2013

A common misconception is that the origins debate is politically aligned, with those on the political right supporting creationism and opposing evolution, and those on the political left taking the opposite positions. But the origins debate is more complicated than this and here again it is helpful to understand the history of evolutionary thought and its religious foundation. A naturalistic origins narrative was advanced by 17th and 18th century Christian thinkers, who found divine intervention and miracles to be theologically awkward and unacceptable, not by atheists or political revolutionaries. Only much later did the left find evolution to be politically useful. The bottom line is that today evolution cuts across political boundaries, enjoying strong support from the political right, as Read More ›

The planthopper nymph is a tiny insect with an incredibly fast jumping mechanism (it jumps in a few milliseconds with an acceleration of almost 400 g’s). What is perhaps most interesting  Read more

Today, Discovery Institute’s Dr. John West, provided a  helpful Q & A write-up on Evolution News and Views.  The article, entitled Clarifying the Issues at Ball State: Some Questions and Answers addresses the most salient points about the recent letter sent to Ball State’s President, Dr. Joanne Gora, which I wrote about here on UD yesterday.  Today’s article from Dr. West clarifies the issues and makes clear that the aim is to support academic freedom for all professors – both those who oppose ID and those who advocate it; both those who advocate atheism, and those who do not.  However, as Dr. West’s article also makes clear, if BSU opts to continue to enforce this new policy, then it must Read More ›

Another day; another bad day for Darwinism. This is so true that I rarely post here anymore. Why bother? Darwinism is beat up everyday by its adherents doing experiments. Here’s another one. The team investigated the validity of Haldane’s predictions for the probability of fixation of a beneficial allele. They used C. elegans because it reproduces asexually, thus ensuring “genetic identity” from one generation to the next. While validating Haldane’s predictions for the initial introduction of both deleterious and beneficial alleles to a population, they found this: If its [i.e., the allele’s] frequency was higher than 5% (when more than five different individuals in a population of 100 individuals), the allele was perceived as deleterious and it started to be Read More ›

We, the undersigned atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, and other non-believers, hereby condemn Richard Dawkins’ continued comments trivializing what he termed ‘mild’ sexual abuse of children. Dr. Dawkins is seen by many as a representative of the atheist community — but when it comes to his dismissive comments on the incredibly serious topic of sexual abuse, the atheist community emphatically does not stand with him. Dr. Dawkins has publicly compared childhood sexual abuse favorably to teaching children about Hell since at least the publication of The God Delusion. He has extrapolated from his relatively trauma-free experience with sexual abuse to make general comments about the experiences of other victims. These comments have received serious criticism from victim advocates as misrepresenting the Read More ›

Trinidadian Genelle Guzman-McMillan, the last WTC 9/11 survivor to be pulled from the rubble of the collapsed towers, has a story of miraculous survival, complete with her angel, Paul, who held her hand as she awaited rescue. In summary: [Genelle] was a Port Authority worker, working on the 64th floor of one of the WTC towers, on September 11, 2001 when she felt the building shake and heard the noise of the first impact. A look out the window showed papers floating in the sky, but it was not clear what had happened until she saw news reports on a TV in a conference room. Strange as it seems today, she and her co-workers were instructed to stay in the Read More ›