Issues – Page 245

VIEW HEADLINES ONLY

Privileged Planet Website Opens

March 16, 2004

A website featuring a new book by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, The Privileged Planet, has opened. The subtitle of the book is How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery. The authors take issue with pessimistic views, such as those of Steven Weinberg and Carl Sagan, that our planet is “pointless” or […]

Politics and Ethics

Scientific Elitism Trumps Democracy

March 12, 2004

They don’t want it, but they’re going to get it. Britons have expressed outrage and anger over genetically-modified foods, such as pesticide-resistant maize, reports Jim Giles in Nature.1 But the government has listened to scientists who have assured government ministers it is safe. On March 9, they approved commercial planting of GM maize “in the […]

Education

Evolution Battle Heats Up in Ohio

March 10, 2004

CNN has reported that the Ohio school board voted 13-5 in favor of an optional set of lessons called “Critical Analysis of Evolution.” The usual opponents are lining up on both sides; some scientific organizations are claiming it is a “religious effort cloaked as science,” but others consider it a victory for students and for […]

Geology

Rethinking the Geological Layers

March 5, 2004

One of the most formative ideas in Darwin’s intellectual journey was the concept of gradualism, the principle of “small agencies and their cumulative effects.” This idea became a dominant motif in his philosophy of life. Describing how the assumption of gradualism permeated his last book (on earthworms) shortly before his death, Janet Browne, in her […]

Education

How to Prevent Youthful Violence

March 4, 2004

EurekAlert posted a finding by University of Washington sociologists that “Family discipline, religious attendance, attachment to school cut levels of later violence among aggressive children.” Do we really need scientists to tell us the obvious? Everyone seems to know this except secular researchers. Solomon and Paul can tell the University of Washington all they need […]

Politics and Ethics

Science Journal Editors Face Accountability

March 4, 2004

This quote by a journal editor comes from a news item in the Mar. 4 issue of Nature:1 “Like everybody else, we are much more interested in other people’s accountability than we are in our own,” explains Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), who helped to draft the new code. “Editors are […]

Education

Evolution 101: Pro-Evolution Educational Website Opens

February 29, 2004

Berkeley has a new website for educators and students named Understanding Evolution. For students, it presents topics on (1) Nature of Science, (2) Evolution 101, (3) Evidence, (4) Relevance of Evolution, (5) Misconceptions, and (6) History of Evolutionary Thought. For teachers, there is additional material on (6) Teaching Evolution, (7) Overcoming Roadblocks, (8) Potential Pitfalls, […]

Dumb Ideas

Evolution Is Like the Matrix Revolutions

February 27, 2004

Matthew L. Albert enjoyed the Matrix movies. In his review in the Feb. 20 issue of Science,1 he thought the movies were parallels of evolutionary biology. The machines keeping the rebels alive are like retroviruses, he thinks: “These retroviruses are responsible in part for our evolution, while other retroviruses are attacking us. So, who is […]

Bible and Theology

Evolution of Language Debated

February 27, 2004

The Feb. 27 issue of Science features the topic of the evolution of language.1 The thousands of words in 10 articles might be summarized by the title of a book review by Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy: “Many Perspectives, No Consensus.”2 Since there are many perspectives and no consensus, language evolution is one of the subjects Darwinists love. […]

Education

How Science Reports the School Controversies Over Darwinism

February 27, 2004

In the Feb. 28 issue of Science,1 Constance Holden reports on the battles over Darwinism vs. creationism in schools across the United States. The tone is one of military alarm. Here is the score as Science sees it (emphasis, underlining and brackets ours): Georgia school officials took a big step back from opening the door […]

Bible and Theology

How Darwinians Approach the Golden Rule

February 22, 2004

Is nothing sacred? Gretchen Vogel has written a piece on “The Evolution of the Golden Rule” in the Feb. 20 issue of Science.1 Jesus Christ and most religious teachers have taught the Golden Rule as a moral principle and a sacred duty, but to Darwinians, it must have evolved like everything else. Yet […]

Education

New Website Aids Slow Process of Dethroning Darwin

February 13, 2004

A new website, Darwin and Design.com, based on the book co-authored by Stephen Meyer and John Angus Campbell, has been announced by Discovery Institute. Meanwhile, Ohio anticreationists are trying to caricature a proposed lesson plan on critical analysis of evolution by identifying it with intelligent design theory. �Intelligent design isn�t even covered in this lesson,� […]

Bible and Theology

Was the Nobel Denied to a Creationist?

February 9, 2004

Rick Weiss, writing in Smithsonian Magazine (Dec. 2003), analyzes Raymond Damadian’s “prize fight” over the 2003 Nobel for Physiology and Medicine (see 11/10/2003 and 10/10/2003 entries). He suggests the possibility that one of the main reasons was Damadian’s views on creation. A Nobel spokesman denies it, but Weiss wonders: But it is difficult not to […]

Early Man

Evolutionists Publish Racist Book

February 6, 2004

“Disturbing” is how Robert N. Proctor (Penn State) describes a new book by two prominent evolutionists in the Feb. 5 issue of Nature.1 The book is Race: The Reality of Human Differences by Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele (Westview, 2004), and Proctor has a lot of politically correct diatribe to heap on it, though reluctantly: […]

Darwin and Evolution

Why Darwin Is Like Yoda, and Darwinism Like Marxism

February 4, 2004

Homage for the master is palpable in John Vandermeer’s review (Science, Jan. 23)1 of a thick new book entitled Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution by Odling-Smee, Laland and Feldman (Princeton, 2004). Vandermeer seems almost worshipful in his opening lines: The nascent germ of many novel ideas in biology can be traced directly or […]

All Posts by Date

[archives type="yearly" cat_id="11"]