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Microphone in focus against blurred people at roundtable event
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All Forms of Science Designed for Discussion

Since Darwin's theory has as many religious implications as the theory of intelligent design, it is not possible to demarcate the two on the grounds that one is science and the other is religion. Read More ›

Transportation goes nowhere without funding

Those in our state who argue we can't build our way out of the problem have a problem of their own. Almost no new basic highway capacity was added in the last 25 years. Yet Central Puget Sound had three of the greatest economic and population booms in its history in the late '70s, late '80s and late '90s. U.S. gasoline prices are a bargain. Gas at the pump costs exactly the same as jug water at the grocery. Premium waters are at least double the price of gas. That's pretty amazing when you consider the distance crude oil must be shipped plus the cost of refining. When price swings occur, they are often larger than the 9 cent-per-gallon tax hike debated in Olympia. Yet in real dollars, long-term U.S. gasoline prices including taxes have been stable for 50 years. Read More ›
Photo by Sam Balye

The Religious Implications of Teaching Evolution

Robert E. Hemenway, chancellor of the University of Kansas, declared war on creationism in his essay ("The Evolution of a Controversy in Kansas Shows Why Scientists Must Defend the Search for Truth," Opinion, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 29). He characterized the Kansas Board of Education as wishing to destroy the idea that the public schools should be a source of truth or certainty, and quoted various hyperbolic comments that gave the impression that the board had discarded science in favor of the Book of Genesis. His worries are greatly exaggerated, but there is much to be said for the remedy he proposes. Read More ›

Suicide Unlimited in Oregon

LAST WEEK, Congress took up the issues of pain control and physician-assisted suicide, with the House voting 271-156 to pass the Pain Relief Promotion Act. The legislation, if passed, would improve pain control while deterring physician-assisted suicide. Doctors who prescribe lethal drugs for the purpose of killing their terminally ill patients would be subject to losing their federal licenses to Read More ›

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Intravenous cannula placed in the hand of an elderly patient for palliative care of a terminal patient.
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Don’t Kill the Pain Relief Bill

Last week, by a vote of 271-156, the House approved the Pain Relief Promotion Act, designed to promote effective medical treatment of pain while deterring the misuse of narcotics and other controlled substances for assisted suicide. The bill’s passage prompted an outpouring of hyperbole and misinformation from opponents. Here are the facts about the act: It would not outlaw assisted Read More ›

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Abstract futuristic concept of spherical algorithm analysis. Big data. Quantum virtual cryptography. Business visualization of artificial intelligence. Blockchain.
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Why Evolutionary Algorithms Cannot Generate Specified Complexity

While it's true that shaking out random scrabble pieces would render METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL highly improbable (and therefore complex), Dawkins's evolutionary algorithm renders that sequence certain and thereby removes its complexity. Read More ›
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Someone gazes at a hazy background
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Metaphysics Matters

In his influential book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins asserts that “Like successful Chicago gangsters our genes have survived . . . in a highly competitive world, . . . [and so] a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness.” Therefore, “We are survival machines-robot vehicles programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” Read More ›

Death stars

This article, published by New Scientist, mentions Discovery Institute Center for Science & Culture Senior Fellow Guillermo Gonzalez: Guillermo Gonzalez, an astronomer at the University of Washington in Seattle, was intrigued to discover three years ago that 51 Pegasi, the first star other than the Sun that astronomers found to have a planet, had lots of heavy elements in its Read More ›

Designed for Living

Does God exist? You can answer that question in at least two ways, including, notably, “yes.” But how do you argue for that particular answer? A new cottage industry among the religiously minded is the re-articulation of the so-called “cosmological argument” for the existence of God. Its proofs work backward. They start with visible creation and reason that it can Read More ›

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Global telecommunication network, nodes connected around earth, internet, worldwide communication
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From Space, the Web Appears as a Swirling Sphere of Light

Imagine gazing at the web from far in space. To you, peering through your spectroscope, mapping the mazes of electromagnetism in its path, the Web appears as a global efflorescence, a resonant sphere of light. It is the physical phase space of the telecosm, the radiant chrysalis from which will spring a new global economy. The luminous ball reflects Maxwell’s Read More ›