Sen. Buttars' Bill Looking Less Likely

Passage of Utah Senator Chris Buttars' "origins-of-life" bill is looking less likely. From the Deseret News:

The origins-of-life bill sponsored by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, has already passed the Senate. But it could run into trouble in the House, where Majority Whip Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, has said he can't support the bill. Huntsman suggested the bill may never reach his desk and said if it does, then "we'll do what we think is right" based on his previous opposition to mixing religious beliefs and science in the classroom. "What I have seen most recently is not an origins-of-life bill. It's been watered down to a relatively benign statement, and where it goes from here is anybody's guess," the governor said.

(via Eyring-L.)

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Species is as Species Does

Martin Brazeau is a graduate student who recently published a paper in Nature about ear evolution in lobe-fin fish. (Well, more accurately, evolution of the area of the skull that later became ears.) Anyway, he also blogs at The Lancelet and has some interesting posts.

Let me refer you to his three-part series "Species is as species does."

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

He describes the biological species concept, what it means for paleontologists, and its ultimate root in creationism. Along the way he gives a couple of interesting comparative anatomy lessons. (Interesting if you've never had comparative anatomy, like me).

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Bias in the Brain

The New York Times has an article that describes research on brain activity and politics. (For MSNBC coverage, see here.)

Using M.R.I. scanners, neuroscientists have now tracked what happens in the politically partisan brain when it tries to digest damning facts about favored candidates or criticisms of them. The process is almost entirely emotional and unconscious, the researchers report, and there are flares of activity in the brain's pleasure centers when unwelcome information is being rejected. ...

In 2004, the researchers recruited 30 adult men who described themselves as committed Republicans or Democrats. The men, half of them supporters of President Bush and the other half backers of Senator John Kerry, earned $50 to sit in an M.R.I. machine and consider several statements in quick succession.

The first was a quote attributed to one of the two candidates: either a remark by Mr. Bush in support of Kenneth L. Lay, the former Enron chief, before he was indicted, or a statement by Mr. Kerry that Social Security should be overhauled. Moments later, the participants read a remark that showed the candidate reversing his position. The quotes were doctored for maximum effect but presented as factual.

The Republicans in the study judged Mr. Kerry as harshly as the Democrats judged Mr. Bush. But each group let its own candidate off the hook. ...

Researchers have long known that political decisions are strongly influenced by unconscious emotional reactions, a fact routinely exploited by campaign consultants and advertisers. But the new research suggests that for partisans, political thinking is often predominantly emotional.

It is possible to override these biases, Dr. Westen said, "but you have to engage in ruthless self reflection, to say, 'All right, I know what I want to believe, but I have to be honest.' "

My opinion: I imagine these results apply to a wide range of topics--especially religion. For heaven's sake, how many conversations revolve around contradictions (real or alleged) in scripture--especially when the conversation is between people of different denominations?

It also seems plausible to me that in trying to escape one bias, you can easily run into the arms of another. Next to turning into a vulcan, perhaps the best we can do is try to identify our biases and understand their roots.

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Biology-Type Posts Worth Reading

I've collected another batch of blog posts that I think are worth reading.

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First off are a string of posts by P.Z. Myers at Pharyngula (which has moved over to scienceblogs.com).

Deficiencies in modern evolutionary theory: Describes what some of the real controveries and problems in evolutionary theory are.

Two legged goats and developmental variation: Reminds us that phenotype and morphology are a result of gene expression and interaction with the environment. Did you know that there are six variations in the branching of the human aorta?

Vertebral variation, Hox genes, development, and cancer: In a somewhat similar vein, this post discusses the governance of vertebrae number. I learned here that sometimes people can have an extra set of ribs--above the first pair.

Also see his response to Orson Scott Card and Jonathan Wells.


Gene Expression has 10 Questions for Ken Miller.

Carl Zimmer deals with parasites and their ability to influence behavior. In particular, there is a proposed link between toxoplasmosis and some schizophrenia.

I'll cut it off there. More to come.

