Where I've been for a week and a half. Where we're going tomorrow, back next week. Happy ID!

Below is my fifth contribution to the discussion at Uncommon Descent, in the thread called "Theistic Evolutionists...we can help you." My previous post, addressed to "jerry," has not gone up on UD, for reasons unknown. Perhaps readers can spot the problem (e.g., a dirty word hidden in some scientific jargon) and UD visitors can pass that information to the UD magistrates.

A few interesting responses on the Theistic Evolutionists...We Can Help You thread at Uncommon Descent, one from a poster named jerry who asked a few straightforward questions. My response is below as usual. To Jerry @68: Thanks for the words of welcome. I need to be relatively brief now, especially on Behe's work, but I'm happy to discuss biology and evolution with anyone anytime, and I welcome questions, the more specific the better.

Okay, that'll probably be the last UD moderation joke, because my irresistible charm has had its predictable (non-random) effect. I have a nice discussion going with two regulars at Uncommon Descent, StephenB and the original poster, Thomas Cudworth. I'll post my contribution below as usual, and you can read the rest of the conversation in the growing thread at Uncommon Descent.

My comment on Uncommon Descent yielded a single response, from one StephenB, who had two things to say.

I very seldom read Uncommon Descent, for lots of reasons, two of the most prominent being that I am angered and sickened by culture-war rhetoric and I am uninterested in "design" as an explanation.

It's exciting to live in the era of evolutionary genomics, when new genomes are being published approximately once a week, and the light of genomic analysis is being trained on more and more branches of the tree of life.

Wow, lots going on lately. So, what is a species? The concept is much abused by creationists, so that an already-challenging topic is turned into an abyss of confusion and obfuscation. John Wilkins is a philosopher of science who runs a superb blog over at ScienceBlogs, Evolving Thoughts.

I would bet that many of you have explored Thomas Robey's excellent blog, Hope for Pandora, focused on medicine, science and religion.

Go to An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution to see a two-part series I contributed, on evolution and creation at Calvin. The first part, posted on Monday, describes the intense controversy of the 1980's and 1990's at Calvin (and in the Christian Reformed Church). The second part went up today, and contains my musings on the current climate.

A few interesting and/or important tidbits for Monday. Brian at Laelaps provides a list of some very useful books available electronically for free. Authors include slouches like Cuvier, Lyell and Huxley. PZ Myers has an excellent new column up at SEED Magazine, discussing the pufferfish genome and referring to Ryan Gregory's excellent work.