VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Dinosaurs

Dino Protein Confirmed
August 2, 2009
An independent study of bone marrow contents from a T. rex that was reported in 2007 to contain fragments of protein has confirmed the claim, reported Science Daily.  Seven peptides from collagen, and apparently traces from hemoglobin, were detected.  The findings are scheduled to be published in the Sept. 4 issue of Journal of Proteome […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

Stretching Out the Cambrian Explosion
July 14, 2009
“Dawn of the animals: Solving Darwin’s dilemma” is the confident-sounding title of an article about the Cambrian explosion in New Scientist.  Their solution, however, did not include finding transitional forms.  It revolved around “setting the stage” environmentally for the sudden appearance of complex animals.     Reporters Douglas Fox and Michael Le Page began by […]
CONTINUE READING
Early Man

The Early Man Gets the Big Brain
July 13, 2009
“Why are human brains so big?” asked Live Science.  Why are our brains larger relative to body size than almost all other animals?  Rachael Rettner reported on various answers.  To her credit, she pointed out the fallacies of trying to test hypotheses when there is insufficient evidence.     Rettner evaluated three hypotheses about why […]
CONTINUE READING
Fossils

Greening the Cambrian Explosion
July 9, 2009
Some scientists came up with an idea that simple green plants may have invaded the land earlier than thought, and that this might have helped speed up the rise of animals in the Cambrian explosion.  “The plants were only tiny mosses and liverworts, but they would have had a profound effect on the planet,” said […]
CONTINUE READING
Dinosaurs

Dakota Dino Reveals Skin Cells
July 1, 2009
“Absolutely amazing” and “absolutely gobsmacking” are exclamations made by scientists analyzing the fossilized skin of a hadrosaur known as Dakota.  The researchers found cell structures and organic matter in the skin and layers that resemble the skin of birds and crocodiles.     The specimen was uncovered in 1999 on a North Dakota ranch and […]
CONTINUE READING
Fossils

The Elephant Explosion
June 30, 2009
The title is not intended to suggest pieces of pachyderm flying all over the place, but rather one paleontologist’s theory about the rapid pace of elephant evolution 60 million years ago.  He bases his ideas on a small fossil he found in Morocco.  According to him, the primitive ancestor of all elephants (order Proboscidea) lived […]
CONTINUE READING
Cosmology

We Know Less Than We Think
June 23, 2009
Strange reports come from science news outlets on occasion that call into question facts we thought we understood.  These raise a question: do we really know what we think we know? Cutting dinosaurs down to size:  Dinosaurs may have been half as heavy as thought, said Science Daily.  Some paleontologists are claiming that widely-used methods […]
CONTINUE READING
Birds

Dino Fossils Generate Overblown Claims
June 18, 2009
04/10/2006), inventing feathers out of thin air.  This time, it was justified on the basis of a new paper in Nature that claims to remove an obstacle in the dinosaur-bird evolution story.1  Doubters had pointed to differences in the three forward-pointing toes.  With dinosaurs, it was toes 1, 2 and 3 that were retained; while […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

What Makes You Human?
June 17, 2009
If you are a war-mongering beast who likes to burn things, you’re displaying your evolutionary past.  That’s what a couple of news reports are claiming.  New Scientist has a review of two books: Fire: The spark that ignited human evolution by Frances D. Burton, and Catching Fire: How cooking made us human by Richard Wrangham.  […]
CONTINUE READING
Birds

Birds Didn’t Evolve from Dinosaurs
June 9, 2009
June 9, 2009 — “The findings add to a growing body of evidence in the past two decades that challenge some of the most widely-held beliefs about animal evolution.”  That statement is not being made by creationists, but by science reporters describing work at Oregon State University that cast new doubt on the idea that […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

Tickle Me Darwin
June 8, 2009
Observation: orangutans seem to laugh when tickled.  Conclusion: humans evolved laughter from our ape past.  This is the story being promoted by the science news outlets.  “At least 10 million years ago, our ancestors may have been laughing it up over the latest stone-age prank or bout of tickling,” announced Live Science.     New […]
CONTINUE READING
Early Man

Hominids, Homonyms, and Homo sapiens
May 27, 2009
How’s the story of human evolution hanging together these days?  There’s no better place to look than the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences.  In the yearly issue released this month, Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey Schwartz gave a pretty thorough overview of the “Evolution of the Genus Homo.”1  Their account is fraught with controversy, […]
CONTINUE READING
Dumb Ideas

Ho-Hum, Another Human Missing Link
May 19, 2009
Shoppers typically are wary of over-hyped ads, knowing that any claim sounding too good to be true probably is.  What would they think about media reports claiming a new fossil monkey is the “8th wonder of the world”?     The scientific paper in PLoS ONE1 had hardly been published before the press went ape, […]
CONTINUE READING
Bible and Theology

Can Humans Scientifically Analyze One Another?
May 17, 2009
Imagine an alien landing on Earth and trying to figure out two groups of people.  One group wields spears and arrows and decides that those who interfere with their traditions are enemies to be killed.  Another lives in penthouses and universities and explains the behavior of the other group as evolved tendencies from their animal […]
CONTINUE READING
Early Man

Darwinizing Morality
May 13, 2009
Darwinists continue to try to lay claim to morality (cf. 01/20/2008, 05/02/2008, 03/12/2009)  If Darwinism is to succeed as a comprehensive world view, it must explain this innate sense we all have that certain actions (e.g., torturing babies, slavery, genocide) are morally wrong.  Without a God telling man “Thou shalt not”, how can all humans […]
CONTINUE READING
All Posts by Date