If you visit Eugene Koonin’s lab at the NCBI — that’s Dr. Koonin standing just to the right of the woman in the red sweater — brush up on your Russian. Many of the most prolific scientists in comparative genomics work in Koonin’s group, hail from Russia, and love the Big Questions, such as the origin of life. In a new, open access paper, Koonin argues that the problem of the origin of life may under current scenarios be intractable: Despite considerable experimental and theoretical effort, no compelling scenarios currently exist for the origin of replication and translation, the key processes that together comprise the core of biological systems and the apparent pre-requisite of biological evolution. The RNA World concept Read More ›

In an interesting bit of news Senator Inohofe stated he overheard Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) saying they wanted to stifle conservative talk radio via legislation. Now where have we seen this tactic before – when people want to criticize something and you can’t counter it with facts you turn instead to legal chicanery to silence their criticism. Just lovely. I guess for the left the only important thing in the first amendment is something it doesn’t even say: freedom from religion. Freedom of the press, something the first amendment explicitely spells out, apparently isn’t nearly as important as the left wing agenda. SENATOR CLAIMS: Clinton, Boxer Conspiring to Rein In Talk Radio HT to the Drudge Read More ›

China Overtakes U.S. as No. 1 Emitter of Carbon Dioxide By Audra Ang June 21, 2007 7:54AM Excerpt: A new study by a Dutch research group said China, which relies on coal for two-thirds of its energy needs and makes 44 percent of the world’s cement, produced 6.23 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2006. In comparison, the U.S., which gets half its electricity from coal, produced 5.8 billion metric tons of CO2, it said. China has overtaken the United States as the world’s top producer of carbon dioxide emissions — the biggest man-made contributor to global warming — based on the latest widely accepted energy consumption data, a Dutch research group says. According to a report released Tuesday Read More ›

“The world needs to wake up from the long nightmare of religion. Anything we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done, and may in fact be our greatest contribution to civilisation.” –Steven Weinberg, NYT, 21nov06 “Scott describes herself as atheist but does not discount the importance of spirituality. . . . In her earnest, soft-spoken voice, she tried to explain to parents and teachers [in Kansas] that science and evolution are not anti-religion. ‘Students don’t have to accept evolution,’ Scott frequently has said. ‘But they should learn it — as it is understood by scientists.’” –Monica Lam, Profile of Eugenie Scott, SFC, 7feb03 Question: Whom do you prefer, the straightforward Weinberg or the smarmy Scott? Read More ›

I attempted mathematics….but I got on very slowly. The work was repugnant to me, chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the early steps in algebra….I do not believe that I should ever have succeeded beyond a very low grade.

Charles Darwin,
writing of his ineptitude and dislike of math

The inability of Darwin and his followers to make the math of their ideas work continues to haunt them. Another mathematical problem for Darwinism comes in the form of the failing molecular clock hypothesis, a statistical theory of molecular evolution. The hypothesis was the brainchild of arch-Darwinist Schlemiel Zuckerkandl (Zuck for short).

It’s gratifying that a hypothesis which Zuck received so much recognition for 45 years ago is now being bludgeoned to death by empirical data, much to the delight of ID proponents. The most recent example of the failure of Zuck’s idea is reported in When did placental and marsupial mammals split?, we read:

“We’re in total discord with the molecular dates,” Wible says. He thinks genetic clocks fail to account for the post-Cretaceous burst of mammalian evolution.
Read More ›

Read the sunspots The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change – and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON, professor and director of the Geoscience Centre, Carleton University Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 Excerpt: Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called “proxies”) is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia’s Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change. However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, Read More ›

I’ve read Michael Behe’s The Edge of Evolution. Michael offers hard evidence for what most people recognize. (Those who have been blinded by Darwinist indoctrination are obviously excluded.) Mutations break things. However, on occasion, with huge probabilistic resources, a broken thing can promote survival in a specific environment (e.g., bacterial antibiotic resistance). But broken things represent a downhill process, informationally, and cannot account for an uphill, information-creating process, not to mention the machinery required to process that information. Understanding this is not difficult, unless one has a nearly pathological commitment to the notion that design in the universe and living systems cannot possibly exist.

