2005

Wesley R. Elsberry, "A Response to Berlinski" (2005)

"Talk Origins" http://www.talkreason.org/articles/dumbski.cfm --- In this article Dr. Elsberry addresses the recent op-ed piece by David Berlinski in a California newspaper. In that paper Berlinski, among other things, falsely accused Talk Reason of deliberately misspelling William Dembski's surname in a derogatory manner and of allegedly viewing such a misspelling as "clever beyond measure." In fact, Talk Reason has never resorted to the mentioned misspelling of Dembski's name and likewise never expressed any approval of such a misspelling as being "clever beyond measure," or in any other way. Berlinski's groundless accusations amounted to slander. In subsequent messages to Talk Reason (posted under this essay), as well as in his comments posted to the Panda's Thumb weblog, Berlinski not only did not apologize for his groundless accusations but tried to evade the question in point by using irrelevant semantic acrobatics obviously aimed at obfuscating the matter under discussion. Readers should draw their own conclusions regarding Berlinski's intellectual integrity. Comment: While originally David Berlinski asked not to post his letters (see discussion), in a subsequent letter he gave his consent to make these letters public. --- Posted April 11, 2005

Michael McGough, "Bad Science, Bad Theology" (2005)

eSkeptic: the email newsletter of the Skeptics Society, Friday, August 26th, 2005. Opinion Editorial on intelligent design by Michael McGough, originally published in the "Los Angeles Times", August 15th, 2005.

Guillermo Gonzalez, "Habitable Zones in the Universe" (2005) pdf

Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres --- Abstract --- Habitability varies dramatically with location and time in the universe. This was recognized centuries ago, but it was only in the last few decades that astronomers began to systematize the study of habitability. The introduction of the concept of the habitable zone was key to progress in this area. The habitable zone concept was first applied to the space around a star, now called the Circumstellar Habitable Zone. Recently, other, vastly broader, habitable zones have been proposed. We review the historical development of the concept of habitable zones and the present state of the research. We also suggest ways to make progress on each of the habitable zones and to unify them into a single concept encompassing the entire universe. http://204.121.6.57/abs/astro-ph/0503298