Free Republic

Should Darwinists Play Games with Government?January 7, 2009 — For years now, evolutionary biologists have been employing “game theory” to try to understand human social behavior.  Presumably, game theory applies just as well to robots and ants as it does to humans – any population in which the whole benefits from collective behavior of individuals.     The latest example of evolutionary game theory was published in Nature last week.1  Two Japanese scientists with Martin Nowak of Harvard tried to prove that “costly punishment” is inefficient: Indirect reciprocity is a key mechanism for the evolution of human cooperation.  Our behaviour...

...Sin is redefined, in short, to suit today’s hyperenvironmentalistic religion. Reeves even comes across as a younger, slimmer, version of Al Gore—right down to the dark suits and the wooden demeanour.

When their son Zachary came home from science class with a cross burned on his forearm It was not the religion that bothered his parents, but the injury to their child. They sued, and brought science v. creationism back into the courts for another round. Teacher John Freshwater and the brand on the arm of his student It was a little over three years ago, on December 20, 2005, that Judge John E. Jones III issued his ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover that intelligent design was not science, but merely repackaged creationism—and that it had no business in biology class.The...

Genesis: The Missing Piece of the Puzzle by Calvin Smith Published: 6 January 2009 Most church leaders would agree that the western world is becoming ‘less Christian’ every year. Worldviews Nations once built upon biblical foundations are watching the collapse of godly values in our culture and Christians seem powerless to stop it. Competing worldviews like atheism, humanism, communism, new age, and the occult are being vigorously promoted in education, the media and one-on-one to children and adults alike. But before we look at our own foundations, let’s look at those of the polar opposite of the Christian worldview—atheism. A-theism,...

Evolution Missing from Top Science of 2008 by Brian Thomas, M.S.* The acclaimed research journal Science has published its picks for the top ten scientific breakthroughs of 2008.1 The number one breakthrough was the manipulation of body cells into an embryonic state, thereby producing induced pluripotent stem cells. Geneticists hope that these will supply stem cells to test and treat diseases without the needless destruction of human embryos. Also making the list are planets that have been directly detected for the first time outside of earth’s solar system, cancer-causing genes pinpointed through genome research, and the development of iron-based materials...

A team of Ecuadoran and Italian researchers have discovered a unique species of pink land iguanas living on the Galapagos Islands, the scientist who wrote the report told AFP. "It is surprising to have made a find of this magnitude in the 21st century," said Washington Tapia, head of research at the Galapagos National Park. Researchers at first thought that the iguanas, which are pink with black spots, simply had skin pigmentation problems, Tapia said. The first pink iguanas were discovered in 1986, and after years of research scientists concluded that it was a unique species. "We have not yet...

Even Parasite Genes Look Young by Brian Thomas, M.S.* The parasite Trichinella spiralis is commonly dated as being around 20 million years old. A recent DNA study by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists, however, has yielded some surprising results. T. spiralis causes trichinosis in humans when they eat undercooked pork that has juvenile forms of the worm encysted within the pig muscle. The USDA scientists collected and analyzed samples of Trichinella DNA from 28 countries. If the parasite is indeed millions of years old, then the different geographical locations should yield distinct groups that retain ancient familial mutations. However,...

A stunning new book by a physics professor purports to show more firmly than ever how light from the most distant stars would have reached Earth in a very short time....

Obliteration of the Unfit Excerpts from The Passing of the Great Race, Fourth Edition, Scribner's, 1936. pg. 46--55. Note. This was a very popular book. It went through a lot of reprintings: 1916, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1926, 1932 and 1936. It is roughly the american equivalent of Mein Kampf. Two prefaces endorsing Grant's work are written by evolutionary scientist and Darwin Medalist Henry Fairfield Osborn (the horse-evolution guy.) Osborn was president of the American Museum of Natural History, and Grant was a trustee. Together they founded the New York Zoological Society. Osborn and Grant were members (co-founders) of...

Researchers have unravelled an ancient missing link between today’s spiders and their long-extinct ancestors, and that may help explain how spiders came to weave webs. The research by scientists at the University of Kansas (KU) and Virginia’s Hampden-Sydney College focuses on fossil animals called Attercopus fimbriunguis. While modern spiders make silk threads with modified appendages called spinnerets, the fossil animals wove broad sheets of silk from spigots on plates attached to the underside of their bodies. Unlike spiders, they had long tails. The research was led by Paul Selden, professor of invertebrate paleontology in the department of geology at KU,...

