There is 'design' in nature, Brown biologist argues at AAAS

“The idea that there is ‘design’ in nature is very appealing,” Miller said. “People want to believe that life isn’t purposeless and random. That’s why the intelligent design movement wins the emotional battle for adherents despite its utter lack of scientific support.

“To fight back, scientists need to reclaim the language of ‘design’ and the sense of purpose and value inherent in a scientific understanding of nature,” he said.

In a Feb. 17, 2008 symposium at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston, Miller will argue that science itself, including evolutionary biology, is predicated on the idea of “design” – the correlation of structure with function that lies at the heart of the molecular nature of life.

Miller will make his case in a session titled “Communicating Science in a Religious America”. Miller will join seven other experts to discuss ways to craft communication efforts around evolution, stem cell research, climate change and nanotechnology that are sensitive to religious communities while remaining true to science.

Miller is a cell biologist and the Royce Family Professor for Teaching Excellence at Brown. Miller is coauthor of four high school and college biology textbooks, which are used by millions of students nationwide, and is regarded as America’s leading defender of Darwin’s theory of evolution. This year in South Carolina, Miller successfully defended one of his textbooks against an anti-evolution attack before the state school board. In 2005, he served as lead witness in the trial on evolution and intelligent design in Dover, Pennsylvania. His popular book, Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution, addresses the scientific status of evolutionary theory and its relationship to religious views of nature.

Miller will use arguments from his new book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul to be published by Viking Press in May, for his AAAS talk. Miller will argue that the scientific community must address the attractiveness of the “design” concept and make the case that science itself is based on the idea of design – or the regularity of organization, function, and natural law that gives rise to the world in which we live.

He points out that structural and molecular biologists routinely speak of the design of proteins, signaling pathways, and cellular structures. He also notes that the human body bears the hallmarks of design, from the ball sockets that allows hips and shoulders to rotate to the “s” curve of the spine that allows for upright walking.

“There is, indeed, a design to life – an evolutionary design,” Miller said. “The structures in our bodies have changed over time, as have its functions. Scientists should embrace this concept of ‘design,’ and in so doing, claim for science the sense of orderly rationality in nature to which the anti-evolution movement has long appealed.”

Source: Brown University

Brain scientist shedding light on learning, memory
Neurons spoke to Dr. Joe Z. Tsien when he was a sophomore college student searching for some meaningful extracurricular activity.
Bose-Einstein condensate runs circles around magnetic trap
Physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, have the universe's coldest substance running in circles.
Grief leads father to create bomb-defusing robot
(AP) -- The knock on Brian Hart's door came at 6 a.m. An Army colonel, a priest and a police officer had come to tell Hart and his wife that their 20-year-old son had been killed when his military vehicle was ambushed in Iraq.
Woolly-Mammoth Gene Study Changes Extinction Theory
A large genetic study of the extinct woolly mammoth has revealed that the species was not one large homogenous group, as scientists previously had assumed, and that it did not have much genetic diversity.
Storn winds blow in Jupiter's Little Red Spot
Using data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft and two telescopes on or near Earth, an international team of scientists has found that one of the solar system’s largest and newest storms – Jupiter’s Little Red Spot – has some of the highest wind speeds ever detected on any planet.
Study reveals link among childhood allergies, asthma symptoms, and early life exposure to cats
A study released by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, shows that cat ownership may have a protective effect against the development of asthma symptoms in young children at age five. The study, published by the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, found that children with cats in the home were more likely to have made allergy-related antibodies to cats.
Same genetic machinery generates skin color evolution in fish and humans
When humans began to migrate out of Africa about 100,000 years ago, their skin color gradually changed to adapt to their new environments. And when the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, marine ancestors of ocean-dwelling stickleback fish experienced dramatic changes in skin coloring as they colonized newly formed lakes and streams. New research shows that despite the vast evolutionary gulf between humans and the three-spined stickleback fish, the two species have adopted a common genetic strategy to acquire the skin pigmentation that would help each species thrive in their new environments.
Team to chemically transform carbon dioxide into carbon-neutral liquid fuels
Using concentrated solar energy to reverse combustion, a research team from Sandia National Laboratories is building a prototype device intended to chemically “reenergize” carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using concentrated solar power. The carbon monoxide could then be used to make hydrogen or serve as a building block to synthesize a liquid combustible fuel, such as methanol or even gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

There is 'design' in nature, Brown biologist argues at AAAS

Related stories:

News discussion: