Uncommon Descent

Archive for May, 2007

31 May 2007

Darwin a bold Prophet?

idnet.com.au

“I believe that if fossil birds are found very low down in the series, they will be seen to have a double or bifurcated wing. Here is a bold prophecy!”
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1452.2&viewtype=text&pageseq=226
Does any one know if his prophecy came true?

31 May 2007

NASA’s Top Official Questions Global Warming

DaveScot

NASA’s Top Official Questions Global Warming
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin Questions Need to Combat Warming
“I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists,” Griffin told Inskeep. “I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”
“To assume that it is a problem is to […]

31 May 2007

Sam Brownback on Evolution:

The Scubaredneck

What I Think About Evolution
By SAM BROWNBACK
Published: May 31, 2007
Washington 
IN our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves. So I suppose I should not have been surprised earlier this month when, during the first Republican presidential debate, the candidates on […]

30 May 2007

The Greening Earth

DaveScot

This map is the result of 8 scientists poring over satellite data for 18 months. It shows how plant growth (NPP or net primary productivity) around the world has changed in the past 20 years of global warming and CO2 buildup in the atmosphere. The result is a 6% increase when all the […]

29 May 2007

More Silly Psychobabble About “Resistance to Science”

GilDodgen

In this essay, psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Weisberg assert:
The developmental data suggest that resistance to science will arise in children when scientific claims clash with early emerging, intuitive expectations. This resistance will persist through adulthood if the scientific claims are contested within a society, and will be especially strong if there is a non-scientific […]

29 May 2007

Atmospheric CO2 Increase Varies by 100% Year to Year

DaveScot

I was reading the 2007 IPCC report’s 2007 Physical Science Basis and it came as a surprise how much variance there is from year to year in how atmospheric CO2 increases. CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels remains relatively constant but the amount of that CO2 that actually stays in the atmosphere varies by […]

29 May 2007

Creationism in popular culture: NYT culture critic visits creation museum

O'Leary

When I first turned to read Edward Rothstein’s account in the New York Times’ Arts section of the just-opened creation museum at Petersburg, Kentucky, I gritted my teeth in advance.
I have little use for creation museums, but way, way less use for self-regarding, overaged art twerps who pretend superiority to millions of people who do […]

27 May 2007

Cosmic Rays Implicated in Climate Change

DaveScot

In a nutshell - cosmic rays induce particle formation in the atmosphere. Water droplets coalesce around these particles producing clouds. Clouds reflect sunlight back into space. The more clouds the cooler it is and the fewer clouds the hotter it is. The sun’s magnetic field deflects more or fewer cosmic […]

27 May 2007

Columnist and lawyer Ken Connor weighs in on Gonzalez tenure case

O'Leary

Here’s columnist Ken Connor (Terry Schiavo lawyer) on the Gonzalez tenure denial:
It seems that many scientists and academicians who hold views contrary to Dr. Gonzalez have concluded that the best way to avoid debate about the evidence for intelligent design is to simply deny jobs to those who will not affirm their atheistic worldview. The […]

27 May 2007

Climate Catastrophe Cancelled

DaveScot


26 May 2007

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Paul Nelson

Or something like that. This book looks WAY interesting…here’s the blurb from the University of California Press:
The world is configured in ways that seem systematically hospitable to life forms, especially the human race. Is this the outcome of divine planning or simply of the laws of physics? Ancient Greeks and Romans famously disagreed on […]

26 May 2007

RNA-binding proteins: modular design for efficient function

idnet.com.au

Many RNA-binding proteins have modular structures and are composed of multiple repeats of just a few basic domains that are arranged in various ways to satisfy their diverse functional requirements. Recent studies have investigated how different modules cooperate in regulating the RNA-binding specificity and the biological activity of these proteins. They have also investigated how […]

25 May 2007

Jonathan Wells at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara

Paul Nelson

Jonathan Wells, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, will be speaking today (Friday, May 25), on the icons of neo-Darwinism and the role of DNA in living things, at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara.

The full-size event poster is here.

24 May 2007

And Hector Avalos deserves tenure at ISU?

William Dembski

The tenure denial of Guillermo Gonzalez by Iowa State University has been much discussed on this blog of late. The tenure of Hector Avalos, religious studies professor and militant atheist at Iowa State University, however, has yet to be broached here. So let’s do it.
Avalos conducted a witch hunt of Guillermo Gonzalez back in […]

24 May 2007

As the design revolution continues, Darwinism slips into irrelevance

scordova

Last month I pointed out the unwitting admission by some Darwinists that Darwinism is useless to modern medicine (and for that matter modern science). [see: Darwin dissed by doctors, and a design revolution continues at MIT].
This month I’m pleased that world’s most prestigious scientific journal, Nature, has published a letter from a biophysicist who has […]

24 May 2007

Evolution in the light of intelligent design

O'Leary

I just put up an alphabetized list of topics covered by British physicist David Tyler, who blogs on a number of issues raised in the science literature that impact the intelligent design controversy - along with some of my own compilations (animations of life inside the cell, columnists discussing the issues, et cetera.).
This is a […]

23 May 2007

Radiation-Eating Fungi

dacook

Life’s capabilities continue to astound. Another assumption of mainstream science is overturned: Now we find that some kinds of fungi can grow very nicely, thank you, in very high radiation environments, and even appear to thrive, using radiation as an energy source.
I wonder; in what sort of environment did these organisms evolve to […]

23 May 2007

Front Loading?! Say it isn’t so!

