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	A while ago Eric Siegel posted about this web site-Edge. Well 
they are at it again this time about Intelligent Design. Bookmark and 
enjoy.

Martin
>
>                   "It was like getting a postcard from God."
>
>September 9, 2005
>
>Edge 167
>at
>http://www.edge.org
>
>(18,100 words)
>
>Click here for this Web-based edition of EDGE:
>http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge167.html
>
>----------------------------------------------------
>
>                        "INTELLIGENT THOUGHT" AT EDGE
>
>Starting with Daniel C. Dennett's "Show Me the Science" and Scott 
>Atran's "Unintelligent Design" in EDGE 166, the Edgies have been 
>busy writing OpEds and articles in leading newspapers and magazines 
>bringing "intelligent thought" to bear on the issues of the day. 
>This activity continues with "The Case Against Intelligent Design" 
>by Jerry Coyne; "Who Designed the Designer" by Marcelo Gleiser; and 
>"One Side Can Be Wrong" by Jerry Coyne & Richard Dawkins.
>
>I was tempted to call "Intelligent Thought" at EDGE a "special 
>edition", but there's nothing special about smart people thinking 
>intelligently in support of science. In this regard, Edge is 
>initiating an ongoing feature called "Intelligent Thought at Edge", 
>that will give members of the Edge community an opportunity to 
>present their writings on evolutionary science to each other and to 
>our readers. Bookmark the link and stay tuned:
>http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/it/it_index.html
>
>                              .....
>
>"It was like getting a postcard from God."
>
>One of the problems that the creationists (ID'ers) have with 
>evolutionary science is the idea that human nature can be studied 
>scientifically, and that through a convergence of the sciences, we 
>are at the beginning to approach a realistic biology of mind.
>
>No one is more responsible for this development than the legendary 
>evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, who, as a graduate student at 
>Harvard in the 70s, wrote five papers that changed forever the way 
>we think about ourselves.
>
>Today marks the anniversary of last year's two-day EDGE event at 
>Harvard in honor of Trivers. At the time, Steven Pinker wrote: "I 
>consider Trivers one of the great thinkers in the history of Western 
>thought. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that he 
>has provided a scientific explanation for the human condition: the 
>intricately complicated and endlessly fascinating relationships that 
>bind us to one another."
>
>To catch up on Trivers and his work, EDGE presents Andrew Brown's 
>recent profile in THE GUARDIAN, available at the link below.
>
>                               ...
>
>Finally, some comments about EDGE in THE SUNDAY TIMES by the theatre 
>critic Michael Wright who enjoys "a eureka moment at the edge of 
>knowledge, as scientists ponder the imponderable".
>
>- JB
>
>[Editor's Note: Marc D. Hauser is responsible for coinage 
>"Intelligent Thought".]
>----------------------------------------------------
>THE THIRD CULTURE
>----------------------------------------------------
>THE CASE AGAINST INTELLIGENT DESIGN
>The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name
>by Jerry Coyne
>
>In the end, many Americans may still reject evolution, finding the 
>creationist alternative psychologically more comfortable. But 
>emotion should be distinguished from thought, and a "comfort level" 
>should not affect what is taught in the science classroom. As Judge 
>Overton wrote in his magisterial decision striking down Arkansas Act 
>590, which mandated equal classroom time for "scientific 
>creationism":
>
>"The application and content of First Amendment principles are not 
>determined by public opinion polls or by a majority vote. Whether 
>the proponents of Act 590 constitute the majority or the minority is 
>quite irrelevant under a constitutional system of government. No 
>group, no matter how large or small, may use the organs of 
>government, of which the public schools are the most conspicuous and 
>influential, to foist its religious beliefs on others."
>
>[...more]
>----------------------------------------------------
>UNINTELLIGENT DESIGN
>by Scott Atran
>
>Science, then, may never replace religion in the lives of most 
>people and in any society that hopes to survive for very long. But 
>neither can religion replace science if humankind hopes to unlock 
>nature's material secrets. And parodies of science, like the 
>so-called "theory" of intelligent design, only cripple science 
>education.
>
>[...more]
