According to this article, there's a new journal from the Institute of Physics called "Bioinspiration & Biomimetics" (HT: Design Watch). Sounds interesting. The design found in nature is starting to be used by engineers (see previous post on CBID's symposium for more about biomimetics).

Here is the title and abstract of Paul Nelson's talk at the Colloquium on Origins: Evolution & Intelligent Design event on May 10:

Title:

The Mystery of the Cambrian Explosion: Can Natural Selection Build Animals?

Abstract:

How did the animals – the Metazoa – evolve? Since Darwin’s time, most evolutionary biologists have held that the complexity of the animal phyla appearing in the Cambrian Explosion is best explained by the process of natural selection (Ayala 1985). More recently, however, some theorists have argued that natural selection may face real limits in what it can explain (Lynch 2006). Dr. Nelson’s talk explores these debates, and the possibilities that the idea of intelligent design brings to the discussion.

I recently stumbled upon an interesting article in Physorg, titled "The logic of life" (HT: Design Watch), which basically suggests that gene networks are highly analagous to electrical circuitry:

The functioning of gene networks looks a lot like the way components in electrical circuits might control one another. Two genes are considered to be 'wired together' if one of them influences the activity (the rate of protein production, say) of the other. In this way, genes can be connected to act as switches or amplifiers in biochemical processes. This is why many researchers in systems biology are starting to talk about the genetic circuitry of cells using terms and concepts borrowed from electronic and computer sciences, and even to talk of cells as though they perform kinds of computation, receiving signals which they process to generate particular kinds of 'output' responses.

Perhaps this may be a good example of isomorphic instantiation?

Here is the title and abstract of Ralph Seelke's upcoming presentation at the Colloquium On Origins: Evolution & Intelligent Design event on May 10:

Title:

What Can Evolution Really Do? Using experimental evolution to test the evolutionary potential of specific genes.

Abstract:

Mutation and selection, acting on existing genes, work to produce advantageous new functions. What might constrain the evolutionary potential of a gene? An important constraint may be the number of independent steps required for evolution of a new function. A requirement for more than two independent mutations to gain a function may produce a probabilistic barrier that can rarely, if ever, be overcome. My talk will introduce the topic of experimental evolution, and review situations in which evolution has been shown to be capable of producing new functions, and situations in which it has been shown incapable of producing new functions.

The New University has an interesting feature article up this week, titled "Francisco Ayala on the perfect compatibility of God and Evolution." This article basically features Dr. Ayala, who is a very genial and approachable professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (I interviewed him once for a science article I wrote a couple of years ago). Here's a clip of the article:

As a result of Ayala’s success in research, he has had the opportunity to speak all over the world, served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology for Bill Clinton and, because of his religious beliefs, become a frequent speaker on the subject of evolution in the context of religion, something he will not call an “intellectual debate.” Instead, he agrees with Judge John E. Jones who recently ruled against the teaching of intelligent design as science, calling creationism an “utterly forced premise.”

Ayala does not preach, though; he is merely confident in his beliefs, which place “God as author of the world” and “evolution as a scientific process.” After all, he says, no one questions individual creation. First there is the evolution of the fetus, “and then a little Francisco comes out.” [emphasis added]

While Ayala firmly believes in the sufficiency of evolution, I would like to point out some common ground that even creationists would share with him. If the New U article is accurate, Ayala professes to believe that God is the author of the world.

However, I would disagree with the main premise of the article. Evolution does not seem to be perfectly compatible with the existence of God. I think that the concept of a personal God is incongruous with the concept of materialism and unguided Darwinian evolution as the sole cause for the diversity of all life.

See the OC Register's Easter Cartoon.

A friend of mine (actually a former instructor) recently sent me a thought-provoking email. Here's a clip:

I can tell that you're someone who enjoys argument, so let me for the sake of debate make the following claim: the debate over evolution and creationism is much ado about (almost) nothing. Setting aside my belief that creationists greatly exaggerate the dangers posed by evolution, I just don't think the issue is all that urgent. Especially when compared to the threats posed by global fundamentalisms, or overconsumption, or nuclear proliferation.

This is an important question, especially at UCI where many students (including myself at times) are on the apathetic side of the spectrum. What is the practical relevance of discussing issues like evolution, creation, and intelligent design? Or in even more practical terms, how can we get people to attend our major event of the quarter?