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Uncovering Brigham Young

I recently picked up the manual Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young on a whim to see if it contained a quote I thought I remembered. Sure enough, on page 197 was this passage:

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Our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular. You may take geology, for instance, and it is true science; not that I would say for a moment that all the conclusions and deductions of its professors are true, but its leading principles are; they are facts—they are eternal; and to assert that the Lord made this earth out of nothing is preposterous and impossible. God never made something out of nothing; it is not in the economy or law by which the worlds were, are, or will exist. There is an eternity before us, and it is full of matter; and if we but understand enough of the Lord and his ways we would say that he took of this matter and organized this earth from it. How long it has been organized it is not for me to say, and I do not care anything about it. ... If we understood the process of creation there would be no mystery about it, it would be all reasonable and plain, for there is no mystery except to the ignorant. This we know by what we have learned naturally since we have had a being on the earth (DBY, 258–59).

I'm glad the writers/compilers of the manual saw fit to include this passage. However I thought there was more to Brigham's statement and I noticed the ellipsis, so I looked up the source reference.

Here is the passage from Discourses of Brigham Young, by John A. Widtsoe (p. 258-259). The red indicates text left out of the manual. For the most part, it is confined to the paragraph preceeding the passage in the manual.

I am not astonished that infidelity prevails to a great extent among the inhabitants of the earth, for the religious teachers of the people advance many ideas and notions for truth which are in opposition to and contradict facts demonstrated by science, and which are generally understood. You take, for instance, our geologists, and they tell us that this earth has been in existence for thousands and millions of years. They think, and they have good reason for their faith, that their researches and investigations enable them to demonstrate that this earth has been in existence as long as they assert it has; and they say, "If the Lord, as religionists declare, made the earth out of nothing in six days, six thousand years ago, our studies are all vain; but by what we can learn from nature and the immutable laws of the Creator as revealed therein, we know that your theories are incorrect and consequently we must reject your religions as false and vain; we must be what you call infidels, with the demonstrated truths of science in our possession; or, rejecting those truths, become enthusiasts in, what you call, Christianity."

In these respects we differ, from the Christian world, for our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular. You may take geology, for instance, and it is a true science; not that I would say for a moment that all the conclusions and deductions of its professors are true, but its leading principles are; they are facts-they are eternal; and to assert that the Lord made this earth out of nothing is preposterous and impossible. God never made something out of nothing; it is not in the economy or law by which the worlds were, are, or will exist. There is an eternity before us, and it is full of matter; and if we but understand enough of the Lord and his ways, we would say that he took of this matter and organized this earth from it. How long it has been organized it is not for me to say, and I do not care anything about it. As for the Bible account of the creation we may say that the Lord gave it to Moses. If we understood the process of creation there would be no mystery about it, it would be all reasonable and plain, for there is no mystery except to the ignorant. This we know by what we have learned naturally since we have had a being on the earth.

The text in the place of the ellipsis was interesting, but I thought I remembered more than that, so I went to Widtsoe's source. (Note that Widtsoe gives no indication that any text has been left out.) Here is the passage from the Journal of Discourses (14:115-117). The red indicates text left out of Widtsoe's passage.

It was observed here just now that we differ from the Christian world in our religious faith and belief; and so we do very materially. I am not astonished that infidelity prevails to a great extent among the inhabitants of the earth, for the religious teachers of the people advance many ideas and notions for truth which are in opposition to and contradict facts demonstrated by science, and which are generally understood. Says the scientific man, "I do not see your religion to be true; I do not understand the law, light, rules, religion, or whatever you call it, which you say God has revealed; it is confusion to me, and if I submit to and embrace your views and theories I must reject the facts which science demonstrates to me." This is the position, and the line of demarcation has been plainly drawn, by those who profess Christianity, between the sciences and revealed religion. You take, for instance, our geologists, and they tell us that this earth has been in existence for thousands and millions of years. They think, and they have good reason for their faith, that their researches and investigations enable them to demonstrate that this earth has been in existence as long as they assert it has; and they say, "If the Lord, as religionists declare, made the earth out of nothing in six days, six thousand years ago, our studies are all vain; but by what we can learn from nature and the immutable laws of the Creator as revealed therein, we know that your theories are incorrect and consequently we must reject your religions as false and vain; we must be what you call infidels, with the demonstrated truths of science in our possession; or, rejecting those truths, become enthusiasts in, what you call, Christianity."

