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Darwin Lovers Unite Against ID

November 17, 2005

Pictures of Darwin looking like a wise guru draped in white hair seem to adorn many articles attacking intelligent design. With 2009 being the Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of The Origin, Bruce H. Weber in Nature remarked, “Impending anniversaries and the trial over ‘intelligent design’ make this a good time to revisit […]

Uncategorized

Blurb Face-Off

November 17, 2005

Genetics

Does Gene Expression Evolve?

November 17, 2005

“Mutation is the ultimate source of biological diversity because it generates the variation that fuels evolution,” wrote four scientists in Nature November 10.1 Conventionally, theorists have focused on gene mutations for that fuel; what about mutations to gene expression? That’s what they set out to discover. One would think that positive natural selection […]

Birds

News from the Cretaceous

November 16, 2005

Here are some recent stories about extinct reptiles and bird-like creatures from the age of dinosaurs. T. Rex Smelled Good: A story in Science1 listed evidence that Tyrannosaurus rex had a large olfactory bulb, giving it a good sense of smell. Analysis of the visual and auditory parts of the skull suggest that it also […]

Biomimetics

Scientists Learning How to Harness Cellular Trucks

November 15, 2005

In an article that blurs the line between biology and technology, a press release from the Max Planck Institute (see EurekAlert for English translation) described the amazing performance of the nanoscopic trucks that ride the cell’s microtubule superhighways. Kinesin and myosin motors, fueled by ATP, usually “sprint” on the trackways for short distances, but working […]

Education

Like, Make a Tree

November 14, 2005

Three Darwinist professors lamented recently in Science1 that few scientists are making like a tree: “‘tree thinking’ remains widely practiced only by professional evolutionary biologists,” they said. And just what is “tree thinking”? It is basically thinking like Darwin; i.e., looking at the living world with phylogenetic glasses: The central claim of the theory of […]

Politics and Ethics

Psychotherapy Struggles to Demonstrate Scientific Validity

November 13, 2005

Psychologist, heal thyself. That may well have been the caption to the cover story of Science News,1 illustrated with an iconic cartoon of the patient on the psychoanalyst’s couch – only this time, psychotherapy itself is the patient. “Researchers spar over how best to evaluate psychotherapy,” announced Bruce Bower, as he described the attempts of […]

Bible and Theology

Bible History News

November 11, 2005

Three stories of interest to historians of the Holy Land were reported recently: A Is for Aleph: A stone abecedary, or alphabet tablet, has been unearthed in the hill country south of Jerusalem. It is dated to the 10th century BC, the time of David and Solomon. See MSNBC News for a summary. The New […]

Amazing Facts

Sea Monsters Were For Real

November 11, 2005

A large fossil crocodile-like sea monster with a bullet-shaped snout has been reported in Science.1 See MSNBC News for a summary. For an artistic rendering of what Dakosaurus andiniensis might have looked like, see National Geographic News, which states that the discovery will be the December cover story of their magazine. Dubbed “Godzilla” by its […]

Bible and Theology

Pope Affirms Intelligent Design

November 10, 2005

Just when pro-Darwinists were parlaying one bishop against another on the Catholic position on evolution (see the UK Times Online for an op-ed piece with some historical context), the Pope made it clear: he expects the faithful to embrace intelligent design. The Discovery Institute was pleased that Pope Benedict XVI used the phrase “intelligent project” […]

Birds

March of the Little Penguins Down Darwin Lane?

November 10, 2005

Penguins are on people’s minds since the movie, but there are other species of the handsome-yet-funny waddlers besides the reigning emperors. The news media are saying one species demonstrates evolution – another word on the public mind these days. MSNBC News talked about “Penguin evolution,” and Science Now proclaimed “Evolution on Ice.” Actually, it’s only […]

Education

Dover School Board Members Ousted

November 9, 2005

Eight school board members in Dover, Pennsylvania, who had backed the intelligent-design policy that led to the ACLU lawsuit, lost their seats in Tuesday’s election. A slate of Democrats who opposed the policy will take their place December 5. The campaign against the Republicans who lost was spearheaded by a group named Citizens Actively Reviewing […]

Education

Kansas Removes Darwinism from Protected Status

November 8, 2005

It’s official; the Kansas school board has accepted new science standards that permit criticisms of Darwinism, reported Evolution News. This makes Kansas the fifth state to allow both evidences for and against Darwinism to be taught, and brings their definition of science in line with the majority of other states. News reactions were […]

Genetics

Genome Complexity No Measure of Evolution

November 7, 2005

Do genes show an increasing pattern of complexity from lower to higher organisms? Not necessarily, reported Elizabeth Pennisi in Science Now. Cnidarians, including sea anemones and corals, for example, show almost as much complexity in their genomes as humans, whereas fruit flies and worms, seemingly more complex than cnidarians (06/25/2005, 2nd par.) appear to have […]

Dumb Ideas

Stupid Evolution Quotes of the Week

November 7, 2005

Two articles in the popular press tried to make the case that monkeys have humanlike characteristics. Maybe they proved the converse, at least for some humans. Does this add up? Reporting on experiments suggesting monkeys have the rudiments of math skills, at least in the ability to compare sizes of things, MSNBC News writer Bjorn […]

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