“I believe that if fossil birds are found very low down in the series, they will be seen to have a double or bifurcated wing. Here is a bold prophecy!” http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1452.2&viewtype=text&pageseq=226 Does any one know if his prophecy came true?
Month: May 2007
NASA’s Top Official Questions Global Warming
NASA’s Top Official Questions Global Warming NASA Administrator Michael Griffin Questions Need to Combat Warming “I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists,” Griffin told Inskeep. “I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.” “To assume that it is a problem […]
Sam Brownback on Evolution:
What I Think About Evolution By SAM BROWNBACK Published: May 31, 2007 Washington IN our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves. So I suppose I should not have been surprised earlier this month when, during the first Republican presidential […]
The Greening Earth
This map is the result of 8 scientists poring over satellite data for 18 months. It shows how plant growth (NPP or net primary productivity) around the world has changed in the past 20 years of global warming and CO2 buildup in the atmosphere. The result is a 6% increase when all the globe’s vegetation […]
More Silly Psychobabble About “Resistance to Science”
In this essay, psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Weisberg assert: The developmental data suggest that resistance to science will arise in children when scientific claims clash with early emerging, intuitive expectations. This resistance will persist through adulthood if the scientific claims are contested within a society, and will be especially strong if there is a […]
Atmospheric CO2 Increase Varies by 100% Year to Year
I was reading the 2007 IPCC report’s 2007 Physical Science Basis and it came as a surprise how much variance there is from year to year in how atmospheric CO2 increases. CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels remains relatively constant but the amount of that CO2 that actually stays in the atmosphere varies by over […]
Creationism in popular culture: NYT culture critic visits creation museum
When I first turned to read Edward Rothstein’s account in the New York Times’ Arts section of the just-opened creation museum at Petersburg, Kentucky, I gritted my teeth in advance. I have little use for creation museums, but way, way less use for self-regarding, overaged art twerps who pretend superiority to millions of people who […]
Cosmic Rays Implicated in Climate Change
In a nutshell – cosmic rays induce particle formation in the atmosphere. Water droplets coalesce around these particles producing clouds. Clouds reflect sunlight back into space. The more clouds the cooler it is and the fewer clouds the hotter it is. The sun’s magnetic field deflects more or fewer cosmic rays depending on its intensity. […]
Columnist and lawyer Ken Connor weighs in on Gonzalez tenure case
Here’s columnist Ken Connor (Terry Schiavo lawyer) on the Gonzalez tenure denial: It seems that many scientists and academicians who hold views contrary to Dr. Gonzalez have concluded that the best way to avoid debate about the evidence for intelligent design is to simply deny jobs to those who will not affirm their atheistic worldview. […]
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Or something like that. This book looks WAY interesting…here’s the blurb from the University of California Press: The world is configured in ways that seem systematically hospitable to life forms, especially the human race. Is this the outcome of divine planning or simply of the laws of physics? Ancient Greeks and Romans famously disagreed on […]
RNA-binding proteins: modular design for efficient function
Many RNA-binding proteins have modular structures and are composed of multiple repeats of just a few basic domains that are arranged in various ways to satisfy their diverse functional requirements. Recent studies have investigated how different modules cooperate in regulating the RNA-binding specificity and the biological activity of these proteins. They have also investigated how […]
Jonathan Wells at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara
Jonathan Wells, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, will be speaking today (Friday, May 25), on the icons of neo-Darwinism and the role of DNA in living things, at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara. The full-size event poster is here.
And Hector Avalos deserves tenure at ISU?
The tenure denial of Guillermo Gonzalez by Iowa State University has been much discussed on this blog of late. The tenure of Hector Avalos, religious studies professor and militant atheist at Iowa State University, however, has yet to be broached here. So let’s do it. Avalos conducted a witch hunt of Guillermo Gonzalez back in […]
As the design revolution continues, Darwinism slips into irrelevance
Last month I pointed out the unwitting admission by some Darwinists that Darwinism is useless to modern medicine (and for that matter modern science). [see: Darwin dissed by doctors, and a design revolution continues at MIT]. This month I’m pleased that world’s most prestigious scientific journal, Nature, has published a letter from a biophysicist who […]