane?' That thought hadn't occurred to Vikki before. 'In what sense?' she asked, cagily. `All will shortly become clear. I'll use the HyperZoom to improve the resolution in any other dimensions that may be around-' 'Like superspace?' 'Yes, but there might be others - there's more to a particle than its spin, you know. Ah, yes ... coming into focus now ... Look at that!' 'It's - hey, that quark's not a point at all! It's a tiny loop!' `Yes.' 'And ... isn't it vibrating?' `A little bit, maybe. This one's in its ground state, lowest energy. But if I give it a-' TWANGGGGGGGG! `-then something really interesting happens. Zoom out for a moment, and you'll see.' `Oh. It's changed colour!' `Yes. That's the VUE's way of showing us that it's actually become a different particle altogether. A much more massive relative of a standard quark, as it happens. Doesn't have a name. Anyway, the main thing here is that anything from a 1-brane up can vibrate in all sorts of different ways, whereas a no-brane can't. That means that a 1- brane or a 2-brane or a 3-brane or a zillion-brane can easily support all sorts of different quantum states. Whereas for your traditional point particle the states are just some kind of unexplained add-on. `So here's the idea. On really small scales, spacetime isn't 4D at all. What looks like a tiny point in 4D spacetime is really something else - some kind of p-braned topological hypersurface in a higher-dimensional space.' `How many? Dimensions, I mean? Equal to p?' 'No, could be bigger. For a while 7D and 22D were hot favourites, making the revised spacetime come to 11D or 26D. Right now, though, the consensus is settling on 6D for the extra dimensions - a total of 10D altogether.' `Spacetime is really ten-dimensional?' `That's what every well-informed Planiturthian thinks right now.' `You mean there's a choice?' The Space Hopper laughed. `Oh, yes! A huge choice. The range of n-dimensional spaces is inexhaustible! The problem, Vikki dear, is cutting that number down enough to be able to fix the exact one. Not just the value of n the number of dimensions - but the topological shape of the corresponding space.' `Put that way, I see the difficulty. So how do they sort out all those possibilities?' `Still working on it. But they're making progress. Turned out that the original 11D model - supergravity, it was called - had a fatal flaw. It couldn't encompass the broken symmetry of the weak nuclear force. A People called Edwitten pointed that out in 1984, by their calendar. The way to deal with that was to reduce the dimensionality to 10D. `Now, when you do quantum theoretic calculations, as often as not you get stupid answers.' ... `Easy to make mistakes?' 'No, even when they get the calculations right, they still get stupid answers. Infinity, usually.' `That's bad?' 'It's nonsense. When a physical theory gives you infinity as an answer, it's always a sign of trouble. The real universe doesn't have infinities.' `Hang on, Hopper - we went to infinity in the Projective Plain.' `Yes, but that wasn't a real universe, OK?' `Only an idealization, that's true.' `And in a sense Infinityville wasn't a real infinity, either. But you're distracting me. There is a way to get round these quantum infinities, and it's called renormalization. Doesn't matter exactly what it is - just take my word that it's not an easy trick to pull off. So most potential superstring theories don't work because they're not renormalizable. It turned out that for a 10D superstring theory to be renormalizable it has to be one of five competing possibilities. These are known by their symmetries. One is called SO(32), another is E8 x E8, and they both have an extra 16 dimensions of `internal' states, as well as the 10D of the string itself. See? 26D in all. And the other three are known as Type I, Type IIA, and Type IIB.' 'Imaginative terminology.' `Very. The fascinating thing - a strong hint that such theories could unify gravity and quantum theory, the physicists' Holy Grail - was that they all predicted the occurrence of a particle with spin 2 and mass 0. In quantum theory by itself, that would have been an embarrassment because no such particles are known. But-' `The graviton, if it exists, has to be a particle with spin 2 and mass 0!' yelled Vikki, caught up in the excitement. 'Precisely. String theory seemed to be telling physicists that if they wanted an effective theory of quantum particles, then gravity would be a necessary consequence. All consistent string theories include gravitons.' `It would have been more satisfactory if only some had,' said Vikki. 'To help pick the right one.' `True. But it didn't work out that way ... and it may not be necessary. You see, that People named Edwitten has recently discovered that all five superstring theories fit into a bigger 11D picture, known as M-theory.' The Space Hopper noticed Vikki hopping up and down. `Yes, Vikki, I agree - that's a very imaginative name too, isn't it? But back to my story. There are five different ways to shrink away one of the 11 dimensions of M-theory, and they lead to those five 10D superstring theories. So all five competing theories are actually part of the same Big Picture. Maybe it's the Big Picture that really matters.' He paused. `There's only one problem with all this stuff', he said. `Which is a pity, because it's so beautiful.' `What's the problem with it?' 'It may not be true,' said the Space Hopper sadly. `There's no experimental evidence, you see,' he explained. `Hard to come by desperately hard to come by. For that matter, the calculations are so difficult that there aren't many theoretical predictions, either. So there's precious little to experiment on.' `But couldn't the Planiturthians tell if they really lived in a 10D universe?' 'Couldn't the Flatlanders tell that their 2D world was really just part of 3D Spaceland?' 'Touche. Even so, surely there are experiments that would reveal a whole six extra dimensions? For that matter, why didn't they notice them ages ago?' 'Because, Vikki, they didn't have a HyperZoom. Think about a sheet of paper. What's its dimensionality?' `Two.' `Really?' `Oh. In Flatland, yes. In Spaceland, say, it would really be 3D, but very thin along the third dimension.' `Quite. And the Planiturthian universe looks like a 4D spacetime, but in Superstring Territory it is really 10D, but very thin along the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth dimensions.' `So thin that the Planiturthians didn't notice?' 'So thin, Vikki, that the Planiturthians can't notice. The structure is below the Planck length - the smallest size their instruments can detect. `That's a pity. Convenient for the theorists, though.' `Suspiciously so. But there might be other ways to find out whether they're right. Indirect ones. For instance, in M-theory there is a class of branes called Dirichlet branes, because they look rather like a surface discovered long before by a People named Peterdirichlet. They turn out to be black branes - branes from which light can't escape. You can even interpret a superstring with ends as a superstring that forms a closed loop, part of which is covered by a black brane. And by doing that, you can reformulate black holes in terms of intersecting black branes wrapped round inside a 7D space.' `And what good does all that do?' asked Vikki. `It makes very accurate predictions about evaporating black holes. But that kind of evidence is just circumstantial. So right now, all anyone can really do is point to the elegance of the theory, and the beautiful way in which it unifies Relativity and quantum theory.' `Which makes it right?' `Not at all. Lots of physicists don't like that approach. They say that beauty could be totally irrelevant. And there are lots of other possibilities in the Mathiverse that don't roll up the extra dimensions of spacetime into very tiny shapes, and there are all sorts of other reasons why the Planiturthians wouldn't notice them, either ... Beauty can be a trap, Vikki. `Anyway, everything in the Mathiverse is beautiful, if you get used to it.' The Space Hopper's U faded momentarily, then renewed itself in a dazzling display of teeth. `None the less, the idea that the extra dimensions are curled up really tightly, so you can observe them only on the extraordinarily small scale of the Planck length, is still the most appealing explanation of why Planiturthians don't observe ten dimensions.' He paused. For once, the bouncy creature seemed at a loss for words. `Um - you know something?' `What?' 'Back in Flatland, Vikki, it's the eve of a new century. Your tour of the Mathiverse has reached its climax. You've learned as much as I can teach you and as much as your brain can digest at one sitting ... I think it's time I took you home. Don't you?' ... Vikki wanted to ask one last question, to make sure she'd understood the essence of the Planiturthian universe. 'You're saying that when the extra dimensions of spacetime get so thin that they're only one Planck length across, they become undetectable?' 'That's right.' `So the only features of the universe that Planiturthians can observe are those that are ... as thick as two short Plancks?' 'You have it exactly,' declared the Space Hopper." (Stewart I., "Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So," Macmillan: London, 2001, pp.280-287. Emphasis original)

No Easy Victory Ensues in Legal Battle Over Evolution, etc

Here are news items about the pro-ID defence's third through fifth days (Wednesday 19 - Friday 21 October) of giving its side of the story in the Dover (Kitzmiller, et al v. Dover School District, et al) case, with my comments in square brackets.

