The eye is an ingeniously designed biological mechanism. In 1802, William Paley used eyes as a clear illustration of what he called "contrivances," i.e., "well-designed machines." Before Charles Darwin's publications, many naturalists used Paley's textbook, Natural Theology.

A gamma-ray burst passed through two far-distant galaxies on its way to earth, illuminating them like a cosmic backlight and shedding new light on models of the origin and structure of the universe. Images from the event stunned some astronomers, because they show that the chemical makeup of these apparently young galaxies is far too mature to fit with the Big Bang theory.

The number of retracted scientific papers has skyrocketed in the last decade. In 2010, two science editors started Retraction Watch, a blog dedicated to tracking science paper retractions. So far, the site has tracked about 200 papers.¹