In these respects we differ, from the Christian world, for our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular. You may take geology, for instance, and it is a true science; not that I would say for a moment that all the conclusions and deductions of its professors are true, but its leading principles are; they are facts-they are eternal; and to assert that the Lord made this earth out of nothing is preposterous and impossible. God never made something out of nothing; it is not in the economy or law by which the worlds were, are, or will exist. There is an eternity before us, and it is full of matter; and if we but understand enough of the Lord and his ways, we would say that he took of this matter and organized this earth from it. How long it has been organized it is not for me to say, and I do not care anything about it. As for the Bible account of the creation we may say that the Lord gave it to Moses, or rather Moses obtained the history and traditions of the fathers, and from these picked out what he considered necessary, and that account has been handed down from age to age, and we have got it, no matter whether it is correct or not, and whether the Lord found the earth empty and void, whether he made it out of nothing or out of the rude elements; or whether he made it in six days or in as many millions of years, is and will remain a matter of speculation in the minds of men unless he give revelation on the subject. If we understood the process of creation there would be no mystery about it, it would be all reasonable and plain, for there is no mystery except to the ignorant. This we know by what we have learned naturally since we have had a being on the earth.

I thought this was curious since the preface to DBY states, "No liberties have been taken, in this book, with the words of Brigham Young." I'm guessing that in this instance liberty was taken because Brigham's view of Moses and the creation story had fallen on hard times.

So there's my little detective story. I like the quote in the manual; I like the full passage better.

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The Search for Harmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism

The Search for Harmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism, published by Signature Books, is one of the best single books on science and Mormonism. Though incomplete and a little dated (published in 1993, with many of the articles published much earlier), it contains a number of classic essays and original research articles (some slightly modified from their original published form). I purchased my copy about four years ago, and am glad to have it.

Sadly, the book is now out of print. The good news is that most of the articles collected in the book are available online. Most of them come from Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, but a few others are available elsewhere including one article from the Ensign.

Below I have reproduced the Table of Contents with links to each available article. (In some cases more than one source is provided.) I hope this will serve as a useful resource.

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Editor's Introduction: The Mormon Retreat from Science

1. Scientific Foundations of Mormon Theology.
(Also available here.)
David H. Bailey

2. The New Biology and Mormon Theology
James L. Farmer, William S. Bradshaw, and F. Brent Johnson

3. The 1911 Evolution Controversy at Brigham Young University
Gary James Bergera

4. Inner Dialogue: James Talmage's Choice of Science as Career, 1876-84
Dennis Rowley

5. A Turbulent Spectrum: Mormon Reactions to the Darwinist Legacy
Richard Sherlock

6. The B.H. Roberts/Joseph Fielding Smith/James E. Talmage Affair (Combined article from here and here.)
Richard Sherlock and Jeffery E. Keller


7. Harvey Fletcher and Henry Eyring: Men of Faith and Science
Edward L. Kimball

8. Agreeing to Disagree: Henry Eyring and Joseph Fielding Smith (Originally published under a different title.)
Steven H. Heath

9. Seers, Savants, and Evolution: The Uncomfortable Interface
(Reprinted here, and also available here.)
Duane E. Jeffery

10. Organic Evolution and the Bible
Eldon J. Gardner

11. Fossils and the Scriptures
(Also available here.)
Morris S. Petersen

12. Adam's Navel
(Also available here.)
Keith E. Norman

13. Astrophysics and Mormonism: Parallel Paths to Truth
(A different but somewhat similar article is available here.)
R. Grant Athay

14. Science: A Part of or Apart from Mormonism?
Richard Pearson Smith

15. Eternal Progression: The Higher Destiny
L. Mikel Vause

16. Science and Mormonism: A Review Essay
Craig J. Oberg and Gene A. Sessions

Epilogue: An Official Position
William Lee Stokes

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New Book Released: Mormonism and Evolution

[Update: See below.] The Deseret News reports on a new book published by Greg Kofford Books.

That's the backdrop [ie. Buttar's bill] for a slim little book, hot off the presses, written by Utah Valley State College physics professor William E. Evenson and Brigham Young University biology professor Duane E. Jeffery. Titled "Mormonism and Evolution: the Authoritative LDS Statements," the book is a compilation of statements made by or sanctioned by the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from 1909 to 2004. "There has been a belief, for years and years and years, that Mormonism and evolution are diametrically opposed," Jeffery said in a recent phone call. He hopes the book will illuminate the grayer areas of the church's position. Jeffery calls himself a "theistic evolutionist."

