Origins – Page 259

VIEW HEADLINES ONLY

Weird-Science Origin-of-Life Theories

August 10, 2007

Two news articles on the origin of life seem bizarre at best. One even used the word “bizarrely” in its own self-evaluation. Living dust: Zap the dust in your living room and it may come alive. Is that the gist of this story in PhysOrg? A team of international scientists thinks that cosmic dust in […]

Intelligent Design

Science Journals Make Dogmatic Atheist Statements

August 8, 2007

Science is supposed to be restricted to the physical and observable world, but the major journals do not hesitate to state ardent, dogmatic opinions about the non-existence of God. Often they assert without debate that belief in God is an artifact of human evolution. Here are some recent examples: Tinker Bell, not Jehovah: Georg Striedter […]

Marine Biology

Deep Sea Vents Tantalize Evolutionists

August 1, 2007

A team of Chinese and American scientists pulled up fragments of deep-sea vents and analyzed their contents, reported Science Daily. They said the creatures inhabiting these vents are the “most primitive life forms on Earth,” and so thought that the fragments might provide clues to the origin of life. Timothy Kusky of Saint Louis University […]

Origin of Life

Origin of Life: Speculation vs. Evidence

July 27, 2007

The European Astrobiology Magazine reviewed a book1 that tries to give “detailed scrutiny” the problem of “the transition from small, simple molecules to large, complex cells.” The initial reaction by reviewer Toby Murcott points out glaring problems in origin of life research: uncertainty, lack of consensus, and lack of evidence: What hits you immediately about […]

Education

The War of the Museums

July 13, 2007

Some evolutionists have become very alarmed at the opening of the new Creation Museum in Kentucky (05/26/2007). They are so alarmed, in fact, that they are using pro-Darwin museums to counter-attack. Scientific American published a lengthy article on the war of the museums. Elisabeth Landau quickly used terms to label creationism as pseudoscience: […]

Amazing Facts

Mother-of-Pearl Inspires Materials Science

July 5, 2007

It’s not only beautiful, it’s strong. EurekAlert described how scientists are intrigued by mother-of-pearl, also called nacre, because of its strength: you can drive a truck over it and it will not break. It is 3,000 times more resistant to fracture than the aragonite from which the oyster makes it. 95% of it self-assembles in […]

Geology

Lord Kelvin’s Core Values Defended

July 2, 2007

Myth: Lord Kelvin held back the progress of geology for 100 years by insisting the Earth was younger than geologists and evolutionists believed. Myth debunked here.

Amazing Facts

Our Complex Brains: Lessons from Phrenology

June 25, 2007

This is your brain on science: it is too complex for simplistic diagrams. Back in the 19th century, the “science” of phrenology was in full swing. Phrenologists divided the brain into more than two dozen regions of “mental faculties” that controlled such things as instincts for eating and sex, sensation of color, language ability, and […]

Education

Council of Europe Officially Condemns Creationism and I.D.

June 22, 2007

A lengthy and strident policy document was issued by the Council of Europe denouncing creationism. The summary statement makes it clear there is no compromise possible, because “religious fundamentalists” are behind it, and that creationism and intelligent design must be firmly and unequivocally opposed. Evolution, by contrast, is given supreme status as the explanation for […]

Genetics

Genome Complexity Unveiled: No Junk, Only Function

June 15, 2007

Any remaining doubts that the idea of “junk DNA” has itself been junked should vanish under the latest findings about genome complexity. A number of recent news stories have revealed astonishing levels of regulation and organization in the non-coding regions of DNA. It turns out that genes are not the only interesting things in the […]

Intelligent Design

Origin of Life Made Simple: Stochastic Innovation Answers I.D.

June 8, 2007

A press release from UC San Francisco teases, Before life emerged on earth, either a primitive kind of metabolism or an RNA-like duplicating machinery must have set the stage – so experts believe. But what preceded these pre-life steps? A pair of UCSF scientists has developed a model explaining how simple chemical and […]

Politics and Ethics

The Malthus Effect on Politics and Economics

June 5, 2007

In 1798, Thomas Malthus published an essay that had a profound impact on Charles Darwin and others. But it was flawed.

Amazing Facts

Molecular Motors Move You

May 30, 2007

The realization that cells are filled with molecules that move like machines fascinates many people. Students who grew up thinking of chemistry as bouncing molecules that did little more than link up and separate have a whole new paradigm to consider: molecules that walk, fold and unfold, spin and operate like ratchets, robots, wrenches and […]

Biomimetics

Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: Design by Darwin

May 24, 2007

Can Darwin get credit for intelligently-planned research? Apparently John Chaput thinks so. A press release from the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University states this: Nature, through the trial and error of evolution, has discovered a vast diversity of life from what can only presumed to have been a primordial pool of building blocks. Inspired […]

Origin of Life

OOL Study Substitutes Computer for Chemistry

May 15, 2007

Upon reading a recent origin-of-life paper in PNAS,1 you might think the authors ran experiments with real chemicals and real deep-sea rocks. A more careful look, however, reveals that their model only worked in cyberspace. This raises interesting questions about the ability of simulations to substitute for empirical evidence. Their claims were dramatic […]

All Posts by Date

[archives type="yearly" cat_id="17"]