2008

In my neighborhood in Southern California, a high school student has filed suit against a history professor who openly and consistently disparages Christianity in the classroom. Note that this teacher is “faculty adviser to the Free Thinking Atheist and Agnostic Kinship student club.” Question #1: Why is no discussion of scientific challenges to Darwinism permitted in high schools, when open hostility to Christianity is? Where is the ACLU when you really need them? Question #2: Why are atheists and materialists the only ones who qualify as “skeptics” and “free thinkers”? I used to be an atheist and materialist, but when confronted with the evidence, I became skeptical of atheism and materialism. I became a free thinker.

GO HERE: newworldencyclopedia.org/….

Why SETI hasn’t found any space aliens yet: Excerpt: Gonzalez and fellow astronomer Hugh Ross have pointed out, Over the last four centuries the CP [Copernican Principle] has evolved from a simple claim that the Earth is not located at the center of the solar system to an expansive philosophical doctrine that the Earth, and particularly its inhabitants, are not special in any significant way. It is worth noting that the Copernican principle is not testable. It is simply an assumption. If right, it will aid research, but if wrong, it will impede research. Suppose it is wrong? Could that be one reason why the SETI search for extraterrestrial civilizations has not turned up any results for forty years, despite Read More ›

There is an interesting discussion going on about “How do you prove purpose”, led by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, blogger, at Overwhelming Evidence. Here was my contribution: One question that commonly arises when people discuss design in the universe is “how can you tell it is design if you do not know the motive of the designer?” Or perhaps the “purpose” of the designer? Actually you can. The police do it every day in criminal investigations. For one thing, there is a difference between motive and intent. Confusion on that subject can sometimes result in confusion about detecting design. Legal cases typically turn on intent, not motive. Here is an example: Harry and Jack are having a somewhat tense conversation over a Read More ›

Nepotism and dishonesty…

Climate panel on the hot seat
By H. Sterling Burnett
The Washington Times
March 14, 2008

More than 20 years ago, climate scientists began to raise alarms over the possibility global temperatures were rising due to human activities, such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels.

To better understand this potential threat, the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 to provide a “comprehensive, objective, scientific, technical and socioeconomic assessment of human-caused climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.”

IPCC reports have predicted average world temperatures will increase dramatically, leading to the spread of tropical diseases, severe drought, the rapid melting of the world’s glaciers and ice caps, and rising sea levels. However, several assessments of the IPCC’s work have shown the techniques and methods used to derive its climate predictions are fundamentally flawed.

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More at TheBRITES.org

John Wakeley1 Abstract Arising from: N. Patterson, D. J. Richter, S. Gnerre, E. Lander & D. Reich Nature 441, 1103–1108 (2006); Patterson et al. Genetic data from two or more species provide information about the process of speciation. In their analysis of DNA from humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and macaques (HCGOM), Patterson et al.1 suggest that the apparently short divergence time between humans and chimpanzees on the X chromosome is explained by a massive interspecific hybridization event in the ancestry of these two species. However, Patterson et al.1 do not statistically test their own null model of simple speciation before concluding that speciation was complex, and—even if the null model could be rejected—they do not consider other explanations of a Read More ›

Jefferson to John Adams on April 11, 1823: I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripedal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organised as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, their generation and uses, Read More ›

“Not only does the oak tree and homo sapien share 70% identical DNA, the similarity of phenotypical features of the acorn with the adult human is compelling and, indeed, irrefutable,” says Dr. Richard Knuther. Details at TheBrites.org.

