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Cell Biology

Introns Stump Evolutionary Theorists
March 9, 2006
This story is not about Enron and Exxon, but about introns and exons.  The proportions of the scandals they are causing in evolutionary theory, however, may be comparable.     Introns are spacers between genes.  For several decades now, it has been a puzzle why they are there, and why a complex machine called a […]
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SETI

Deities for Atheists, or Atheism for Dummies?
March 9, 2006
Michael Shermer wrote a book review in Science entitled “Deities for Atheists.”1  The article reviewed George Basalla’s recent book, Civilized Life in the Universe: Scientists on Intelligent Extraterrestrials (Oxford, 2005).  Basalla (historian of science and technology, U of Delaware) contends that SETI is the continuation of an ancient religious quest.  If so, who are the […]
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Uncategorized

Darwinists Take a Snubbing
March 8, 2006
Darwinism got beat up in the polls again.  World Net Daily reported on a new Zogby poll that showed that “69 percent of Americans believe public school teachers should present both the evidence for and against Darwinian evolution.”  Evolution News had comments about the poll; secular news media seemed to pay no attention.     […]
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Early Man

Turkish Family Evolving Into Quadrupeds
March 7, 2006
Is this a hoax?  The Times Online UK posted a picture of a family in Turkey that walks naturally on all fours, and calls this a “unique insight into human evolution.”  Sean O’Neill at New Scientist is not sure what to think.  A professor Humphrey claims this is an example of “backward evolution,” or a […]
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Amazing Facts

In Praise of Fat
March 6, 2006
Well, great balls of fat.  Cells have spherical globs of lipid (fat) molecules that never had gotten much attention nor respect.  They have been called lipid droplets, oil bodies, fat globules and other names suggesting they were just the beer bellies of the cell.  Not any more.  Scientists have been taking a closer look at […]
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Uncategorized

Little Colorado Grand Falls Much Younger Than Thought
March 5, 2006
The Little Colorado River makes a dramatic drop over a lava cliff in Arizona after going around a lava flow.  Previous estimates dated the lava at the falls at 150,000 years old (150ka).  Now, a team of geologists publishing in GSA Bulletin1 used multiple methods that dated it at no more than 19,600 years old […]
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Astronomy

Spiral Galaxies Wind Up Into Blurs In Short Cosmological Time
March 4, 2006
Cosmic billions of years have received another challenge from the physics of spiral arms in spiral galaxies.
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Dumb Ideas

Curious George Learns Helpfulness; Newspapers Go Bananas
March 3, 2006
Item: Three evolutionists at the Max Planck Institute did experiments with chimps to see if they collaborated on problem-solving.  Writing in Science,1 they said: We presented chimpanzees with collaboration problems in which they had to decide when to recruit a partner and which potential partner to recruit.  In an initial study, individuals recruited a collaborator […]
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Education

Anti-ID Media Resorts to Mockery, Misrepresentation
March 2, 2006
Evolution News, a blog of the Discovery Institute ID think tank, was launched in 2004 to try to correct misrepresentation in the media.  It never seems to have a shortage of material (see their 3/2/2006 post).  Even though the Discovery Institute maintains public documents on its website defining what intelligent design is and what it […]
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Physical Science

Keeping Icy Moons Warm for Billions of Years
March 1, 2006
Each spacecraft that has explored the outer solar system has yielded surprises.  It is common knowledge that Voyager scientists were blown away by the first views of active moons they expected to be cold and old.  Recent discoveries have only intensified the surprises.  Richard Kerr wrote recently in Science,1 Why is there geology on Saturn’s […]
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Politics and Ethics

Lest We Forget: Website Recalls Horrors of Eugenics
February 28, 2006
The American Holocaust Museum has a website, “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race.”  It discusses how Hitler’s Germany depended on currently popular scientific ideas of eugenics to try to create a master race, and in the process, eliminate the unfit – millions of them.  The website was mentioned in Science this week. The website profiles […]
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Uncategorized

Evolution: A Theory in Splices
February 28, 2006
One of the reasons Darwinism has such staying power may be because it is so flexible.  Any speculation can be spliced in or out, as long as the belief that “evolution is a fact” is not jeopardized.  Here are some recent examples of claims made by certain scientists that everything you know about evolution is […]
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Amazing Facts

Why You Have Snail Shells in Your Ears
February 28, 2006
The inner ear has a part, the cochlea, that resembles a snail shell.  Why is that?  First, let’s talk about iPods and stereos.  In recent years, manufacturers have hyped “mega-bass” and other buzzwords that boast about how their devices beef up the bass frequency for that sound that rocks.  Scientists have wondered if the cochlea […]
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Biomimetics

What’s Darwin Got to Do With It?
February 28, 2006
Is evolutionary theory useful?  We saw Donald Kennedy et al. claiming last week (see 02/24/2006) that doctors need training in evolutionary thinking.  This week, Christopher Beard (U of Pittsburgh Medical Center) claimed that a study of dinosaur evolution can help doctors understand human lower back pain (see EurekAlert).  These, however, are announcements after the fact.  […]
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Dumb Ideas

The Early Man Gets the Warmed-Over Darwinism
February 27, 2006
Governor Chris Buttars of Utah was disappointed that the state senate voting down a bill that would have toned down the dogmatism of Darwinism in the schools; he felt it was “time to rein in teachers who were teaching that man had descended from apes, and rattling the faith of students” (see AP story).  The […]
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