A  friend reminds me of this 2004 paper on the busted molecular clock: For almost a decade now, a team of molecular evolutionists has produced a plethora of seemingly precise molecular clock estimates for divergence events ranging from the speciation of cats and dogs to lineage separations that might have occurred ,4 billion years ago. Because the appearance of accuracy has an irresistible allure, non-specialists frequently treat these estimates as factual. In this article, we show that all of these divergence-time estimates were generated through improper methodology on the basis of a single calibration point that has been unjustly denuded of error. The illusion of precision was achieved mainly through the conversion of statistical estimates (which by definition possess standard Read More ›

Like, this got past somebody: I’ve been reading and talking to anthropologists about the demonic-males theory for years, and I’ve turned from a believer to a skeptic. Here are some reasons why:Wrangham and other chimpanzee researchers often present the rate of “intercommunity killing” in terms of annual deaths per 100,000 population. Mitani, for example, estimates the mortality rate from coalitionary attacks in Kibale to be as high as “2,790 per 100,000 individuals per year.” But the researchers witnessed only 18 coalitionary killings. All told, since Jane Goodall began observing chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park in 1960, researchers have directly observed 31 intergroup killings, of which 17 were infants. I obtained these figures by adding numbers from a 2006 paper Read More ›

It looks like New Mexico is next up for the scientific controversies wars. A new bill has been introduced that would allow teachers to inform students of controversies with respect to science, and specifically would prohibit them from being punished for doing so. The bill states ” A teacher who chooses to provide such information shall be protected from reassignment, termination, discipline or other discrimination for doing so.” Entire bill (less than 1 page), here. This should bring the science tax burden mediocrities out in force. We can’t stress enough how New Mexicans need to be protected from any suggestion that the Beard or some other nabob might not know all the answers.

One of the pleasures of walking through a wood is hearing the distant drumming of woodpeckers. We know they are searching for food, but few of us grasp the extraordinary nature of their achievement. Drumming rates of about 20 impacts per second are normal, with decelerations of 1200 g, and the drumming sessions may be repeated 500-600 times per day. By contrast, humans can lose consciousness when experiencing 4-6 g and are left concussed with a single deceleration of about 100 g. The authors of a recent analysis of the woodpecker’s shock-absorbing mechanism describes it as “advanced” and “special”. By looking at video material of drumming and CT scans of the bird’s head and neck, they found four structures that Read More ›

As the Urey-Miller model of abiogenesis has grown weaker with time, interest in extra-terrestrial sources of amino acids has increased. The phrase “building blocks of life” is well-used: in 2005, space.com referred to amino acid precursors formed “in the winds of dying stars and spread all over interstellar space”; in 2008, National Geographic used the phrase when reporting on the detection of a precursor of glycine in the galaxy Arp 220. In December 2010, Nasa reported the presence of 19 amino acids in a carbon-rich meteorite and commented: “Finding them in this type of meteorite suggests that there is more than one way to make amino acids in space, which increases the chance for finding life elsewhere in the Universe.” Read More ›

turns out to be a “theistic evolutionist”? Astronomer sees room for God in sciencesThe two are not wholly exclusive, Christian scientist who won lawsuit says Gaskell, who studies supermassive black holes at the University of Texas in Austin, said he considers himself a “theistic evolutionist”: a Christian who accepts Darwin’s theory along with evidence that the earth is billions of years old. “We believe that God has done things through the mechanisms he’s revealing to us through science,” he said. He has also written that evolution theory has “significant scientific problems” and includes “unwarranted atheistic assumptions and extrapolations.” – Dylan Lovan, MSNBC, 2/9/2011 Okay, so Gaskell didn’t fall down and worship the Beard. Do you? This is just a Yank Read More ›

