Supernatural Selection: a review of Robert Pennock's new book, Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics, on the newest attempt to get evolution out of the classroom.
In the last decade or so, creationism has grown sophisticated. Oh, the old-fashioned creationists are still around, especially in the Bible Belt. They're the ones who believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old, that God created it and all its inhabitants in six days and that fossils are a product of Noah's flood. In the early 1990's, however, a new breed of creationists appeared. These ''neo-creos,'' as they have been called, are no Dogpatch hayseeds. They have Ph.D.'s and occupy positions at some of the better universities. The case they make against Darwinism does not rest on the authority of Scripture; rather, it proceeds from premises that are scientific and philosophical, invoking esoteric ideas in molecular biology, information theory and the logic of hypothesis testing.
[via Snowdeal which, as always, has a nice collection of related links]
During yesterday's third spacewalk by the Atlantis astronauts they got the station's Canadarm2 robot arm hooked up to its new Mobile Transporter, a railcar which will let the robot arm move around on the space station. There's one more piece that needs to be added for that to work: the Mobile Base System, which will be installed in June.
See also: The Amazing Canadarm2
Studio 360's theme this week is Numbers, Theorems, Truth. I haven't heard the whole thing, but this piece with Eve Beglarian on the application of math to composing was interesting.
