The Panda's Thumb-- If current results hold, it looks like the creationists on the 10-member Kansas Board of Education have lost two seats in the Republican primary. The likelihood is therefore that the new Board of Education will switch from being a 6-4 pro-creationism majority to at least a 6-4 pro-science majority ...This probably means the pro-ID/creationism science standards are history.

My friend Josh Rosenau adds:

Link--It'd be nice to further marginalize the extremists by winning the remaining races in November, but we've got a majority that will implement the science standards recommended by the scientists, educators and parents of the science standards committee. The Board can focus on bigger issues ... address the special challenges of rural districts, find solutions to the problems faced by the students in poorer urban districts. Real challenges, not fake controversy. Helping kids, not fighting culture wars.

The most significant primary defeat was of sitting uber antiscience conservative Connie Morris, who has described evolution as a "fairy tale." But let's not start celebrating just yet.

Creationism is no more finished than the religious right. Both stem from decades of investment made by extremist right-wing Republicans and corporatists in a vast, well-oiled political machine that we progressives are only beginning to fully appreciate, much less match.

Opinions will vary, but I believe an argument can be made that it's not the conservative machine that failed in Kansas--and Dover and Ohio--it's a combination of the hard work by many grassroot champions of science in Kansas and elsewhere, and the performance of the neo-conservatives in Washington, DC. It is Bush et al that are taking down the movement overall, creationism is just one of many casualties, and Bushco's utter incompetence along with their near record unpopularity may be spilling over into issues like creationism. If so, you'd think that concerned conservatives would have figured that out by now. We can only hope that the same denial that keeps them cheering about how great things are going with US policy at home and abroad, will continue to blind them to their fate if they do not jettison neo-conservatism and quickly.

Conversely, in the meantime, would it be too much to hope that incumbent schoolboard members across the nation are beginning to understand that pandering to antiscience extremists is a one way ticket to the unemployment line?

This flows from the elementary topological concept of a metric set.

A set is a metric set if there exists a function, usually called distance, such that:

• The distance from any element A to itself is zero
  
• The distance between element A and element B must have the same magnitude in both directions as the diagram on the left illustrates
  
• The sum of the distance from A to B to C must be greater than or equal to the distance from A to C. In Euclidean spaces, planes and solids for example, this means the shortest distance between two points is a straight line as illustrated in the diagram to the right

Simply put, if a mutation decreases genetic information, then reversing that mutation, a so-called back mutation, will increase the information by the same amount. This flatly falsifies the claim that all mutations decrease genetic information without anyone having to so much as define what genetic information means. It's true for any metric of genetic information that follows well defined rules. See the trivial proof in comments.

It does bring up an interesting question though, what is information? How does one get an analytical handle on what is such an intuitive yet elusive idea? As far as what humans mean when we say the word information, there isn't any single way; the term is too broad. But analytically in both communications and discrete mathematics there are at least two useful ways. The first is called Shannon Information Theory and the other is a type of Algorithmic approach we'll represent with the tongue twisting polysyllabic Kolmogorov-Chaitin Theory, or K-C for short.

Claude E. Shannon was an engineer for Bell Labs over fifty-years ago and he was understandably interested in the technical challenges of transmitting data on old fashioned phone lines. Shannon developed a way to measure the difference in uncertainty between before a signal was sent and after it was received. You might think the uncertainty after a signal had been received would be zero, but because of glitches, noise in the line, etc., this is not the case. And that's exactly what Shannon was interested in analyzing. Shannon Info Theory doesn't really measure information, it measures a change between two states. Now that's somewhat over simplified and I'm sure some of the tech guys in here are wincing. So for those of you deeply interested who are solid in calculus and infinite series, the mathematics of Shannon Theory is pretty nifty.

K-C Theory measures information directly as a function of data compressibility. To be more precise, DR Wesley Elsberry of National Center for Science Education described it as:

The fundamental concept is that a string's information content is the same as the length of the shortest universal Turing machine program and input data required to produce the string as output.

 A long random string of alphanumeric characters would probably be less compressible than an essay or book of the same length, because in the latter you'd have words and letter combos used over and over. And that would make it more compressible than the randomized string. The longer both strings are the more likely that this inequality will hold. And it's interesting to point out that sometimes even really complicated, infinitely dense non-repeating sets can be represented as a simple algorithm, a Mandelbrot Set for example, a type of fractal.

