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Astronomy

Findings vs Surmisings in Astronomy
April 21, 2008
The Galex satellite (Galaxy Evolution Explorer) found “bright features” with an ultraviolet glow in the outskirts of a spiral galaxy, reported the BBC News.  What are they?  Scientists “think” they are large clusters of stars.  How much is known, and how much is interpreted?     The region imaged is the dark area around spiral […]
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Genetics

Nature Topples ID Straw Man
April 19, 2008
It’s easier to knock down a straw man than a strong man.  Maybe that explains the human tendency to fantasize about victory over one’s enemies.  In scientific journals, however, one would expect to deal in facts and to realistically portray adversarial positions.  Even better would be to let the adversary respond.  Nature, however, in its […]
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Cosmology

Is Inflation Theory in Trouble?
April 18, 2008
For more than a quarter of a century, “inflation” has been viewed as the savior of the Big Bang theory.  The Big Bang was in trouble in the late 1970s because of the flatness problem and the horizon problem: our universe appeared to be too homogeneous and isotropic to be an accident.  If a runaway […]
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SETI

Imagination as Science
April 17, 2008
Can a science exist without evidence?  Astrobiology, and its subcategory “the search for extraterrestrial intelligence,” involve a great deal of scientific equipment, trained researchers, and funding, but still have no observational evidence to support their reason for being: extraterrestrial life.  Where is the line between imagination and reality in these fields?     Some insight […]
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Media

Darwin and Hitler: A Trumped-Up Connection?
April 16, 2008
If there is anything critics of Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled are griping about, it is the association of Hitler with Darwin.  What is the movie claiming and not claiming, and how solid is the historical connection?     Scientific American, in particular, loathed the implication that Darwinism has anything to do with the Holocaust (but […]
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Birds

Itemized Deductions
April 15, 2008
Here are some free deductions to take the edge off Income Tax Day…. as long as one deduces correctly. Israel is picking a national bird.  So what feathered friend will represent the Holy Land?  “The nine finalists include the hoopoe, the owl, the spur-winged plover, and the griffin vulture, but no doves.”  Source: Science, Random […]
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Bible and Theology

Darwinism and Logic: How Strong a Grip?
April 14, 2008
Science and logic are inseparable.  Whether one approaches the study of nature from reason (rationalism) or evidence (empiricism), logical inferences and deductions are essential for understanding – or for claiming one’s scientific work produces understanding.  When it comes to the reigning evolutionary perspective, though, how can a blind, chancy process like evolution produce reason, laws […]
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Dinosaurs

Dinosaur Expert Criticizes Uber-Darwinists More than Biblical Creationists
April 13, 2008
One of the field researchers most identifiable with dinosaurs is Dr. Robert Bakker, a colorful individual who’s had a long friendly rivalry with an equally iconic figure of the modern dinosaur hunter, Jack Horner (e.g., 11/24/2007).  Brian Switek interviewed Bakker on the Laelops Science Blog.  He introduced him as “one of the most famous paleontologists […]
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Amazing Facts

Moths Navigate in the Dark Against the Wind
April 12, 2008
A moth weighs little more than a piece of paper, but it does things no paper blowing in the wind can do: it can navigate with and against the wind to get where it needs to go.     Science Daily reported on work by UK scientists who used “entomological radar” to monitor where the […]
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Fossils

Not Even Wrong: Darwin’s Tree Suffers Base Blow
April 11, 2008
Darwin’s “tree of life” icon is suffering another blow.  The root of multicellular life was supposed to be the simplest, most primitive animal.  Now, scientists are seriously considering that the mother of all animals was a complex animal with a gut, tissues, a nervous system and amazing light displays: a comb jelly.     PhysOrg […]
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Uncategorized

Grand Canyon Age Estimates Fluctuate Wildly
April 10, 2008
Just when the park rangers were getting familiar telling the public the Grand Canyon was carved about 5 million years ago, some geologists announced the shocking news that it might be less than a million (05/31/2002, 07/22/2002).  The age was plummeting as recently as November (11/30/2007).  But then last month, another revision came: it’s 17 […]
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Intelligent Design

Big Science Fights Its Customers
April 9, 2008
Has “Big Science” lost contact with the public it serves?  Several recent reports show the scientific establishment (as represented by the leading journals) taking positions at polar opposites of the majority, and wagging the dog of the body politic. Chimeras:  Even though ethicists have called it “a monstrous attack on human rights,” to blend human […]
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Education

Darwin on a Chip
April 8, 2008
PhysOrg, EurekAlert and and Science Daily announced “Evolution on the table top.”  Reporting on a paper in PLoS Biology by Brian Paegel and Gerald Joyce at Scripps, the article claims that the two scientists “have produced a computer-controlled system that can drive the evolution of improved RNA enzymes—biological catalysts—without human input.”  The scientists claim they […]
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Cell Biology

Watch for Falling Amino Acids
April 8, 2008
A long-standing problem of origin-of-life theories is how proteins became left-handed.  Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, come in right-handed and left-handed forms, yet life uses only the left-handed form.     The two isoforms are otherwise identical—yet one amino acid of the wrong hand in a protein spells doom for its function.  Wherever […]
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Intelligent Design

Expelled: Battle of the Reviews
April 7, 2008
Two weeks before Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed hits the theaters (April 18), reviewers are starting to weigh in.  One could hardly find a bigger contrast between two reviews that came out a day apart.     Dave Mosher, writing for Live Science, used every trick in the book to call this “a bad film in […]
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