150 years after Darwin proposed it, evolution by natural selection continues to be both a battleground and a hotbed of ideas.Scientists continue to respond to the latest attacks from creationists, and at the same time propose profound new ideas about evolution. This year has seen perceptions of the virus change from disease-causing villain to evolutionary hero, and the emergence of a new force of evolution - the absence of natural selection.Since its redesign in November, NewScientist.com is making the last 12 months' of articles free for everyone to read. Here, in case you missed them, are our top 10 in-depth...

ScienceDaily (Jan. 1, 2009) — New interpretations of fossils have revealed an ancient missing link between today’s spiders and their long-extinct ancestors. The research by scientists at the University of Kansas and Virginia’s Hampden-Sydney College may help explain how spiders came to weave webs.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 1, 2009) — New evidence uncovered by oceanographers challenges one of the most long-standing theories about how species evolve in the oceans.

As 2008 drew to a close, the good news for the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was that their creationist propaganda movie was getting a bit of press again. The bad news is that it was in the lists of the worst movies of 2008. The Onion's A.V. Club (December 16, 2008), was quickest out of the gate, commenting, "There are terrible movies, and then there are terrible movies that cause harm to society by feeding into its ignorance. Nathan Frankowski's odious anti-evolution documentary belongs in the latter category. ... Few moments in cinema in 2008 were as shameless...

"15 Evolutionary Gems" [PDF, 350KB] is a new resource summarizing fifteen lines of evidence for evolution by natural selection, provided by the journal Nature. The editors explain, "About a year ago, an Editorial in these pages urged scientists and their institutions to 'spread the word' and highlight reasons why scientists can treat evolution by natural selection as, in effect, an established fact ... This week we are following our own prescription. In a year in which Darwin is being celebrated amid uncertainty and hostility about his ideas among citizens, being aware of the cumulatively incontrovertible evidence for those ideas is...

In 1925 a Tennessee teacher of biology named Thomas Scopes was tried for teaching the theory of evolution. An expert witness at the trial relates how evolution lost in court but won in the eyes of the nation

Those who are concerned about the materialistic indoctrination rammed down people's throats under the guise of science should pause to consider this article from 1911. As you can see, this ideology, which these days calls itself "science", actually has a name of its own: Monism. These are excerpts from Mechanistic Conception of Life, an address delivered at the First International Congress of Monists (Hamburg, 1911). Reprinted in Mechanistic Conception of Life: Biological Essays, University of Chicago Press, 1912. The Mechanistic Conception of Life Jacques Loeb, M.D, Ph.D, Sc.D, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.It is the object of this paper to...

Don Batten and Jonathan Sarfati interview husband and wife Dr Stephen Grocott and Dr Dianne Grocott. Stephen is a leading international research scientist in industrial chemistry, currently with a major firm in Queensland, Australia. Dianne is a qualified medical practitioner and psychiatrist. They have spoken on several occasions for Creation Ministries International. Whether challenging secularists on creation or abortion, this dynamic duo packs a powerful punch...

Information scientist, author and evangelist, Dr Werner Gitt, a close friend of CMI, told us that on 23 October 2008 he was subjected to the most strident opposition he had ever encountered...

A nearly complete skull of a primitive cheetah that sprinted about in China more than 2 million years ago suggests the agile cats originated in the Old World rather than in the Americas.

JINAN, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- A dinosaur fossil field discovered this year in eastern China appears to be the largest in the world, a paleontologist told Xinhua on Monday.

Science Intrudes Into Morality Dec 23, 2008 — The Pope recently declared that we need to save humanity from self-destructive behaviors, like homosexuality. Can science intrude on questions of human behavior and morals? New Scientist thought so; a blog entry today says the Pope “misuses science to attack homosexuality.”One would think that moral behavior would lie outside the field for a scientific news source, but online news editor Rowan Hooper went on, mocking the Pope’s claim that the church has a role in saving “human ecology” like scientists have a role in protecting tropical forests. Hooper called this “a bizarre...