No Easy Victory Ensues in Legal Battle Over Evolution: Intelligent Design Theorists Far From 1920s Fundamentalists, Washington Post, Michael Powell ... October 21, 2005 ... HARRISBURG, Pa. -- By any measure, the professor appeared trapped on the legal ropes. Biochemistry professor Michael J. Behe had just conceded in federal court that precious few scientists support the intelligent design theory, which holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand of an intelligent creator. Now came another question: Isn't it true, professor, that the nation's most esteemed scientific organization denounced the theory as non-science? Behe, who is bespectacled and bearded, sat straight up in the witness chair. "Their statement is a political document without any marshaling of evidence," Behe said with rising voice earlier this week. "Talk about scholarly malfeasance. ... Science has marched on. We have now data to reopen the evidence for design in nature." It has been hailed as another Scopes "Monkey Trial," in which the forces of science would again vanquish those who would inject religion into the science classroom. But as the trial in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg reached a midpoint this week, victory has proven elusive. ... This time the scientific establishment faces a more artful foe, one comfortable with the language of science. Even if the judge rules against intelligent design in November, few predict a cultural turning point. "The evolution debate has exposed a fundamental divide in our society," said Michael Ruse ... "There is no question that America is fractured and that the intelligent design people are bloody serious. A court case isn't changing that." ... Legions of scientists say that Darwin's theory of evolution remains as solid as ever and is the soil in which modern science takes root. They say advances from DNA research to the discovery of new fossils tend overwhelmingly to shore up their case. The Dover plaintiffs have marshaled a string of notable witnesses, beginning with Brown University biologist Kenneth R. Miller, to fire scientific salvos at intelligent design. ... But bringing a legal case against intelligent design is a tricky business. The small band of scientists who publicly support intelligent design are able debaters, and, as became clear when Behe took the stand, they do not sound remotely like William Jennings Bryan .... Behe began by rattling off the names of prominent scientists, many of whom are not advocates of intelligent design, who questioned key aspects of evolutionary theory and noted that there is scant evidence for large mutational leaps. Then he read aloud from a paper written by an evolutionary biologist, whose theorizing was peppered with "maybe" and "might have" and "probably." The heart of Behe's argument, though, centered on biochemistry, where he claims to have found machinery so complex, such as the bacterial flagellum, as to be irreducibly complex -- meaning it could not have evolved because it needs all of its parts to work. "If leaders in the scientific field do not know how something came about, then one can be confident ... that nobody in the world knows how it came about," Behe said. "There's no natural evidence that Darwinian evolution would have produced it." ... Lawyers also peppered Behe with questions about his assertion that those who believe in God are more likely to accept intelligent design. Behe replied that it was a matter not of theology but common sense: An atheist or agnostic will be predisposed to doubt a theory that relies on the possible hand of God. Critics of intelligent design seem convinced that the past week in court went smashingly. A lawyer for the parents mockingly compared intelligent design to the "theory" of astrology. Still, Behe and the intelligent design crowd display no signs of flagging. They have considerable financial support, often from political conservatives. And Behe's argument that intelligent design represents an insurgent struggle against a scientific bureaucracy resonates deep within the heart of American culture. "Have you listened to him?" asked Dover Area School Board President Sheila Harkins, who is among the board members who favor teaching intelligent design. "He's smart and knowledgeable, and he's not backing down up there. He's terrific." ... [Why should Behe or ID be "backing down", when we think we have truth and therefore science on our side? As for "advances from DNA research to the discovery of new fossils tend overwhelmingly to shore up their case" for "Darwin's theory of evolution", since the latter is the only explanation allowed, any evidence, no matter how flimsy, would support it! That is why it is a mark of "good science" to have "multiple working hypotheses" because otherwise "the correct explanation may not even be included":

"Multiple hypotheses should be proposed whenever possible. Proposing alternative explanations that can answer a question is good science. If we operate with a single hypothesis, especially one we favor, we may direct our investigation toward a hunt for evidence in support of this hypothesis. ... A hypothesis can be falsified by experimental tests, especially if the experiments are repeated with the same results. ... But ... It is impossible to repeat an experiment enough times to be absolutely certain that the results will always be the same. And some false hypotheses make accurate predictions. ... Of the many hypotheses proposed to answer a particular question, the correct explanation may not even be included. Even the most thoroughly tested hypotheses are accepted only conditionally, pending further investigation." (Campbell N.A., Reece J.B. & Mitchell L.G., "Biology," Benjamin/Cummings: Menlo Park CA, Fifth Edition, 1999, pp.14-15. Emphasis mine)

"Spin more than one hypothesis. If there's something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among 'multiple working hypotheses', has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy." (Sagan C., "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark," Headline: London, 1997, p.197. Emphasis original).

It is ironic that the only hypothesis which is exempt from this "Darwinian selection among 'multiple working hypotheses'" rule of "good science" is "Darwinian selection" itself! If after Behe's testimony, the New York Times considers that "victory has proven elusive" then it sounds like it is ID which is going to win this case! But even if ID doesn't win here, the journalist is right that "Behe and the intelligent design crowd display no signs of flagging". As Phil Johnson observed in an analogy with the Vietnam War, the Darwinists, despite their overwhelming might, are facing "a determined adversary who" believes he has right (not might) on his side and so "is not going to surrender" and is going to "keep... on fighting" and will wear their enemy down:

"The first New York Times story on the Kansas decision quoted me as saying that this is the science educators' `Vietnam.' What I meant by this is that in the first place they have a determined adversary who is not going to surrender. They're not gaining ground. That's what the polls show, and that is why there is so much worry. If the enemy keeps on fighting, he wears you down. The second thing is that it is an adversary--that is, the anti- Darwinists--that can appeal to the liberal values of a lot of their opponents, just as the Viet Cong appealed to the anti-imperialist sentiments of the American public. The adversary can say, Let's hear both sides, let's have an open discussion, you don't know the majority position unless you have heard it effectively challenged, and so on. Already the polls show that two-thirds of the public favors something of the `teach both sides, teach the controversy' direction. The Kansas decision is certainly going to encourage other states and localities to do something like this." (Johnson P.E., "Evolution and the Curriculum," Ethics and Public Policy Center: Washington DC, September 1999).

