Good Publicity for I.D.:
September 13, 2005
Michael Behe got interviewed in the UK newspaper The Guardian and was compared to Galileo for being condemned by the NAS curia. See reprint on Discovery Institute.
David Coppedge, B.S. Education, B.S. Physics, founded Creation-Evolution Headlines in late 2000 as a way to share science news he was encountering at NASA. It has grown into a highly-trusted source of news and commentary critical of the pro-Darwin consensus, providing analysis of breaking news of interest to creationists and evolutionists, without the Darwin spin. He has authored over 7,000 entries at CEH since its inception.David worked as a system administrator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 14 years as a member of the Cassini team. For 9 of those years at JPL, he was Team Lead System Administrator, responsible for most of the ground system computers for the historic mission to Saturn. In this role he got to know many of the world's leading planetary scientists. In addition, he led JPL tours and was a Cassini outreach speaker to civic groups and astronomy clubs.
David is a board member and science consultant for Illustra Media and an Associate with Logos Research Associates. His sharing of Illustra DVDs led to his firing from JPL in 2012. This led to a court trial, assisted by the Discovery Institute and Alliance Defending Freedom. It ended with a lone judge ruling against him without explanation.
Coppedge now devotes more time to Creation-Evolution Headlines and other creation ministries. He also writes for the Discovery Institute, a leading think tank for intelligent design, where he has written over 1,700 articles.
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Mars and Moons Shed Cocoons
September 13, 2005
With so many spacecraft touring our solar system, there’s almost too much news to process. Here are a few highlights, starting with Mars, then comets, asteroids, a Titanic puzzle, and what Cassini found mini moons ago. Mars Ice Age: Mars Express may have found evidence for deep ice deposits on Mars around the equator in […]
Are Democrats the Guardians of Science?
September 12, 2005
Dan Danbom reviewed Chris Mooney’s The Republican War On Science in the Rocky Mountain News. According to Danbom, Mooney argues “that the Bush administration ignores, subverts, twists and misrepresents science to conform to its political goals.” The review includes these quotes from the book: ….in politicized fights involving science, it is rare to find liberals […]
Planets Can Form Rapidly
September 12, 2005
Observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope, announced in a JPL press release, “pose a challenge to existing theories of giant planet formation, especially those in which planets build up gradually over millions of years.” Three young stars show clearings in dust disks surrounding them, suggesting that gas giant planets inhabit the clearings and must have […]
Will Hurricane Katrina End Social Darwinism in America?
September 12, 2005
Harold Evans, writing an op-ed piece for the BBC News, thinks the TV images of destruction from Hurricane Katrina will arouse a new wave “compassion in government” (which he interprets as “the responsibility of government to relieve individual suffering”), and spell the end of Social Darwinism (which he interprets as laissez-faire individualism): My judgment is […]
Are Brains Evolving Bigger, or Fatter?
September 9, 2005
Two papers in Science Sept. 9 claimed that human brains may still be evolving. According to the authors, two genes related to brain size appear to be under “positive selection” in certain people groups. One team said their variant occurred the same time as the emergence of art, music, religious practices and sophisticated tool use, […]
Reader Project: Calculate the Speed of Plant Package Delivery
September 9, 2005
Get out your pencil and hand calculator. A team of Swedish and French scientists measured the velocity of a message traveling on the intraplant internet (see 08/12/2005, 11/09/2004, 10/04/2004 and 07/13/2001 entries). Publishing in Science,1 they believe they have witnessed a signaling molecule, in the form of a messenger-RNA (mRNA; see yesterday’s entry) moving through […]
Beautifully Engineered: Giant Pterosaur Compared to Aircraft
September 9, 2005
Imagine an “aircraft engineer trying to convert a Eurofighter into a jumbo jet while it was still flying.” That’s how David Martill (U of Portsmouth, UK) described the abilities of a baby pterosaur growing into a large adult, a BBC News story says. Evidence suggests that pterosaurs were capable of flying soon after hatching. Some […]
RNA Research Uncovers a Previously Ignored Universe of Genetic Information
September 8, 2005
A slow revolution is occurring in the study of genetic information. Until recently, the only interesting items in DNA sequences were the genes – the genetic codes for proteins. Since these usually represented only a small fraction of an organism’s genome, it was assumed the rest of the material was “junk DNA” – sequences that […]
Comet Theories Vanish in Puff of Powder
September 7, 2005
They were supposed to be dirty snowballs, those comets, pristine relics from the primordial solar system. They were supposed to be blasting volatile ices from their interiors as they approached the sun. What are they doing with aromatic hydrocarbons, olivine, iron, clays and carbonates? When the Deep Impact probe hit its target July 4, it […]
Controversy is the Fuel of Science, So Teach the Controversy, Educator Says
September 7, 2005
The Albuquerque Journal published a response from Rebecca Keller after admitting misrepresenting her position. She did not claim that intelligent design science is looking toward transcendent beings, but rather is asking scientists to become willing to consider design inferences when the data point in that direction. She clarified the intent of the new science standards […]
Bird Brains: No Evolutionary Pattern in Size
September 7, 2005
A scientist went looking for evolutionary patterns in bird brain size, but his chart shows data all over the map. Fahad Sultan (U of Tuebingen, Germany) measured brains in a wide variety of birds, and published his results in Current Biology.1 How does brain size and design influence the survival chances of a species? A […]
Floored of the Rings: Cassini Baffles Scientists at Saturn
September 6, 2005
For the past few months (02/28/2005), the Cassini spacecraft has had a ringside seat at Saturn, with high inclination orbits that have provided the best viewing angles since orbit insertion last year (07/01/2004). Cassini scored, as it soared around and around the horde of ring particles, and poured its stored data toward waiting scientists at […]
Mars Joins Active Volcano Club
September 6, 2005
Mars may join Earth and Jupiter’s moon Io in having active hot-lava volcanos, says a report on BBC News. A field of smooth volcanic cones near the north pole show no sign of impact craters or wind-blown features, suggesting they could have erupted recently. If so, Mars could still be geologically active. At half the […]
Men Arent Going Extinct Yet
September 3, 2005
Not long ago, evolutionary biologists were predicting the demise of manhood (see 11/01/2001, 03/31/2004). The idea was that the Y chromosome, with no redundant copy (unlike the female’s two X chromosomes, and all others) appeared to be shriveling up and mutating itself out of existence. Now that the chimpanzee genome has been published (see 09/01/2005 […]