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Last month, Louisiana became the only state to set into law some measure of academic protection for teachers who wish to present more than one side of the origins debate. The Louisiana Academic Freedom Act will shield public school teachers from discrimination or job termination if they introduce material on controversial topics in the science classroom, including evidence against biological evolution.
Tasmanian devils are breeding at younger ages, and researchers at the University of Tasmania in Australia believe the phenomenon is caused by an evolutionary response to the cancer that is devastating these small marsupials. With the disease cutting their total years down to two or three, Tasmanian devils have begun to breed as early as age one.
Analysis of an unusual Brazilian
fossil has led U.S. researchers to link microscopic fossil features to bird feather colors. The fossil has dramatic black and white banding patterns that have been interpreted as post-fossilization bacterial activity. However, there are structures in the rock in which it was found that are the same size and shape as cells from living dark feathers.
Some scientists believe that camels originated in North America and migrated from there. A recent ABC news story declared that "the
fossil record, from over 20 million years ago, shows that every camel came exclusively from [North America]."
Biomimicry is the science of designing machines that follow patterns that can be observed within God's creation. One example of this is the helicopter, which aviation pioneer Igor Sikorski designed after a lengthy study of dragonflies. Another case is the cutting-edge, self-cleaning boat coatings modeled on shark skin.
Data collected through the 1980s and 1990s strongly suggested that the earth was warming. Some scientists believe the phenomenon is man-made. Other researchers are convinced that the warming trend was caused naturally, perhaps by an increase in the sun's radiation.
Evolutionists are praising research recently conducted on flatfish fossils, and one banner publication went a bold step further in claiming that the find contradicts intelligent design and creation arguments.
Antibiotics are a bit like electronic products. Given time, they become
obsolete. Scientists at the Rockefeller University have taken antibiotic technology to the next level by targeting bacterial genes. A new drug may have turned the tables on drug-resistant "superbugs."
Researchers at the University of Warwick are attempting to develop human-pig hybrid embryos. The project's application received approval from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the U.K.'s fertility watchdog agency, in January 2008.
In the ongoing debate about stem cell research, few people differentiate between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Also, few know that there are over 70 successful treatments from adult stem cells and none from embryonic. Those who support the use of embryonic stem cells claim that these cells have the best potential for health and medical research.
An article in the latest issue of New Scientist highlights the exciting work of scientists at the Biologic Institute, a new research lab conducting biological research and experiments from an intelligent design perspective. While writer Celeste Biever cant suppress her visceral pro-Darwin bias from the story (which carries the dismissive title Intelligent design: The God Lab), Bievers article is going to make it very difficult for Darwinists to continue to assert that scientists who support intelligent design arent conducting
scientific research.
As Biever's article grudgingly makes clear, researchers [at the Biologic Institute lab] work at benches lined with fume hoods, incubators and microscopes--a typical scene in this up-and-coming biotech hub. The article also reports on some of the research projects underway, and even describes Darwinian biologist Ken Miller as conceding that the topics being explored are of interest to science:
According to [Biologic Institute senior researcher Dr. Douglas] Axe, the projects currently under way at Biologic include "examining the origin of metabolic pathways in bacteria, the evolution of gene order in bacteria, and the evolution of protein folds."Certainly the topics Axe mentions are of interest to science, says Kenneth Miller, a cell biologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who testified as an expert witness for the pro-evolution side at the Dover trial. Miller adds that they might be of particular interest to people intent on undermining evolution if, like Axe's earlier work on protein folding, they can be used to highlight structures and functions whose origins and evolution are not well understood.In addition to protein and cell biology, Biologic is pursuing a programme in computational biology which draws on the expertise of another of its researchers, Brendan Dixon, a former software developer at Microsoft. According to Axe, "On the computational side, we are nearing completion of a system for exploring the evolution of artificial genes that are considerably more life-like than has been the case previously."
Biever's breathless, conspiratorial prose cant hide the fact that researchers at the new Institute are serious scientists with impressive research records. For example, the article notes that the
Institutes senior scientist, protein researcher Douglas Axe, has published peer-reviewed research articles in the Journal of Molecular Biology and previously worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Protein Engineering, a research centre in Cambridge, UK, funded by the Medical Research Council, under the supervision of protein specialist Alan Fersht of the University of Cambridge. In addition, Dr. Axe has worked as a visiting scientist at the structural biology unit of the Babraham Institute, also in Cambridge.
Biologic Institute biologist Ann Gauger has a similarly sterling track record. Dr. Gauger has published peer-reviewed research on cell adhesion in fruit flies in Nature, one of the worlds premiere science journals, as well as publishing "papers as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.
It is worth noting that Biever acknowledges that Discovery Institute has been
providing funding for scientific research, including start-up support for the Biologic Institute. While Biever tries to insinuate that this commitment to funding scientific research is somehow a new development tied to recent policy debates, the facts cited in her article undermine that claim. Indeed, Biever herself notes that Discovery Institute was providing research funding for Dr. Axe by the late 1990s, which ultimately resulted in the publication of his peer-reviewed research articles in the Journal of Molecular Biology. Yes, that's right--Discovery Institute has been supporting scientific research and writing all along, just like it has said. But don't hold your breath for corrections or apologies from the Darwin spinmeisters who have insisted otherwise for the past decade.
