Here: Srivastava had been hooked by a different sort of lure—that spooky voice, whispering to him about a flaw in the game. At first, he tried to brush it aside. “Like everyone else, I assumed that the lottery was unbreakable,” he says. “There’s no way there could be a flaw, and there’s no way I just happened to discover the flaw on my walk home.” And yet, his inner voice refused to pipe down. “I remember telling myself that the Ontario Lottery is a multibillion-dollar-a- year business,” he says. “They must know what they’re doing, right?” Oh yes, Mohan, that’s something you can count on for sure. The government around here knows what it’s doing. Or someone knows what they’re Read More ›

Some have described the survey as shocking. The authors of the report are gloomy about their findings. The perceived problem is this: evolutionists have won court cases bearing on the teaching of evolution in schools; state curricular standards have been revised to reinforce the status of evolutionary theory in biology – but despite all this, “considerable research suggests that supporters of evolution, scientific methods, and reason itself are losing battles in America’s classrooms”. The problem is that only 28% of teachers are forthrightly explaining evolutionary biology. The situation is deemed to “expose a cycle of ignorance in which community antievolution attitudes are perpetuated by teaching that reinforces local community sentiment”. The recalcitrant teachers are “hindering scientific literacy in the United Read More ›

2011 got off to an exciting start with the announcement of Kepler-10b, the first rocky planet ever discovered outside our solar system. The announcement was widely expected. Last August, a NASA scientist referred to 140 candidates for rocky planet status and now, it appears, they have a confirmed result. The discovery was announced at the a meeting of the American Astronomical Society by Nasa’s Kepler team, accompanied by a press release. Richard Kerr, writing in Science, pointed to the significance of the find: “Astronomers have announced the discovery of an extrasolar planet not much larger than Earth – the smallest exoplanet yet found. Although the world orbits too close to its sun to sustain life, the finding is a milestone Read More ›

Here’s Richard Dawkins, as a friend puts it, “coming out … as a religious bigot”  in analyzing the Martin Gaskell case (“potentially evangelical” astronomer settles for $100K+): The University of Kentucky has caved in and agreed a settlement, out of court, with the allegedly creationist astronomer Martin Gaskell. …[ … ] If Martin were not so superbly qualified, so breathtakingly above the other applicants in background and experience, then our decision would be much simpler. We could easily choose another applicant, and we could content ourselves with the idea that Martin’s religious beliefs played little role in our decision. However, this is not the case. As it is, no objective observer could possibly believe that we excluded Martin on any Read More ›

Via this: Here’s what atheist evolution gurus think of Christian Darwinists: I, at least, think the NCSE shouldn’t take the theological position that faith is consistent with science. And the NCSE should limit its discussion about faith to saying that there are a variety of views about the consilience of science and faith and somebody in conflict should consult his/her minister. People like Larry Moran, P.Z., and I have been saying this for years, but it doesn’t seem to have penetrated Josh’s consciousness. “Josh” is a professional Darwin lobbyist who carries out boss Eugenie Scott’s dictum that a dog collar is worth two white coats, when working the crowd. The inimitable Jerry Coyne, attack by under-Darwin lobbyist Josh, roars back: Read More ›

Here is the “Edge World Question Center”, a leading materialist think tank, with 2011’s Question: THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER James Flynn has defined “shorthand abstractions” (or “SHA’s”) as concepts drawn from science that have become part of the language and make people smarter by providing widely applicable templates (“market”, “placebo”, “random sample,” “naturalistic fallacy,” are a few of his examples). His idea is that the abstraction is available as a single cognitive chunk which can be used as an element in thinking and debate. The Edge Question 2011 WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY’S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT? The term ‘scientific”is to be understood in a broad sense as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge about anything, whether it be the Read More ›

An interesting paper published in Nature by Evgenia et al. documents the ability of the DNA double helix to exist in a functional alternative form for 1% of the time, called an “excited state.” What does this mean for neo-Darwinism? What is particularly remarkable is that the base-pairs present in these alternative forms show the ability to break apart and come together again to form stable structures which are non-characteristic of Watson-Crick base-pairing (called “Hoogsteen base pairs”). While these Hoogsteen base pairs have been observed before in instances where DNA has been subjected to damage or bound to drugs, this is the first time where such Hoogsteen base pairs have been observed under normal circumstances. Read More>>>

Man demonstrates the ease of proving the existence of French fries. Photo by James Heilman, MD Along the lines of religion and health, a friend absolutely insists that I write about this: From a medical perspective, an obese person has accumulated enough body fat that it can have a negative effect on their health. If a person’s weight is at least 20% higher than it should be, he/she is generally considered obese. If your Body Mass Index (BMI) is between 25 and 29.9 you are considered overweight. If your BMI is 30 or over you are considered obese.[6] The term obese can also used in a more general way to indicate someone who is overweight.[7] Two of the major risk Read More ›