I have often cited the following `prophecy' of Johnson's that the "Darwinists may have made a serious strategic error in choosing to pursue a campaign of indoctrination in the public schools" because "What goes on in the public schools is the public's business" and "eventually determined protestors will persuade the public to grant them a fair hearing on the evidence":

"The Darwinists may have made a serious strategic error in choosing to pursue a campaign of indoctrination in the public schools. Previously, the high school textbooks said relatively little about evolution except that most scientists believe in it, which is hard to dispute. Serious examination of the scientific evidence was postponed until college, and was provided mostly to biology majors and graduate students. Most persons outside the profession had little opportunity to learn how much philosophy was being taught in the name of science, and if they knew what was going on they had no opportunity to mount an effective challenge. The Darwinists themselves have changed that comfortable situation by demanding that the public schools teach a great deal more `about evolution.' What they mean is that the public schools should try much harder to persuade students to believe in Darwinism, not that they should present fairly the evidence that is causing Darwinists so much trouble. What goes on in the public schools is the public's business, however, and even creationists are entitled to point out errors and evasions in the textbooks and teaching materials. Invocations of authority may work for a while, but eventually determined protestors will persuade the public to grant them a fair hearing on the evidence. As many more people outside the Biblical fundamentalist camp learn how deeply committed Darwinists are to opposing theism of any sort, and how little support Darwinism finds in the scientific evidence, the Darwinists may wish that they had never left their sanctuary." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, Second edition, 1993, p.146).

If they are not already, after this case "the Darwinists may wish that they had never left their sanctuary"! BTW, I must confess that I have finally watched my new DVD, Unlocking the Mystery of Life and quite frankly it blew me away! I would not be surprised if that alone converts millions around the world to ID.]

Professor defends intelligent design as "scientific theory", Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 19, 2005, Amy Worden ... HARRISBURG - Taking the stand in a federal trial for the third day, Michael Behe, one of the leading proponents of intelligent design, defended the concept as a "scientific theory" that should be introduced in high school biology classes. Under cross examination in a lawsuit over the teaching of intelligent design in a Dover, Pa., school district, Behe, a biochemistry professor at Lehigh University, reiterated his argument for design, saying that some biological systems are so complex his research indicates there must be a designer behind them. ... Eric Rothschild, an attorney for the plaintiffs, challenged Behe's assertions that intelligent design qualified as a science because it can be tested. He asked Behe, how he would falsify a claim that a biological system is intelligent design. Behe, author of the best-selling book Darwin's Black Box, which argues in favor of intelligent design, replied: "In order to falsify it, we would have to find an exception to an inductive argument." Rothschild went on to ask him whether he or anyone else in the intelligent design movement had tested the Darwinian principle of random mutation and natural selection. Behe answered no. "I'm persuaded by the evidence cited in my book that [intelligent design] is a good explanation and that testing random mutation and natural selection would "not likely to be fruitful." ... The trial, which is in its fourth week, is expected to end Nov. 4. ... [This sounds garbled. What "would falsify a claim that a biological system is intelligent design" is one plausible naturalistic explanation of its origin. And what does "tested the Darwinian principle of random mutation and natural selection" mean? Tested it for what? Colour changes in peppered moths? Length changes in finch beaks? Or to build the bacterial flagellar motor? If the Darwinists really had a plausible naturalistic explanation for the latter, they would have stated it well before now. And it isn't the "type III secretory system":

"In line with the previous concern, Van Till offers the type III secretory system as a possible precursor to the bacterial flagellum. This ignores that the current evidence points to the type III system as evolving from the flagellum and not vice versa (cf. Milt Saier's recent work at UCSD). But beyond that, finding a component of a functional system that performs some other function is hardly an argument for the original system evolving from that other system. One might just as well say that because the motor in a motorcycle can be used as a blender, therefore the motor evolved into the motorcycle. Perhaps, but not without intelligent design. Even if it could be shown that the type III system predated the flagellum (contrary to Milt Saier's work), it could at best represent one possible step in the indirect Darwinian evolution of the bacterial flagellum. But that still wouldn't constitute a solution to the evolution of the bacterial flagellum. What's needed is a complete evolutionary path and not merely a possible oasis along the way. To claim otherwise is like saying we can travel by foot from Los Angeles to Tokyo because we've discovered the Hawaiian Islands. Evolutionary biology needs to do better than that." (Dembski W.A., "Naturalism's Argument from Invincible Ignorance: A Response to Howard Van Till," Design Inference Website, September 2002)

"Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University who argues in favor of Darwinian evolution, made a splash when he announced ... that `the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex.' Miller cited a cellular structure known as the type III secretory system (TTSS) that allows certain bacteria to inject toxins through the cell walls of their hosts. This `nasty little device,' in Miller's words, is a feature of several bacteria, including Y. pestis, the bacterium that is responsible for bubonic plague. According to research cited by Miller, the TTSS is made up of several proteins that are `homologous' to a set of proteins from the base of the flagellum. Miller argued that the injector pump is probably an `evolutionary precursor' to the flagellum, and it is fully functional although it has fewer parts. Therefore, `the claim of irreducible complexity has collapsed, and with it any 'evidence' that the flagellum was designed.' The `flagellum has been unspun,' Miller concluded. But there was a little problem with Miller's declaration of victory. As it turns out, the bubonic plague bacterium already has the full set of genes necessary to make a flagellum. Rather than making a flagellum, Y. pestis uses only part of the genes that are present to manufacture that nasty little injector instead. As pointed out in a recent article by design theorist Stephen Meyer and microbiologist Scott Minnich (an expert on the flagellar system), the gene sequences suggest that `flagellar proteins arose first and those of the pump came later.' If evolution was involved, the pump came from the motor, not the motor from the pump. Also, `the other thirty proteins in the flagellar motor (that are not present in the [pump]), are unique to the motor and are not found in any other living system.' Undirected evolutionary processes do not produce 30 novel proteins, of just the needed kind, to laze around idly in the cell for millennia so that a pump could some day transform itself into a motor. In short, the proteins in the TTSS do not provide a `gradualist' Darwinian pathway to explain the step-by-step evolution of the irreducibly complex flagellar motor. Miller's spin has been unspun." (Peterson D., "The Little Engine That Could...Undo Darwinism," The American Spectator, June 2005) ]

Intelligent design vs. stack of science books: Concept's advocate says he is `quite skeptical' about evolution texts, MSNBC, Oct. 19, 2005 HARRISBURG, Pa. - A leading advocate of "intelligent design" on Wednesday questioned whether his critics have enough scientific evidence to discredit his ideas as he testified in a federal trial over whether the concept can be discussed in a public school biology class. Lehigh University biochemistry professor Michael Behe testified for a third day on behalf of a school board that is defending its decision a year ago, to require students to hear a statement about intelligent design before ninth-grade biology lessons on evolution. Behe contends that evolution cannot fully explain the biological complexities of life - such as the immune system and blood clotting - suggesting the work of an intelligent force. He specifically questions whether complex systems could have evolved gradually through natural selection and random mutation. Eric Rothschild, a lawyer for eight families suing to have intelligent design removed from the Dover Area School District's biology curriculum, presented Behe with a stack of more than a half-dozen books written about the evolution of the immune system. "A lot of writing, huh?" Rothschild said. But Behe was unmoved, noting that "evolution" has multiple meanings. "I am quite skeptical that they present detailed, rigorous models of the evolution of the immune system through random mutation and natural selection," he said. Behe also defended his 1996 best seller, "Darwin's Black Box," which outlines his ideas, and said discussing intelligent design is educationally useful because it exposes students to differing views of evolution. ... [So what was Rothschild's answer? That his "half-dozen books written about the evolution of the immune system" do "present detailed, rigorous models of the evolution of the immune system through random mutation and natural selection"? If not, then what relevance was his "stack of science books" with their "lot of writing"? He might as well have "presented Behe with a stack of more than a half-dozen" telephone "books"!]

