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• • June 22,
2006
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Why “Intelligent
Design” (ID) is Not Science, Science is a tool used to describe our world, to understand why the world is the way it is, and to predict what the outcome of a mixture of characteristics may be. Science attempts to do this by studying only phenomena that are “material,” meaning countable, measurable, visible, tangible things, and by making the fewest assumptions possible. By being this way, scientists hope to eliminate faulty thinking and conclusions due to matters of opinion, professional conflict, personal experience, or biased knowledge. |
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No Sex Please, Robot, Just Clean the Floor The race is on to keep humans one step ahead of robots: an international team of scientists and academics is to publish a “code of ethics” for machines as they become more and more sophisticated. Although the nightmare vision of a Terminator world controlled by machines may seem fanciful, scientists believe the boundaries for human-robot interaction must be set now – before super-intelligent robots develop beyond our control. |
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DNA
or RNA? Versatile Player Takes a Leading Role in Molecular
Research For decades, DNA has been the star of molecular biology. But it is increasingly having to share the stage as biologists discover more about the versatility of RNA, long viewed as a mere copyist of the genes encoded in the famous double helix. Looked at from RNA's point of view, DNA is just a passive archive of information, a dull hunk of a telephone directory; it is RNA that looks up the numbers, establishes the connections and determines how long each call will last. |
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Scientists
Taking Cues From Nature It's one of the greatest challenges for robotics engineers: Building a machine that actually walks like one of us. Scientists in the field of biologically inspired design are looking at nature to help solve such stumpers. They argue that engineers can learn much from the world's most rigorous process: Evolution. |
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'Inherit
the Wind' Tackles Controversy of Evolution vs. Creationism Can a sensational trial of eight decades ago still be relevant today as the basis for a drama? Absolutely, if the trial was the famous Scopes "monkey" trial of the 1920s, where a high school teacher in Tennessee was tried for violating a state law against the teaching of evolution. Rather than settling the matter at the time, that conflict between Bible believers and believers in evolution has actually intensified since then, with continuing attempts by both sides to influence what is taught (or rather, what is not taught) in the public schools. |
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Scientists
Take on Intelligent Design The war (it must be so named) between science and the fundamentalist faith-driven IDM is of a deeply troubling import for science education, and for science itself – thus inevitably for contemporary culture. How serious the implications are has only recently been recognized, probably too late for a reasonable cessation of hostilities. The wake-up call seems to have been national coverage, in all the media, of the "Dover" trial, which ended in December, 2005. |
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Making
the Most of a Little DNA A way of vastly amplifying the genome of a single cell is allowing unprecedented insights into the potential of embryos created during fertility treatment. Embryos can already be checked for some genetic abnormalities, but tests are limited by the tiny amount of DNA in a single cell removed from the embryo. The new approach will broaden the scope and reliability of such tests, according to British researchers. The team's first five pregnancies using embryos screened in this way have just been announced. |
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Recommended
Website: Ai Research "Ai Research is a leading artificial intelligence research project. At Ai, we're creating a new form of life. Our expanding web site is an essential part of the emerging global discussion about artificial intelligence. On this website, we showcase the state of the art in patterm-matching conversational machines, demonstrated by Alan, and in reinforcement learning algorithms, demonstrated by HAL. Use our forums, original papers, online labs, demos and links to explore what's happening both at Ai (the project) and in AI (the field)." |
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