From: David Coppedge Message: Get your own sun Recently fired NASA mission specialist Dave Coppedge* wonders whether, given the constraints, the idea of a circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), the region where life might be possible, is too simplistic. Before listing the many constraints, he quotes lead researcher Rene Heller: “If you want to find a second Earth, it seems that you need to look for a second Sun.” * Fired mainly for being a Christian, it seems, that is, a member of a community famous worldwide for abandoning its own to persecution. Oh, by the way, here is an interesting Kepler find: Two planets sharing an orbit. Me, I’m waiting for the video footage of a planetary traffic jam.

JonathanM recently noted that Francis Collins appears to have changed his mind on junk DNA in his new book, The Language of Life , from what he said in The Language of God. I looked up what Francis Collins had to say re junk DNA in The Language of God, in his own right, and here it is: Darwin’s theory predicts that mutations that do not affect function, (namely, those located in “junk DNA” ) will accumulate steadily over time. Mutations in the coding region of genes, however, are expected to be observed less frequently, and only a rare such event will provide a selective advantage and be retained during the evolutionary process.” That is exactly what is observed.” (pp. Read More ›

If this isn’t a hoax, it is a rarely sighted genuine effort to “teach creationism in the schools”, as opposed to an attempt to replace the Beard Almighty with some/any kind of science thinking about evolution:

Still, when asked about adding creationism to the curriculum, Lake Zurich School Board candidate Doug Goldberg said to the Daily Herald interviewers, “I’m a good, God-fearing American and the answer is ‘Yes.'”- “Suburban School District Candidates Believe Creationism Should Be Taught” (HuffPo, 2 28 11)

Well, does Mr. Goldberg think that Francis “junk DNA yes?/no?” Collins and the infinite variety of folk over at Biologos (= anything but evident design) are not God-fearing?

Heck, more “God” yatters out of those guys than ever did out of little old Catholic me. The trouble with the Christian Darwinists is that they have way more God than evidence.

And aren’t most of the Thumbsmen and Darwinoid trolls Americans*, while not God-fearing (and I am no judge of whether they are “good”)? Read More ›

A week ago I blogged about Arthur Hunt’s failure to refute Michael Behe on his concepts of irreducible complexity and the edge of evolution. My article quickly ignited into a heated debate which honed in on a host of different issues. Within just 48 hours of publishing the piece, more than 70 responses had ensued (as of now, there is more than 170!). Among those who commented was none other than Arthur Hunt himself, who raised a few criticisms of his own. This is my response to these criticisms.

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The Templeton Foundation has granted money for a study determining how the teaching and believing of evolution fares by comparison to creationism and intelligent design in America’s classrooms by high school biology teachers.

In the courtroom, the science of evolutionary biology has won every battle with creationism and Intelligent Design. In the classroom, however, scientific orthodoxy remains besieged and defensive to a startling degree.

That’s the striking conclusion of Penn State political scientists Eric Plutzer and Michael B. Berkman, authors of Evolution, Creationism, and the Battle to Control American Classrooms, a book based on their survey of 926 public high school biology teachers.

“We find that about 13 percent of public high school biology teachers are active advocates for creationism or Intelligent Design,” Plutzer tells TR. “They emphasize to their students that these are ‘valid scientific alternatives’ to mainstream evolutionary biology, and devote at least some formal class instruction to the topic. An additional five percent of teachers take the same position, though typically in brief responses to student questions.”

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In this week’s issue of Nature Physics, a small article appears highlighting the discoveries—or, rather, the lack of discoveries—at the LHC in Geneva, Switzerland. As they have amped up their energies, more massive particle should have been discovered. Supersymmetry (SUSY) theory predicts symmetrical partners to the standard model’s particles, but of more mass. But they’re not finding any. Here’s a few (for us) interesting quotes: SUSY’s utility and mathematical grace have instilled a “religious devotion” among its followers, says Adam Falkowski, a theorist at the University of Paris-South in France. But colliders have failed to turn up direct evidence of the super particles predicted by the theory. And, then: “This is a big political issue in our field,” [adds] Alessandro Read More ›

I’m currently reading Francis Collins’ latest book, The Language of Life — DNA And The Revolution In Personalised Medicine. I have to confess to a certain element of surprise when I read this statement in chapter 1 of his book: The discoveries of the past decade, little known to most of the public, have completely overturned much of what used to be taught in high school biology. If you thought the DNA molecule comprised thousands of of genes but far more “junk DNA”, think again. Is this really the same Francis Collins who wrote The Language of God, in which he tells us that it “strains credulity” to think that more than a few pieces of “junk DNA” could be functional Read More ›

First Things first thunkit? No, but is among the first to catch on. I see where, at their “First Thoughts,” blog, Joe Carter has picked up on Raymond Tallis’ outing of “Darwinitis”of the mind, in New Statesman. Tallis’s punctures into the balloons of neuro-this and neuro-that and “evolutionary psychology” resulted in interesting comments. It also got picked up at Arts and Letters Daily, billed as

Brain-science enthusiasts promise a more peaceful and prosperous world. Great, right? Maybe not. Raymond Tallis punctures neuromania…

Since the recent death of its point man, Denis “literary Darwinism” Dutton, it may now be possible to name nonsense as such and get picked up there much more readily.