PaV

Scientists have now found that the Hox genes necessary for tetrapod development is present in a primitive fish (a paddlefish). Here’s part of what they write:
“Tetrapods have a second phase of Hox gene expression that happens later in development. During this second phase, hands and feet develop. Although this second phase is not […]

23 May 2007

How applied pugilistic ideology might be used against Guillermo Gonzalez at Iowa State - Part II of an interview with Dr. Ivan A. Conway Moore, Ph.E.

Galapagos Finch

How might Iowa State University President Geoffrey apply pugilistic ideology in his June 6th decision concerning tenuring of Christian Professor Guillermo Gonzalez? Dr. Moore offers his expert opinion. Read more MOORE…

22 May 2007

Introducing “Sewell’s Law”

Granville Sewell

In an April 2, 2007 post, I noted the similarity between my second law argument (”the underlying principle behind the second law is that natural forces do not do macroscopically describable things which are extremely improbable from the microscopic point of view”), and Bill Dembski’s argument (in “The Design Inference”) that only […]

22 May 2007

The Most Dangerous Place to Discuss ID — The University Campus

William Dembski

I had an interesting conversation today with a tenured scientist who is on faculty at a research university. He was recently invited to defend ID at a public forum at the university. He declined to do it. Here’s why. Although he is a proponent of ID, he has never taught it in his classes. He […]

22 May 2007

Nazism and Darwinism on Film

Theodosius

I saw a film recently that I think would interest anyone who is concerned about the moral implications of Darwinism, and who also believes that art can help us to reflect upon moral issues.
The film is Germany Year Zero (Germania Anno Zero, 1947), by Roberto Rossellini, shot in the ruins of Berlin in the aftermath […]

22 May 2007

IPCC Ignores Studies of Soot’s Effect on Global Warming

DaveScot

The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) drastically understates the warming potential of soot (black carbon) in its report to policy makers. The IPCC has an agenda and that agenda is to blame manmade carbon dioxide emission for climate change. Europe and Asia emit most of the soot from burning coal, wood, dung, […]

22 May 2007

The Chronicle says of Gonzalez “a clear case of discrimination”

DaveScot

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a balanced article on Iowa State’s refusal to tenure Guillermo Gonzalez.
Advocate of Intelligent Design Who Was Denied Tenure Has Strong Publications Record
By RICHARD MONASTERSKY
At first glance, it seems like a clear-cut case of discrimination. As an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Iowa State University, Guillermo Gonzalez has […]

21 May 2007

World Renowned Cosmologist Frank Tipler on Sci Phi Show!

scordova

One of my favorite ID proponents, Frank Tipler, was recently interviewed on the Sci Phi show.
To hear the 28-minute interview, visit: Frank Tipler on Sci Phi show.
Some of Tipler’s ID-related work has appeared in prestigious journals like Nature. One of Tipler’s recent ID-related papers appeared in the journal Reports on Progress […]

21 May 2007

Gonzalez case - Prof, do you know what time it is?

O'Leary

A friend writes to say, “Guillermo [Gonzalez] has three (not two) papers exceeding 100 citations each. An updated list is attached that includes a few more of his publications. This is really impressive.” (If you are just joining us today, Guilllermo Gonzalez is the gifted ID-friendly astronomer who was recently denied tenure under suspicious circumstances […]

21 May 2007

“We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science.” –Al Gore

William Dembski

Here is a quote from Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason (I took it from the excerpt from his book in the current Time Magazine):
In order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum. We must create new ways to engage in a genuine and not […]

20 May 2007

Professor of Atmospheric Science Says Global Warming a Myth

DaveScot

Augie Auer, Professor of Atmospheric Science for 22 years at the University of Wyoming, says global warming is a myth and it will be joke material in 5 years.
Global warming debunked
By ANDREW SWALLOW - The Timaru Herald | Saturday, 19 May 2007

20 May 2007

More on the “fruit flies that think”

O'Leary

Recently, I reported on an experiment with fruit flies that showed that the flies are not robotic, but can engage in spontaneous behavior.
In a recent Daily Telegraph article, Roger Highfield explains:
“The point here is that the people claiming that free will doesn’t exist say that one day we will be able to show exactly why […]

20 May 2007

Complex Specified Information - It’s not that hard to understand

DaveScot

In another thread there’s a discussion about specified complexity. I think the problem with specification is it’s a subjective measure but it shouldn’t be hard to understand. Most people intuitively recognize it and draw conclusions from it. To explain I’ll use a deck of cards and a conclusion that just about any reasonable […]

19 May 2007

Piscataway Institute of Technology Adopts “Separate but Equal” Policy Between Scientific Materialists and Persons of Faith.

Galapagos Finch

Could Iowa State be Next? Read More