Your weekend fun reading fix: New stuff linked at my other blog

NEW!! Evolution in the light of intelligent design - look up contested intelligent design topics here.

Why headaches do not have themselves.

Evolutionary psychology - the alleged very latest on the origins of morality

Growth of spirituality at universities

Consciousness is more than the impact of billiard balls thwacking each other

O’Leary’s thoughts on acting and the self.

(I’ll put up more stuff, but this is gardening weather.)

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

NEW!! Evolution in the light of intelligent design - look up intelligent design topics here.

Animations of life inside the cell, indexed, for your convenience.

Anti-God crusade ... no, really! My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

Catholic Church A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

Collins, Francis My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God

Columnists weigh in on the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

Darwinism dissent Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin

Gilder, George A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

Intelligent design academic publications.

Intelligent design-friendly students should be flunked, according to bio prof Evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Intelligent design controversy My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

Intelligent design controversy timeline An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

Intelligent design and culture My review of sci-fi great Rob Sawyer’s novel, The Calculating God , which addresses the concept of intelligent design.

March of the Penguins A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

Origin of life Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Peer review My backgrounder about peer review issues.

Polls relevant to the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

Stove, David O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment will be accepted if I think they contribute to a discussion. For best results, give your name or some idea who you are and why we should care. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

National Geographic's Top 25 unanswered science questions

A reader kindly draws my attention to the following upcoming info from the July 1 National Geographic. Celebrating its 125th anniversary, Science magazine asks
"Top 25 Unanswered Science Questions", and NG should be on the newsstand now.

Three key questions are

"What is the biological basis of consciousness?"

"If the results don't provide a blinding insight into how consciousness arises from tangles of neurons, they should at least refine the next round of questions," Greg Miller writes in the Science special issue.

Note: Not only do the results not provide any blinding insight, they won't likely provide much insight at all. Consciousness is a really big unsolved mystery.

"Are We Alone In the Universe?"

" .... scientists say the universe is likely full of places where the conditions are ripe for intelligent life to evolve. "The really big question is when, if ever, we'll have the technological wherewithal to reach out and touch such intelligence," writes Richard A. Kerr.

Note: Does that mean there are lots of places truly like Earth? I'd be happy to hear about even one. Queries from real estate agents are welcome.

and

"How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?"

"As scientists gather around this origin model, other scientists are focusing on how the lifeless chemistry of a pre-biotic Earth gave rise to a RNA world. Other researchers debate where these primitive building blocks came together. Was it in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, tidal pools, oceans covered in glaciers? Or "perhaps Martian microbes were carried to Earth 4 billon years ago," Carl Zimmer speculates in Science."

Note: In other words, we haven't a clue how life started.

Clearly, National Geographic wants to answer all these questions while assuming that there is no intelligent input into the universe.

The big problem with making an unintelligent origin for life or the universe a criterion in science is two-fold: If the origin did require some input from intelligence, you can never answer the origin question and you can never know why you can't answer the question, because you won't be allowed to talk about the problem in clear terms either.

Blog service note: Did you come here looking for any of the following stories?
- the Privileged Planet film shown at the Smithsonian, go here for an extended review. Please do not raise cain about an "anti-evolution" film without seeing it. If your doctor forbids you to see the film, in case you get too excited, at least read my detailed log of the actual subjects of the film. If you were one of the people who raised cain, ask yourself why you should continue to believe the people who so misled you about the film's actual content ...

- The Catholic Church making clear that it does not support Darwinism and the New York Times having a hard time coming to grips with that. (All this really means is that the Catholic Church realizes that its strength comes from a higher power than the good opinion of the Times.)

- the showing of Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian, go here and here to start, and then this one and this one will bring you up to date.

- the California Academy of Sciences agreeing to correct potentially libellous statements about attorney Larry Caldwell, who thinks that students should know about weaknesses as well as strengths of Darwinian evolution theory, click on the posted link.

- Bill Dembski threatening to sue the Thomas More Law Center in the Dover, Pennsylvania ID case, click on the posted link and check the current daily post for updates. (Note: This dispute has apparently been settled. See the story for details. )

Blog policy note: This blog does not intentionally accept fully anonymous Comments, Comments with language unsuited to an intellectual discussion, URLs posted without comment, or defamatory statements. Defamatory statement: A statement that would be actionable if anyone took the author seriously. For example, someone may say “O’Leary is a crummy journalist”; that’s a matter of opinion and I don’t know who would care. But if they say, “O’Leary was convicted of grand theft auto in 1983,” well that’s just plain false, and probably actionable, if the author were taken seriously. Also, due to time constraints, the moderator rarely responds to comments, and usually only about blog service issues.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.