VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Biology

Humans Evolved from Dogs
February 10, 2012
A new finding shows dogs performing better on one kind of intelligence test than chimpanzees. If evolution teaches that human intelligence is the main trait separating us from other animals, and dogs are smarter than apes, shouldn’t the conclusion be that dogs are closer on the family tree? If not, is it valid for evolutionary biologists to pick and choose the traits that matter?
CONTINUE READING
Biology

Innovation as a Dodge
February 7, 2012
This is not a truck commercial. It’s not about a Dodge as an innovation, but innovation as a dodge. It’s about how a word, innovation, is used as a euphemism in evolution articles. The word seems to mean, “we have no clue how this evolved, but it must have for evolution to be true.” It’s a handy rhetorical trick, because without it, a reader might be tempted to think the evidence supports creation. Some recent articles show how the trick is employed.
CONTINUE READING
Bible and Theology

Rethinking Parasitism
February 4, 2012
Parasitism is bad. Parasitism is evil. Parasites wage war against innocent hosts. This is our mindset. What if parasites can do good? This change of heart seems to be happening for one case, the case of transposable genetic elements. If they are only doing harm to the host, why did some biologists find that “positive selection” seems to be maintaining them? That makes it sound like the cells need them.
CONTINUE READING
Awards

Mouse to Elephant? Just Add Time
January 30, 2012
How do you evolve a mouse into an elephant? Just add 24 million generations. But you can shrink it back down in just 100,000 generations. This and other eyebrow-raising stories have been told in the secular science media recently.
CONTINUE READING
Awards

Turning an Unevolved Horseshoe Crab Into a Darwin Showpiece
January 26, 2012
Horseshoe crabs are survivors by anyone’s measure; they have carried on their lives virtually unchanged, according to the standard evolutionary timeline, for 450 million years. This not only points to incredible stasis against alleged forces of evolution; it also means they have survived at least three global extinctions that evolutionary biologists and geologists say wiped out most other species. Not only that, the world has changed drastically since they allegedly evolved from who-knows-what arthropod ancestors – perhaps trilobites, that appeared in the Cambrian Explosion without ancestors. But the numerous, successful trilobites did not survive the global extinctions. Given these contradictory facts, how can the horseshoe crab possibly be an exhibit for evolution? A recent article shows how.
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

News for the Birds
January 24, 2012
Our amazing feathered friends range from tiny hummingbirds to fast-running ostriches, from penguins to pigeons. In both living and fossil forms, they provide endless opportunities for study and fascination. Here are a few recent examples of news for the birds, in both good and bad connotations of the phrase.
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Living Surprises, Living Hopes
January 21, 2012
Here are ten recent discoveries about plants and animals that are surprising and inspiring. Some of them may lead to technologies that can improve our own lives.
CONTINUE READING
Biology

More Evidence Cambrian Explosion was Un-Darwinian
January 18, 2012
The Cambrian Explosion (the abrupt appearance of animal phyla in the earliest fossil layers bearing multicellular body plans) remains unmuffled. Known by Darwin as a problem for his theory, it has become more problematic to his followers over time. There are now many more Cambrian fossils than Darwin knew of, and they continue the pattern: sudden appearance of complex animals, complete with legs, digestive systems, eyes, and nervous systems. Discoveries of Precambrian fossils have not helped: the ones that are more than microbial appear to be mere colonies of cells with no relationship to animals. Here are more discoveries that fit this pattern.
CONTINUE READING
Biology

More Upsets for Darwin
January 17, 2012
For every hyped-up demonstration of evolution in action the media announces with gusto, there are setbacks that often do not get the splashy headlines. Here are three recent examples.
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Science Grab Bag
January 13, 2012
Here's a random assortment of things floating around in the science news media – some fascinating, some informative, some disgusting. We’ll let the readers decide which is which. Since it’s Friday the 13th, a day to enjoy like any other day, we’ll give you a baker’s dozen to sample.
CONTINUE READING
Awards

Darwinian Explanations: Show or Snow?
January 10, 2012
We all know the proverbial “snow job.” That’s putting on an entertaining song and dance without doing the assignment. A college sophomore (wise fool) writes a 15-page term paper full of jargon that, on closer inspection, didn’t follow directions or didn’t answer the question – it reveals ignorance of the subject. A job applicant makes an impression with humor or appearance without demonstrating ability to do the work. A junior makes up a fanciful story to cover up why he didn’t mow the lawn. Scientists are supposed to explain things based on observation and testable hypotheses. If Darwinians really believe that an unguided, impersonal, purposeless mechanism led to the diversity of life on Earth, they need to show the evidence. Here are a few recent examples of evolutionary explanations. Check whether they “show” evolution, or distract attention with a “snow” job.
CONTINUE READING
Darwin and Evolution

What Do Scientists Know About Prehistory?
January 9, 2012
Evolutionary biologists and geologists speak of events happening millions or billions of years ago as concrete facts. They are not observational facts, though; they are inferences from indirect evidence. Indirect evidence can often lead to different conclusions; in fact, some philosophers like Duhem and Quine argue for “under-determination of theory by data,” meaning that data can never converge to support just one theory. Some can demonstrate logically that there are an infinite number of theories that can explain a set of data. Evolutionary scientists counter that there are only one or a few that are reasonable (implying that theirs is among the limited set of reasonable ones). Recent discoveries that threaten to overturn past reasonable theories, though, cast doubt on their confidence.
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Body Talk
January 7, 2012
Scientists sometimes just prove the obvious, like that men and women are different. If we can talk body without talking bawdy, there are some new discoveries about body works that should put a spring in your step today about how your body works.
CONTINUE READING
Amazing Facts

Nature Does It Right
January 4, 2012
Scientists and engineers continue to find well-designed features in living things that are worth imitating.
CONTINUE READING
Biology

Hear Ye: Another Darwinian Prediction Falsified by Fossils
January 3, 2012
In a classic test of evolutionary “post-diction” (predicting what should be found in the fossil record), scientists made a bold prediction of what insect ears would look like before the evolution of bats. Believing that the presence of bats, a new predator with sonar, would spur the evolution of insect ears, the scientists predicted that earlier insects would have less-developed ears, or none at all. Then they found exceptionally-preserved insect fossils from the Green River formation in Wyoming, and compared the fossil evidence with their prediction. What was found?
CONTINUE READING
All Posts by Date