In a private forum a question was recently posed: At what point the police should stop investigating an unsolved murder and close the case, declaring that God must have simply wanted the victim dead? It is the same point at which it is appropriate to tell scientists to stop looking for explanations and simply conclude “God did it”. My reply Dear XXXX, Well, in practice they stop investigating when the evidence goes cold (the trail of evidence stops in an inconclusive state). In the investigation into the origin and diversification of life the trail of evidence hasn’t gone cold. The trail begins with ancient scientist/philosophers looking at macroscopic features of life like the camera eye and saying it looks like Read More ›

George W. Beccaloni and Vincent S. Smith of The Natural History Museum (London) recently drew attention to the nearly forgotten figure of Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) in Nature vol. 451.28 (February 2008): 1050.  Bemoaning “how Wallace’s achievements have been overshadowed by Darwin’s . . ., a process certainly not helped by the Darwin ‘industry’ of recent decades,” the authors call for a revision of “the current darwinocentric view of the history of biology.”  Few among this blog could dissent from such a bold proposal.  Beccaloni and Smith would like the focus to be upon the reading of Darwin and Wallace’s seminal papers to the Linnean Society on July 1, 1858, with due recognition accorded Wallace for his joint discovery of natural selection.  Published one month later, this most surely was a major turning point in the history of the biological sciences and in that regard one can hardly find fault with the simple but instructive point that for all the Darwin Day hype, natural selection was indeed a joint discovery.

Yet this in itself fails to do justice to Wallace.  The theory Wallace developed from years of field experience in the Mayla Archipelago did not end with that 1858 reading; in fact, it was just the beginning of an intellectual odyssey that would find fullest expression in what might arguably be regarded as his magnum opus, The World of Life: a Manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose, published just three years before his death in 1913.  That book more than any other expressed Wallace’s fullest and most complete views on the subject of evolution.  While Beccaloni and Smith want us to remember Wallace’s discovery, I suggest a fuller reflection upon what that discovery meant to Wallace and to the biological sciences will uncover a wholly different kind of evolutionary scenario than that fashioned by Darwin, Huxley and their X-Club fellow travelers.  In short, I call for not a recognition of Wallace within this much-touted Darwinian context but rather upon Wallace as the originator of an independent design-centered view best expressed as Wallaceism.  What precisely that means requires some explanation.

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Quite often when confronted with the problematic nature of explaining the arrival of the first life capable of supporting descent with modification an evolutionary theorist will say the theory has no bearing on how the first life came into existence – the theory only explains what happened after that. Is this true? Well, yes and no. Evolutionary theory doesn’t explain exactly how the first life was created and doesn’t demand any particular modus operandi. However, that’s not to say it doesn’t make any assumptions at all. It assumes that the first life was a simple cell and the mechanism(s) described by the theory made a simple common ancestor (or perhaps a few simple common ancestors) into the complex and diverse Read More ›

Sounds like the title of a bad horror movie, but it’s true. Run. All right, you can walk. The link above takes you to a pdf of page 110 of Donald Prothero’s new book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Prothero argues that “all vertebrate embryos start out with a long tail, well-developed gill slits, and many other fish-like features” (p. 108). Thus, he continues, “to the limited extent that von Baer had shown 40 years earlier,” Haeckel’s biogenetic law — ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny — “is true.” Except sometimes it’s not: But embryos also have many unique features (yolk sac, allantois, amniotic membranes, umbilical cords) that have nothing to do with Read More ›

Research led by Prof Frank Gannon has uncovered new revelations on possible ways to switch genes on and off and how cells interpret their DNA. Only some genes are expressed in any given tissue. Proteins active in nerve cells are not expressed in the liver. How this is controlled is complex. One fundamental factor is whether the DNA is tagged or modified (methylated) in the region of a gene. This is important in gene expression and balancing the level proteins in different cell lines. Although gene methylation (when a gene is turned on or turned off) was thought to be stable and unchangeable, this is not the case. Things are even more complicated than previously thought. Transient, cyclical and dynamic Read More ›

The reviewers start to look at The Design of Life, a design-friendly biology textbook. Excerpt: “In this atmosphere, The Design of Life was bound to be controversial. It actually shouldn’t be. It’s a good book and well written, but the fact that it is even remotely controversial shows just how committed the science establishment is to ideas about evolution that do not conform to the current available evidence.” Also, today at The Mindful Hack Researchers ask, What does it mean to be an animal? How the Catholic Church built up science Kind words from a fellow blogger How much does the hole in your wallet improve the taste of wine? Chronic pain reduced by meditation, not medication How far has Read More ›