Superintendent testifies in evolution trial: 'Intelligent design' not same as creationism, Dover schools chief says, MSNBC, Oct. 21, 2005 HARRISBURG, Pa. - The superintendent of a school district that is defending its decision to mention "intelligent design" in biology classes testified Friday that he did not equate the concept with creationism. "I did not see intelligent design as creationism. I saw them totally separate," Dover Area Superintendent Richard Nilsen said. "Creationism references Genesis. ... Intelligent design does not reference a biblical context at all." ....Eight families are suing to have intelligent design removed from the curriculum, because they believe the policy essentially promotes the Bible's view of creation, and therefore violates the constitutional separation of church and state. ... Nilsen said Friday he didn't think the district's approach to intelligent design would get as involved as it did. He originally envisioned teachers making only passing references to the concept in biology class. "No one had ever said we would ignore or modify the state standards on evolution," he said. But when teachers started asking how to implement it, the district developed the statement to be read in class. Under cross-examination, plaintiffs' attorney Eric Rothschild asked Nilsen about a reference "Of Pandas and People" made to a "master intellect" as the origin of life on Earth. He said that, in a pretrial deposition, Nilsen had said he thought that "could only mean God or aliens." "Is that your idea of good pedagogy?" Rothschild asked. Nilsen replied, "Good pedagogy is to give them (students) the understanding that people believe that is true and to give them other options." Assistant superintendent Michael Baksa, who oversees the district's curriculum, testified Friday that creationism was never discussed when school board member Bill Buckingham met with Baksa in June 2004 to air his concerns about the biology textbook's treatment of evolution. "I understood his concerns would be that the theory is treated like a fact, a reality," Baksa said. "It's mentioned so many times in the book that it biases students to accept it as a fact."... [This is very important in rebutting the charge that the DASD was trying to "promote... the Bible's view of creation". As for "master intellect", that is no more religious than the atheist Fred Hoyle's suggestion from "the delicate positioning of the nuclear resonances" in "carbon-oxygen synthesis" that "a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology" (my emphasis):

"From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 Mev energy level in the nucleus of ¹²C to the 7.12 Mev level in ¹⁶O. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? Following the above argument, I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature." (Hoyle F., "The Universe: Past and Present Reflections," Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol. 20, 1982, pp.1-35, p.16. My emphasis).

As Antony Flew showed, one could infer there was a designer, "based on scientific evidence" and call the designer a "super-intelligence" (my emphasis) or even "God", and yet still mean only a deistic God and not the "God of the Christian" or of any religion:

"A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday. 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 for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England. Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives. `I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins,' he said. `It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose.'" ("Famous Atheist Now Believes in God," ABC News/AP, December 9, 2004. My emphasis).]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
"Problems of Evolution"

My response to questions on intelligent design from an Australian journalism student

AN

> ----- Original Message -----
>From: AN
>To: Stephen E. Jones
>Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 10:10 AM
>Subject: intelligent design [...]
>
>My name is AN. I am from ... University, ...
>campus – I am a journalism student there doing a end-of-semester
>research assignment on intelligent design and evolution being
>taught in schools. [...]

----- Original Message -----
From: AN
To: "Stephen E. Jones"
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2005 9:48 AM
Subject: Re: intelligent design

AN>... The questions are as follows:

Thanks for your questions. Here are my answers, which I will copy to my blog CED minus your personal identifying information, as agreed.

AN>1. Are evolutionists increasingly rethinking their beliefs in evolution?

Evolutionists are increasingly rethinking their beliefs in Darwinian evolution. For example, one of the world's leading paleontologists, Robert L. Carroll, has pointed out that the diagram which Darwin included in Chapter IV of his Origin of Species, and referred to constantly as to what the pattern of life should have been like if his theory was true, is in fact "conspicuously different" from "The patterns established from the fossil record of the major groups of vascular plants, vertebrates, and nonvertebrate[s]":

"Although Darwin's theory sought to deal with evolution over all time scales, almost all of his evidence was drawn from the modern biota. In the absence of adequate evidence from fossils, he simply extrapolated the patterns and processes that he could study in living organisms to the uncounted millions of years of the history of life. This is most clearly shown by the only illustration that appeared in the first edition of The Origin of Species .... Darwin used this figure twice in successive paragraphs, first to illustrate the pattern of evolution over tens to hundreds of thousands of generations within individual populations and species, and later to show the pattern of change over millions and hundreds of millions of generations. He argued that both the patterns and processes of evolution were essentially identical over these vastly different time scales. Although many biologists and popular textbooks since the time of Darwin have perpetuated this concept of the history of life, other scientists have argued that neither the patterns nor the processes of evolution that can be studied in living populations are adequate to explain the conspicuous differences in morphology, physiology, and way of life of the major groups of microorganisms, plants, and animals, or the major patterns and different rates of evolution observed in the fossil record. The most graphic demonstration of the inadequacy of Darwin's hypothesis of the constancy of evolutionary patterns over all time scales can be seen by comparing his hypothetical representation of the patterns of evolution for both very short and very long periods of time with the patterns of evolution that have since been reconstructed on the basis of the fossil record of multicellular plants and animals over the past 500 million years (Figs. 1.2-1.4). The diagram used by Darwin to illustrate evolution both at the level of populations and species and over the vast expanse of geological time is characterized by gradual and continuous change. Most populations within species, or families with in orders, diverge progressively. Some lineages continue with little change, but most eventually become extinct. The entire adaptive space is occupied by the groups diagramed, and the rate of change, indicated by the slope of the lines, remains fairly constant. The patterns established from the fossil record of the major groups of vascular plants, vertebrates, and nonvertebrate metazoans are conspicuously different. There are relatively few major lineages, all of which are very distinct from one an other. Gaps between the lineages indicate that adaptive space is not fully occupied. Instead of showing gradual and continuous change through time, the major lineages appear suddenly in the fossil record, already exhibiting many of the features by which their modern representatives are recognized. It must be assumed that evolution occurs much more rapidly between groups than within groups. For most of their evolutionary history, fundamental aspects of the anatomy and way of life of these lineages do not change significantly. Very few intermediates between groups are known from the fossil record." (Carroll R.L., "Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution," Cambridge University Press: Cambridge UK, 1997, pp.2,4. My emphasis).

Another leading paleontologist, David Raup noted that, "we ... have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection":

"Darwin's general solution to the incompatibility of fossil evidence and his theory was to say that the fossil record is a very incomplete one that it is full of gaps, and that we have much to learn. In effect, he was saying that if the record were complete and if we had better knowledge of it wee would see the finely graduated chain that he predicted. And this was his main argument for downgrading the evidence from the fossil record. Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information - what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection. Also the major extinctions such as the dinosaurs and trilobites are still very puzzling." (Raup D.M., "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History: Chicago IL, January 1979, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp.22-29, pp.24-25. Emphasis mine)

Yet, as Carroll observes above, "many biologists and popular textbooks since the time of Darwin have perpetuated this" false "concept of the history of life"!

AN>2. So far, are there any evolutionary transitional fossils (ie. reptile to bird)?

