Barbara Forrest, Southeastern Louisiana University philosophy professor testified in the case against Dover?s school board adding intelligent design to the science curriculum yesterday and today. School district attorneys had opposed the testimony, and possibly for good reason. She outlined the Discovery Institute?s ?wedge strategy? and presented a substantial smoking gun in early versions of the book Of Pandas and People to which Dover students are referred to in the paragraph teachers must r

Yesterday marked the conclusion of the first full week of trials over the Dover, PA School Board?s decision to include intelligent design in the science curriculum. This week was devoted to the plaintiffs? witnesses. Lawyers questioned Drs. Kenneth Miller, a Brown University cell and molecular biologist, Robert Pennock, professor of science and philosophy at Michigan State, and Jack Haught, professor of theology at Georgetown University. The professors ? presumably picked from hundreds of scien

In the weeks before the battle over first amendment rights ramped up in Dover, the Discovery Institute folks said they didn?t support intelligent design mandates in science curricula, saying that such cases will only be politically divisive. Now, lawyers representing the school board are apparently happy to hear it. The York Daily Record, which has nicely covered some of the dismay experienced by a small town under the media heat lamp and now listed as the Number One Island of Ignorance by on

A second first amendments rights case broke out amidst the brouhaha over the legality of teaching intelligent design in a Dover school district. But this battle, over the freedom of the press, is nearing a denouement that?s left me a bit ambivalent. The Thomas More Law Center, which has been defending the Dover school district had subpoenaed two freelance reporters, Joseph Maldonado for the York Daily Record and Heidi Bernhard-Bubb for the York Dispatch, to question them regarding the details of

Looks like I can harden my reserve to never again eat Domino?s pizza ? not that I liked it much anyway. The Thomas Moore Law Center, founded by ?za magnate Thomas Monaghan, is representing the defending Dover school board that tried passing off intelligent design as real science. As a card carrying Pennsylvanian, I?ll be closely watching the proceedings in our neighbor county. But I actually have little faith that the A.C.L.U. will be able to successfully convince district judge John E. Jones

I was talking Katrina aftermath with a yeast scientist, George Santangelo, at the University of Southern Miss in Hattiesburg. Things were ?a little nasty? he said, even that far inland -- he?s roughly 50 miles from the Gulf. But he ?obviously has no complaints relative to folks further south.? The gulf coast campus apparently suffered significant damage. In Hattiesburg things fared rather well, but it will take until the next rainfall to see if roof repair holds up. It?s nice, Santangelo said, t

Jack London once said that he would "rather be ashes than dust."

It?s nice to see a Frank Zappa fan working in the Nature press office. A recent release extolling the current issue?s report on space dust from meteorites was titled: ?Who you jivin? with that cosmik debris?? The line is pulled from a 1974 classic railing against quackery from the same jester who had hypothesized that there?s more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe (and that stupidity has a longer shelf life). And to the list of Zappa quotes unintentionally relevant to the sciences I offe

Two cases of Legionnaire?s disease were confirmed the other day; the irresistible hook being that the men, ages 60 and 70 were Legionnaires. They came down with flu-like symptoms shortly after attending a meeting of the American Legions in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, just miles from Philadelphia where the first cases were documented and the culprit Legionella pneumophila was first fingered almost 30 years ago. Following an American Legions convention in July of 1976, Philadelphia?s Bellev

This morning, fellow editor Jeff Perkel, and I ran into a hairy ape and a healthy dose of irony. A man wearing a gorilla mask and a dark grey suit passed just in front of our office. The monkey-man?s unmasked companion was wearing a yellow t-shirt with the words ?Has Evolution Made a Monkey out of You?? Catching the whiff of unchecked creationist dogma on the streets of Philadelphia, we dashed out for a quick interview. Fortunately, ID proponents haven?t resorted to ?guerilla marketing? just

I had the opportunity while on vacation to get waist deep in Mutants by Armand Marie Leroi, a compelling celebration of modern human genetics through the scope of mythology, folklore, and biomedical history. Leroi cites a particularly prophetic quote from Francis Bacon: Once a nature has been observed in its variations, and the reason for it has been made clear, it will be an easy matter to bring that nature by art to the point it reached by chance. The statement supports life-science investi

The scientists were already massing when I arrived at Bronx River Forest on a steamy June morning.