Let me offer a few possible answers:

• The issue of origins is fundamentally interesting.
• This issue of origins deals with a fundamental search for ultimate truth. Our conceptions on this issue determine our worldview and have important theological and societal implications.
• People are generally interested in hearing all possible sides of an issue. Courses at school can do a great job of teaching aspects of Darwinian evolution. Events like our major event of the quarter can provide rational alternatives on this issue.
• One's perspective on this issue can influence one's political outlook (e.g. is there a correlation between creationists and pro-lifers? or between darwinians and stem-cell supporters?).
• Having a friendly discussion on these issues has the potential to augment a student's desire to "do the homework" and become better informed on scientific issues.
• Darwinian evolution is assumed in almost every field of study at the university. A paradigm shift towards design could perhaps restructure much of what we know now and lead to even bigger discoveries.

Biola University will hold a couple of ID events in May. The first event is "Intelligent Design Under Fire" on May 12 (see previous post). The second event is a debate titled "Intelligent Design: Religion or Science" on May 21.

On April 29, there will be a creation conference titled "A Question of Age: Conference on Creation, the Bible and Science" at EV Free in Fullerton. There will be speakers from both young-earth and old-earth positions: Answers in Genesis, Reasons to Believe, and ICR.

Intelligent Design : Creationism

A) theology : science

B) chapter : book

C) Marxism : Capitalism

D) Darwinian evolution : Atheism

E) computer : typewriter

Select the best answer.

The Design Paradigm reports that Cornell's Biology department will offer a course titled "Evolution and Design: Is there Purpose in Nature?" The professor will post online discussions and research papers from the course on his blog, The Evolution List.

UCI Chancellor Michael Drake was inaugurated yesterday at the Bren Events Center. Below is a picture of Chancellor Drake with U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona (left) and UC President Robert Dynes (right). More pictures (including this one) can be found at the Chancellor's web site.



Here's part of his inaugural address:

Our task going forward is simple. Not simple as in easy, but rather simple as in straightforward. In dozens, even hundreds of decisions we each make daily, we have the opportunity to advance ourselves and our community by making those decisions according to our values. We know the values. We agree with them. The task is making sure we create an entity that lives by those values, and I pledge to do everything I can to help make that dream a reality.

I will close with two poems that mean a great deal to me. The first deals with the painful process of learning life’s lessons. It is by Aeschylus.

While we are sleeping, sadness that cannot forget, falls,
Drop by drop upon the heart, until,
In our own despair,
And against our will comes wisdom,
Through the awful grace of God

Life’s lessons can be tough, greatness lies in how we implement what we learn.

The second poem, which has certainly guided me for years, and reflects the transcendent example set for me by my father, and as a special blessing by Brenda’s father, is by Tagore. I recited it on my first day on campus.

I slept and Dreamt of Joy. I awoke to find a life of service. I acted, and behold: Service is Joy.

Working in this place – at this university – is a privilege. When we conduct this work according to our values, it is joy. I am committed to working with you to do our collective best, to get it right. The university’s motto “Let there be light” was aptly chosen to reflect the brilliance of the activity that has taken place, is taking place, and will continue to take place on our campus, and in our communities.

Congratulations, Chancellor Drake. We look forward to many more great years at UC Irvine.

Any software engineer can tell you that modularity is an essential characteristic of any program that must be actively developed, or even just maintained. Without modularity, any small change to one piece is liable to break a completely different piece in unpredictable ways. Adding a new feature to an unmodular system is difficult because it requires making many simultaneous changes to various pieces of a program that have no obvious relationship to each other or to the feature being added.

The same thing is true with Biology. In fact, it isn't controversial that the more complex an organism becomes, the less likely it is to evolve novel function, largely because of the intricate dependencies that must be maintained. What hasn't been attempted, so far as I know, is a quantification of approximately how much room an organism has in which to evolve – call this "mutation space" – as a function of its interdependecy complexity. In other words, how much functionality could be added/edited without requiring an unrealistic number of simultaneous compensatory changes elsewhere?

If it could be shown that any reasonably complex lower organism did not have room in its mutation space for the sort of evolution required to produce higher organisms (that is, any introduction of novel function would require an unrealistic amount of compensatory mutations to get off the ground), it would provide incredibly strong evidence for ID.

I'm not sure exactly how to quantify interdependency complexity and mutation space, but it seems like there ought to be a way to do it. Suggestions and/or reasons why this is a nutty idea that will never work are welcome.

Colloquium On Origins: Evolution & Intelligent Design

Location: UC Irvine

Room: Social Science Lecture Hall 100

Day: May 10, 2006 (Wednesday)

Time: 7:00 P.M.

