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Early Man

Darwinizing of Religion Continues
November 9, 2009
In an ongoing series for the Year of Darwin in Science magazine,1 Elizabeth Culotta wrote an article with the Darwinesque title, “On the Origin of Religion.”2  The editor’s summary acknowledges that “No consensus yet exists among scientists,” but sought the only answer in Darwinian terms: “in the past 15 years, a growing number of researchers […]
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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 […]
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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.  […]
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Mind and Brain

Freud’s Out; Who’s Next?
October 15, 2009
Nature is "shocked by the abandon with which he elaborated his theories on the basis of essentially no empirical evidence."
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Dumb Ideas

What’s in a Name?  Sima Fossils Confuse Human Evolution Story
October 14, 2009
“A hush fell over the room….”  Ian Tattersall had just astonished paleoanthropologists gathered for a meeting on human origins in Gibraltar.  The group was puzzling over a treasure trove of hominin bones found in the mid-1990s at Sima de los Huesos in Spain.  What should they be called?     The co-discoverer, Juan Luis Arsuaga, […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Evolutionists Answer ‘Why’ Questions With ‘Stuff Happens’
September 22, 2009
Why do ants walk single file?  Why are goldfish gold?  Why do worms come up on the sidewalk in the rain?  Exasperated parents sometimes answer the incessant questions of their young children with “It’s just the way things are!”  Presumably science does a better job of explanation, but one might wonder if the following evolutionary […]
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Intelligent Design

Trio of Darwin Films Released
September 16, 2009
This month finds us two thirds of the way between Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of his Origin of Species.  Taking advantage of the extra attention Darwin is getting this year (as if he needed more), three films on his life and ideas are being released from three different companies. The Voyage that […]
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Mind and Brain

What Darwin Does to Psychology – And Humanity
September 6, 2009
“Traits that we may find unsavory are nevertheless also products of our evolutionary history.”  This quote stands out boldly in a call-out from an article by psychologist Jerome H. Barkow (Dalhousie University) in a review of evo-psych (evolutionary psychology) in PNAS.1 Barkow acknowledged controversy about the premise that the evolutionary history of our psyches produces […]
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Awards

Evolution 2.0: What’s in the Upgrade?
August 19, 2009
Consider Evolution 1.0.  That was the old biological, Darwinian stuff.  Now, there’s Evolution 2.0 – the evolution of technology.  W. Brian Arthur explained the upgrade package for New Scientist: “On the origin of technologies.”     Arthur is not the first to try to define a law of nature for the origin of technology.  He […]
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Dumb Ideas

Evolution of the Knuckle Head
August 12, 2009
An evolutionary anthropologist looked at the knuckles of chimpanzees.  Then she looked at the knuckles of gorillas.  Then she looked at her own knuckles.  Conclusion: humans evolved from tree climbers, not knuckle walkers.  Her theory can be read in Live Science, based on a paper in PNAS.1     Tracy Kivell and Daniel Schmitt from […]
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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, […]
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Dinosaurs

Missing Links Found: Walking Seal, Teen Tyrannosaur
April 23, 2009
Science news media are abuzz with reports that two missing links have been found.  One is a fossil seal (pinniped) with four legs, the other a smaller presumed ancestor of the famous Tyrannosaurus rex. Seal:  National Geographic News calls it a seal with arms, and features artwork of an otter-like animal doing a kind of […]
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Dumb Ideas

Publish Your Kooky Idea
April 22, 2009
Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute has a solution for sorting science from pseudoscience: publish.  In the weekly SETI article for April 16 on Space.com, he said he gets lots of wacky theories in the mail and email.  What’s the best way to sift through claims and find the gems?  Publication.     Shostak acknowledged […]
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Bible and Theology

Art as Propaganda for Evolution
April 10, 2009
Should a scientific theory be propagated by appeal to scientific evidence, or by appeal to emotions through visualization?  Nature this week contained two articles that shamelessly praised art as propaganda for evolution.  Surprisingly, one of them mentioned Charles Darwin as someone “at the cutting edge of visualization.” Endless Forms:  Carl Zimmer reviewed an exhibit currently […]
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Physics

Physicists Bow to Darwin
March 18, 2009
What’s Darwin got to do with physics?  Presumably, if you dropped his statue off the leaning tower of Pisa, it would fall at 32 feet per second squared, but the man is remembered for his speculations about biology, not physics.  Why, then, did Nature Physics devote a special issue to Darwin?  Here’s what it presented. […]
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