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Fossils

Lazarus, Come Forth: Living Fossils Rise from the Dead
March 10, 2006
An animal goes extinct.  Millions of years pass.  The animal is found living in some remote jungle.  Scientists call this the “Lazarus effect,” after the man Jesus raised from the dead (see John 11).  Others call these finds “living fossils,” long thought to be extinct but now thriving in isolated ecological niches.  There are many […]
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Education

Analysis:  The Dover Decision
March 10, 2006
Dr. Kevin L. Anderson of the Creation Research Society wrote an analysis of Judge Jones’ decision in the Kitzmiller v. Dover School District case.  Since this appeared in a members-only newsletter, Creation Matters, we sought and obtained permission to reproduce it: Click Here.     A very different view was expressed by David Johns (School […]
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Education

Lawsuit Halts ID in Philosophy Class: Will it Backfire?
January 25, 2006
Exclusive  Picture this: a small community high school nestled in the mountains far north of the big city of Los Angeles.  A gentle, silver-haired schoolteacher who wouldn’t hurt a fly, who coaches soccer, loves teenagers and takes her time-consuming and non-lucrative job, which she has done for many years, seriously, and is well liked by […]
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Uncategorized

Evolution of the Christmas Tree:  Firs Tie Oaks in Fitness Race
December 24, 2005
In the struggle for existence, the conifers should have lost, because when angiosperms appeared, they had fancier valve jobs.  That’s the feeling of a story introduced by Elizabeth Pennisi on Science Now.  “Those of us who celebrate Christmas tend to take fir and spruce trees for granted around the holiday season,” she quipped, “But without […]
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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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Birds

Archaeopteryx in the Headlines Again: New Specimen Reported
December 2, 2005
The best-preserved fossil yet of Archaeopteryx was announced in Science this week,1 the tenth in all.  This one, described by Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Natural History Museum (Frankfurt, Germany), had a better-preserved foot than the others (all found in the Solnhofen Limestone beds of Bavaria) with indications it had a hyperextendable second toe somewhat […]
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Education

SETI: Search for Educational Targets Inc.
November 18, 2005
SETI may be the laughingstock of Congress, refused funding since William Proxmire gave it his Golden Fleece Award in the 1980s, but privately it is moving apace.  The Science Channel gave it prominence in its weekly report Friday, visiting with pioneering signaler and listener Frank Drake.  It surveyed everything from the first humble attempts to […]
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Genetics

Does Gene Expression Evolve?
November 17, 2005
“Mutation is the ultimate source of biological diversity because it generates the variation that fuels evolution,” wrote four scientists in Nature November 10.1  Conventionally, theorists have focused on gene mutations for that fuel; what about mutations to gene expression?  That’s what they set out to discover.     One would think that positive natural selection […]
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Birds

March of the Little Penguins Down Darwin Lane?
November 10, 2005
Penguins are on people’s minds since the movie, but there are other species of the handsome-yet-funny waddlers besides the reigning emperors.  The news media are saying one species demonstrates evolution – another word on the public mind these days.  MSNBC News talked about “Penguin evolution,” and Science Now proclaimed “Evolution on Ice.”  Actually, it’s only […]
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Education

Is Darwin or ID the New Halloween Spook?
October 30, 2005
Scary, isn’t it?  A textbook committee in Montgomery, Alabama approved dozens of new textbooks, but found objectionable material in three of them: they contained material on evolution that was deemed controversial for children.  They decided that pictures of reptiles evolving from amphibians and humans evolving from apes was not appropriate for elementary children who were […]
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Birds

Archaeopteryx Meets Its Younger Grandpa, and Other Flights of Fancy
October 24, 2005
Science Now said that a “slightly embarrassing gap” in the fossil record has been filled by a find in Wyoming.  The oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx was older than its presumed ancestors, the Maniraptorans, its closest dinosaurian relatives.  A team near Thermopolis, Wyoming found a maniraptoran dating from about the same time as Archaeopteryx.  This new […]
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Cosmology

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos Is Back
September 27, 2005
MSNBC News reported that Carl Sagan’s popular 13-part series Cosmos is returning to TV this week, digitally remastered and enhanced with new up-to-date animations.  The 1980 series, which began with its own Agnus Dei invocation “The cosmos is all that is, all that ever was, and all that ever will be,” went far beyond the […]
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Birds

Bird Brains: No Evolutionary Pattern in Size
September 7, 2005
A scientist went looking for evolutionary patterns in bird brain size, but his chart shows data all over the map.  Fahad Sultan (U of Tuebingen, Germany) measured brains in a wide variety of birds, and published his results in Current Biology.1 How does brain size and design influence the survival chances of a species?  A […]
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Early Man

Men Aren’t Going Extinct – Yet
September 3, 2005
Not long ago, evolutionary biologists were predicting the demise of manhood (see 11/01/2001, 03/31/2004).  The idea was that the Y chromosome, with no redundant copy (unlike the female’s two X chromosomes, and all others) appeared to be shriveling up and mutating itself out of existence.  Now that the chimpanzee genome has been published (see 09/01/2005 […]
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Education

Is “Intelligent Design” the New Cussword?
September 2, 2005
The phrase “intelligent design” is being bandied about everywhere.  Pro-Darwin scientists generally put it in quote marks with palpable derision; it has practically sunk to the level of the older cussword, “creationism.”  Yet a groundswell of support for I.D. continues not only in America but in other countries.  Here are recent events, attacks and counterattacks […]
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