Galapagos Finch, Ph.D., DDS, points to recent compromising language that suggests right wing conservative influence. TheBRITES.org

Skeptic Stan Scanton imposed meta analysis of his world view onto his world view to become a skeptic of skepticism. Dr. Galapagos Finch, VP of Education for The BRITES, is skeptical of Scanton’s skepticism of skepticism. TheBRITES.org

Please read the whole article at the source. There’s a lot more detail, diagrams, pictures, and basically just a lot to learn there. The excerpts below are just a few highlights I snipped out.

Global Warming and Nature’s Thermostat
by Roy W. Spencer

Roy W. Spencer received his PhD in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. He has been a Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville since 2001, before which we was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center where he received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal. Dr. Spencer is the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. His research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE.

A Summary, and the Future

It is now reasonably certain that changes in solar radiation cause temperature changes on Earth — for instance, the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo caused a 2% to 4% reduction in sunlight, resulting in two years of below normal temperatures. It is not so obvious, however, that small changes in the Earth’s infrared cooling from mankind’s burning of fossil fuels will do the same. This is because the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect is mostly under the control of weather systems: specifically, precipitation systems. Either directly or indirectly, these systems determine the moisture (water vapor and cloud) characteristics for most of the rest of the atmosphere.

Precipitation systems thus act as a thermostat, causing cooling when temperatures get too high (and warming when temperatures get too low). It is amazing to think that the ways in which tiny water droplets and ice particles combine in clouds to form rain and snow could determine the course of global warming, but this might well be the case.

I believe that it is the inadequate handling of precipitation systems — specifically, how they adjust atmospheric moisture contents during changes in temperature — that is the reason for climate model predictions of excessive warming from increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

I predict that further research will reveal some other cause for the warming we have experienced since the 1970’s — for instance, a change in some feature of the sun’s activity. In the meantime, a high priority research effort should be the study of changes in precipitation systems with changes in temperature — especially how they confer moisture charateristics to the atmosphere as air is continuously recycled through them.

Fortunately, we now have several NASA satellites in Earth orbit that are gathering information that will be immensely valuable for determining how the Earth’s climate system adjusts during natural temperature fluctuations. It is through these satellite measurements of temperature, solar and infrared radiation, clouds, and precipitation that we will be able to test and improve the climate models, which will then hopefully lead to more confident predictions of global warming.

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Perhaps I’ve been too hard on the NCSE, always referring to the group as the National Center for Science Education Selling Evolution and questioning the organization’s integrity and purpose. So, to make amends, I’m helping to circulate this advertisement for a position they are trying to fill. Note the paragraph in bold. I expect many who read this blog would be qualified to fill this position. Help wanted The National Center for Science Education, a non-profit organization that defends the teaching of evolution in the public schools, seeks candidates for a position in its Public Information Project. Staff members in the Public Information Project provide advice and support to local activists faced with threats to evolution education in their communities. Read More ›

Teleology has been completely rejected by evolutionary biologists. This rejection is unfortunate, because, teleology is alive and well in physics

Frank Tipler,
World Renowned Cosmologist on Sci Phi Show!

Much of the discussion of ID has been in biology. But the notion of ID and teleology has permeated the history of physics from the beginning to the present day.

Commenting on the history of physics, Tipler with his co-author Barrow describe the ID-inspired least action principles that are the foundation of many theories in physics:

The principle of least time was the bases of the next use of a minimal principle, by the seventeenth-century French mathematician and lawyer Fermat
……
Fermat’s work led the German philosopher Leibniz to argue in a letter written in 1687 that in as much as the concept of purpose was basic to true science, the laws of physics should and could be expressed in terms of minimum principles Read More ›

Responding to something I wrote at the Post-Darwinist about the popularity of evolutionary psychology among atheists, Moran (a textbook co-author you may well have suffered through in school), responds:

Just for the record, Denyse, I’m one of those evil atheists that you like to rant about but I’m totally opposed to evolutionary psychology.

But you already knew that many evolutionary biologist were against evolutionary psychology, didn’t you?

No, I didn’t, Larry, and if that’s true, it’s high time more of them voiced their objections. The only sustained critiques I have seen are Hilary and Steven Rose’s unjustly neglected Alas, Poor Darwin and David Buller’s also unjustly neglected Adapting Minds. Steven Rose is a neurobiologist, but Hilary Rose is a social scientist, and David J. Buller a philosopher. 

