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Dumb Ideas

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: Better Living Through Chemistry
February 18, 2006
Joel Achenbach (Washington Post) got a page in the March 2006 National Geographic.  His short piece on chemical evolution was juxtaposed (whether intentionally or not we do not know) against a news item on archaeology announcing the discovery of a new Dead Sea Scroll – the first found in 40 years – a fragment from […]
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Intelligent Design

Bloviating on I.D. – Is It Garrulous?
February 17, 2006
TV commentator Bill O’Reilly has brought two obscure words to the attention of his viewers: ”bloviating” (discoursing at length in a pompous manner) and “garrulous” (wordy and rambling, tiresomely talkative).  A number of talking heads and writing hands have taken to bloviating about intelligent design (ID) recently.  Readers may wish to get out their blovimeters […]
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Biology

Alien Engineering: Is It Intelligent Design?
February 16, 2006
The SETI Institute finished airing a 2-part series on the History Channel called Alien Engineering (it will be rebroadcast on Feb. 18).  The series, featuring SETI Institute scientists Seth Shostak and Frank Drake, asks the following questions: Prepare for an exercise in imagination.  Suppose that an alien spacecraft crashed in the desert and we humans […]
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Education

Ohio School Board Votes Down Critical Analysis of Evolution
February 15, 2006
In more apparent fallout from the Dover case, the Ohio State Board of Education (OSBE) voted 11-4 to strike language from the high school science standards that stated simply, “Describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.”  The same standards specifically mentioned that intelligent design would not be taught.  No […]
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Fossils

Evolutionists Tackle Cambrian Explosion
February 14, 2006
You have to give credit to anyone who tackles a big problem head-on, regardless of whether you agree with their solution.  Two recent papers take on one of evolution’s biggest challenges: the Cambrian Explosion.  Assuming the evolutionary timeline, this represents a “brief” 5 million year period back 530 million years ago when most of the […]
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Uncategorized

Undersea Lost World Found in Caribbean
February 14, 2006
No sooner had news spread about a treasure trove of animals in the jungles of Papua (see 02/07/2006 story) than scientists announced another in Neptune’s realm.  The BBC News and MSNBC reported that “An underwater mountain with some of the richest diversity of marine life in the Caribbean has been found by scientists.”     […]
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Origin of Life

Life Didn’t Start on Hot Clay
February 13, 2006
Strike off one more proposal for the origin of life.  “Darwin’s warm pond theory tested,” announced the BBC News, but it was found wanting.     Origin of life researchers have long recognized the serious problem of concentrating organic molecules in a primordial soup such that they could interact and grow.  A popular ingredient in […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Liberal Pastors Rally to Defend Darwin on “Evolution Sunday”
February 11, 2006
Imagine this scene at a local church in your community: Our text for this morning’s sermon is taken from Origin of Species, chapter 15: “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet […]
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Education

Darwinists Bemoan Creation/ID Obstinance, Strategize to Improve Darwin Image
February 10, 2006
The journal Science devoted three articles in eight days to the intelligent design controversy.  Last week, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee used warfare metaphors in a report from Kansas:1 battle, attack, defenders juxtaposed with talk of tiptoeing gently around voters’ concerns about voting in “godless atheists” to the school board.  He spoke of “moderates” like Harry McDonald and […]
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Origin of Life

SETI Tries to Stretch the Habitable Zone
February 9, 2006
Can life exist outside the circumstellar habitable zone, that ring of life around a star where the temperature is comfy?  “For more than 150 years,” Ker Than wrote for LiveScience, “…this zone has been defined as a narrow disk around a star where temperatures are moderate enough that water on the surface of a planet […]
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Education

Schools Discipline Rowdy ID Proponents
February 9, 2006
It’s been awhile since we checked into American science classrooms and school board meetings.  What’s going on with the movement for “teaching the controversy” about Darwinism? Midwest: Unexplained Panic Attacks:  Casey Luskin of Discovery Institute has documented the spread of “False Fear Syndrome” from Kansas to South Carolina and Ohio to Wisconsin.  Late word has […]
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Origin of Life

Article: David Berlinski on the Origin of Life
February 9, 2006
David Berlinski has written a survey of the origin of life field in the Feb. 2006 issue of Commentary magazine.  He critiques whether origin-of-life research qualifies as an entry into “the model for what science should be.” This is a good article to gain background on a topic often discussed here at CEH.  You can […]
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Dinosaurs

Imaginary Feathers Found on Dinosaur
February 8, 2006
The science news outlets are all talking about a new dinosaur with feathers, but where are the feathers?  Bjorn Carey at LiveScience said that Guanlong wucaii were “likely covered in feathers” and MSNBC said it was “likely feathered as a chicken.”  John Roach on National Geographic News even went so far as to say, “Scientists […]
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Birds

Treasure Trove of Rare Species Found in Papua New Guinea
February 7, 2006
There are still untouched areas on our planet.  Scientists announced the discovery of a “lost world” of new species of birds and mammals in a remote section of Papua New Guinea with no sign of trails or roads.  The news media are all abuzz with the exciting announcement: see MSNBC, National Geographic, BBC News, EurekAlert […]
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Dumb Ideas

More on “Literary Darwinism”
February 7, 2006
Harold Fromm in Science1 reviewed Gottschall’s new book on literary Darwinism (see 01/27/2006 entry).  Like Gottschall, he argued that an evolution-informed approach to literary criticism is superior because it provides quantifiable certitude: For years, scholars in the literary humanities have struggled to achieve at least a semblance of the certitude possible in the sciences, although […]
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