After a poor performance on Saturday, the KU football team will work on improving the weak spots before this weekend. 10A
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Two KU students are challenging legislators to represent Lawrence in the 44th and 46th districts. Hear what the challengers and incumbents have to say.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17,2006
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOL.117 ISSUE42
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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CENSUS
SPEAKERS
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Richard Dawkins, evolutionary theorist and ethologist, speaks during his lecture about his most recent book, "The God Delusion," Monday in the Lied Center. He discussed reasons intelligent design was false and showed humorous slides including ones delivering the stork delivering babies to Kansas. He will speak at 9 this morning at the conference hall in the Hall Center for the Humanities.
Author criticizes intelligent design
BY DARLA SLIPKE
God is a delusion, said one renowned ethologist and evolutionary biologist during a lecture at the Lied Center Monday night.
"You can't disprove God just like you can't disprove the flying spaghetti monster or fairies, but the likelihood that intelligent design exists is low". Richard Dawkins said.
Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion," discussed this subject as part of the Humanities Lecture Series and the Difficult Dialogues.
Lines of people extended outside the Lied Center doors waiting to listen to Dawkins and included those who agreed with his convictions and those who rejected them, but still wanted to hear his arguments.
"A lot of people might not agree with him," said Leonard Kristalka, director of the Biodiversity Institute
and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.
About one third of the audience remained seated when Dawkins was given a standing ovation at the end of his speech.
The theory of intelligent design has no evidence of its own, Dawkins said. It thrives on gaps, which people attribute to God.
"It explains nothing except for something larger that is in need of more explanation," Dawkins said. "Lucky chance could never be enough to explain the lush diversity of life."
Dawkins said that natural selection was the only workable solution for such mysteries. Natural selection not only explained the whole of life, but it also raised consciousness, he said.
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SPEAKERS
Cancer survivors share struggles
Seated before a large crowd of KU students, Amy Laughlin, Sarah Watts and Julie Cowdin shared the stories of their personal struggles with breast cancer.
The event was organized to raise awareness of breast cancer and to inform the audience, "college students in particular," that breast cancer could affect anyone, regardless of age and family medical history. All of the survivors who spoke Monday night were diagnosed with cancer before age 40, including one who was diagnosed at age 25.
The panel discussion was in the Burree Union.
Laughlin was diagnosed 10 years
ago, at age 28, while pregnant with her second child.
The chemotherapy and subsequent radiation treatments left her weak.
Laughlin discovered a lump and thought it was a peculiar deformation on her breast. She mentioned the lump to her gynecologist, assuming it had something to do with breastfeeding. She was diagnosed and underwent surgery to remove the tumor.
"For the first six months of my daughter's life I was completely out of it." Laughlin said.
She completed therapy many times, thinking she had beaten the
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United States Census Bureau expects to achieve milestone mark today
America: Pop. 300 million
BY MARK VIERTHALER
It will happen today about 6:45 a.m.
The 300 millionth American will be born. Or he or she will cross the border. The United States Census Bureau isn't exactly sure how it will happen, but it is sure it's going to be today.
The bureau has said in recent weeks it could predict the arrival of the landmark number based on three statistics: Someone is born in the U.S. every seven seconds. Someone dies every 13 seconds. An immigrant enters the nation every 31 seconds. Both legal and illegal immigrants are counted in population tallies.
This amounts to a net gain of one person every 11 seconds.
These three statistics have led the bureau to predict that number 300 million would appear today. A
population clock can even be seen on the Web site www.census.gov racking up the people in real time.
Meredith Kleycamp, assistant
Meredith R professor of sociology and social demographer, said one of the hardest things for demographers to figure out was whether landmark population numbers would come
was reached in 1967. Life magazine memorialized the moment by dubbing Robert Ken Woo Jr. of Atlanta as the landmark baby. Life
"It's highly likely it's going to be an illegal or legal immigrant."
MEREDITH KLEYCAMP social demographer
from newborns or immigrants.
"It's highly likely it's going to be an illegal or legal immigrant," Klevcamp said.
The last milestone -- 200 million
Although population is still driven by birth, a large number of those births are from immigrants to the United States. Kleycamp said.
assigned Woo the title because he was born at the exact time the Census Bureau had predicted number 200 million would show up. A recent study released by the Center
In 2005, Kansas had a reported
for Environment and Population showed the U.S. population had almost doubled since 1950. The study also reported that the U.S. was the world's third most-populated country after India and China. The South and the West Coast are the fastest-growing regions.
population of 2.7 million. The Kansas population is up almost 22,000 people from 2000. The United States itself increased from about 280 million in 2000 to 300 million today.
This means the likelihood of the 300 millionth person either being born or immigrating into Kansas is relatively small, Klevcamp said.
She said it was likely by the 400 million mark that Kansas will become more central to the discussion. As the South and West Coast fills up, more people will start to gravitate to the Midwest, she said.
Until then, Kleycamp said, the biggest population factor affecting Kansas is the influx of immigrants, not births.
Kansan staff writer Mark Vierthaler can be contacted at mvlerthaler@kansan.com.
Edited by Aly Barland