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Birds

March of the “Selfish Darwinians”?
February 23, 2006
Penguins: are they moral models, or evolutionary examples?  Ever since last year’s surprise blockbuster documentary March of the Penguins, the well-dressed seabirds and their harsh lives have provoked empathy and commentary.  Marlene Zuk (UC Riverside) took issue in Nature1 with those who try to moralize about monogamy from taking their cues only from the movie.  […]
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Education

Ohio School Board Votes Down Critical Analysis of Evolution
February 15, 2006
In more apparent fallout from the Dover case, the Ohio State Board of Education (OSBE) voted 11-4 to strike language from the high school science standards that stated simply, “Describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.”  The same standards specifically mentioned that intelligent design would not be taught.  No […]
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Darwin and Evolution

Liberal Pastors Rally to Defend Darwin on “Evolution Sunday”
February 11, 2006
Imagine this scene at a local church in your community: Our text for this morning’s sermon is taken from Origin of Species, chapter 15: “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet […]
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Education

Darwinists Bemoan Creation/ID Obstinance, Strategize to Improve Darwin Image
February 10, 2006
The journal Science devoted three articles in eight days to the intelligent design controversy.  Last week, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee used warfare metaphors in a report from Kansas:1 battle, attack, defenders juxtaposed with talk of tiptoeing gently around voters’ concerns about voting in “godless atheists” to the school board.  He spoke of “moderates” like Harry McDonald and […]
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Education

Schools Discipline Rowdy ID Proponents
February 9, 2006
It’s been awhile since we checked into American science classrooms and school board meetings.  What’s going on with the movement for “teaching the controversy” about Darwinism? Midwest: Unexplained Panic Attacks:  Casey Luskin of Discovery Institute has documented the spread of “False Fear Syndrome” from Kansas to South Carolina and Ohio to Wisconsin.  Late word has […]
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Dumb Ideas

More on “Literary Darwinism”
February 7, 2006
Harold Fromm in Science1 reviewed Gottschall’s new book on literary Darwinism (see 01/27/2006 entry).  Like Gottschall, he argued that an evolution-informed approach to literary criticism is superior because it provides quantifiable certitude: For years, scholars in the literary humanities have struggled to achieve at least a semblance of the certitude possible in the sciences, although […]
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Intelligent Design

Darwin Dissed in His Own Homeland
January 26, 2006
One would think Brits would cherish their guru Darwin, but he didn’t come out all that well in a poll, reports BBC News.  More than half the population doesn’t believe in the theory of evolution, results showed, and 39% said either creation or intelligent design best explains their view on the origin and development of […]
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Amazing Facts

Why Your Brain Has Gray Matter, and Why You Should Use It
January 13, 2006
Vertebrate brains have an outer layer of “gray matter” over the inner “white matter.”  Why is this?  “By borrowing mathematical tools from theoretical physics,” a press release from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory announced, two researchers found out. Based on no fewer than 62 mathematical equations and expressions, the theory provides a possible explanation for the […]
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Dumb Ideas

Darwin Hits Home: Adultery Rationalized
January 8, 2006
USA Today began an article with a steamy picture of a man and a woman embracing.  As could be expected, they are not married; reporter Sharon Jayson began, “Some men cheat on their partners.  So do some women.  Now researchers say it is more than a wandering eye that might cause a woman to stray.”  […]
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Education

A Foxhole Anthology: News from the CrEv Trenches
December 30, 2005
If Judge Jones or the NCSE thought for a minute that the Dover ruling would bring an end to the ID wars, the news media should clear up any miscalculations.  Here is a clearinghouse of recent headlines: Peruse Pyrrhus:  “Pyrrhic victory” is a phrase used by John West, Pat Buchanan on Real Clear Politics and […]
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Physical Science

Thermodynamics Defeats Evolution “in a Most Spectacular Way”
December 30, 2005
The second law of thermodynamics (2TD), what Sir Arthur Eddington called the supreme law of nature, does not permit evolution, argued Granville Sewall in The American Spectator; in fact, evolution violates it “in a most spectacular way.”  A mathematics professor at Texas A&M University, Sewall explained that 2TD applies to much more than heat flow; […]
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Uncategorized

Historic Scopes Trial Photos Uncovered
December 28, 2005
Dozens of photos of the 1925 Scopes Trial, never before published, were uncovered in Smithsonian archives by independent historian Marcel C. LaFollette, reported Science News.1  One photo shows the famous scene of Clarence Darrow interrogating William Jennings Bryan on the witness stand; another shows a close up of John Scopes.  LaFollette is writing a new […]
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Education

Dover Fallout Is Radio Active
December 23, 2005
Reaction in the media from Judge Jones’ stinging decision against intelligent design (ID) in the Pennsylvania case Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District has been rapid and varied.  Evolutionists are overjoyed at this Christmas present the judge delivered, a dirty bomb they hope will put ID out of business, but the other side claims the […]
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Education

How to Overcome Student Objections to Evolution
December 21, 2005
Biology teachers face increasing difficulty from students coming into class with bad feelings about evolution (11/30/2005, 08/30/2005).  Many pro-evolution teachers will be attracted to methods that have a demonstrable track record of relieving tensions and facilitating the process of getting students to accept Darwin’s theory.  David Sloan Wilson (Binghamton U, NY) has just the thing.  […]
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Politics and Ethics

Mao Tse-Tung Killed 77 Million for Darwin
November 30, 2005
World Net Daily reported that the body count from Mao’s reign of terror in China has been revised upward to 77 million by R. J. Rummel, a Nobel Peace Prize winning political scientist who had earlier estimated it at half that (38 million). This augments Mao’s Guinness reputation as the worst mass murderer in history. […]
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