Image processing is but one of the many very clever design features in our eyes. Mores the pity that many who are focused on the blind spot cannot understand eyes to be Intelligently Designed. The fovea of the eye captures the small section of our visual field where we are looking directly. It is richly replete with colour sensing cones. It requires more light but has very high precision. When we look directly at someone or something in good light, that is where we get the detail from. In contrast to a TV screen and a video camera, which have the same detail all over the screen, the eyes economically concentrate on our point of direct interest, and scan the remaining Read More ›

Evolution Sunday was couple weekends back, right? Never got there.* But the thought intrigued me, could we help these forlorn people out by composing some praise songs? Hey, how about”mutation” instead of “salvation” or “selection” instead of “perfection” … Brainstorming just to get you started. No blasphemy now. Our list guvs are all devout Christians. But, given popular iconography, we may certainly refer to the atheists’ object of adoration as “the Beard,” and help them look openly as well as privately ridiculous. (*At my church that Sunday, we were mostly doing what churches have done for 2000 years, so we must be doing everything wrong, right? The competition says so, and we of course agree with them politely and go Read More ›

Here’s a good one from New Scientist: A friend who knows my taste for offbeat materialist ravings sent me this: Mind’s circuit diagram New Scientist – Life on 2/7/11 Our brain is the most complex object in the known universe – so we’ll need to map it in formidable detail to track down memory, thought and identity But when I got there, even the nonsense hedder wasn’t there; I’d have to pay to read it, and must spend my pennies on sense rather than nonsense. (Of course, my friend might have latched onto some system that hides the whole thing.) So can someone please forward links to other free nonsense in the combox below? Note to visiting trolls: “Identity” is Read More ›

the supposed scandal that most American high school biology teachers have not drunk the Darwinade yet is the comments section, for example, I’m completely convinced that the reason actual science has such a poor impact in the science classroom is that large segments of the scientific community absolutely insist on drawing sweeping theological conclusions from biology that they feel strongly impelled to proselytize. Yes, some do openly acknowledge the obvious New Atheist attempt to get the biology teacher to teach what has never been demonstrated, but supports the Darwinist worldview. It;’s almost like all the tax burdens and rich and thick widows’ legacies went to lunch, and some real people had a look. Enjoy it. Won’t last.

Dr. Cornelius Hunter recently posted on some findingsfrom the NCSE (the National Center for the Selling of Evolutioner, I mean, Science Education, on how many biology teachers are reluctant to teach evolution. Now, TV personality Bill Nye “The Science Guy” has given us his two cents worth on this controversy. In the interview he’s asked what he thinks about the reluctance of teachers regarding evolution. He says:

It’s horrible. Science is the key to our future, and if you don’t believe in science, then you’re holding everybody back. And it’s fine if you as an adult want to run around pretending or claiming that you don’t believe in evolution, but if we educate a generation of people who don’t believe in science, that’s a recipe for disaster. We talk about the Internet. That comes from science. Weather forecasting. That comes from science. The main idea in all of biology is evolution. To not teach it to our young people is wrong.

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Or sea slugs? Like, humans had 100, 000 genes, which proved we were a big-brained ape, then 30, 000, a bit more than a worm. Oh but wait, the fern has 250,000 genes and someone who has never kept a fern can be confident that they’re mostly junk. Now, ten years on, here’s the kind of thing we hear: Since the human genome was sequenced, we know more about our own history, and the lines between us and other species have blurred, Cole-Turner said. A comparison with the Neanderthal genome revealed that Neanderthals likely mated with our ancestors, since between 1 percent and 4 percent of some modern humans’ DNA came from Neanderthals. Even the genome from the first amphibian Read More ›

The National Center for Science Education, whose mission is to defend the teaching of evolution in public schools, recently published a review of the film Darwin: The Voyage that Shook the World. The review was written by John Lynch, an evolutionary biologist and historian of science, and Jim Lippard, a student, both at Arizona State University. Aside from misrepresenting science, the review also misrepresents my views and contribution to the film. Lynch and Lippard write:  Read more