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Media

Can You Trust the Bible Skeptics?
April 7, 2006
Ever since National Geographic announced the completion of a translation of the Gospel of Judas (a 2nd-century apocryphal gospel attributed to, but not authored by, Judas), the news media have been abuzz with speculations that it provides a clearer view of Jesus from Judas’ point of view, and that the early church leaders suppressed it.  […]
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Dumb Ideas

The Evolution of Irreducible Complexity
April 6, 2006
It must be open season on Intelligent Design (ID).  Yesterday, Nature tried defense with a new missing link claim (04/06) and today, Science is printing a story to tackle ID’s offensive line, irreducible complexity (see U of Oregon press release and EurekAlert).  The Discovery Institute immediately jumped to the match, with Mr. Irreducible Complexity himself, […]
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Fossils

Fish-o-pod ‘Missing Link’ Discovered: Media Goes Nuts
April 6, 2006
Evolutionists could hardly feel more relieved.  Just when anti-evolutionary sentiment is on the rise, a new fossil has been announced that gives pro-evolutionists a missing link to run up the fishpole, and boy, did the media salute.  Neil Shubin (U of Chicago) and two partners found a “tetrapod-like fish” fossil on a Canadian island.  It […]
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Biomimetics

Experimental Biologists Look to Animals for Inspiration
April 5, 2006
Whether insects, fish, birds or mammals, animals have a lot to teach scientists and engineers.  Here are some recent stories that begin to answer, “How do they do that?” with hopes that humans might be able to mimic their feats. Hard sponges:  Aimee Cunningham in Science News (03/25/2006; 169:12, p. 184) described the astonishment Joanna […]
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Education

The Class Struggle: Students Challenge Teachers Over Evolution
April 5, 2006
Teaching uncooperative teenagers has always been challenging, but some of today’s biology teachers may feel nostalgic for the days when rowdy students whacked the bulletin boards with real spitballs instead of verbal ones.  Now, dodging student challenges to evolution is getting downright exhausting.  Students used to just accept what the teacher said about the subject […]
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Origin of Life

“Fertile Imagination” Envisions Life on Titan
April 4, 2006
The dramatic landing of the Huygens Probe on Titan over a year ago (01/14/2005, 01/21/2005, 12/05/2005) is finally getting some overdue notice from the media.  The PBS science series NOVA just aired a new program on Cassini-Huygens, “Voyage to the Mystery Moon” (see your local PBS station for rebroadcast times), and Astronomy Magazine’s May 2006 […]
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Dumb Ideas

Scientist Tries to Explain Away Miracle of Jesus Walking on Water
April 4, 2006
Easter is approaching.  That must mean it’s the season for skeptics to try their hand at debunking the miracles of Jesus.  The first entry this year seems to be one by Doron Nof of Florida State University who claims Jesus walked on ice, not on water.  He came up with an explanation for how parts […]
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Education

War Stories: Darwinism vs. ID
April 3, 2006
How are things going in the Darwin Wars?  The rhetoric is still flying, and there have been gains and losses on both sides.  Here are assorted war stories from battle stations and strategic summits: Golden Rule at Hahvahd:  The Harvard Gazette held a panel discussion on “How Do We Teach Evolution.”  Richard Lewontin sees the […]
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Politics and Ethics

Scientists Cheer Theoretical Holocaust
April 2, 2006
Popular science reporter Forest Mims III heard a chilling round of applause at a meeting of scientists, reported World Net Daily.  When lizard expert Eric R. Pianka suggested it would be a good thing if airborne ebola killed off 90% of the human population, he got a standing ovation – and an award.  At a […]
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Fossils

Can Delicate Fossil Embryos Survive 570 Million Years?
April 1, 2006
Scientists and English and American universities are trying to understand how to preserve biological embryos such as those found in Cambrian rock claimed to be 570 million years old, reports a press release from Indiana University.  Normally, such soft tissues would disappear within a month.  “It’s like trying to fossilize soap bubbles” they said.  “Some […]
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Astronomy

More Hints at Early Origin of Stars, Galaxies
March 31, 2006
Several articles this month showed further evidence for a growing realization in astronomy: stars and galaxies were already mature at the beginning of the universe (see, for instance, 09/21/2005 entry).  Some recent examples: Spitzer Clusters:  JPL issued a press release stating that the Spitzer Space Telescope, on a “cosmic safari,” found evidence for clusters of […]
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Dumb Ideas

Sacrificial Love Evolved from Colored Beards
March 31, 2006
Scientific jargon is like a foreign language to most lay people, but anyone stumbling across a paper on “altruism through beard chromodynamics” in Nature1 this week must surely wonder what on earth Vincent Jansen and Minus van Baalen were talking about.  Let’s see if their introduction can explain, or if Nature has printed a grown-up […]
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Cell Biology

Reviewer Stunned by Author’s Handwaving
March 31, 2006
David Nicholls appears to have suffered whiplash from a line in a book he was reviewing in Science,1 Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life by Nick Lane (Oxford, 2006).  Though he liked the book in general, he said this about Lane’s explanation for how the first cell got its power generator: The […]
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Genetics

Minimum Genome Doubles
March 31, 2006
How many genes does a bacterium need to live?  Evolutionists interested in the origin of life have been trying to determine the minimal genome for life.  Those estimates may have been way too low, say researchers from the University of Bath.  Though they did not supply a number, they estimate the required number of genes […]
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Dumb Ideas

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week:  Evolution of ABC
March 30, 2006
Four Caltech scientists have tried to explain the shapes of alphabet letters in evolutionary terms, reported EurekAlert: In a new study forthcoming in the May 2006 issue of The American Naturalist, Mark A. Changizi and his coauthors, Qiang Zhang, Hao Ye, and Shinsuke Shimojo, from the California Institute of Technology explore the hypothesis that human […]
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