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Quintessence of Dust

Quintessence of Dust explores science, society, and human nature, focusing on genetics, development, evolution, neuroscience, systems biology, and topics related to scientific literacy. I occasionally discuss intelligent design, creationism, science denial, and other political/social influences on scientific literacy. Additional topics: philosophy, baseball, scientific culture, and Shakespeare. My main theme is scientific explanation.
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Book ReviewsSignature In The CellBiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

The chapter is called "The Double Helix," and there's not much to say about it. Meyer provides a fairly standard narrative of the discoveries that led to Watson and Crick and molecular biology. Anyone who's read The Eighth Day of Creation, along with a decent genetics textbook and/or a memoir by one of the principals (What Mad Pursuit by Francis Crick is a personal favorite) will already know everything here. Two observations.

Book ReviewsDesignSignature In The CellBiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

The chapter is called "The Evolution of a Mystery and Why It Matters." It's interesting and engaging, and I enjoyed reading it. The "mystery" in question is first described on page 35: Continue reading...

Book ReviewsSignature In The CellBiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

The chapter is called "DNA, Darwin, and the Appearance of Design." It's a poor start. Meyer sketches some key themes of the rest of the book in this sloppy chapter. Here are those themes (in my words) and some comments. DNA stores information, using a code that is similar to that of a computer. We know a lot about how that works. Life gives the appearance of design. No one disputes that.

BiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

My chapter-by-chapter commentary on Signature in the Cell will resume shortly. But I can't resist writing a little about someone I know who did something extraordinary. Here's the short version.

Book ReviewsSignature In The CellBiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

There's not much point in "reviewing" a prologue, so let's start instead with some impressions gleaned from reading the prologue and the first chapter while leafing through the rest of the book. This is clearly a pop-science book and not a serious work of scholarship. That's not an insult, just an observation. Continue reading...

Book ReviewsSignature In The CellBiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

Interestingly, Meyer's book is getting a lot of attention right now. At the Jesus Creed, the excellent RJS is also blogging through the book. At Biologos, a guest piece by Francisco Ayala focuses mostly on theological issues. (I like Ayala a lot. I dislike his post a lot.) The ASA has finally decided to establish some blogs, one of which will host discussions of books. The first book under consideration is Signature in the Cell.

Book ReviewsGenomeJunk DNASignature In The CellBiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

So Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute, a founder of the ID movement, wrote a book called Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. It came out last summer, and I ignored it. I ignored it because it didn't seem interesting or important or new, and there's always something interesting and important and new to read. (I recently finished The Road.

Book ReviewsCommunicating ScienceSelectionBiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

The Blind Watchmaker is a superb book by a masterful science writer. It's not just a book about evolution, or even about how evolution works. It's a book about how evolution explains design, and more specifically how natural selection accounts for design. As I wrote before, I consider chapter 3 to be the most important chapter of the book.

Book ReviewsCommunicating ScienceSelectionBiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

Back in September I wrote about the silly preoccupation on the part of various anti-evolutionists with the so-called Weasel program, a simple exercise created more than 20 years ago by Richard Dawkins to illustrate the efficacy of cumulative selection in evolutionary scenarios.

BiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

So there hasn't been a post on Quintessence of Dust in three months. Here are some reasons for this. We're in the midst of a distracting crisis at Calvin College right now. I won't talk about it here, but it's very serious and has already affected my relationship with the college. I recently completed a major writing project, a book that I coauthored with a colleague at Calvin. Not much else to say about that at this point.

Book ReviewsCommunicating ScienceSelectionBiologiaInglese
Pubblicato
Autore Stephen Matheson

There's usually no point in piling on when the minions of the ID movement get their just deserts after some typically brainless culture-war test launch. Consider the responses (by, most notably, Ian Musgrave at the Panda's Thumb) to the most recent rendition of the ID movement's hilariously idiotic fixation on a particular computer program written by Richard Dawkins. It seems there is little to add.