Feeble-mindedness Exerpts from "The Problem of Race Regeneration", 1911, Moffat, Yard & co., pg. 29-on. Ellis was one of Margaret Sanger's boyfriends. He was a member of the Eugenics Society (when Leonard Darwin was president) and so was she. Ellis wrote books on eugenics and sexology. Through promotion by eugenical societies, the "feeble-minded" movement went international. According to Samuel J. Holmes, as of around 1936 more than 20,000 eugenic sterilizations were performed in the USA and more than 56,000 in Germany. Havelock EllisIt is necessary to remember that feeble-mindedness is largely handed on by heredity. It was formerly supposed that...

Cilium Likened to GPSDec 27, 2008 — A story on Science Daily says that the primary cilium, a protrusion on most human cells that looks like an antenna, acts like a GPS system.  They “orient cells to move in the right direction and at the speed needed to heal wounds, much like a Global Positioning System helps ships navigate to their destinations.”     Not only that, says Soren T. Christensen (U of Copenhagen): “What we are dealing with is a physiological analogy to the GPS system with a coupled autopilot that coordinates air traffic or tankers on open sea.” ...

As the world faces an uncertain future, Britain's leading anthropologist toasts Darwin, born 200 years ago, for identifying adaptability as man's greatest asset Charles Darwin: His observations undermined the traditionally held view of 'stability of species' There is a strange object sitting on my desk as I write. It is a shiny sphere of fossilised, primeval slime. Known technically as stromatolites, this blue-green slime was the original ooze from which all life on this planet evolved. This painfully slow process began about 3,000 million years ago and has led, ultimately, to us, the extraordinary human species. Whenever my gaze happens...

This week’s feedback responds to a public policy statement on ‘creationism’ published in December 2008 by the Geological Society of Australia in their members’ newsletter, and made available on their website. The policy is couched in inclusive and learned language but when you look at the substance it turns out to be neither. The statement is discriminatory and anti-scientific, aimed at censoring beliefs that run contrary to the party line of the Society. This sort of behaviour is more in line with a dictatorship, and demonstrates how far the present leadership of the Society has departed from the ideals of...

For a species that went extinct more than 25,000 years ago, 2008 has been a hell of a year for Neanderthals. The ancient humans got their first complete mitochondrial genome sequence, their stone tools turned out every bit as efficient as ours, and we even heard them speak. Here are some of our favourite Neanderthal discoveries of 2008. Genome secrets revealedBig nose strikes againOur brainy cousinsMore DNA revelationsA voice from the pastMaking themselves prettyMaster tool makersThe butchers of Gibraltar

Steve Jones I find this very depressing. Do those teachers believe that they should also teach the possibility that water is H3O, that Bacon wrote Shakespeare and that babies are brought by storks? The logic is exactly the same: and there is just as little, or as much, scientific controversy about the idea of evolution as there is about those of physics and chemistry. Next year is, of course, Darwin Year – the 200th anniversary of his birth and 150th anniversary of publication On The Origin of Species). It is my profound hope (likely to be disappointed) that teachers and...

How real are you? Mary MidgleyHas science shown that people are, in some sense, an illusion? According to Mary Midgley, that is precisely what some scientists now preach. Focusing particularly on a claim made by Richard Dawkins, she explains why she believes these scientists are making a serious mistake.On being a semi-illusionAre you quite real? Are you (that is) at least as real as the parts that you are composed of - your cells, your genes, your molecules and electrons and quarks and the notions that are passing through your mind? Or are they more real than you? This may...

Tangled web of spider evolution The long Permarachne spinneret now known to be a tail (centre bottom) The species once described as the world's oldest spider is a more primitive version of the web-spinning modern spider, scientists have found. The parts of the Attercopus spider's described as spinnerets - the appendages that allow web-spinning - were not spinnerets after all. That means that the oldest "true" spider may have arrived 80m years later than previously thought. The results appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Paul Selden of the University of Kansas and his colleagues first described Attercopus...

With the aid of a straightforward experiment, researchers have provided some clues to one of biology's most complex questions: how ancient organic molecules came together to form the basis of life. RNA, the single-stranded precursor to DNA, normally expands one nucleic base at a time, growing sequentially like a linked chain. The problem is that in the primordial world RNA molecules didn't have enzymes to catalyze this reaction, and while RNA growth can proceed naturally, the rate would be so slow the RNA could never get more than a few pieces long (for as nucleic bases attach to one end,...

