HT to Reasonable Kansans

This article makes a lot of points I’ve made here in the past. The main one being that global warming is a net GOOD thing. Even the IPCC admits that it will be a good thing for at least the next several decades. Food production will increase and cold-related deaths will decline far more than heat-related deaths will increase. If the planet wasn’t warming we’d want it to be warming. If CO2 levels weren’t growing we’d want them to be growing.

The REAL inconvenient truth: Zealotry over global warming could damage our Earth far more than climate change

By NIGEL LAWSON
The Daily Mail 4/5/08

Over the past half-century, we have become used to planetary scares. In the late Sixties, we were told of a population explosion that would lead to global starvation.

Then, a little later, we were warned the world was running out of natural resources. By the Seventies, when global temperatures began to dip, many eminent scientists warned us that we faced a new Ice Age.

But the latest scare, global warming, has engaged the political and opinion-forming classes to a greater extent than any of these.

The readiness to embrace this fashionable belief has led the present Labour Government, enthusiastically supported by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, to commit itself to a policy of drastically cutting back carbon dioxide emissions – at huge cost to the British economy and to the living standards not merely of this generation, but of our children’s generation, too.

That is why I have written a book about the subject.

Read More ›

Patrick Mcrae, Staff Writer for The BRITES, gives his top picks to keep you sharp in your pursuit of effective and uncompromising pugilistic Darwinian ideology. More HERE.

If I had heard the word “denormalizing” from a sociology prof, instead of from Ezra Levant, the courageous Canadian lawyer who is working to bring down Canada’s unspeakable “human rights commissions”, I would just groan.

But, “denormalizing” is a useful term for the Expelled film’s potential impact in the United States.

Consider, for example, the following recent events:

– When Rick Sternberg published a peer-reviewed paper in his Smithsonian journal that suggested support for intelligent design, a concerted effort was made to ruin his career. he was told not to come to the press conference disavowing the article because, he told Michael Powell of the Washington Post, “they could not guarantee me that they could keep order” among the distinguished Darwinist scientists (September 2005). Read More ›

I’ll be participating in this three-day seminar on Darwinism and design at Mackenzie Presbyterian University in the heart of São Paulo. Mackenzie is one of the oldest and most distinguished private universities in Brazil, and they’ve invited Brazilians scientists, such as evolutionary geneticist Dr. Aldo Mellender de Araújo, to participate in the event. Looking forward to some Brazilian sunshine, after an interminable Chicago winter…

Consider the following claims:

Darwinism requires that the Fundamental Theorem [of Natural Selection] does not apply most of the time.

Walter ReMine
Biotic Message

and

a relative lack of natural selection may be the prerequisite for major evolutionary advance

Mae Wan Ho
Beyond neo-Darwinism

and

Concerning this theory [Darwinian evolution], I believe that we might question (or at least note) the following:
….
(10) The internal contradiction in its major theoretical cornerstone — Fisher’s fundamental theorem

Stanley Salthe
Analysis and critique of the concept of Natural Selection

and

many genomic features could not have emerged without a near-complete disengagement of the power of natural selection

Michael Lynch
opening, The Origins of Genome Architecture

Distinguished evolutionary biologist Michael Lynch recently published a much anticipated book, The Origins of Genome Architecture. Curiously, in this magnificent 494-page book, only an obligatory mention of the name of Charles Darwin was made. Darwin was mentioned passingly on 3 pages in the chapter entitled “GenomFart”.

It was also in this book Lynch demonstrated his great irritation with the advocates of Natural Selection (like Richard Dawkins). So great was his irritation that he gave the hard core Darwinists the ultimate insult, he likened them to ID proponents!

the uncritical acceptance of natural selection as an explanatory force for all aspects of biodiversity (without any direct evidence) is not much different than invoking an intelligent designer

Michael Lynch
The Origins of Genome Architecture, p 368

Why the disdain for Natural Selection? It follows beautifully from Fisher’s Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection.
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Humiliated by a demeaning rap video, their treatment after crashing prescreenings of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, and the growing popularity of the Wistar Polka, a pod of Brights was sighted protesting outside of the Stardom Multiplex Theater in Dallas, Texas where a prescreening of Expelled was showing. Details with complete choreography to the tune of “Darwin Does Dallas” is at TheBRITES.org.