Included in the book are four official First Presidency statements released in 1992 by Brigham Young University in a special "evolution packet" for students. In 1999 the packet was distributed to all teachers in the Church Education System. According to Evenson, "the LDS Church has really been careful over the years not to get into a box where they are taking a position that later gets undermined by science and other developments of human knowledge. I don't think that's well understood by people who would like to have this be a settled issue."

A reading of the official statements, which also include 12 that are not a part of the "BYU packet," shows a subtle evolution of response. In 1909, Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder and Anthon H. Lund of the First Presidency wrote that Adam is the "primal parent of our race" and that the church "proclaims man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity." In a 1992 section on evolution in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, the church-sanctioned entry reads that: "The scriptures tell why man was created, but they do not tell how, though the Lord has promised that he will tell that when he comes again." It ended with a reiteration that "Adam is the primal parent of our race." Ten years later, President Gordon B. Hinckley was quoted as saying, "What the church requires is only belief 'that Adam was the first man of what we would call the human race.' Scientists can speculate on the rest."

You can read about the book and purchase it here. Based on the table of contents and the appendix, it doesn't look like there is much new here for those familiar with the history of this issue. Unfortunately I doubt I'll be able to buy it for a while. If anybody out there gets their hands on it I would be interested in a report, especially on the quotes by President Hinckley.

(via Red State Rabble)

Update: From what I can tell, the book contains two quotes from President Hinckely. One of them is apparently quoted in the story above (I've seen that one before). The other comes from an Institute devotional in 1997. Most likely it is the April 15, 1997 devotional published in Discourses of President Gordon B. Hinckley Vol. 1: 1995-1999.

"People ask me every now and again if I believe in evolution. I tell them I am not concerned with organic evolution. I do not worry about it. I passed through that argument long ago."

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Two Items on Buttars

The Deseret News has two recent articles on Utah Senator Chris Buttars' education bill, here and here. (hat-tip to Justin B.)

There's not much new in these so I won't add it to the collection on the sidebar. I noticed this passage:

In an attempt to rally support for SB96 from the Eagle Forum, Buttars shared an anecdote about a mother who said her two daughters were told by a teacher that they evolved from animals.

"It totally destroyed their faith," Buttars said.

He accused scientists of overstepping the truth by putting forward evolution as the only explanation for how humans came to exist as they do today."

Not sure what to say about that, so I'll leave it alone.

I also noticed this poll.



Buttars might want to focus his efforts on math class first.

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Hebrew View of the Cosmos

Many people will be discussing the Creation this month in the various Sunday School classes. I thought it might be useful to show how the ancients apparently viewed the cosmos.

This picture comes from Anthony Hutchinson's article in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (Vol. 21 No. 4). A similar picture appears in Duane Jeffery's article on Noah's Flood, which is derived from here.




Any of you folks studying ancient culture are welcome to comment on the accuracy and level of acceptance of this model.

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Sen. Chris Buttars on KUER

Utah Senator Chris Buttars was recently interviewed on KUER. You can listen to the interview here. Most of the program concerns homosexuality, but Buttars' bill dealing with evolution in schools is discussed 37.5 min into the program.

Suprisingly he conceeds that intelligent design is a faith issue. Nevertheless he sounds deeply confused on evolution. He lumps the origin of the cosmos, life, and species into one big ball. (No one thinks that humans or life originated in the big bang, and what does "evolution between species" mean?)

My impression was that this whole thing will blow over. I hope I'm right.

(via Clark Goble on Eyring-L.)

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Two Items on Global Warming

I thought this article in the New York Times was interesting. I quote some of it below. (Note: breaks in the article are not shown.)

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For decades, Kerry Emanuel, the meteorologist and hurricane specialist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was known as a cautious centrist on questions of global warming and hurricane ferocity.

Professor Emanuel asserted often that no firm link had been established between warming and the intensity and frequency of hurricanes.

But in August, two weeks before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Professor Emanuel wrote in the journal Nature that he had discovered statistical evidence that hurricanes were indeed affected by global warming. He linked the increased intensity of storms to the heating of the oceans.

Q. Because last year's hurricane season was so intense, many people declared: "Ah, ha! Global warming!" Were they right?

A. My answer is, Not so fast. That may have been a contributor. But the fact we had such a bad season was mostly a matter of chance. On the other hand, though the number of storms globally remained nearly constant, the frequency of Atlantic storms has been rising in concert with tropical ocean temperature, probably because of global warming.