First, it needs to be reiterated that ID itself has no problem with common ancestry, and therefore with transitional fossils. One of ID's leaders, Professor Michael Behe, has stated that he accepts common ancestry (as I do):

"Evolution is a controversial topic, so it is necessary to address a few basic questions at the beginning of the book. Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent to espousing creationism. As commonly understood, creationism involves belief in an earth formed only about ten thousand years ago, an interpretation of the Bible that is still very popular. For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it. I greatly respect the work of my colleagues who study the development and behavior of organisms within an evolutionary framework, and I think that evolutionary biologists have contributed enormously to our understanding of the world. Although Darwin's mechanism-natural selection working on variation-might explain many things, however, I do not believe it explains molecular life. I also do not think it surprising that the new science of the very small might change the way we view the less small." (Behe M.J., "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution," Free Press: New York NY, 1996, pp.5-6)

and another ID leader, William Dembski, has stated that, "intelligent design is compatible with ... God seamlessly melding all organisms together into one great tree of life":

"Where does intelligent design fit within the creation-evolution debate? Logically, intelligent design is compatible with everything from utterly discontinuous creation (e.g., God intervening at every conceivable point to create new species) to the most far-ranging evolution (e.g., God seamlessly melding all organisms together into one great tree of life). For intelligent design the primary question is not how organisms came to be (though, as we've just seen, this is a vital question for intelligent design) but whether organisms demonstrate clear, empirically detectable marks of being intelligently caused. In principle an evolutionary process can exhibit such `marks of intelligence' as much as any act of special creation." (Dembski W.A., "Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 1999, pp.109-110)

Now to answer your question. There are transitional fossils, e.g. between reptile and bird - Archaeopteryx. Even the young-Earth creationist paleontologist Kurt Wise admits this, although he renames them "stratomorphic intermediates" (and regards them as the result of Noah's flood):

"Another class of fossil evidence comes in individual stratomorphic intermediates. These are fossils that stand intermediate between the group from which they are descendent and the one to which they are ancestral-both in stratigraphic position and in morphology. They have a structure that stands between the structure of their ancestors and that of their descendants. However, they are also found in the fossil record as younger than the oldest fossils of the ancestral group and older than the oldest fossils of the descendent group. ... And examples of stratomorphic intermediates do exist. Mammal-like reptiles stand between reptiles and mammals, both in the position of their fossils and in the structure of their bones. The same can be said of the anthracosaurs, which stand between amphibians and reptiles, and the phenacodontids, which stand between the horses and their claimed ancestors. In like manner, some fossil genera are stratomorphic intermediates in the group in which they are classified. They are the oldest fossils known in the group and most similar to the group from which they are supposedly descendent. Examples include Pikaia, among the chordates, Archaeopteryx among the birds, Baragwanathia among Lycopods, Ichthyostega among the amphibians, Purgatorius among the primates, Pakicetus among the whales and Proconsul among the hominoids." (Wise K.P., "The Origin of Life's Major Groups," in Moreland J.P., ed., "The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 1994, pp.226-227)

However, as Carroll points out above, the pattern of transitional fossils do not support Darwin's theory of "gradual and continuous change through time" because "the major lineages appear suddenly in the fossil record, already exhibiting many of the features by which their modern representatives are recognized." Darwin specifically stated that "natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations" so it "can never take a great and sudden leap":"

Why should not Nature take a sudden leap from structure to structure? On the theory of natural selection, we can clearly understand why she should not; for natural selection acts only by taking advantage of slight successive variations; she can never take a great and sudden leap, but must advance by short and sure, though slow steps." (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1928, reprint, p.180)

and he predicted that "natural selection [will in future] banish the belief of ... organic beings [having] ... any great and sudden modification in their structure":

"Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being; and as modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation of a great valley by a single diluvial wave, so will natural selection banish the belief of the continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modification in their structure." (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1928, reprint, p.94. My emphasis)

So Darwin's theory of the natural selection of random micromutations has been conclusively falsified for at least a quarter of a century, when the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould in 1980 pronounced it "effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy":

"I well remember how the [Neo-Darwinian] synthetic theory beguiled me with its unifying power when I was a graduate student in the mid-1960's. Since then I have been watching it slowly unravel as a universal description of evolution. The molecular assault came first, followed quickly by renewed attention to unorthodox theories of speciation and by challenges at the level of macroevolution itself. I have been reluctant to admit it-since beguiling is often forever-but if Mayr's characterization of the synthetic theory is accurate, then that theory, as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy." (Gould S.J., "Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?," Paleobiology, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 1980, p.120)

And, because Darwin's theory was claimed by Darwin (and is claimed by modern Darwinists) to refute the argument from design in nature:

"Although I did not think much about the existence of a personal God until a considerably later period of my life, I will here give the vague conclusions to which I have been driven. The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws." (Darwin C.R., in Barlow N., ed., "The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809-1882: With Original Omissions Restored," [1958], W.W. Norton & Co: New York NY, 1969, reprint, p.87).

"[NC] One of your books, The Blind Watchmaker, argues the case for the cumulative power of natural selection in the adaptation of organisms. Tell us about the metaphorical title of that book. [RD] The `watchmaker' comes from William Paley, the eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century theologian who was one of the most famous exponents of the argument of design. Paley the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century theologian who was one of the most famous exponents of the argument of design. Paley famously said that if you are wandering along and stumble upon a watch and you pick it up and open it, you realize that the internal mechanism-the way in which it's all meshed together-is detailed perfection. Add this to the fact that the watch mechanism has a purpose-namely, telling the time-then this compels you to conclude that the watch had to have a designer. Paley then went on throughout his book giving example after example of detailed structure of living organisms-eyes, heart, bowels, joints, and everything about animals-showing how beautifully designed they apparently are, how well they work, how intricately the parts mesh together, just like the cog wheels of a watch. And if the watch had to have a watchmaker, then of course these biological structures also had to have a designer. My reason for beginning The Blind Watchmaker was Paley. He really saw the magnitude of the problem of adaptation when most people just didn't see how elegant, how beautiful, apparent design in life is. Paley saw that, and Darwin saw that. And Darwin was introduced to it at least partly by Paley. All undergraduates at Cambridge had to read William Paley. He at least put the question right. So the only thing Paley got wrong, which is quite a big thing, was the answer to the question. And nobody got the right answer until Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century." (Dawkins R., "Interview," in Campbell N.A., Reece J.B. & Mitchell L.G., "Biology," [1987], Benjamin/Cummings: Menlo Park CA, Fifth Edition, 1999, p.412).

So, if the overall pattern of the fossil record does not support Darwin's theory, then the "argument of design in nature" was never refuted by Darwin and therefore is still valid. This point was made by Darwin, Fred Hoyle and more recently by Behe:

"In order to understand the task of natural selection, it is good to remember Darwin's reply to Moritz Wagner. Darwin's main reply to Wagner was: if you have no natural selection, you cannot explain the evolution of the apparently designed organs, like the eye. Or in other words, without natural selection, you cannot solve Paley's problem." (Popper K., "Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind," Dialectica, Vol. 32, Nos. 3-4, 1978, pp.339-355, p.34)

"The speculations of the Origin of Species turned out to be wrong, as we have seen in this chapter. It is ironic that the scientific facts throw Darwin out, but leave William Paley, a figure of fun to the scientific world for more than a century, still in the tournament with a chance of being the ultimate winner." (Hoyle F. & Wickramasinghe C., "The evolutionary record leaks like a sieve," in "Evolution from Space," [1981], Paladin: London, 1983, reprint, pp.100-102)

"But exactly where, we may ask, was Paley refuted? Who has answered his argument? How was the watch produced without an intelligent designer? It is surprising but true that the main argument of the discredited Paley has actually never been refuted. Neither Darwin nor Dawkins, neither science nor philosophy, has explained how an irreducibly complex system such as a watch might be produced without designer. Instead Paley's argument has been sidetracked by attacks or its injudicious examples and off-the-point theological discussions. Paley, of course, is to blame for not framing his argument more tightly. But many of Paley's detractors are also to blame for refusing to engage his main point, playing dumb in order to reach a more palatable conclusion." (Behe M.J., "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution," Free Press: New York NY, 1996, p.213)

AN>3. Could large scale evolution like transitions from reptile to bird have ever occurred (given a loss of genetic information)?