No doubt, there are many critiques out there that I haven’t seen, but I wonder what proportion comes from evolutionary biologists, as opposed to social scientists who know the difference between research and speculation. Read More ›

If you visit Eugene Koonin’s lab at the NCBI — that’s Dr. Koonin standing just to the right of the woman in the red sweater — brush up on your Russian. Many of the most prolific scientists in comparative genomics work in Koonin’s group, hail from Russia, and love the Big Questions, such as the origin of life. In a new, open access paper, Koonin argues that the problem of the origin of life may under current scenarios be intractable: Despite considerable experimental and theoretical effort, no compelling scenarios currently exist for the origin of replication and translation, the key processes that together comprise the core of biological systems and the apparent pre-requisite of biological evolution. The RNA World concept Read More ›

In an interesting bit of news Senator Inohofe stated he overheard Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) saying they wanted to stifle conservative talk radio via legislation. Now where have we seen this tactic before – when people want to criticize something and you can’t counter it with facts you turn instead to legal chicanery to silence their criticism. Just lovely. I guess for the left the only important thing in the first amendment is something it doesn’t even say: freedom from religion. Freedom of the press, something the first amendment explicitely spells out, apparently isn’t nearly as important as the left wing agenda. SENATOR CLAIMS: Clinton, Boxer Conspiring to Rein In Talk Radio HT to the Drudge Read More ›

China Overtakes U.S. as No. 1 Emitter of Carbon Dioxide By Audra Ang June 21, 2007 7:54AM Excerpt: A new study by a Dutch research group said China, which relies on coal for two-thirds of its energy needs and makes 44 percent of the world’s cement, produced 6.23 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2006. In comparison, the U.S., which gets half its electricity from coal, produced 5.8 billion metric tons of CO2, it said. China has overtaken the United States as the world’s top producer of carbon dioxide emissions — the biggest man-made contributor to global warming — based on the latest widely accepted energy consumption data, a Dutch research group says. According to a report released Tuesday Read More ›

“The world needs to wake up from the long nightmare of religion. Anything we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done, and may in fact be our greatest contribution to civilisation.” –Steven Weinberg, NYT, 21nov06 “Scott describes herself as atheist but does not discount the importance of spirituality. . . . In her earnest, soft-spoken voice, she tried to explain to parents and teachers [in Kansas] that science and evolution are not anti-religion. ‘Students don’t have to accept evolution,’ Scott frequently has said. ‘But they should learn it — as it is understood by scientists.’” –Monica Lam, Profile of Eugenie Scott, SFC, 7feb03 Question: Whom do you prefer, the straightforward Weinberg or the smarmy Scott? Read More ›

I attempted mathematics….but I got on very slowly. The work was repugnant to me, chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the early steps in algebra….I do not believe that I should ever have succeeded beyond a very low grade.

Charles Darwin,
writing of his ineptitude and dislike of math

The inability of Darwin and his followers to make the math of their ideas work continues to haunt them. Another mathematical problem for Darwinism comes in the form of the failing molecular clock hypothesis, a statistical theory of molecular evolution. The hypothesis was the brainchild of arch-Darwinist Schlemiel Zuckerkandl (Zuck for short).

It’s gratifying that a hypothesis which Zuck received so much recognition for 45 years ago is now being bludgeoned to death by empirical data, much to the delight of ID proponents. The most recent example of the failure of Zuck’s idea is reported in When did placental and marsupial mammals split?, we read:

“We’re in total discord with the molecular dates,” Wible says. He thinks genetic clocks fail to account for the post-Cretaceous burst of mammalian evolution.
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Read the sunspots The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change – and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON, professor and director of the Geoscience Centre, Carleton University Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 Excerpt: Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called “proxies”) is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia’s Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change. However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, Read More ›

I’ve read Michael Behe’s The Edge of Evolution. Michael offers hard evidence for what most people recognize. (Those who have been blinded by Darwinist indoctrination are obviously excluded.) Mutations break things. However, on occasion, with huge probabilistic resources, a broken thing can promote survival in a specific environment (e.g., bacterial antibiotic resistance). But broken things represent a downhill process, informationally, and cannot account for an uphill, information-creating process, not to mention the machinery required to process that information. Understanding this is not difficult, unless one has a nearly pathological commitment to the notion that design in the universe and living systems cannot possibly exist.