iDesign @ UCI

Welcome Message To New Students

Interested in Origins?
Join the club.


Mission Statement

FAQ

Organization


MISSION STATEMENT:

iDesign Club at UCI seeks to foster scientific discussions regarding the origins of life and the universe. Theories such as Darwinian evolution, intelligent design, and creationism will be critically analyzed.


FAQ:

Q: WHAT IS THIS CLUB ABOUT?

Origins! We are interested in discussing alternative theories to the origins of biological structures. While the current mainstream theory in academia is Darwinian evolution, we would also like to discuss other viable ideas, such as intelligent design.

Q: WHO CAN BE A MEMBER OF THIS CLUB?

Anybody! Students of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, Anthropology, and Philosophy may especially find this club intriguing. However, you do not need to have a science background to be an effective member of this club.

Q: WHEN AND WHERE ARE CLUB MEETINGS?

Please check blog entries for time and place.

Q: WHAT IS THE MEMBERSHIP FEE?

Nothing! There are no membership dues.

Q: IS THIS CLUB BIASED TOWARDS ONE SPECIFIC THEORY OF ORIGINS?

Perhaps. Ponder the name of this club. This club is ideologically the mirror of another club at UCI, the Students for Science and Skepticism. However, our main goal is to give a balanced view of the controversy regarding the origins of life so that students can come to an informed conclusion themselves.

Q: WHAT DOES THE LETTER "i" STAND FOR IN iDESIGN?

Good question -- the answer is intelligent.

Q: WHERE IS THE CLUB CONSTITUTION?

We adhere to the minimum constitution that was provided by the Dean of Students. In the future, we plan to draft a comprehensive constitution and bylaws.

Q: IS iDESIGN AFFILIATED WITH ANY ORGANIZATION?

No. However, we are friends with the IDEA Center


ORGANIZATION:

PRESIDENT:
Arthur
Information and Computer Science

VICE PRESIDENT:
Brian
Biology / English

DIRECTOR:
Andrew
English / Economics



Friday, December 23, 2005

Christmas

Wow, it's Christmas again! I wish everyone has a safe and blessed holiday season. Read this article from the New University about UCI students who are showing the Christmas spirit by engaging in various projects, including Operation Christmas Child.

Last year, I recorded some Christmas guitar tunes for family. You can also enjoy some of these amateur recordings: SilentNight.mp3, HarkTheHerald.mp3 (copyright 2004).

As I type, I'm hearing a song by Steven Curtis Chapman called "Christmas Is All In The Heart," which accurately sums up, in my opinion, what this holiday season should be about. Here are some lyrics:

Christmas is all in the heart,
That’s where the feeling starts,
And like a fire inside,
It touches every part,
‘Cause Christmas is all in the heart.

And even if no white snow falls,
That’s all right because
The joy can still be found,
Wherever you are,
‘Cause Christmas is all in the heart.

No, it’s not in the snow that may or may not fall,
And it’s not in the gifts around the tree;
It’s in the love heaven gave, the night our Savior came,
And that same love can still be found wherever you are,
‘Cause Christmas is all in the heart - It’s all in the heart.

Posted by Art at 8:04 PM | 0 Comments

Friday, December 09, 2005

Applying Bayes To Viewpoints on Origins

How does a person internally choose whether to be in the Design camp or in the Darwinian camp? In order to account for the factors that would lead one to make a decision on the origins issue, I think that it is sensible to view this decision-making process in a Bayesian framework. After all, a person's brain is a complex neural network that can be approximated in a probabilistic manner. Here is one application of Bayes rule:

P (theta | data) = P (data | theta) * P (theta) / P (data)

where

data = observations in nature,
theta = tweakable parameters of an underlying model which is implicitly assumed (but can be made explicit by adding an "M" random variable to the equation above).

To understand the equation above, consider the following background information:
  • P (theta) is called the "prior" -- it is the prior probability of the theta parameters. It can be our prior belief of what those parameters should be.
  • P (data | theta) is called the "likelihood" -- it is the likelihood of the data given a set of theta parameters.
  • P (theta | data) is called the "posterior" -- it is the updated probability of the parameters in light of the data. In essence, we update our beliefs after seeing some data.
  • P (data) is sometimes called "evidence" -- we can ignore it since it is just a normalization factor.

So we can rewrite our equation above ("~" means " approximates"):

Posterior ~ Likelihood * Prior

Now you may ask, "What does this have to do with one's views on the origins of life?" Stay tuned for the next post, since I am still in the process of formulating my ideas.

Posted by Art at 11:49 PM | 2 Comments


iDESIGN BLOGROLL:

The Design Paradigm
Design Watch
Creation-Evolution Headlines
Telic Thoughts
Uncommon Descent
ID the Future
ID Plus
CreationEvolutionDesign
Evolution News
Dualistic Dissension
ID in the UK
ID Update
Intelligently Sequenced


PRO-DESIGN SITES:

Access Research Network
IDEA Center
UCSD IDEA Club
ISCID


PRO-EVOLUTION SITES:

Panda's Thumb
Talk Origins
Students for Science and Skepticism at UCI
NAS: Science and Creationism


PRO-CREATION SITES:

Answers in Genesis
Institute for Creation Research
A.E. Wilder Smith
Reasons to Believe
Baraminology News
CreationWiki


OTHER INTERESTING SITES:

American Scientific Affiliation
Richard Sternberg


ANTEATER LINKS:

University of California, Irvine
New University
Irvine Review
School of Biological Sciences
School of Medicine
School of Physical Sciences
Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science
Henry Samueli School of Engineering
UCI Athletics
UCI Alumni Association


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Copyright © iDesign at UCI 2005. The views presented in this web site are our own. By using this site, you signify that iDesign at UCI is not liable for anything. Site maintained by Arthur Asuncion. Template last modified June 15, 2005.

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