Origins – Page 242

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How One Bright Young Scientist Challenged the Junk-DNA Paradigm

December 5, 2009

A young snowboarder turned to science and turned the consensus on its head. PhysOrg, in “Turning trash to treasure,” told the story of John Rinn (Harvard Medical School), who challenged the paradigm of “junk DNA” and discovered a new class of functional molecules: lincRNAs (large intervening non-coding RNA). He found important functional molecules “in a […]

Amazing Facts

Gap Between Origin-of-Life Research and Simplest Life Grows

November 27, 2009

Evolutionists are celebrating experiments that allegedly showed RNA chains can assemble in water – given nucleotides to start with (see Science Daily). The suggestive steps over the gap from nonlife to life should be tempered with other discoveries that life is anything but simple. New Scientist reported today that a “‘Simple’ bacterium shows […]

Darwin and Evolution

Ardi Party Is Over

November 25, 2009

The hubbub over Ardipithecus (10/02/2009) may have been premature. Despite 600 pages of material submitted to Science in October, many doubts and questions remain about the status of this hominin, or hominid, or whatever it was (the nomenclature is confusing and inconsistent even among paleoanthropologists). In an article by Katherine Harmon in the pro-evolutionary magazine […]

Amazing Facts

Insect Wing Photocopied for Good

November 15, 2009

Biomimetics is the new science of imitating nature – but why not save a step, and just copy the design directly? That’s what Aussie and British researchers did. They wanted a self-cleaning surface that could repel moisture and dust, so they made a template of an insect wing. And why not? “Insects are incredible nanotechnologists,” […]

Astronomy

Is the Universe Evolving Upward?

November 13, 2009

It’s intuitively obvious that to get from a big bang to intelligent astronomers looking for evidence of the bang through telescopes, the amount of organization in the universe must increase over time dramatically. Lately, astronomy has uncovered much more dynamism in space than previously recognized – but much of it seems destructive, not creative. Orion […]

Dumb Ideas

Darwin Marketed to Kids

November 10, 2009

There’s a move on to get Darwin’s ideas taught to tots. Britain is giving a “birthday present to Darwin,” wrote Andrew Copson for The Guardian, in the form of national curriculum for primary schools that will mention evolution for the first time – and prohibit teaching of creationism or intelligent design in science lessons. […]

Darwin and Evolution

What Is Man?

November 5, 2009

Science often makes pronouncements about the human species. We should be mindful of the worldview behind them. Live Science published an article with the confident-sounding title, “Human Evolution: Where We Came From,” accompanied by the iconic sketch of Ardi (see 10/02/2009) and an obligatory reference to Darwin. Even though reporter Charles Q. Choi, […]

Dumb Ideas

Inefficiency Made You Complex

November 3, 2009

Remember the old Darwinian story? Slight variations that prove beneficial are naturally selected when they help an organism adapt to its environment. Wrong. According to Ariel Fernandez of Rice University, we humans are complex because natural selection is inefficient. He said, “the origins of some key aspects of the evolution of complexity may have their […]

Amazing Facts

To Advance Science, Imitate Nature

November 1, 2009

Biomimetics – the imitation of nature – continues to be one of the hottest areas in science. Here are a few of the latest findings coming from the world of living creatures. Fish robot: National Geographic News shows a photo of the latest thing in underwater robotics: a robotic submarine modeled after the Amazonian knifefish. […]

Dumb Ideas

Can SETI Be Quantified?

October 31, 2009

What is the probability of finding intelligent life on other planets? In 1960, Frank Drake attempted to quantify that question with his famous Drake Equation (see MSNBC and NOVA, which allows you to estimate the probability with an interactive meter). Trouble is, Stanley Miller and Leslie Orgel of primordial soup fame thought it was meaningless. […]

Education

The Nature of Darwin and the Darwin of Nature

October 29, 2009

“Even the most ardent fan of Charles Darwin might be feeling weary as his anniversary year draws to a close,” remarked Clive Wynn in another issue of Nature celebrating his bicentennial.1 “Publishers have seemingly explored every corner of Darwin’s life: his youth, his marriage, his attitudes to slavery and religion.” And now Wynn was introducing […]

Cosmology

Materialists: What Do You Know?

October 28, 2009

For people who brag about their work, scientists are an odd lot. At one moment they are touting science as the surest path to knowledge and understanding. The next moment it seems like they are at square one. This is particularly true of materialist cosmologies and Darwinian theories for the origin and development of life. […]

Bible and Theology

Asian Darwinist Profs Call Creationists Barbarians

October 22, 2009

“We have kept the creationist barbarians from the gate,” announced a professor at Hong Kong University triumphantly. A news article in Science this week described tensions in the city over the teaching of evolution. The Darwinists won a vote over a change in wording in the science curriculum that would have “opened the door to […]

Biomimetics

Introducing the Maple-Copter

October 21, 2009

Plants are not as stationary as one might think. Parts of them, like seeds, can travel for miles. One good example is the maple seed. Its little helicopter seeds can catch an updraft and fly a long distance from the tree. Now, engineers at University of Maryland have imitated its physics and designed a radio-controlled […]

Cosmology

Science News or Tabloid Journalism?

October 19, 2009

Science news outlets have put out some bizarre headlines recently. Readers can judge whether they should be blessed with the label “science” or belong instead at supermarket checkouts. Women are evolving fatter: New Scientist and PhysOrg said that natural selection is making women shorter, plumper and more fertile. “The take-home message is that humans are […]

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