BBC Radio - "Heart and Soul"

BBC World Service | Heart and Soul

A program with Eugenie Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, and the author of a couple of the course readings. She interviews a number of pro-creationism/ID advocates.

There is a 30 minute streaming sound file of her BBC radio program available on the Web at this link. Soon it will be removed -- BUT, I'll put it on the course website under password protection so you can listen to it later if you like. --RAE

"In scientific circles over the last 150 years, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection has become the accepted explanation for how we and all other living things evolved from primitive, single-celled ancestors.

Click on the blue title to go to the whole article and sound file on the Web.

Geologists now have evidence that our planet's history dates back about 4.6 billion years and cosmologists will tell you that our universe came into being through a process known as the Big Bang more than 13 billion years ago.

In spite of that, many people are guided by a different set of beliefs, based on scripture. In the United States the incidence of such beliefs is particularly high. In a recent survey, more than 40% of Americans said they thought that humans and other creatures had been created in their present forms and have not evolved. Of those who did accept evolution, a third thought that it was guided by some supreme being."

SMU profs protest intelligent design conference | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Religion

SMU profs protest intelligent design conference | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Religion

Redesigning Life to Make Ethanol

Technology Review: Redesigning Life to Make Ethanol: "Synthetic Genomics' approach is based on research that Venter's Institute for Genomic Research conducted on a micro�rganism called Mycoplasma genitalium in the late 1990s. The microbe, which dwells in the human urinary tract, has only 517 genes. While that's the smallest genome seen in any life form known, researchers in Venter's group showed that the organism could survive even after they had knocked out almost half of its protein-coding genes (some genes code not for proteins but for other biomolecules that perform regulatory functions within the cell). Using the DNA sequence of this 'minimal genome' as a guide, they are now attempting to synthesize an artificial chromosome that, inserted into a hollowed-out cell, will lead to a viable life form. Once they are over this first hurdle, they plan to build synthesized, task-specific genetic pathways into the genome, much the way one might load software onto a computer's operating system. Rather than create spreadsheets or do word processing, however, such 'biologically based software' would instruct the cell to break down cellulose to produce ethanol or carry out other useful functions. 'This is a totally new field on the verge of explosion,' says Venter."

The Illuminati and Angels & Demons FAQ - Do the Illuminati Really Exist?, by Massimo Introvigne

The Illuminati and Angels & Demons FAQ - Do the Illuminati Really Exist?, by Massimo Introvigne: "Angels & Demons by Dan Brown is the latest bestselling novel claiming that the Illuminati were, or are, an important and powerful secret society. Is this only a novel?"