VIEW HEADLINES ONLY

Charity?  Chimps Don’t Get It – Nor Give It

The science news media took note of an experiment showing that chimpanzees don’t care to share, even when it costs them nothing (see the BBC News and Science Now, “Tightwad Primates”).  Joan Silk and a team at UCLA created an apparatus where a chimp could pull one rope to get a treat for itself, or […]

Intelligent Design War Rages

Because of the high-profile Intelligent Design trial in Dover, Pennsylvania, the news media and scientific societies are all discussing Darwin vs Design with fervor. Surprise, Surprise:  AP reports that the Dover school board did not expect the uproar when it drafted its policy allowing alternatives to Darwinism to be heard; see LiveScience.com.  MSNBC News also […]

Evolution Runs in Reverse

A commercial for Guinness Beer shows devolution: evolution running in reverse.  It’s called, “The history of life in :50 seconds flat.”  Is beer drinking a slippery slope to the primordial ooze? This commercial is really funny to watch, and very clever, but it demonstrates the pervasive influence of Darwinism on our culture.  We like the […]

Stem Cell Breakthroughs: No More Ethical Concerns?

Several science news sites have been reporting two new techniques for creating embryonic stem cells that do not involve the creation of viable embryos (see, for instance, New Scientist, Science Now, and Nature news, 437, 1065 (20 October 2005) | doi: 10.1038/4371065a).     There is no consensus yet, however, whether these methods overcome all […]

Dover I.D. Trial Calls Star Witness

Michael “Irreducible Complexity” Behe, the Lehigh biochemist famous for flagella, mousetraps and black boxes, took the stand in the Dover, Pennsylvania trial Monday Oct. 17.  This was widely reported, such as in New Scientist, MSNBC News and the Washington Post.  For an ID-friendly report with more detail of the actual proceedings, see EvolutionNews.     […]

Darwin on Offense I: Museums

What’s the solution to decreasing belief in evolution?  More evolution.  That’s the message of an article by Lisa Anderson from the Chicago Tribune published online by Yahoo News, “Museums take up evolution challenge.”  Natural history museums around the country are mounting new exhibits they hope will succeed where high school biology classes have faltered: convincing […]

Darwin on Offense II: Strategy Sessions

The Geological Society of America, normally concerned with technical details of rocks and how many millions or billions of years old they are, devoted two “expansive sessions” at its annual meeting Oct 16-17, with 24 separate presentations dealing with strategies to oppose intelligent design (ID).  Their press release portrays ID advocates as “trained attackers,” using […]

Science Writer Advocates Debate with Creationists

The Darwinist monopoly on science has backfired, suggested Michael Balter in the Los Angeles Times in a Sunday commentary.  A human evolution writer for Science magazine (e.g., 09/09/2005, 03/04/2005, 11/12/2004, 02/27/2004, 02/15/2002), Balter advocated engagement with the opposition.  “A national debate over how best to explain the complexity of living organisms would better serve our […]

Creation-Evolution Contest in Grand Canyon: New York Times Prints Eyewitness Report

New York Times reporter Jodi Wilgoren explored “parallel universes” along the Colorado River this summer (here for multimedia version).  She rode a raft with a creationist group led by Tom Vail for several days, then rode with another party led by evolutionist Eugenie Scott.  Her experiences with these two groups illustrated the stark contrast between […]

Make Your Own Privileged Planet

NASA-Ames Research Center has produced an online simulation game called AstroVenture that allows kids to try to design a habitable planet.  After they pick half a dozen parameters, the game tells them whether humans could live there or not. This is a cute feature that, with caveats, could be useful for parents and teachers.  The […]

University of Idaho President Announces Evolution-Only Policy

Timothy P. White, President of the University of Idaho, just issued a letter to faculty, staff and students “to articulate the University of Idaho’s position with respect to evolution: This is the only curriculum that is appropriate to be taught in our bio-physical sciences.”  The Discovery Institute calls this naked viewpoint discrimination. The president’s next […]

Scientific Institutions Root for Darwin

With the Dover trial in the midst of its first week (09/26/2005), the Goliath fans are sounding off, led by their cheerleaders, Nature, Science and other institutions: Nature had two pieces this week, claiming the Dover trial represents Do or Die for Design.  This editorial ended, “Scientific organizations are well aware of this case’s significance, […]

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos Is Back

MSNBC News reported that Carl Sagan’s popular 13-part series Cosmos is returning to TV this week, digitally remastered and enhanced with new up-to-date animations.  The 1980 series, which began with its own Agnus Dei invocation “The cosmos is all that is, all that ever was, and all that ever will be,” went far beyond the […]

Rhetoric Heats Up Over Dover IDea

Now that the ACLU’s lawsuit in Dover, Pennsylvania has gone to trial, more and more news media are writing about the controversy over intelligent design.  Many seem to think that the school board is trying to replace Darwinism in high school science classrooms with I.D.; actually, the Dover case does not mandate the teaching of […]

Elie Wiesel Gathers Nobel Laureates to Urge Kansas to Nix ID

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has gathered 38 Nobel prize winners to join him in urging the Kansas school board to reject their new science standards that question evolution (see 08/11/2005).  According to MSNBC News, their document calls evolution an “indispensable” foundation of biology.  The story was reprinted by LiveScience.com. Odd.  Biology got along just fine […]
All Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly" cat_id="11"]