There is no doubt that in the last 20 years, the earth has been warming up. And it's warming up much too fast to ascribe to any natural process we know about.

We still don't have a good grasp of how clouds and water vapor, the two big feedbacks in the climate system, will respond to global warming. What we are seeing is a modest increase in the intensity of hurricanes.

I predicted years ago that if you warmed the tropical oceans by a degree Centigrade, you should see something on the order of a 5 percent increase in the wind speed during hurricanes. We've seen a larger increase, more like 10 percent, for an ocean temperature increase of only one-half degree Centigrade.

Q. There are scientists who say of fossil fuel consumption and global warming, We may not have all the evidence yet, but we ought to be acting as if the worst could happen. Do you agree?

A. It's always struck me as odd that this country hasn't put far more resources into research on alternative energy. Europeans are. France has managed to go 85 percent nuclear in its electrical generation. And the Europeans have gotten together to fund a major nuclear fusion project. It almost offends my pride as a U.S. scientist that we've fallen down so badly in this competition.

Q. Would you ever buy a house on the beach?

A. I'd love to! But if I could do that, I'd insist on paying for my risk. And I'd do what is now being called "the Fire Island option," which involves putting up flimsy houses that you don't mind losing to a storm. You don't insure them.

And then there is this post by Carl Zimmer. Here's the first paragraph.

Last year was the hottest on record, or the second hottest, depending on the records climatologists look at. The planet has warmed .8 degrees C over the past 150 years, and scientists are generally agreed that greenhouse gases have played a major part in that warming. They also agree that the warming will continue in the decades to come. Many experts are concerned that warming may make two unpleasant things more common: extinctions and diseases.

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Phenomenal Cosmic [Knowledge]; Itty-Bitty Living Space

Cleon Skousen passed away a few days ago. (Hat-tip to This Mormon Life.) He was a well known LDS author and teacher, and there's a reasonable chance that your ward library has one of his books. He was probably most well known for his ideas about the Atonement, where all matter contains intelligence and Christ suffered in order to satisfy the demands of justice of all of those little intelligences in the universe, thus making them willing to continue their obedience to God. (Skousen is the only person I know of to attempt to explain how the Atonement actually works.)

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The idea of all element having intelligence apparently comes from some of the early brethren such as Brigham Young and Orson Pratt. For Skousen this connection explained not only the Atonement, but miracles as well. Under the oxymoronic subtitle "The Science of Miracles," he writes,

"These intelligences love the Father and the Son. They honor them, and therefore they obey them...When the intelligences obey, the matter which is attached to them automatically follows. They are merely responding to the voice of their Creators or Master Organizers." (Days of the Living Christ Vol. 1, p. 124)

So for any command given, the relevant intelligences with their element:

1. Have senses and reasoning ability.
2. Have some idea of what God envisions in his commands.
3. Know how to interact with the other elements in order to get into the proper formation.
4. According to Skousen they also have emotions and agency--they choose to obey.

In addition it would seem that these intelligences have infinite knowledge. How else can they organize themselves into whatever God commands? How would the intelligent elements of, say, water know how to form wine--and good tasting wine at that?

One wonders about how a universe of knowledge could be stored in such a small space. The issue of information storage is already an interesting question as it pertains to God's omniscience. (See this paper (pdf) by David H. Bailey for an interesting discussion.) Skousen's ideas seem to imply a universe of knowledge in each particle of the universe.

I certainly don't understand the powers of God--he can accomplish his purposes--but intelligent elements are not high on my list of suspects.


(BTW, the title is derived from Disney's Aladin.)

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Science Post Purge

It's time to purge. I've collected a number of science blog posts that I have intended to point out or comment on but have not. So here they are; feel free to comment on them.


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First John Hawks lays out the basics between the Multiregional vs. Out of Africa hypotheses concerning human origins and expansion.

Both hypotheses have to account for the same basic set of facts:

-Humans first left Africa and established populations in other parts of the world (first southern Asia, China, and Java, later Europe) by 1.8 million years ago.

-Humans today are quite different anatomically and behaviorally from archaic people (that is, most humans before 40,000 years ago) anywhere in the world. Recent people are called "modern" humans.

-Human populations today are genetically very similar to each other.

-African populations today are more genetically diverse than populations in other parts of the world.

