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Dumb Ideas

Cambrian Explosion Solved: Elementary, My Dear Darwin
October 28, 2009
Two articles announced solutions to the evidential problem that most troubled Darwin – the sudden appearance of complex animals at the base of the Cambrian fossil record.  Both of them involve chemical elements.  The only difference is which element.     Science Daily announced a “Novel Evolutionary Theory For The Explosion Of Life.”  The article […]
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Cosmology

Materialists: What Do You Know?
October 28, 2009
For people who brag about their work, scientists are an odd lot.  At one moment they are touting science as the surest path to knowledge and understanding.  The next moment it seems like they are at square one.  This is particularly true of materialist cosmologies and Darwinian theories for the origin and development of life.  […]
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Fossils

Trilobites Found in Fool’s Gold: What Does It Mean?
October 27, 2009
Trilobites are icons of the Cambrian and Ordovician periods.  When thousands are found in beds over a wide area encased in pyrite, with no sign of decay, what does it mean?  A team publishing their findings in Geology suggests it means rapid burial.1  Here’s the abstract from their paper: Pyritization of soft tissues is extremely […]
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Bible and Theology

Who Explains Whom?
October 26, 2009
Picture an evolutionary anthropologist and a Biblical theologian sitting on a park bench having a lively discussion.  The theologian claims the scientist believes in evolution because of pride that came through sin at the Fall.  “Your conscience and innate knowledge of God has been corrupted,” he asserts, “therefore you choose belief systems that rationalize your […]
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Dumb Ideas

How the Octopus Built Its Own Brain for Better Fishing
October 25, 2009
The octopus was glad to see fish evolve, but needed a bigger brain to catch them, so it evolved one of the most complex brains in the animal kingdom.  Is that the gist of this story in the Science blog Origins?  Greg Miller wrote in the style of a children’s storybook: Cephalopods—octopuses, squid, and their […]
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Uncategorized

Weekend News Nuggets
October 24, 2009
Here are a dozen notable news reports from the past week bearing on evolution, design and amazing discoveries. Red rover, rat rover:  Live Science posted a cool video about research lab at Northwestern University that is imitating rats’ whiskers to improve robot sensing.  Rat whiskers are very sensitive.  Neurons in the base of the follicle […]
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Early Man

Modern Men Are Wimps
October 23, 2009
Whatever happened to survival of the fittest?  Our ancestors were much stronger, says the author of a new book on anthropology.  PhysOrg reported on a book by Peter McAllister that says today’s males don’t measure up physically to their counterparts even a century ago, let alone those in the Roman empire and earlier.     […]
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Bible and Theology

Asian Darwinist Profs Call Creationists Barbarians
October 22, 2009
“We have kept the creationist barbarians from the gate,” announced a professor at Hong Kong University triumphantly.  A news article in Science this week described tensions in the city over the teaching of evolution.  The Darwinists won a vote over a change in wording in the science curriculum that would have “opened the door to […]
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Biomimetics

Introducing the Maple-Copter
October 21, 2009
Plants are not as stationary as one might think.  Parts of them, like seeds, can travel for miles.  One good example is the maple seed.  Its little helicopter seeds can catch an updraft and fly a long distance from the tree.  Now, engineers at University of Maryland have imitated its physics and designed a radio-controlled […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Darwin Debate Strategy: Declare Victory
October 19, 2009
The easiest way to win a debate is to simply disallow your opponent, and then declare victory by forfeit.  Is that what supporters of Darwin are doing to their critics? The winner is: Darwin:  PhysOrg reported favorably on a book by Mano Singham (Case Western Reserve University) that declares victory against creationism and intelligent design: […]
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Education

Science Awards Young Darwinist
October 19, 2009
A young PhD has been awarded grand prize in an essay contest by Science Magazine for studying a complex system and deciding it evolved one way or another.1  Richard Benton won the Eppendorf Grand Prize for Essays on Science and Society, beating out two others who studied neurons but failed to give pre-eminence to evolutionary […]
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Cosmology

Science News or Tabloid Journalism?
October 19, 2009
Science news outlets have put out some bizarre headlines recently.  Readers can judge whether they should be blessed with the label “science” or belong instead at supermarket checkouts. Women are evolving fatter:  New Scientist and PhysOrg said that natural selection is making women shorter, plumper and more fertile.  “The take-home message is that humans are […]
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Dumb Ideas

Beethoven: It All Began With a Thump
October 17, 2009
Live Science in all seriousness, “When monkeys drum, they activate brain networks linked with communication, new findings that suggest a common origin of primate vocal and nonvocal communication systems and shed light on the origins of language and music.”     Choi reported on work at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics to determine […]
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Uncategorized

Everything You Know About Natural Selection Is Wrong
October 16, 2009
It’s called “a fresh theoretical framework” but it undermines the popular conception of natural selection.  It’s called a “dense and deep work on the foundations of evolutionary biology” but it criticizes as simplistic and false the ideas of Richard Dawkins, one of the most outspoken proponents of natural selection as “the greatest show on earth.”  […]
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Politics and Ethics

Freud’s Out; Who’s Next?
October 15, 2009
Remember Sigmund Freud?  He was the cat’s meow in psychology as the 19th century merged into the 20th.  He was extolled by all the scientists of his day as one of the great modern thinkers (along with Marx and Darwin).  His impact on modern thought was immeasurable.  He gave us new words like id, ego […]
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