Of Talking Trees and Plant Perfumes
February 21, 2006
It’s not just Middle Earth where the trees talk. The forests of Regular Earth have a language, too.
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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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
How Circular Reasoning Passes Peer Review
January 31, 2006
“Evolution is a fact; therefore, evolution is a fact.” That kind of logic would strike most people as either odd or flawed. Yet it is common fare in scientific journals, where the assumption of evolution is used as proof of evolution. Darwinists are fond of comparing evolution to gravity, making it appear such […]
Darwin Acid Eats Literature
January 27, 2006
A potent acid has fallen on the bookshelf, eating away the minds and intentions of its characters, dissolving romances and adventures into a hideous morass of uniform consistency. Prominent evolutionist Daniel Dennett, author of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, wrote that evolution is like a “universal acid” that cannot be contained in its scientific vial. […]
Human Evolution: Clear as Mud
January 24, 2006
Evolutionists speak of our descent from apes with an air of confidence and certainty, but connecting the dots requires a bit of artistic license. Here are some examples of how any data, no matter how puzzling, can be made to fit the Darwinian picture. Stretchy Clocks: A famous painting by Salvador Dali portrayed clocks draped […]
The Evolution of Spite
January 21, 2006
Since everything evolves, according to consensus science, why not attitudes like spite? The BBC News reported about a University College London study on attitudes of revenge between the sexes. They found that men seemed to get more satisfaction out of hurting foes than women. This is all part of an evolutionary explanation for altruistic behavior […]
Dust Bunny Lays Planet Eggs
January 17, 2006
Where do planets come from? The Dust Bunny. That’s a line coming from a press release from the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy. They measured spectra of gas and dust at radio and infrared wavelengths around a sunlike star, and concluded the dust was collecting. “This suggests that the dust particles are sticking together, […]
Why Your Brain Has Gray Matter, and Why You Should Use It
January 13, 2006
Vertebrate brains have an outer layer of “gray matter” over the inner “white matter.” Why is this? “By borrowing mathematical tools from theoretical physics,” a press release from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory announced, two researchers found out. Based on no fewer than 62 mathematical equations and expressions, the theory provides a possible explanation for the […]
Darwin Hits Home: Adultery Rationalized
January 8, 2006
USA Today began an article with a steamy picture of a man and a woman embracing. As could be expected, they are not married; reporter Sharon Jayson began, “Some men cheat on their partners. So do some women. Now researchers say it is more than a wandering eye that might cause a woman to stray.” […]
Health Depends on Robust Cell Machinery
January 5, 2006
When we think of health, we typically visualize the big things: firm muscles, energy, lack of a protruding stomach and the like. Cell biology, though, is showing us how our health depends on the proper functioning of countless myriads of molecular machines. Here are some recent samples from the science journals: Heroic Underdogs in the […]
Do Guppies Make Good Darwinian Grandmothers?
December 31, 2005
If a report on EurekAlert is right, some evolutionary biologists used lack of evidence for natural selection as confirmation for evolution. They predicted guppies would show no evidence of a “grandmother effect” on life history after reproduction, and “that is what they found.” The question under study is why evolution keeps aging individuals […]
Astronomers See Poison Around Star, Think Life
December 29, 2005
The Spitzer Space Telescope discovered acetylene and hydrogen cyanide, two deadly gases, around a star. Some astronomers got all excited and thought of the birth of life. The title of a press release from Jet Propulsion Laboratory read, “Partial ingredients for DNA and protein found around star.” The two carbon-containing substances were found in the […]