A decade after Dover

This month marks the 10th anniversary of a trial LiveScience called “one of the biggest courtroom clashes between faith and evolution since the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial.”

In 2005, a federal judge ruled the Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania could not teach intelligent design (ID) in a biology class. ID asserts that the complexity of the universe and living things points to an intelligent designer, not to the random chance mutations posited by Darwinian evolution.

Darwinists hailed their legal victory at Dover as a death knell for ID. But, a decade after the trial, ID is alive and well, said Casey Luskin, a program officer with the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

The Discovery Institute did not support the Dover school board’s attempt to require ID in classrooms, fearing such debates take ID out of the scientific realm and push it into the political arena. “We want to see ID grow as a science,” Luskin said. “Politicizing it harms academic freedom.”

According to Luskin, that is what happened following the Dover trial. The verdict was used to justify attacks against ID scholars and academics, including at Iowa State University, which denied tenure to an astronomy professor because of his belief in ID.

But the Dover trial has resulted in many positive outcomes for ID, Luskin said. At least five states now require, or at least permit, schools to teach the weaknesses of Darwinian evolutionary theory, not just its strengths, a strategy supported by the Discovery Institute. And in the realm of science, reputable, peer-reviewed journals now publish ID studies.

Luskin believes banning ID from the Dover classroom has actually stirred public interest in the viewpoint (see also “Teach the controversy,” July 21, 2007). The Times Literary Supplement named Signature in the Cell by pro-ID author Stephen Meyer as a top book of 2009, and two years ago Darwin’s Doubt, also written by Meyer, was No. 7 on The New York Times’ bestseller list.

Shock treatment

Researchers at Imperial College in London have developed a new treatment for motion sickness, which occurs when the brain receives information from the eyes inconsistent with information it receives from the inner ear.

During testing, subjects sat in a chair that simulated motions similar to a boat or roller coaster and the researchers measured how long it took the volunteers to develop motion sickness. Then the researchers placed electrodes on the volunteers’ scalps. The electrodes delivered mild electrical currents that suppressed brain responses in an area that processes motion signals. The volunteers reportedly were less likely to feel nauseated and recovered more quickly when they wore the electrodes. The researchers believe a consumer device that users would attach to their scalps and plug into a smartphone could be available within 10 years. —J.B.

Protein repairmen

University of North Carolina researchers have genetically modified white blood cells so they produce a healing protein and deliver it to the brain. The protein promotes the survival of brain cells and can reverse the progression of Parkinson’s disease, the researchers said.

The engineered cells avoid natural immune defenses by using the body’s own cells and, unlike most medicines, the cells can penetrate the blood-brain barrier. They can also “teach” the brain cells to make the protein themselves.

“Very soon I believe we will see these discoveries on the frontiers of science moving into clinical practice,” Alexander Kabanov, director of the university’s nanotechnology center, told Science Daily. —J.B.