This just appeared at FIRST THINGS: The Irrationality of Richard Dawkins By Francis J. Beckwith Wednesday, June 20, 2007, 6:47 AM In his 2006 book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins laments the career path of Kurt Wise, who has, since 2006, held the positions of professor of science and theology and director of the Center for Theology and Science at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Prior to that, Wise had taught for many years at Bryan College, a small evangelical college in Dayton, Tennessee, named after William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic presidential candidate and associate counsel in the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial.” MORE: www.firstthings.com/onthesquare.

The Council of Europe may justly be renamed as “The European Council for the Advancement of Atheism.” To believe in a God who acts in the world (aka theism) henceforward constitutes “religious extremism.” It will be interesting to see at what point advocacy of ID is regarded in Europe as a “hate crime” against … science? … society? … humanity?

Oh, your’re wondering what this is all about. Check out the following report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the CU (assembly.coe.int):

Doc. 11297
8 June 2007

The dangers of creationism in education

Report
Committee on Culture, Science and Education
Rapporteur: Mr Guy LENGAGNE, France, Socialist Group

——————————————————————————–

Summary

The theory of evolution is being attacked by religious fundamentalists who call for creationist theories to be taught in European schools alongside or even in place of it. From a scientific view point there is absolutely no doubt that evolution is a central theory for our understanding of the Universe and of life on Earth.

Creationism in any of its forms, such as “intelligent design”, is not based on facts, does not use any scientific reasoning and its contents are pathetically inadequate for science classes.

The Assembly calls on education authorities in member States to promote scientific knowledge and the teaching of evolution and to oppose firmly any attempts at teaching creationism as a scientific discipline.

A. Draft resolution

1. The Parliamentary Assembly is worried about the possible ill-effects of the spread of creationist theories within our education systems and about the consequences for our democracies. If we are not careful, creationism could become a threat to human rights, which are a key concern of the Council of Europe. Read More ›

A commenter in another thread prompted this. I didn’t approve the comment because it was so impoverished but thought the discussion warranted a thread of its own. The commenter basically said that 30,000 proteins w/regulatory regions is enough – a mere fraction of the DNA in a human egg – implying that plenty of DNA can be functionless junk. While that number of regulated proteins might possibly be enough to define myriad cell types and tissue types there is an awful lot more required. The list of things I can think of (which is likely not complete) includes: 1) cell types 2) tissue types 3) organs 5) body plan 6) autonomic control system 7) instinctive behaviors Since complex system design Read More ›

In “Evolution, Religion and Free Will” (American Scientist, Volume 95, 294ff), Gregory W. Graffin and William B. Provine found that, of 149 eminent evolutionists polled, 78% were pure naturalists (no God) and only two were clearly theists (traditional idea of God). Some were in between these poles. The authors describe most of them as deists (some sort of divinity might have got things rolling but it is not God in any sense that Christians understand).

They note that the evolutionary biologists scored the lowest so far in any such poll. They described the vast majority of their respondents as Read More ›

Here is Judge John E. Jones III receiving an honorary doctorate just six months after rendering his decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover (check out Dickinson College’s reasons for conferring the degree). How many honorary doctorates has the Judge racked up since then? (I’m told four, but I have yet to confirm that.) Not bad for someone who went from head of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to towering intellect of American jurisprudence. There’s a lesson in all this. ID is often presented as a “conservative thing.” But conservatives and liberals alike are intent on pleasing and being rewarded by the pro-Darwin lobby (witness the Republican Judge Jones — I expect the biggest worry weighing on him in Kitzmiller was how Read More ›

High price for load of hot air by Bob Carter, June 18, 2007 12:00am Professor Bob Carter is an environmental scientist at James Cook University who studies ancient climate change. Here’s some of what he has to say: The salient facts are these. First, the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this eight-year-long temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric CO2. Second, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements, if corrected for non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, show little if any global warming since Read More ›