For today's NYT, the editors were compelled to dwell at great length on the insidious behavior of school boards and administrators in Cobb County and in Dover, Pennsylvania.

Whereas earlier coverage simply tended toward comic uncordiality, the tone now has shifted from a mocking of harmless idiocy to a biting castigation of the curricular debasements in Cobb and Dover.

May the strongest survive? One can never be certain. But in this round of Alien versus Predator, it's clear enough that America's children are the defenseless prey.

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

The first sentence sounds like a warning to parents that the film they are about to watch with their children contains pornography.

The third sentence, urging that evolution be studied carefully and critically, seems like a fine idea. The only problem is, it singles out evolution as the only subject so shaky it needs critical judgment. Every subject in the curriculum should be studied carefully and critically.

A leading expositor of intelligent design told a Christian magazine last year that the field had no theory of biological design to guide research, just "a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions." If evolution is derided as "only a theory," intelligent design needs to be recognized as "not even a theory" or "not yet a theory." It should not be taught or even described as a scientific alternative to one of the crowning theories of modern science.

The Crafty Attacks on Evolution

Right hand, meet left hand.

R: "You look familiar somehow. Have we met before?"
L: "We've got a lot of catching up to do ..."

Pennsylvania is home to the full continuum of the biosciences -- world-class basic research, emerging companies, mature industry and global pharmaceuticals. Through Pennsylvania Bio these organizations interact to create a unique and vibrant community. It is through the interactivity of this continuum that bioscience companies are spawned, are able to attract experienced managers and a talented workforce, and are able to grow and partner for advancement.

It’s all part of our mission: to be the catalyst to ensure Pennsylvania is a global leader in life sciences by developing a cohesive community that unites the region's biotechnology, pharmaceutical, research and financial strengths.

Pennsylvania Bio advances the companies and research institutions that are developing ground-breaking therapies, devices, diagnostics and vaccines for once untreatable diseases and debilitating conditions, providing hope for millions of patients.

Pennsylvania Bio

It seems that to New Yorkers, following this story is a horrible forbidden amusement, like watching a dog fight, or a cock fight, or something. Beyond the shock value of the violence, it provokes questions like "people still do that?" How quaint.

At last, Georgians and their textbook stickers are not alone; they have been joined -- one-upped, even -- by a handful of ID proponents in Pennsylvania, where district administrators have taken it upon themselves to enlighten their students.

2 School Boards Push on Against Evolution

To what extent are we the authors, the creators, of our own experiences?

Wu Zi Mu is real. His name is Zoltan Torey.

But there is much more to this article than a blind man repairing the roof of his home at nighttime, all by himself.

The Mind's Eye, by Oliver Sacks

With witty anecdote and revealing analogy, Zerubavel explores the fascinating ways in which thought communities carve up and classify reality, assign meanings, and perceive things, "defamiliarizing" in the process many taken-for-granted assumptions.

Social Mindscapes

"Rapture is a nuanced portrait of the intersection of idealism, capitalism, politics and science on the frontiers of biotechnology that will leave readers eager to see what the future might hold."

Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion

But the question remains, will we?

How to succeed in history

Collapse is a magisterial effort packed with insight and written with clarity and enthusiasm. It's also the deal of the year -- the equivalent of a year's college course by an engaging, brilliant professor, all for the price of a book.

Skirting the disaster ahead

We find that when selecting a problem-solving team from a diverse population of intelligent agents, a team of randomly selected agents outperforms a team comprised of the best-performing agents. This result relies on the intuition that, as the initial pool of problem solvers becomes large, the best-performing agents necessarily become similar in the space of problem solvers. Their relatively greater ability is more than offset by their lack of problem-solving diversity.

Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers

The world of Edge.org wakes up to reputation, and MemeStreams is explained.

"General altruism": here you give something back not to the person to whom you owe something, but to somebody else in society.

"We had become prisoners of the dilemma."

Here the question of trusting the other, the idea of reputation, is particularly important. Google page rankings, the reputation of eBay buyers and sellers, and the Amazon.com reader reviews are all based on trust, and there is a lot of moral hazard inherent in these interactions."

Indirect Reciprocity, Assessment Hardwiring, and Reputation