Speakers: Paul Nelson & Ralph Seelke (and there will be a distinguished UCI faculty panel)

Admission: Free (but remember parking is $7)

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Paul Nelson (Ph.D. Philosophy, University of Chicago) is a philosopher of biology specializing in evolutionary developmental biology. His research interests include the relationships between developmental biology and our knowledge of the history of life, the theory of intelligent design, and the bearing of theology on science (and vice versa). Nelson has published articles in such journals as Biology & Philosophy, Zygon, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, and Touchstone. He has been featured in the popular documentary, "Unlocking The Mystery Of Life."


Ralph Seelke (Ph.D. Microbiology, University of Minnesota) is a biology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. Since 2000, Dr. Seelke's research interest has been experimental evolution, and in particular the capabilities and limitations of evolution in producing new functions in bacteria, which has direct implications for the concept of intelligent design. He has co-authored several publications in such journals as Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Journal of Bacteriology, and Molecular and General Genetics. He has an ongoing interest in Christian apologetics, which sometimes overlaps with his professional career.

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Here is our New University advertisement. Here is our press release.

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Map For Visitors:



For driving directions to UC Irvine, consult this page. Parking is $7 -- permits can be bought at the kiosks. If you park at the Pereira Parking Structure (PS4 on map), it's about a half-mile walk to SSLH 100. If you don't want to walk, get the permit and then park at lots 1 or 2. You can park in any reserved or non-reserved space except for the "24-hour reserved" or the metered spaces.

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This event is open to the general public. I would highly encourage anybody who is within driving distance of UCI to come to this event. Whether you are a darwinian, designist, skeptic, or creationist, you are invited to attend! This friendly forum is a great way to learn about the issues surrounding intelligent design and evolution!

Any questions or comments may be directed to idesignclub 'at' gmail 'dot' com.

The Center for Biologically-Inspired Design at Georgia Tech has announced a call for papers for its International Symposium for Biologically-inspired Design and Engineering, to be held May 10-12. This looks like a great event for anybody who is interested in doing biomimetics research. Biomimetics is a discipline that essentially copies designs found in nature. According to the symposium's website, the conference will be organized around the following themes:

• Biologically inspired materials
• Biologically inspired movement/movement control strategies
• Biologically inspired sensing mechanisms and strategies
• Interdisciplinary education in biologically inspired design or at the interface between biology and engineering

Design proponents would benefit from studying this area. In my opinion, the biomimetic approach can be closely connected with the concept of intelligent design.

In a recent project for a class, I statistically analyzed various political and science blogs. One of the experiments was determining whether a simple Bigram model could accurately discriminate between pro-Darwin and pro-Design blogs. What I found was that it is possible to achieve high classification accuracies, as long as one constructs the model in the right way.

One approach is to classify a blog based on its nearest neighboring blogs. A byproduct of this approach is the ability to rank blogs based on a test blog. Listed below are 20 different blogs (10 pro-Darwin & 10 pro-Design), ordered according to log-probabilities which indicate the "closeness" of each blog to the test blog. In this case, the test blog is iDesign. It's interesting to know which blogs are most similar to our own blog.

idesign on model idesign: -2620.211072369357
idesign on model id-in-the-uk: -7268.4689091410055
idesign on model evolution-blog: -7375.275833535828
idesign on model creation-evolution-design: -7426.824936246623
idesign on model evolution-list: -7453.481304947268
idesign on model evolving-thoughts: -7689.827741324608
idesign on model id-plus: -7739.829580298751
idesign on model red-state-rabble: -7761.04457329062
idesign on model id-update: -7912.984027203059
idesign on model uncommon-descent: -8048.212928914839
idesign on model design-paradigm: -8213.025938207627
idesign on model stranger-fruit: -8253.903617022663
idesign on model telic-thoughts: -8322.958305060785
idesign on model pandas-thumb: -8565.82807971049
idesign on model id-the-future: -8591.20770360031
idesign on model loom: -8823.779572725092
idesign on model evolution-news: -8930.788791866384
idesign on model ncse: -8964.343376093331
idesign on model pharyngula: -9061.888668178386
idesign on model dispatches: -9318.132985935674

Interestingly enough, 4 out of 7 of iDesign's nearest neighbors are pro-Darwin blogs! I guess the main conclusion to take away from this data is that iDesign is a well-balanced blog that seeks to present both sides objectively.

According to a press release from John Hopkins Medicine, "junk" DNA may turn out to have critical functionality (HT: Design Watch). ID proponents have predicted that junk DNA would be found to have utility (see [Warning: PDF] The Positive Case For Design). It looks like that prediction is now being confirmed.