We deal with informational conceptually and intuitively. It's one of those things we can do without knowing how we do it. Tissues, organs cells, genes, and words make up larger structures the way components make up a circuit. It's not just the presence of the components, but how they're wired together that makes the device operate as it does. Good luck measuring any of those with a metric of any kind.

Creationism has become much slicker in the last few years and part of that makeover has to do with how they now couch the ancient information argument. We'll look at that tomorrow on Know Your Creationists!

But all of this analysis has very little to do with what we mean by information conceptually. If there is a metric to measure and formally compare She sells sea shells down by the sea shore with the whole is pervaded by a strong smell of turpentine I think I'd like to see it!

No one can make you lose your faith, not without your help.

Much as I love science, I am also a person of faith. I have faith in a creator that is all-powerful and all-knowing. So all-powerful and all-knowing, that wink and snap! Instant creation. So all-powerful and all-knowing  that with a great swath of their hand (or metaphysical equivalent), set in motion such great energy that ever so slowly and by the mere shifting of matter lead to the eventuality that I would be sitting here writing this.

Wells is perhaps best known to the antievolution Intelligent Design Creationist (IDC) movement for his book Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? published in 2000. The title refers to the format in which Wells attacks biology, choosing what he claims are central pillars of the concepts underlying modern evolutionary biology and exposing them as fraudulent or highly suspect. For a break from current politics and a little disturbing insight into one the forces behind the neo-religious right, follow me below.

• Seed Media has set up a one stop shop for Science Blogs featuring Chris Mooney (science and politics), PZ Myers (biology), Tara Smith (infectious disease), Ed Brayton and lots more!

• DR Sean Carroll with the latest on Dark Energy

• Orlando residents beware, there is a Creationism vs. Evolution debate coming soon to an auditorium near you!

• A California school is trying to sneak "Intelligent Design" into the classroom by labelling it "philosophy". It's like "whack a mole", isn't it?

• DeLay threatens to sue organization running ad listing his gifts from Jack Abramoff (link is .WMV video). Several stations have apparently already cowed to DeLay's pressure.

• Marshall Wittman is so off base that his own DLC colleague has to gently chide him.

• Ha ha. Specter claims he hasn't seen Kennedy's letter requesting info on Concerned Alumni of Princeton. Kennedy introduces Specter's reply to that letter. Oops.

The mission of the Intelligent Design PR movement as originally envisioned by Johnson is not limited to attacks on evolutionary biology. They see all science as lacking a proper theistic basis. As best I can discern, Johnson and his ilk want every field of science and indeed all public policy to be held hostage to some vague theocratic organization, with members of their own ultra-conservative religious faith occupying those seats of power. It is in this context that Johnson uses evolution to attack science. He calls evolution the 'thin edge of the wedge' with which to 'split the log of materialism open'. Much more below.

We all read the books as kids.  Now they're back!  But before Evangelicals enlist the Chronicles as weapons in their agenda, they should consider a few things.

Christains are already hyping these books and the new film as a kind of religious tract they can use to lead people to Chist or as tools to teach children about Christianity.

The Narnia books are a big problem though.  Because in reality they're not very useful in leading people to Christ.  And, in fact, they are more helpful at leading Christain kids to question the Born-Again dogma.  

Yes, stay tuned, Christian parents, the Narnia series is a Gateway Drug and below I'll list several reasons why...

http://www.afaofpa.org/...

So lets spell it out in terms these wackos can understand. Ricky boy doesn't meet their litmus test.

The case will pit the Association of Christian Schools International, which claims 4,000 member schools including Calvary Chapel and 800 other schools in California, against the biggest system of public universities in the world.

Patricia Princehouse, a biology professor at Case Western University in Ohio says, bring it on. But not in the elementary schools: how about between scientists at a major university?

In the annual roundup, the journal's editors pointed to wide-ranging research built on the foundations of Charles Darwin's landmark 1859 work "The Origin of Species" and the idea of natural selection.
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[more in extended]

But my favorite comment may turn out to be my last in that space.

But in his ruling, the judge, John E. Jones III, went a little further...

Krauss, a physics professor at Case Western, was a scientific adviser to the plaintiff team in the Dover trial. Gibson, on the other hand is the author of "The War on Christmas" which has made recent headlines thanks to fellow Fox host Bill O'Reilly's comments.

The interview is scheduled to begin around 8:10 p.m. eastern time.  Hope you can tune in.