>----------------------------------------------------
>WHO DESIGNED THE DESIGNER?
>by Marcelo Gleiser
>
>If I had the opportunity to meet the assumed designer, I'd ask what, 
>to me, is the most important question of them all: ''Mr. Designer, 
>who designed you?" If the designer answers that it doesn't know, 
>that perhaps it was also designed, we fall into an endless 
>regression, straight back to the problem of the first cause, the one 
>that needs no cause. At this point the mask tumbles and we finally 
>discover the true identity of the IDists' Designer. We should 
>capitalize the word, as this is how we are taught to refer to God.
>
>[...more]
>----------------------------------------------------
>ONE SIDE CAN BE WRONG[
>by Richard Dawkins & Jerry Coyne
>
>The seductive "let's teach the controversy" language still conveys 
>the false, and highly pernicious, idea that there really are two 
>sides. This would distract students from the genuinely important and 
>interesting controversies that enliven evolutionary discourse. 
>Worse, it would hand creationism the only victory it realistically 
>aspires to. Without needing to make a single good point in any 
>argument, it would have won the right for a form of supernaturalism 
>to be recognised as an authentic part of science. And that would be 
>the end of science education in America.
>[...more]
>
>----------------------------------------------------
>IN THE NEWS
>----------------------------------------------------
>Trivers' early work set the foundation for a biologically based 
>system of ethics, in which a preference for some sorts of justice 
>was part of our nature. Matt Ridley, whose book The Origins of 
>Virtue is largely an expansion and restatement of Trivers's 
>argument, says that when he was a student at Oxford, and got a 
>postcard from Trivers asking for a reprint of one of his papers, "It 
>was like getting a postcard from God"; and the whole line of 
>popularising Darwinian books from Richard Dawkins all the way down 
>to Steven Pinker descends from Trivers's insights.
>
>THE GUARDIAN
>Saturday August 27, 2005
>
>The kindness of strangers
>by Andrew Brown
>
>Despite switching disciplines - from maths to law to history then 
>the sciences - Robert Trivers profoundly influenced evolutionary 
>biology with his theory that our sense of justice has Darwinian 
>explanations. But he suffered severe mental breakdowns and his 
>career at Harvard was dogged by controversy. After 15 years in 
>genetics he has now turned to anthropology
>
>[...more]
>----------------------------------------------------
>THE SUNDAY TIMES
>august 28, 2005
>
>BRILLIANT!
>Michael Wright enjoys a eureka moment at the edge of knowledge, as 
>scientists ponder the imponderable
>
>Here is a good-news story: a website that will expand your mind. 
>Edge.org is a forum for science, philosophy and culture that maps 
>the boundary fence over which today's big thinkers, standing on 
>tiptoes, are peering. Well-known scientists and assorted eggheads 
>can post their opinions on hotly debated topics of the moment - from 
>the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, discussing why science 
>has more in common with literature than we might think, to the 
>leading geneticist and human-genome maverick J Craig Venter on why 
>he wants to create life. ...
>
>Some of the presentations are available to watch as QuickTime 
>movies, if you prefer not to read, and keen thinkers can have a 
>bimonthly e-mail of the latest discussions delivered to their inbox.
>
>Each year, John Brockman, the site's American editor, also sends a 
>big, open-ended question to all the notable thinkers he knows, then 
>publishes their responses online. This year's little teaser - "What 
>do you believe is true, even though you cannot prove it?" - prompted 
>60,000 words in reply, on subjects including particle physics, 
>consciousness, artificial intelligence, global warming and tedious 
>sophistry.
>
>I like the belief of Alun Anderson, the editor-in-chief of New 
>Scientist, that cockroaches are conscious, but cannot comment on the 
>theoretical physicist who denies that black holes destroy 
>information or the computer scientist who believes the continuum 
>hypothesis is false.
>
>Visiting Edge will make pseudo- scientists feel cleverer, and the 
>rest of us more than usually stupid, as we discover, with a jolt of 
>pleasure, how little we really know about the world

-- 
Martin Weiss, Ph.D
Vice President, Science
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111 th Street
Corona, New York 11368
718 699 0005 x 356

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