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Dumb Ideas

The Evolution of Drunkenness
August 12, 2004
No kidding; an evolutionist is trying to figure out why humans evolved into the stoned age.  “What Would Darwin Say About Drinking?“ reads the title of an article on WineSpectator.com: “Some Scientists Believe Humans Evolved to Enjoy Alcohol.”  Reporter Jacob Gaffney proposes the strange idea that survival of the fittest produced alcoholics: “your desire to […]
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Solar System

Jupi-Tar?
August 11, 2004
Among the incomprehensible titles of most papers in the Astrophysical Journal, this one stood out: “Jupiter Formed with More Tar than Ice.”1  Looking at Galileo spacecraft data for oxygen abundance and other things, Katharina Lodders was led to propose the following model: Carbonaceous matter, which has high sticking probabilities, was the agent that sped up […]
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Dinosaurs

T. Rex: I Was a Teenage Monster
August 11, 2004
The news media quickly latched onto a report in Nature1 that Tyrannosaurus rex had a growth spurt in adolescence.  Dr. Gregory Erickson of Florida State measured growth lines in leg bones and found faster growth between age 14 and 18 on the famous Rex specimen named Sue, says EurekAlert based on info from Florida State […]
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Cell Biology

ATP Synthase: Another Unexpected Case of Fine Tuning
August 10, 2004
ATP synthase, the miniature rotary motor that powers our cells, has been a subject of great interest since the elucidation of its rotary function won three scientists a Nobel prize in 1997.  As an example of a precision-crafted, true electric rotary motor in living systems (another being the larger bacterial flagellum), it also provides a […]
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Origin of Life

A Martian Crust: Was It Alive?
August 9, 2004
David McKay, the father of the Martian meteorite that started feverish debates about life on Mars in 1996, is at it again.  Now he thinks a mat of crusty soil was made by microbes, according to Space.Com.     In spite of the salty, acidic soil (see 08/06/04 headline), Gilbert Levin, also interviewed by Space.Com, […]
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Amazing Facts

Inner Ear Hairs Provide Optimum Sensitivity
August 9, 2004
The inner ear cochlea is lined with hair cells that transduce mechanical vibrations into electrical signals for the auditory nerve.  European scientists publishing in PNAS1 measured the sensitivity of inner ear hair cells to mechanical motion, and considering the noise caused by thermal motion, calculated that the ear operates at the optimum level.  The ear […]
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Solar System

“Toy Model” of Planetary Migration Partially Explains Neptune, but Not Uranus
August 6, 2004
When we last saw Hal Levison (Southwest Research Institute), the genius-at-work was going crazy in fairyland over the difficulties of explaining Uranus and Neptune (see 05/30/2002 headline).  He’s been recovering sanity slowly; he thinks he has a working hypothesis for why Neptune stopped migrating at 30 AU (astronomical unit = sun-earth distance).  Uranus, though, is […]
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Cell Biology

Cell Nucleus Complexity Baffles Evolutionists
August 6, 2004
In her inimitable way, Science reporter Elizabeth Pennisi has once again portrayed a scientific controversy undergoing active ferment.  This time it’s about the evolutionary origin of cell nuclei, which she terms “specialized, DNA-filled command centers.”1  At the conclusion, she gives prominence to a “provocative, but circumstantial and controversial” suggestion that viruses taught cells how to […]
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Education

Kansas Elects Two ID-Friendly School Board Members
August 6, 2004
According to John Calvert writing for Access Research Network, Kansans defeated two pro-evolution candidates for the state school board, electing instead Kathy Martin and Steve Abrams who both oppose the “evolution-only” policy.     Martin won against Bruce Wyatt, an incumbent who based his entire campaign on the need to keep intelligent design or creation […]
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Uncategorized

Mars Science Results Fleshed Out, but the Spirit Is Weak
August 6, 2004
The first detailed science results from the Mars Exploration Rover “Spirit” have been published in eleven papers in the Aug. 6 issue of Science.1  Highlights include: the Gusev Crater shows no sign of lake sedimentary deposits, but rather is composed of volcanic ash with some windblown dust.  Lacustrine (lakebed) deposits, if any, must be buried […]
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Uncategorized

Science Journal Takes Political Sides
August 5, 2004
It might seem unusual or even improper for a science journal to encourage its readers to vote for a particular presidential candidate, especially for voters in a different country than its publishers’ domicile.  Nature Aug. 5 contained two such articles that could hardly be defended as non-partisan.  An editorial1 said in ostensibly neutral terms, “Researchers […]
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Birds

So Is Archaeopteryx a Transitional Form, Or Not?
August 5, 2004
An international team set out to determine if the skull features of Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil bird, indicated whether it was capable of flight.  The answer reported in Nature1 was affirmative: Here we show the reconstruction of the braincase from which we derived endocasts of the brain and inner ear.  These suggest that Archaeopteryx closely […]
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Uncategorized

The Darwin Wars: New Book Reopens Old Scars
August 5, 2004
In the late 1970s, Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould reopened an episodic war between Darwinists over the question whether evolution is gradual or jerky with their theory of “punctuated equilibria.”  Even though both sides presented an evolution-as-fact face to the public, the bitterness of the attacks between the orthodox gradualists like Richard Dawkins and […]
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Uncategorized

Book Review
August 4, 2004
In his daily Breakpoint commentary, Chuck Colson briefly reviews William Dembski’s new book Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing.  Colson was especially taken by the interchange between David Berlinski and the pro-Darwinists.  It led him to think, “Suffice it to say, after reading this chapter, and better yet this book, you’ll realize that Darwinism […]
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Uncategorized

Does Evolution Evolve?
August 4, 2004
If phrases like “the conservation of conservatism” or “the production of productivity” leave you scratching your head, you may wear off a few hairs thinking about a paper in PNAS1 on the “evolution of evolvability.”  Entitled, “Is evolvability a selectable trait?”, this paper by two scientists at Rice University considers whether the rate of change […]
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