Monthly Archives: June 2011
Update re John Lennon vs. Charles Darwin: Lennon earliest to diss Darwin profs?
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism |
“It keeps all the old professors happy in the university. It gives them something to do. I don’t know if there’s any harm in it except they ram it down everybody’s throat.” At Evolution News & Views, David Klinghoffer elaborates on Lennon’s Darwin-dissing views: He laughed at what he regarded as the ludicrousness of Darwinian… more
Review: The Myth of Junk DNA
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by Robert Sheldon under Intelligent Design |
Jonathan Wells’ The Myth of Junk DNA, is a well-written book that manages to accomplish two separate tasks: to silence the Darwinists who had claimed that recent genomic discoveries supported their dystopic version of The Signature in the Cell; and to bring all of us up-to-date on the breath-taking mysteries being decoded from this most… more
Darwin matters far more in politics than your history teacher ever let on
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism |
Here, Martin Olasky, editor-in-chief of World tells us how “Darwin matters” (June 29, 2011): Politics.Woodrow Wilson started federal government expansion in 1912 by opposing the “Newtonian” view that the government should have an unchanging constitutional foundation, somewhat like “the law of gravitation.” He argued that government should be “accountable to Darwin, not to Newton. It… more
Darwin Matters
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by GilDodgen under Intelligent Design |
Marvin Olasky at Townhall.com has written an essay with this title. Here are a few excerpts: Woodrow Wilson started federal government expansion in 1912 by opposing the “Newtonian” view that the government should have an unchanging constitutional foundation, somewhat like “the law of gravitation.” He argued that government should be “accountable to Darwin, not to… more
Here’s a first: A reviewer skeptical of airhead neuroscience claims
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Mind, Neuroscience |
That’s Adam Hanft on the recent The Compass of Pleasure by neuroscientist David J. Linden, who writes at Barnes & Noble Reviews (June 27, 2011): Disciplines from neuroscience to behavioral psychology to evolutionary biology have created a new cranial transparency that’s unleashed a gush of books like Blink by Malcolm Gladwell; Sway: The Irresistible Pull… more
The Multiverse Gods, final part
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by Robert Sheldon under Intelligent Design |
We’ve been looking at Victor Stenger’s claim that fine-tuning is a fallacy. In part one, we looked at the two fundamental metaphysical theories of the universe–materialist and theist–recognizing how materialists have been losing ground by being forced to admit to a creation, making multiverse-theory a rear-guard action covering their retreat, which attempts to turn the… more
Are Fitness Valleys Too Deep?
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by PaV under Intelligent Design |
Over at PhysOrg.com, there’s a new news item about a computer program that was run simulating evolutionary characteristics. What’s interesting about it are two things: (1) who the people are that are running this program, and (2) one of the results—which is being downplayed, it would seem. First, one of the people associated with this… more
Edited post: questioning liberals ever so nicely?
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by Steno under Intelligent Design |
Following concern about the strength of this post I thought I would edit it. James Delingpole, writing in the UK Telegraph blog, asserts that liberals are confused about the basis for their beliefs – warning – this link has strong language. “…why it is that liberal-lefties manage to be so utterly wrong about everything. …they’re… more
How do people understand algebra if they never encounter it?
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Mind, Neuroscience |
In “Geometric Principles Appear Universal in Our Minds” (Wired Science, May 24, 2011) , Bruce Bower reflects on the fact that research among peoples who do not even count suggests that abstract geometric principles are probably innate in humans: If geometry relies on an innate brain mechanism, it’s unclear how such a neural system generates… more
Latest doctrine: It’s wrong to “believe” in Darwinian evolution, because you must accept it without thinking – Philly Inquirer
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Evolution, Media, Religion |
In “’Belief’ in evolution? It may be the wrong word” (06/27/2011), Faye Flam, Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer, allows us to know that we really shouldn’t say we “believe in” evolution because, as Larry Krauss puts it, “I have attempted, largely through spurring on from several colleagues . . . to never use the word belief… more
Don’t ask us how the most complex eyes appeared at the beginning. Instead, we offer to solve a tautology for you.