Yes (see above), but not by Darwin's mechanism of the natural selection of random (unguided) micromutations. Ironically Dawkins explains how an intelligent designer (but not a blind watchmaker) who "knew which genes to tinker with, which bits of chromosome to duplicate, invert or delete" could engineer large scale transitions by making a jump across genetic hyperspace:

"There is another mathematical space filled, not with nine-gened biomorphs but with flesh and blood animals made of billions of cells, each containing tens of thousands of genes. This is not biomorph space but real genetic space. The actual animals that have ever lived on Earth are a tiny subset of the theoretical animals that could exist. These real animals are the products of a very small number of evolutionary trajectories through genetic space. The vast majority of theoretical trajectories through animal space give rise to impossible monsters. Real animals are dotted around here and there among the hypothetical monsters, each perched in its own unique place in genetic hyperspace. Each real animal is surrounded by a little cluster of neighbours, most of whom have never existed, but a few of whom are its ancestors, its descendants and its cousins. Sitting somewhere in this huge mathematical space are humans and hyenas, amoebas and aardvarks, flatworms and squids, dodos and dinosaurs. In theory, if we were skilled enough at genetic engineering, we could move from any point in animal space to any other point. From any starting point we could move through the maze in such a way as to recreate the dodo, the tyrannosaur and trilobites. If only we knew which genes to tinker with, which bits of chromosome to duplicate, invert or delete. I doubt if we shall ever know enough to do it, but these dear dead creatures are lurking there forever in their private corners of that huge genetic hypervolume, waiting to be found if we but had the knowledge to navigate the right course through the maze." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p.73)

And in fact it is such "chromosomal rearrangements"which have "played the primary role in the majority of speciation events" (my emphasis), and each one is "a unique event whose consequences [are] ... almost impossible to predict":

"The role of chromosomal rearrangements in speciation has been considered ... More and more, it appears as if such rearrangements, of many different types, have played the primary role in the majority of speciation events. It by no means follows, however, that their significance in speciation is always of the same type. In fact, each chromosomal rearrangement-whether fusion or dissociation, translocation, inversion, gain or loss of heterochromatin-must be regarded as a unique event whose consequences will be almost impossible to predict in the present stage of our knowledge. It is thus extremely difficult to incorporate chromosomal rearrangements into mathematical models of speciation and phyletic evolution, which may be one reason why they have been relatively neglected by many evolutionary geneticists." (White M.J.D., "Modes of Speciation," W.H. Freeman & Co: San Francisco CA, 1978, p.336. My emphasis)

So Darwin's theory of the natural selection of random micromutations is largely irrelevant to "the majority of speciation events".

AN>4. Many evolutionists claim that intelligent design is not actually scientific (because they say the hypothesis that there is a Designer cannot be tested). Is intelligent design scientific? Is the methodology of science perhaps in need of changing?

First, the employment of demarcation criteria to determine what is, and is not, "scientific" has been abandoned by most philosophers of science:

"The function of auxiliary hypotheses in scientific testing suggests that many scientific theories, including those in so-called hard sciences, may be very difficult, if not impossible, to falsify conclusively. Yet many theories that have been falsified in practice via the consensus judgment of the scientific community must qualify as scientific according to the falsifiability criterion. Since they have been falsified, they are obviously falsifiable, and since they are falsifiable, they would seem to be scientific. And so it has gone generally with demarcation criteria. Many theories that have been repudiated on evidential grounds express the very epistemic and methodological virtues (testability, falsifiability, observability, etc.) that have been alleged to characterize true science. Many theories that are held in high esteem lack some of the allegedly necessary and sufficient features of proper science. As a result, with few exceptions most contemporary philosophers of science regard the question `What methods distinguish science from non-science?' as both intractable and uninteresting. What, after all, is in a name? Certainly not automatic epistemic warrant or authority. Thus philosophers of science have increasingly realized that the real issue is not whether a theory is scientific but whether it is true or warranted by the evidence. Thus, as Martin Eger has summarized, `demarcation arguments have collapsed. Philosophers of science don't hold them anymore. They may still enjoy acceptance in the popular world, but that's a different world.' [Eger M., quoted by J. Buell in `Broaden Science Curriculum,' Dallas Morning News, March 10, 1989]. The `demise of the demarcation problem,' as Laudan calls it, implies that the use of positivistic demarcationist arguments by evolutionists is, at least prima facie, on very slippery ground. Laudan's analysis suggests that such arguments are not likely to succeed in distinguishing the scientific status of descent vis-a-vis design or anything else for that matter. As Laudan puts it `If we could stand up on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like 'pseudo-science.'... They do only emotive work for us.' [Laudan L., "The Demise of the Demarcation problem," in "But Is It Science?," Ruse M., ed., Prometheus Books: Buffalo N.Y, 1988, pp.337-350] If philosophers of science such as Laudan are correct, a stalemate exists in our analysis of design and descent. Neither can automatically qualify as science; neither can be necessarily disqualified either. The a priori methodological merit of design and descent are indistinguishable if no agreed criteria exist by which to judge their merits." (Meyer S.C., "The Methodological Equivalence of Design & Descent," in Moreland J.P., ed., "The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL., 1994, p.75)

The problem is that by employing demarcation criteria such as testabilty and falsifiability, what was thought to be unscientific (e.g. astrology) would be science (since it could be and was tested and falsified); and what was thought to be scientific (e.g. Darwinian evolution) would not, since it is very difficult, if not impossible, to test and falsify Darwin's theory of the natural selection of random mutations):

"Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one which cannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus `outside of empirical science' but not necessarily false. No one can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified systems, have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part of our training." (Birch L.C. & Ehrlich P.R., "Evolutionary History and Population Biology," Nature, Vol. 214, 22 April 1967, p.352. My emphasis)

"I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme-a possible framework for testable scientific theories. ... I now wish to give some reasons why I regard Darwinism as metaphysical, and as a research programme. It is metaphysical because it is not testable. One might think that it is. It seems to assert that, if ever on some planet we find life which satisfies conditions (a) and (b), then (c) will come into play and bring about in time a rich variety of distinct forms. Darwinism, however, does not assert as much as this. For assume that we find life on Mars consisting of exactly three species of bacteria with a genetic outfit similar to that of three terrestrial species. Is Darwinism refuted? By no means. We shall say that these three species were the only forms among the many mutants which were sufficiently well adjusted to survive. And we shall say the same if there is only one species (or none). Thus Darwinism does not really predict the evolution of variety. It therefore cannot really explain it. At best, it can predict the evolution of variety under `favourable conditions'. But it is hardly possible to describe in general terms what favourable conditions are except that, in their presence, a variety of forms will emerge." (Popper K.R., "Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography," Open Court: La Salle IL, Revised Edition, 1982, pp.168,171)

"Darwinian evolution, by natural selection, predicts that organisms are as they are because all their genes have been and are being subjected to selection, those that reduce the organism's success being eliminated, and those that enhance it being favoured. This is a scientific theory, for these predictions can be tested. 'Non-Darwinian' or random evolution predicts that some features of organisms are non-adaptive, having neutral or slightly negative survival value, and that the genes controlling such features are fluctuating randomly in the population, or have been fixed because at some time in the past the population went through a bottleneck, when it was greatly reduced. When these two theories are combined, as a general explanation of evolutionary change, that general theory is no longer testable. Take natural selection: no matter how many cases fail to yield to a natural selection analysis, the theory is not threatened, for it can always be said that these failures of selection theory are explained by genetic drift. And no matter how many supposed examples of genetic drift are shown to be due, after all, to natural selection, the neutral theory is not threatened, for it never pretended to explain all evolution." (Patterson C., "Evolution," British Museum (Natural History): London, 1978, p.70. My emphasis).

