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Darwin and Evolution

Documentary Ties Darwin to Disastrous Social Consequences
September 27, 2010
Todd Friel’s new documentary, What Hath Darwin Wrought (see trailer at WhatHathDarwinWrought.com), harps on the proverb, “Ideas have consequences.”  The twentieth century, “Darwin’s century,” saw some of the most horrendous ethical abuses the world has ever seen.  The documentary includes lengthy interviews with David Berlinski (mathematician, author), John West (ethicist and legal analyst) and Richard […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Children Propagandized Into Evolution with Fishy Tale
September 7, 2010
Google News also reported on the award.     Richard Dawkins must be delighted with the new book.  The Telegraph said, “Richard Dawkins, the atheist academic, has called on the Coalition to make evolutionary theory a compulsory part of the curriculum.”  In June, the article said, he and 3 Nobel laureates wrote the Education Secretary, […]
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Bible and Theology

Malthusian Maniac Killed Before Killing Hostages
September 2, 2010
James J. Lee took hostages today at the Discovery Channel headquarters in Maryland, but was killed by police before he harmed anyone (see New York Times).  Lee, who authored a website called SaveThePlanetProtest.com, left a manifesto with a list of demands, calling humans “filth” and demanding the Discovery Channel inform viewers that humans were ruining […]
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Cell Biology

Stem Cell News: Adults Still Lead
August 6, 2010
Stem cells are still hot.  Most of the significant findings are coming from adult stem cells (AS) or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) rather than embryonic stem cells (ES).  For example, a PhysOrg article described progress at the University of Michigan in predicting what cell types stem cells will become.  Nothing was said in the […]
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Bible and Theology

The Evolution of Integrity
July 23, 2010
Scientists are having to deal with a crisis that overlaps with theology: integrity.  What is integrity?  Where did it come from?  How could it evolve?  How is it to be measured?  Questions like these are usually not answered with ammeters and test tubes, but they must be faced.  A crisis of integrity in scientific research […]
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Education

What Good Are Science Societies?
June 25, 2010
It’s the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society, England’s oldest and most prestigious scientific organization.  Amid the celebrations are essays and commentaries about the role scientific societies play for the public, the government, and the advancement of natural knowledge.  It should only be expected that the scientific journals will give the positive side, but between […]
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Bible and Theology

Who’s Denying the Evidence?
May 25, 2010
An interesting phenomenon is going on among science news reporters: accusations that “denialists” are lurking about.  We are told that deniers or denialists are refusing to accept scientific evidence and are clinging to belief systems in spite of the facts.  That would certainly be a serious charge, but it can also be a mask for […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Media Continues to Denounce ID, Crown Darwin
May 14, 2010
The news media and journals continue to publish one-sided statements against intelligent design (ID) – even though scientific evidence continues to support design on many fronts (see 05/11/2010, 05/07/2010, 05/06/2010 from just this past week).  Sometimes, in other venues, the kind of rhetoric employed would be characterized as hate speech.  These statements are usually printed […]
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Cosmology

Cosmologist Suffers Paranoid Delusions: Media Promotes His Views
April 26, 2010
“They’re coming to get us, and I’m sure of it, because I know everything.”  What would you think of someone who talked like that?  What if he were one of the most famous cosmologists alive today?  The man is Stephen Hawking – that wheelchair-bound math wizard who talks with a speech synthesizer and once fell […]
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Dinosaurs

How Much Can One Bone Say?
March 26, 2010
Two fossil discoveries are generating a lot of news from a single bone.  The first is a dinosaur hip.  The second is a human finger.  How much weight can a single bone carry? Australian tyrannosaur:  The tyrannosaurid dinosaurs had a distinctive hip bone.  Live Science cast any doubt on the claims: “it’s still a hypothesis […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Ida Not a Human Ancestor
March 3, 2010
If Ida known then what I know now: the media-frenzied presentation of Ida (Darwinius masillae) as a distant relative of human beings last year has been debunked.  “Many lines of evidence indicate that Darwinius has nothing at all to do with human evolution,” said Chris Kirk (U of Texas) in an article on Science Daily.  […]
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Media

Media Uncritical of Science, Journalist Says
February 18, 2010
Reporters need to stop regurgitating the self-promotion of scientists and start criticizing them, a veteran science reporter wrote in Nature News.  Colin Macilwain had a lot to say about what’s wrong with science’s relationship with the mass media.  “Like sausages being made, or legislation being passed, the process that turns scientific developments into headlines and […]
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Education

Old Primordial Soup Is Spoiled
February 5, 2010
Don’t open it; that can of primordial soup sitting on the shelf for decades is rotten.  PhysOrg announced, “New research rejects 80-year theory of ‘primordial soup’ as the origin of life.”  In its place come new theories about tiny chemical cooking pots in the pores of deep-sea vents.  Pioneered by Michael Russell (02/15/2008) and others, […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Aliens Invade Science News
January 25, 2010
What are aliens doing in science news reports?  There is no evidence they even exist.  That has not hindered some scientists from speculating.  BBC News reporters Pallab Ghosh headlined an entry “Astronomers hopeful of detecting extra-terrestrial life,” and adorned it with a Hollywood-style alien corpse.  The article highlighted the optimism of Lord Rees, the president […]
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Dumb Ideas

Chimps Produce Movie
January 25, 2010
The BBC is going to air a movie made by chimpanzees.  (Note: This is not a Planet of the Apes remake.)  A primatologist working on her PhD gave some chimps at the Edinburgh zoo a “Chimpcam,” a camcorder in a “chimp-proof” box, to see what they would come up with.  “Despite the fact that the […]
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