Thursday, May 10, 2007

In The Light of Evolution

Today in the PNAS Early Edition the collected papers from the Colloquium entitled, In the Light of Evolution I: Adaptation and Complex Design, which was held on December 1st and 2nd of 2006, were released. These papers I think will be of special interest to those who follow the current Evolution and Anti-Evolution debate, ID "movement", etc. I have only started going through these papers, starting with the summary paper by Avise and Ayala which breaks down the papers into three topics: Epistemological Approaches To Biological Complexity, From Ontogeny to Symbiosis (A Hierarchy of Complexity), and Dissecting Complex Phenotypes (Case Studies).

It looks to be a good read as well as a good scientific summary of what Evolutionary Theory really has to say about areas that the ID enthusiasts and Creationists frequently like to misrepresent in their arguments. Papers will cover how natural processes give rise to complex systems, what is biological complexity and how can it be quantified?, ontogenic shifts and the emergence of new morphologies, etc. As I read papers in the series I will update with a sort of running commentary.