Second, the Darwinists claim that they have tested and falsified ID:

"Coyne's conclusion that design is unfalsifiable, however, seems to be at odds with the arguments of other reviewers of my book. Clearly, Russell Doolittle (Doolittle 1997), Kenneth Miller (Miller 1999), and others have advanced scientific arguments aimed at falsifying ID. (See my articles on blood clotting and the `acid test' on this web site.) If the results with knock-out mice (Bugge et al. 1996) had been as Doolittle first thought, or if Barry Hall's work (Hall 1999) had indeed shown what Miller implied, then they correctly believed my claims about irreducible complexity would have suffered quite a blow. And since my claim for intelligent design requires that no unintelligent process be sufficient to produce such irreducibly complex systems, then the plausibility of ID would suffer enormously. Other scientists, including those on the National Academy of Science's Steering Committee on Science and Creationism, in commenting on my book have also pointed to physical evidence (such as the similar structures of hemoglobin and myoglobin) which they think shows that irreducibly complex biochemical systems can be produced by natural selection: `However, structures and processes that are claimed to be ‘irreducibly' complex typically are not on closer inspection.' (National Academy of Sciences 1999, p.22) Now, one can't have it both ways. One can't say both that ID is unfalsifiable (or untestable) and that there is evidence against it. Either it is unfalsifiable and floats serenely beyond experimental reproach, or it can be criticized on the basis of our observations and is therefore testable. The fact that critical reviewers advance scientific arguments against ID (whether successfully or not) shows that intelligent design is indeed falsifiable." (Behe M.J., "Philosophical Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics," Discovery Institute, July 31, 2000. My emphasis).

Third, compared to ID, it is Darwinism which is untestable:

"In fact, my argument for intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. Here is a thought experiment that makes the point clear. In Darwin's Black Box (Behe 1996) I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the flagellum can't be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process. To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum-or any equally complex system--was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly disproven. How about Professor Coyne's concern that, if one system were shown to be the result of natural selection, proponents of ID could just claim that some other system was designed? I think the objection has little force. If natural selection were shown to be capable of producing a system of a certain degree of complexity, then the assumption would be that it could produce any other system of an equal or lesser degree of complexity. If Coyne demonstrated that the flagellum (which requires approximately forty gene products) could be produced by selection, I would be rather foolish to then assert that the blood clotting system (which consists of about twenty proteins) required intelligent design." (Behe M.J., "Philosophical Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics," Discovery Institute, July 31, 2000. Emphasis original.)

"Let's turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify the claim that, say, the bacterial flagellum was produced by Darwinian processes? (Professor Coyne's remarks about a Precambrian fossil hominid are irrelevant since I dispute the mechanism of natural selection, not common descent. I would no more expect to find a fossil hominid out of sequence than he would.) If a scientist went into the laboratory and grew a flagellum-less bacterial species under selective pressure for many generations and nothing much happened, would Darwinists be convinced that natural selection is incapable of producing a flagellum? I doubt it. It could always be claimed that the selective pressure wasn't the right one, or that we started with the wrong bacterial species, and so on. Even if the experiment were repeated many times under different conditions and always gave a negative result, I suspect many Darwinists would not conclude that the claim of its Darwinian evolution was falsified. Of complex biochemical systems Coyne himself writes `we may forever be unable to envisage the first proto-pathways. It is not valid, however, to assume that, because one man cannot imagine such pathways, they could not have existed.' (Coyne 1996) If a person accepts Darwinian paths which are not only unseen, but which we may be forever unable to envisage, then it is effectively impossible to make him think he is wrong." (Behe M.J., "Philosophical Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics," Discovery Institute, July 31, 2000. My emphasis)

"Kenneth Miller announced an `acid test' for the ability of natural selection to produce irreducible complexity. He then decided that the test was passed, and unhesitatingly proclaimed intelligent design falsified ('Behe is wrong'; Miller 1999, 147). But if, as it certainly seems to me, E. coli actually fails the lactose-system `acid test,' would Miller consider Darwinism to be falsified? Almost certainly not. He would surely say that the experiment started with the wrong bacterial species, used the wrong selective pressure, and so on. So it turns out that his `acid test' was not a test of Darwinism; it tested only intelligent design. The same one-way testing was employed by Russell Doolittle. He pointed to the results of Bugge et al. (1996) to argue against intelligent design. But when the results turned out to be the opposite of what he had originally thought, Professor Doolittle did not abandon Darwinism. It seems then, perhaps counterintuitively to some, that intelligent design is quite susceptible to falsification, at least on the points under discussion. Darwinism, on the other hand, seems quite impervious to falsification. The reason for that can be seen when we examine the basic claims of the two ideas with regard to a particular biochemical system like, say, the bacterial flagellum. The claim of intelligent design is that `No unintelligent process could produce this system.' The claim of Darwinism is that `Some unintelligent process (involving natural selection and random mutation) could produce this system.' To falsify the first claim, one need only show that at least one unintelligent process could produce the system. To falsify the second claim, one would have to show the system could not have been formed by any of a potentially infinite number of possible unintelligent processes, which is effectively impossible to do. I think Professor Coyne and the National Academy of Sciences have it exactly backwards. A strong point of intelligent design is its vulnerability to falsification. (Indeed, some of my religious critics dislike intelligent design theory precisely because they worry that it will be falsified, and thus theology will appear to suffer another blow from science. See, for example, (Flietstra 1998).) A weak point of Darwinian theory is its resistance to falsification. What experimental evidence could possibly be found that would falsify the contention that complex molecular machines evolved by a Darwinian mechanism?" (Behe M.J., "Philosophical Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics," Discovery Institute, July 31, 2000. Emphasis original)

AN>5. Should intelligent design be taught in schools, in your opinion? If so, in what capacity (for example, alongside evolution, as part of religious studies)?

I do believe that ID should be taught in schools, but only where there is majority agreement to do so among the school, teachers, parents and students. Along with the leadership of ID movement, I do not agree that ID should mandated, over the wishes of the majority:

"SEATTLE, DEC. 14 – The policy on teaching evolution recently adopted by the Dover, PA School Board was called `misguided' today by Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, which advised that the policy should be withdrawn and rewritten. `While the Dover board is to be commended for trying to teach Darwinian theory in a more open-minded manner, this is the wrong way to go about it,' said Dr. John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC). `Dover's current policy has a number of problems, not the least of which is its lack of clarity. At one point, it appears to prohibit Dover schools from teaching anything about 'the origins of life.' At another point, it appears to both mandate as well as prohibit the teaching of the scientific theory of intelligent design. The policy's incoherence raises serious problems from the standpoint of constitutional law. Thus, the policy should be withdrawn and rewritten.' Apart from questions about its constitutionality, West expressed reservations about the Dover School Board's directive on public policy grounds. `When we first read about the Dover policy, we publicly criticized it because according to published reports the intent was to mandate the teaching of intelligent design,' explained West. `Although we think discussion of intelligent design should not be prohibited, we don't think intelligent design should be required in public schools. `What should be required is full disclosure of the scientific evidence for and against Darwin's theory,' added West, `which is the approach supported by the overwhelming majority of the public." ("Discovery Calls Dover Evolution Policy Misguided, Calls For its Withdrawal," Discovery Institute, December 14, 2004.)

