VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Dumb Ideas

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week:  The Evolution of Shopper’s Arm
March 31, 2007
This week’s prize goes to the Society for Experimental Biology, which, according to EurekAlert, said this in a press release: The next time you are struggling to carry your bags home from the supermarket just remember that this could, in fact, be the reason you are able to walk upright on two legs at all!  […]
CONTINUE READING
Solar System

The Hot Moon Epidemic Spreads to the Suburbs
March 31, 2007
A planetary symptom we might call “Enceladus fever” is apparently an epidemic.  Now, we’ve found that it infects some of the Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) beyond the orbit of Neptune.  More and more small bodies are being found with internal heat that has broken out onto the surface.  This is a big surprise.  Small bodies […]
CONTINUE READING
Fossils

Did Indians See Jurassic Beasts?
March 30, 2007
Did Indians have familiarity with Jurassic monsters, or were they good paleontologists, skilled at reconstructions?  In the “Random Samples” page of news tidbits in the journal Science March 30,1 the story is told and the interpretation given: Some fossils are rare, but this one recently unearthed in eastern Oregon may be positively mythic.  In life, […]
CONTINUE READING
Origin of Life

Is Hardy Life Evidence of an Evolutionary Origin?
March 29, 2007
Salt-tolerate species of unicellular organisms are found in all three kingdoms of life, says an article on Space.com.  “Astrobiologists, those cross disciplinary scientists dedicated to investigating the broad question of life in the universe,” writes Lisa Chu-Theilbar of the SETI Institute, “often study extremophiles, organisms that live at the edges of what life is known […]
CONTINUE READING
Physics

Saturn Still Serving Surprises
March 28, 2007
The Cassini Spacecraft, three-fourths of the way into its 4-year prime mission, is not running out of new things to see.  Some of the latest discoveries are both awesome and strange. A Hex on the Pole:  As if the south pole of Saturn, with its earth-sized hurricane (picture) were not dramatic enough, the north pole […]
CONTINUE READING
Uncategorized

Desperately Seeking Macroevolution
March 28, 2007
With Intelligent Design critics hot on their heels, Darwinian evolutionists are hot to find transitional forms that they can exhibit as evidence for large-scale evolution (macroevolution).  A symposium on that very subject was held last October by the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), but a report on the conference did not come out till […]
CONTINUE READING
Early Man

Leakey Manipulated His Apelike “Skull 1470” to Look Human
March 27, 2007
The skull of an alleged human ancestor Richard Leakey made famous in 1972 was poorly reconstructed, claims a paleoanthropologist who specializes in craniofacial biology.  According to Dr. Timothy Bromage of New York University, Leakey employed nonstandard principles while assembling the bones of his “Skull 1470”, giving the face a flatter, more human-like profile.  Many at […]
CONTINUE READING
Dinosaurs

New Dinos Found; What Do They Mean?
March 27, 2007
There is often a wide gap between the bones that are found and the stories that are told about them.  As new dinosaur bones come to light, some reporters cannot resist imagining all kinds of things about their lifestyles.  Here are two recent examples.  As a bonus, we’ll add a non-dinosaur reptile story or two. […]
CONTINUE READING
Uncategorized

Geological Truisms Questioned
March 27, 2007
Nothing is a constant in scientific theories.  Popular ideas often wind up historical anecdotes.  What will happen to these two popular concepts? Snowball Earth Melts:  The idea that prior to the emergence of complex life the Earth was frozen over has been given the colorful title, “Snowball Earth.”  Scientists at Imperial College, London, are questioning […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

Can the Interior Design Itself?
March 26, 2007
Calling all interior designers: has Darwinism rendered you superfluous?  J. Scott Turner thinks so.  He wrote a book called The Tinkerer’s Accomplice: How Design Emerges from Life Itself (Harvard, 2007).  It was reviewed by Claus Wedekind in last week’s Nature with the title, “The interior designer.”  This does not imply that interiors need an exterior […]
CONTINUE READING
Education

Free Speech?  Not When Darwin Is at Stake
March 25, 2007
Radicals get away with saying or doing almost anything on campuses these days.  There’s one “radical” view, however, that even though believed by a majority of Americans, is sure to be met with outrage: creationism.  It doesn’t even have to be creationism.  Just to suggest that Darwin and his views might not be infallible is […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week:  Monkeys Bang Rocks, Invent Culture
March 23, 2007
The venerable University of Cambridge earns this week’s prize for the following statements in a press release today: New evidence of “human” culture among primates 23 March 2007 Research suggests that stone-banging by South American monkeys could be a socially-learned skill Fresh evidence that suggests monkeys can learn skills from each other, in the same […]
CONTINUE READING
Health

Lunar Dust Is Deadly
March 22, 2007
A significant fraction of lunar dust could pose deadly risks to future astronauts stationed on the moon, a BBC News report says.  About 1-3% of moon dust particles are too small to be coughed up or removed by the cilia lining the respiratory tract.  These would lodge in the lungs and become inflamed.  As in […]
CONTINUE READING
Human Body

Questions to Ask a Reductionist Neurobiologist
March 21, 2007
Can the totality of the brain be described in terms of its neurons?  Is consciousness an artifact of the movement of signals in the brain?  Can the complexity of the brain be described in terms of its evolutionary history?  Does the hardware define the software that runs on it? Gy�rgy Buzs�ki attempted to address these questions […]
CONTINUE READING
Fossils

Missing Link, or Just Jawboning About Ear Evolution?
March 19, 2007
Tetrapod vertebrates (four-footed animals with backbones) comprise a dizzying array of species, both living and extinct.  When is it justifiable to arrange different forms into an ancestral evolutionary sequence, especially when some members are extinct and others are still alive today?  On what basis can scientists claim that a discovery demonstrates evolution?  Some Chinese scientists […]
CONTINUE READING
Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly"]