Today’s front page story (above the fold) in the Waco Tribune refers to the recent rash of tenure denials at Baylor as a “massacre.” For today’s story and other press on it, go to the following links: * “Faculty ‘Massacre’” story in Waco Trib [4.3.08] * Chronicle of Higher Education [4.2.08] * Denyse O’Leary’s Analysis at UncommonDescent [3.31.08] * World Magazine Confirms BP Story [3.28.08] * Baylor Lariat Editorial [3.28.08] * Baptist Press Interprets Tenure Denials [3.25.08] * Waco Trib Breaks Story [3.24.08] * Baylor Tenure Stats for 2008, 2007, and 2006 (see below) With regard to today’s front page story, two small points deserve exposure. First, from the story: Baylor spokeswoman Lori Fogleman … wouldn’t discuss whether a form Read More ›

Has anyone provided a proof of God’s inexistence?
Not even close.

Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here?
Not even close.

Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life?
Not even close.

Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought?
Close enough.
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Father Michal Heller, 72, a Polish priest-cosmologist and a onetime associate of Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, the future pope, was named March 12 as the winner of the Templeton Prize.

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0801398.htm

In this recent interview came a critique of the intelligent design position as bad theology, akin to the Manichean heresy. Fr. Heller puts forth this rather strange argument as follows:

“They implicitly revive the old manicheistic error postulating the existence of two forces acting against each other: God and an inert matter; in this case, chance and intelligent design.”

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Researchers have discovered two proteins essential for reproductive cells to latch onto each other and then to fuse. Changing at least one of these proteins appears to prevent species from interbreeding. This appears to open up a way to stop malaria. A new species would appear to require at least two changed genes, one for the protein change and the other for the matching protein docking change. What is the probability of these simultaneous changes occurring by random mutation & natural selection – versus – this being a key/lock design with complex specified information? Such simultaneous changes appear to be pushing Behe’s limits of Darwinism. See Edge of Evolution
——————–
Gene blocking could help quash malaria
April 1, 2008

International investigations of an organism that one Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical Center researcher calls a “silly little green scum” have led to key insights into the basic mechanisms of reproduction.

The findings may help explain why species can almost never interbreed, and also point to a possible way to thwart the spread of malaria, a disease that kills about 1 million people each year, primarily children in sub-Saharan Africa. Read More ›

Judge Jones ruled that rational and evidential challenges to Darwinian orthodoxy cannot be tolerated in public education because they violate the First Amendment. It now appears that using religious images in a high school art class assignment is unconstitutional, but only if those religious images are Christian.

A high school student has filed a lawsuit because he was “expelled” for drawing a cross and using a biblical reference in an art class assignment.

MADISON, Wis. — A Tomah High School student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference.

The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw “demonic” images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional.

“We hear so much today about tolerance,” said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the student. “But where is the tolerance for religious beliefs? The whole purpose of art is to reflect your own personal experience. To tell a student his religious beliefs can legally be censored sends the wrong message.”
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Are all the characters on stage in the Age of the Machine video also in the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed? Anyone? Bueller?

In reading Dinesh D’Souza’s WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT CHRISTIANITY, I was surprised at how uncritical and historically uninformed is his view of evolution. For instance, he lumped C. S. Lewis with other notable 20th century Christian intellectuals as accepting evolutionary theory, but in fact toward the end of his life, Lewis regretted his earlier support for evolution (go here). With even less apparent knowledge of his subject, D’Souza is now weighing in against intelligent design: The Failure of “Intelligent Design” Posted Mar 31st 2008 9:38AM by Dinesh D’Souza Filed under: Science, Christianity, Atheism . . . Today some Christians may be heading down the same path with their embrace of “intelligent design” or ID. This movement is based on the Read More ›

Yes, tonight. April 1, 7:00 PM, the Wisconsin Room (second level, #E245) of the Student Union at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. My speaking partner will be Professor Angus Menuge, a philosopher of science who will be debating P.Z. Myers in a few weeks.