"Seemingly, they're would-be allies. But a disagreement last week over legal representation means three experts with connections to the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute will not be testifying in a federal court case on behalf of the Dover Area School Board. The three experts - William Dembski, Stephen Meyer and John Campbell - were slated for testimony on the debate over intelligent design. But last week, their names were removed from the list before they could give depositions in the case. Eric Rothschild, plaintiffs' attorney with Pepper Hamilton, said he was baffled by the decision. Meyer is the director of Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, which funds research projects related to intelligent design. Dembski and Campbell are senior fellows there. ... Even though Discovery is probably the country's leading proponent of intelligent design, it opposes the Dover Area School Board's decision to make the concept regarding life's origins part of its science curriculum. Its members say they don't oppose intelligent design being taught in the schools, they merely oppose it being mandated. ... While Dembski said he disagrees with many aspects of Darwinism, `there is still a long way at hammering out ID as a full-fledged research program. That said, there is nobody I know that says intelligent design should be mandated. I think this is the problem with Dover. It's not a way you build consensus and help education along." (Lebo L., "Experts won't back Dover School district," York Daily Record, June 19, 2005.)

"The Dover Area School District and its board will likely walk into a First Amendment court battle next week without the backing of the nation's largest supporter of intelligent design.The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based nonprofit that describes itself as a `nonpartisan policy and research organization,' recently issued a policy position against Dover in its upcoming court case. John West, associate director of Discovery's Center for Science & Culture, calls the Dover policy `misguided' and `likely to be politically divisive and hinder a fair and open discussion of the merits of intelligent design.' ... Though the Discovery Institute promotes the teaching of intelligent design, it has been critical of school boards that have implemented intelligent design policies ... Dover is the only school district that Discovery has publicly spoken out against. West said that's because they mandated the policy. Discovery Institute supports teaching intelligent design, but not requiring it through a school board policy. .... `They really did it on their own and that's unfortunate,' West said..... Discovery also spoke out against Pennsylvania legislators who wanted to give school boards the option of mandating the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution." (Kauffman C., "Intelligent designers down on Dover: Theory's largest national supporter won't back district," The York Dispatch, September 23, 2005).

However, where evolution is taught, along with the leadership of the ID movement, I agree that it should be taught `warts and all'. That is: 1) the unproven and unprovable philosophical assumptions of evolution (e.g. materialism = matter is all there is; and naturalism = nature is all there is) should not be hidden but be fully disclosed; 2) the problems of evolution (in particular of Darwin's theory), should be frankly admitted to students; and 3) the main alternatives to evolution (including ID) should be presented. In other words, students should be taught the controversy:

"When two groups of experts disagree about a controversial subject that intersects the public school curriculum students should learn about both perspectives. In such cases teachers should not teach as true only one competing view .... Instead, teachers should describe competing views to students and explain the arguments for and against these views as made by their chief proponents. Educators call this `teaching the controversy.' Recently, while speaking to the Ohio State Board of Education, I suggested this approach as a way forward for Ohio in its increasingly contentious dispute about how to teach theories of biological origin, and about whether or not to introduce the theory of intelligent design alongside Darwinism in the Ohio biology curriculum. I also proposed a compromise involving three main provisions: (1) First, I suggested-speaking as an advocate of the theory of intelligent design-that Ohio not require students to know the scientific evidence and arguments for the theory of intelligent design, at least not yet. (2) Instead, I proposed that Ohio teachers teach the scientific controversy about Darwinian evolution. Teachers should teach students about the main scientific arguments for and against Darwinian theory. And Ohio should test students for their understanding of those arguments, not for their assent to a point of view. (3) Finally, I argued that the state board should permit, but not require, teachers to tell students about the arguments of scientists, like Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe, who advocate the competing theory of intelligent design. There are many reasons for Ohio to adopt this approach. First, honest science education requires it. While testifying before the state board, biologist Dr. Jonathan Wells and I, submitted an annotated bibliography of over 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles that raise significant challenges to key tenets of Darwinian evolution. If students are to be required to master the case for Darwinian evolution (as we think they should), shouldn't they also know some of the difficulties described in such scientific literature? Shouldn’t students know that many scientists doubt that the overall pattern of fossil evidence conforms to the Darwinian picture of the history of life? Shouldn't they know that some scientists now question previously stock Darwinian arguments from embryology and homology? And shouldn't they also know that many scientists now question the ability of natural selection to create fundamentally new structures, organisms and body plans? ... Second, constitutional law permits `teaching the controversy' about scientific theories of origins. In the controlling Edwards v. Aguillard case, the Supreme Court made clear that state legislatures (and by extension state boards) already have the right to mandate teaching scientific critiques of prevailing theories. Interestingly, the court also made clear that teachers have the right to teach students about `a variety of scientific theories about origins ... with the clear secular intent of enhancing science education.' Our compromise proposal requires teaching existing scientific critique of Darwinism, and permits discussion of competing theories, just as the Court allows. Third, federal education policy calls for precisely this kind of approach. The report language accompanying the federal education act (`No Child Left Behind') states that `where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of views that exist [and] why such topics may generate controversy.' ... Fourth, voters overwhelmingly favor this approach. In a recent national Zogby poll, 71% of those polled stated their support for teaching evidence both for and against Darwin's theory of evolution. Only 15% opposed this approach. An even greater majority favored exposing students to `evidence that points to an intelligent design of life.' Finally, good pedagogy commends this approach. Teaching the controversy about Darwinism as it exists in the scientific community will engage student interest. It will motivate students to learn more about the biological evidence as they see why it matters to a big question. This is not only good teaching; it is good science. As Darwin wrote in the Origin of Species, `A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.' Yet, the modern Darwinist lobby continues to distract attention from their advocacy of censorship by reciting a litany of complaints about the emerging theory of intelligent design. But that theory is not the issue in Ohio. The issue is whether students will learn both sides of the real and growing scientific controversy about Darwinism,and whether a 19th century theory will be taught dogmatically to 21st century students." (Meyer S.C., "Teach the Controversy," Cincinnati Enquirer, March 30, 2002. Discovery Institute: Seattle WA.)

As for the part of your question where the above should be taught, i.e. in science classes "alongside evolution" or "as part of religious studies," I personally think that is up to the school. If they want to teach the evidence for evolution is science classes and the evidence against evolution and for ID in social studies or "religious studies" classes, then while that would seem to be a clumsy and inefficient use of school resources, with the potential for intra-faculty conflict, then they should be free to do so. However, if the evidence against evolution and for ID is taught in (say) "religious studies"classes then I expect they would be very popular and then the Darwinists would soon be demanding that the evidence against evolution and for ID be taught also in science classes!

AN>6. In your experience, would parents of school children like intelligent design to be taught?

I don't have any personal experience of this (my two children completed high school in the late 1980s/early 1990s when ID barely existed and I had yet to become involved in the evolution controversy). But all the USA polls (e.g. Zogby, CBS, Harris & Pew) that have asked the question, indicate that the majority of the public want both evolution and its alternatives taught in schools. Although I am not aware of any such polls in Australia, I expect that Australian parents would also want their children to learn evolution, and its alternatives (including intelligent design), in schools. I also expect that intelligent design will increasingly be taught in private religious schools and that will generate competitive pressure on public schools to also include ID in their curriculum. [...]

AN>thanks once again, AN.

You are welcome. Thanks again for your questions.

[...]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
"Problems of Evolution"