How Not to Prove Positive Selection
September 5, 2008
Erase all that evidence for positive natural selection in the genes you’ve read about.
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Spore Game: Evolution or ID?
September 4, 2008
Spore is a highly-anticipated computer game that just came out. Evolutionists are claiming it as a model of how life evolves – but intelligent-design advocates are calling it an ID game, pure and simple. Who’s right? Carl Zimmer, a science writer, is among those counting Spore points for Darwin. His blog entry from […]
Amazonia Supported a Cosmopolitan Civilization
September 2, 2008
Today’s naked, spear-hunting tribes in the jungles of the Amazon live in the shadow of a complex society that once thrived there. By increasing their scope from the single site to the wider region, archaeologists from Florida and Brazil have discovered a cosmopolitan culture that left large earthworks and evidence of complex urban societies. Their […]
Vice Presidential Candidates: You Have a Choice
September 1, 2008
When it comes to feelings about creation vs evolution between the American vice-presidential candidates, voters will have a clear choice. Reporters are digging for information on the surprise Republican nominee, Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Answers in Genesis collected statements from the press about her position on the teaching of evolution in public schools. […]
Angry Atheists Arrogate Authority in Science
August 28, 2008
Can science contribute to religious studies? Only to destroy it, think some atheistic scientists. “In reality, the only contribution that science can make to the ideas of religion is atheism,” announced Matthew Cobb and Jerry Coyne in a letter to Nature.1 Cobb and Coyne were taking issue with Nature’s editorial July 17 about […]
Neanderthals Win Toolmaking Olympics
August 26, 2008
Scientists have taken another step toward debunking the myth of the “stupid Neanderthals” who went extinct when competing with their supposedly advanced neighbors, the “modern humans.” Science Daily is one of several news sites reporting a study on toolmaking by the two groups of humans, that concluded that “stone tool technologies developed by our species, […]
Admissions of Ignorance in Evolutionary Theory
August 11, 2008
For a scientific idea some have proclaimed as a fact no longer in need of proof, and as well-established as gravity, Darwin’s theory of evolution still reveals surprising weaknesses when its defenders speak about the details. Detecting these weaknesses requires tuning out the media hype, and tuning into scientific papers and pro-evolution journals where evolutionary […]
Life in Space: Follow the Hot Water, not the Hot Air
August 8, 2008
Planetary scientists have their eyes and instruments on regions of hot water, but speculating too dogmatically about life in space could get you in hot water yourself. Simon Klatterhorn (geologist, U of Idaho) is mesmerized by the possibility of life at Europa, Jupiter’s ice-crusted oceanic moon. In an interview by Science Daily, he […]
Adult Stem Cells Race Ahead; Embryonics Falter
August 7, 2008
Major advances are being made with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), stem cells reconstituted from adult tissues, while interest in embryonic stem cells (ES) seems to be drying up. Both Nature and Science reported advances in iPS technology last week. Nature reported that the number of factors needed to reconstitute pluripotent stem cells […]
Phoenix Did NOT Find Mars Life
August 4, 2008
A media snafu has NASA spokespersons rushing to deny that life has been found on Mars, reported Space.com. For example, Live Science reporter Leonard David said that the White House has been alerted to the potential for new information about life on Mars based on findings from the Phoenix Lander. The apparent secrecy has teased […]
Scientists Bemoan Research Fraud
August 2, 2008
A commentary entitled “Repairing research integrity” published in Nature June 181 struck a nerve. Three letters to the editor in the July 31 issue said the problem is worse than Titus, Wells and Rhoades indicated when they said many issues of research fraud go unreported, and suggested principles to fix the problem. The […]
How Much Is Known About Climate History?
August 1, 2008
Scientific papers on earth history can seem very erudite and confident, filled with jargon and named periods that appear carved in stone. Every once in awhile, though, a surprise discovery raises questions about how sound their timelines and models really are. Get a load of this opening to a review by Jacqueline Flückiger,1 an environmental […]
History Channel Airs Evolve
July 29, 2008
A new 13-part series on the History Channel, called Evolve, begins with an episode on the evolution of the eye. To sell the story, the blurb needed to cast Evolution as an inventor: They are one of evolution’s most useful and prevalent inventions. Ninety five percent of living species are equipped with eyes and they […]
What Can Science Really Know?
July 24, 2008
Two book reviews on philosophy of science appeared in the leading general-science journals Nature and Science last week. Both of them downplayed the oft-told triumphalist portrayal of science as a progressive path toward infallible knowledge – the picture most students get in school. In Nature,1 N. David Mermin (Cornell) gave a surprising reprimand […]
Adult Stem Cells May Cure Muscular Dystrophy
July 19, 2008
Muscular dystrophy leaves children and adults in a nearly helpless state. Parents watch in agony as their children suffer rapid and progressive weakness. Attempts to support research, like the annual Labor Day events Jerry Lewis has held for over 40 years, have betrayed their inability to find a cure by the very fact of their […]