If you want to see the type of thing Tallis is skewering:

Neuro-this (How evolution and neurology explain why people voted for Sarah Palin … ) Read More ›

In response to my last post, markf wrote:  It is a possibility that we are under a total delusion about scientific evidence. But key difference between religious evidence and scientific evidence is that our scientific evidence is grounded in repeatable observations that engage with reality all the time in very concrete way. To which bornagain77 aptly replied:  Yet ironically, belief in an orderly universe, where the transcendent laws of physics are non-variant, is a Theistic belief, and in fact atheists fight tooth and nail trying to show that there is no such inherent transcendent order in the universe. Thus you have in fact falsely assumed a primary theistic belief into your atheistic argument for an orderly universe when you stated,,, Read More ›

tjm, here, comments on crickets’ 100 million years of stability:

Interesting isn’t it? Evolution can explain any result at all. It explains stasis over 100 million of years and it explains change over 100 million years. As they say, a theory that explains anything, explains nothing. Living fossils should falsify evolution. Unchanged fossils, like this one, that are supposedly ancient, should falsify evolution, but no, it gets twisted into evidence for evolution.

Hmmm. Not sure if that’s quite fair.

Stasis, where demonstrated, shows that there is no consistent “force” driving evolution.* Evolution happens where there is pressure for it and it is possible; where there is no pressure, the result is stasis, and where there is pressure but evolution is not possible, the result is extinction.

In this respect, evolution can be contrasted with the rise of warmer molecules in the atmosphere over colder ones. We can explain many things, even about as uncertain a process as the weather, just by knowing that this process will always be observed, anywhere that it is not hindered. Evolution is not like that. It need not happen and usually does not happen.

However, many literary artists whom students will (should) study in school, like playwright George Bernard Shaw, believed in Evolution, a driving force, ever onward and upward, etc. These beliefs can be inspirational, but can also do considerable harm, especially when people conclude (as they do) that they have now found science evidence for their own superiority to their neighbours. Teaching evolution based on the general picture of the evidence would help counter that tendency.

It ought to be obvious to everyone who is not Read More ›

A friend writes to say that he has a “very anti-Christian friend” who seems to have gotten herself high on “evolution” (= a fool for Dawkins). She wanted to know if any of my books would help. I recommended this one and this one, but ended by saying Re evolution: Do reassure your friend that it is okay to be an atheist and doubt current accounts of evolution. Many now do. Reviewing current accounts of evolution is like watching sausages get made, and hearing the details spelled out. It could throw you off meat altogether or else cause you to be much more selective in what you consume.

From New Scientist, we learn “Meteorite cargo could solve origin-of-life riddle” (01 March 2011) Andy Coghlan because A chemical vital for life on Earth may have arrived ready-made from space. Unexpectedly, a chondritic meteorite has been found to contain large amounts of ammonia, a nitrogen-rich chemical needed to form the basic building blocks of life, including proteins, DNA and RNA. Just how early Earth acquired sufficient ammonia for life processes has been a puzzle because the gas is destroyed by sunlight, and the assumed early environment didn’t favour ammonia production. However, some enterprising researchers exposed chondritic meteorite dust to water at 300 ̊C, and then compressed it beneath 100 megapascals of pressure, to mimic early Earth conditions. The ammonia, they Read More ›

In a recent article, I criticised Daniel Fairbanks for his selective disclosure of relevant evidence with regards to the chromosomal fusion evidence for human/chimp shared ancestry. In this article, I want to consider Fairbanks’ central argument in chapter 2 of his book (Relics of Eden — The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA), in which he covers jumping genes (transposable elements). In regard to this topic, as we shall learn in due course, Fairbanks not only applies his reasoning inconsistently, but conveniently omits to inform his readers of those papers which (a) serve to substantially undermine his core thesis, and (b) provide extremely potent counter-examples to much of the evidence which he marshalls in defense of it.

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Theist:  You say there is no God.  Evolutionary Materialist [EM]:  Yes. Theist:  Yet belief in God among many (if not most) humans persists. EM:  I cannot deny that. Theist:  How do you explain that? EM:  Religious belief is an evolutionary adaption.  Theist:  But you say religious belief is false. EM:  That’s correct.  Theist:  Let me get this straight.  According to you, religious belief has at least two characterizes:  (1) it is false; and (2) evolution selected for it.  EM [looking a little pale now, because he’s just figured out where this is going]:  Correct.   Theist:  You believe the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis [NDS] is true. EM:  Of course.  Theist:  How do you know your belief in NDS is not another false belief Read More ›

Yes, apparently, the cricket has carved out new territory in sheer conservatism:

A fossil found in northeastern Brazil confirmed that the splay-footed cricket of today has at least a 100-million-year-old pedigree.Researchers have discovered the 100 million-year-old ancestor of a group of large, carnivorous, cricket-like insects that still live today in southern Asia, northern Indochina and Africa. The new find, in a limestone fossil bed in northeastern Brazil, corrects the mistaken classification of another fossil of this type and reveals that the genus has undergone very little evolutionary change since the Early Cretaceous Period, a time of dinosaurs just before the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana.

[ … ]

Although the fossil is distinct from today’s splay-footed crickets, its general features differ very little, Heads said, revealing that the genus has been in a period of “evolutionary stasis” for at least the last 100 million years.

– (ScienceDaily, Feb. 4, 2011)

The paper is free online at open access journal ZooKeys. While we don’t know for sure, the explanation seems to be that the cricket could always find a habitat that let it just go on being what it is. If I were a teacher, I’d love a recent find like this, to demonstrate that evolution doesn’t necessarily just happen; something pushes it.

But apparently, findings like this are not to be taught to students in Texas. According to the local Darwin lobby, Read More ›