-Recent humans in Europe and Asia share a few features with the ancient archaic people who lived in those places before 40,000 years ago.

Carl Zimmer reports on a talk by Alan Templeton arguing (if I understand it correcty) that the truth may lie between these two poles. This post is worth checking out for the graphic illustrating human gene flow at the bottom.

While I'm referencing Carl Zimmer, I want to point out a few more of his posts. Here he discusses a recent paper on how the various members of the cat family relate to each other. Then there is a discussion of pandas, thumbs, and the funny paths of evolution. I've been holding onto this one since September, but it may be the most fascinating. In fact, I quote the opening paragraph to give you a taste.

A lot of people think of viruses and bacteria in our bodies as nothing more than pests. It's certainly true that a lot of them do an excellent job of making us ill. But some viruses and bacteria merged with our ancestors over the course of billions of years, and if you were to have them removed from your body today, you'd die faster than if you'd gotten a massive dose of Ebola.

At The Panda's Thumb there is a discussion of "junk DNA."

Pharyngula summarizes a paper about a transitional fossil and its meaning for limb evoution.

Finally, Michael Ruse discusses several approaches to the question, "were humans inevitable?"

(I apologize for using the word "discuss" a lot. Maybe next time I'll consult a thesaurus.)

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Grandeur for Grandeur's Sake

There is an interesting discussion going on at Times and Seasons about Alma and whether all things denote there is a God. There have been some good comments; I especially have enjoyed Otto's and was struck by this one:

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[Eric Robert Paul’s Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology] suggests that for Mormons science is inherently a spiritual undertaking (and the implication that I take from that is that for many if not most Mormon scientists, that inherent spiritual content obviates the need to dress science in religious rhetoric or bend it to religious ends).

I'm sure it is not uncommon for Mormon scientists to feel pressure to do just such a thing--at least when talking to other LDS non-scientists. To those open to new ideas, making religion connections can be fun. But sometimes it feels like a requirement to certify orthodoxy and as cheap and empty as a televangelist saying "praise Jesus!"

Darwin's Origin of Species ends with this sentence:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

The first version did not contain the words "by the Creator." I read somewhere that it was added later to mollify religious critics.

Such is life, I guess.

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Estrogen and Brain Development in Mice

Scientific American.com has a news story about a new article coming out in Nature Neuroscience that shows the importance of estrogen in brain development of mice. But there is a twist: exposure of the brain to estrogen leads to male brain development. These otherwise female mice acted like males, including how they interacted with other mice sexually.

In primates, including humans, androgen--not estrogen--plays the key role in making men's brains masculine and AFP does not bind to estrogens. But the appropriately named sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) may play a similar role to that of AFP, Bakker notes, keeping women feminine and allowing baby boys develop masculine behavior.

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Court Decision Summary

If you don't want to read the full 139 page decision of the Dover intelligent design trial, you can read a good summary here.

While I'm on the topic of intelligent design, The Pandas Thumb provided an interesting quotation:

“The analogy which you attempt to establish between the contrivances of human art, and the various existences of the Universe, is inadmissible. We attribute these effects to human intelligence, because we know beforehand that human intelligence is capable of producing them. Take away this knowledge, and the grounds of our reasoning will be destroyed. Our entire ignorance, therefore, of the Divine Nature leaves this analogy defective in its most essential point of comparison.

You assert that the construction of the animal machine, the fitness of certain animals to certain situations, the connexion between the organs of perception and that which is perceived; the relation between every thing which exists, and that which tends to preserve it in its existence, imply design. It is manifest that if the eye could not see, nor the stomach digest, the human frame could not preserve its present mode of existence. It is equally certain, however, that the elements of its composition, if they did not exist in one form, must exist in another; and that the combinations which they would form, must so long as they endured, derive support for their peculiar mode of being from their fitness to the circumstances of their situation.”

These paragraphs were written in 1814 in response to William Paley's Natural Theology. Perhaps the argument over intelligent design will die down for a little while, but I think that first paragraph is worth keeping in mind because ID proponents almost exclusively argue by analogy to man-made things.

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Sen. Buttars' Bill Released

I'm back from the holiday. During the blogging hiatus, the text of a new bill put forth by Utah senator Chris Buttars was released and is available here.

There is no mention of intelligent design (formerly referred to by Buttars as "divine design"). For some critical analysis see here.

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