| June 30, 2011 | Posted by News under Cambrian explosion |
In John R. Paterson’s “Modern optics in exceptionally preserved eyes of Early Cambrian arthropods from Australia (Nature, 30 June 2011) from Nature by, we learn of a particular, “exceptionally preserved” trilobite-like eye from South Australia that predates other known finds from 85 million years later: The arrangement and size of the lenses indicate that these… more
This just in: John Lennon doubted common descent of man and apes – so why was Yoko Ono suing Expelled?
| June 29, 2011 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism, Evolution |
From John Nolte at Andrew Breitbart’s “Big Hollywood,” we learn John Lennon’s take on evolutionary theory. “More on John Lennon’s Move Away from ‘Imagine’: Evolution is ‘Absolute Garbage’: Even more shocking to the idea of Lennon as a secular leftist, or a deep thinker, the man rejected evolution. “Nor do I think we came from… more
In 2006, Nature covered PZ Myers’s Pharyngula as one of the “top five science blogs.” What were they thinking?
| June 29, 2011 | Posted by News under Culture, Darwinism |
Perhaps they weren’t thinking how other evolutionists might react. The fact that the Sage of Morris, Minnesota scored in Technorati’s top 3500 doesn’t tell us much about who reads his blog or why, and that’s now Nature made the decision. And you have to pay to read about it. Over at Evolution News & Views… more
Cosmos: Universe clumpier than it is supposed to be
| June 29, 2011 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design |
Also, from Stephen Battersby (New ScientistJune 21, 2011), we learn: , “Largest cosmic structures ‘too big’ for theories”: We know that the universe was smooth just after its birth. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the light emitted 370,000 years after the big bang, reveal only very slight variations in density from place… more
“Pin-ups of the cosmos” puzzle scientists
| June 29, 2011 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design |
Catching up with the news from outer space, from New Scientist’s Vanessa Thomas and Richard Webb (June 13, 2011), we learn that spiral galaxies are a headscratcher for cosologists: Easy as these spiral beauties are on the eye, for cosmologists they are becoming something of a headache. As we survey the spiral galaxies around us… more
Is Darwinism hinted to be on life support in this journal article?
| June 29, 2011 | Posted by News under speciation |
At Eurekalert, we learn about “The mechanics of speciation: Model examines factors that contribute to the emergence of new species” (24-Jun-2011). And we learn that sympatric speciation – a key current claim – is “not impossible.” more
Fed up with the Gene vs. Scene war? All together now: E-P-I-G-E-N-E-T-I-C-S Rules!
| June 29, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Intelligent Design |
Welcome news from ScienceDaily (June 24, 2011), for people who are fed up with Genes Rule contending with Environment Rules: Effects of Stress Can Be Inherited, and Here’s How “There has been a big discussion about whether the stress effect can be transmitted to the next generation without DNA sequence change,” said Shunsuke Ishii of… more
Resources: Need to do some clear thinking?
| June 29, 2011 | Posted by News under Mind |
The latest edition of The Reasoner (Volume 5, Number 7 – July 2011), a monthly digest highlighting exciting new research on reasoning, inference and method broadly construed. It is interdisciplinary, covering research in, e.g., philosophy, logic, AI, statistics, cognitive science, law, psychology, mathematics and the sciences, is available for download. Articles of interest: more
Paul Chien on the suppressed significance of the Chinese Cambrian fossils
| June 29, 2011 | Posted by News under Cambrian explosion |
“… the most complex animal group, the chordates, were represented at the beginning, and they did not go through a slow gradual evolution to become a chordate.” The Darwin circus wagons should have halted there at Chengjiang and been repurposed as hot dog stands for public convenience. But too much had been invested. Paul Chien,… more
One reason why the “fittest” don’t necessarily survive
| June 28, 2011 | Posted by News under Ecology, Natural selection |
At ScienceDaily we learn, “Scientists Uncover an Unhealthy Herds Hypothesis” (June 24, 2011), Biologists worldwide subscribe to the healthy herds hypothesis, the idea that predators can keep packs of prey healthy by removing the weak and the sick. This reduces the chance disease will wipe out the whole herd, but could it be that predators… more