More than a quarter of science teachers in state schools believe that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science lessons, according to a national poll of primary and secondary teachers. The Ipsos/Mori poll of 923 primary and secondary teachers found that 29% of science specialists agreed with the statement: "Alongside the theory of evolution and the Big Bang theory, creationism should be TAUGHT in science lessons" Some 65% of science specialists disagreed with the statement. When asked if creationism should be "discussed" alongside evolution and the Big Bang 73% of science specialists agreed. That such a large minority of...

With the aid of a straightforward experiment, researchers have provided some clues to one of biology's most complex questions: how ancient organic molecules came together to form the basis of life.

Blacksburg, Va. – In 3.5 billion years, life on earth went from single microscopic cells to giant sequoias and blue whales. Scientists have now documented quantitatively that the increase in maximum size of organisms was not gradual, but happened in two distinct bursts "tied to the geological evolution of the planet," said Michal Kowalewski, professor of geosciences at Virginia Tech.

Now it has officially gone too far: Democrats, in their zeal to appear friendly to evangelical voters, have chosen celebrity preacher and best-selling author Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration. There was no doubt that Obama, like every president before him, would pick a Christian minister to perform this sacred duty. But Obama had thousands of clergy to choose from, and the choice of Warren is not only a slap in the face to progressive ministers toiling on the front lines of advocacy and service but a bow to the continuing influence of the religious right...

Atheists consider themselves the supreme realists. They don’t believe in the “ghost in the machine” and ridicule those of us who believe that God exists and is the creator of the universe. But they do have a metaphysical problems relating to the origin of things. Does the universe have a beginning or an end? How did life begin? What was there in the beginning of things? The last question cannot be dismissed because the theory of evolution, which seeks to explain how we are what we are demands that there be a beginning. If life began an eternity ago, is...

University of Minnesota anthropology professor Kieran McNulty (along with colleague Karen Baab of Stony Brook University in New York) has made an important contribution toward solving one of the greatest paleoanthropological mysteries in recent history -- that fossilized skeletons resembling a mythical "hobbit" creature represent an entirely new species in humanity's evolutionary chain.

HIV is so deadly largely because it evolves so rapidly. With a single virus as the origin of an infection, most patients will quickly come to harbor thousands of different versions of HIV, all a little bit different and all competing with one another to most efficiently infect that person’s cells. Its rapid and unique evolution in every patient is what allows HIV to evade the body’s defenses and gives the virus great skill at developing resistance to a pantheon of antiviral drugs.“A huge amount of HIV diversity accumulates in the body of a patient with HIV, and it’s...

Expel the Creationists Dec 16, 2008 — Apparently Eugenie Scott of the NCSE is feeling no remorse from her appearance in Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, where she defended the actions of those who ruined careers, denied tenure, and deprived students and teachers of their academic freedom because they dared to question Darwin. Her latest piece in Scientific American is as adamant as ever: the creationists, ever morphing their tactics by a kind of sinister evolution, need to be eradicated. With co-author Glenn Branch, Eugenie Scott summarized the history of creationism and the court cases that have stymied...

The argument that God exists based on design figures nowhere in the Hebrew Bible There are some even in this sceptical age who still believe that God is an old man with a long beard. His name is Charles Darwin, patron saint of scientific atheists. Next year will be a double anniversary for followers of Darwin: the 200th anniversary of his birth and the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species. We will no doubt hear it asserted that Darwin dealt a death blow to religious belief. That, it should be said, is quite untrue. What it dealt a...

Professors routinely give advice to students but usually while their charges are still in school. Arthur Landy, a distinguished professor of molecular and cell biology and biochemistry at Brown University, recently decided, however, that he had to remind a former premed student of his that “without evolution, modern biology, including medicine and biotechnology, wouldn’t make sense.” The sentiment was not original with Landy, of course. Thirty-six years ago geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, a major contributor to the foundations of modern evolutionary theory, famously told the readers of The American Biology Teacher that “nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light...

It’s not even Christmas or 2009 yet, but the cover stories on Darwin have started to hit newsstands. Latest to feature a whole issue to Darwin is Scientific American. Predictable themes are all there: Darwin was a genius, he was the greatest scientist in history, evolution is the keystone of all biology, and creationists are still trying to sneak their religion into biology classes. But also included are some weird topics like whether robots can be programmed to be evil. The editors gushed over Darwin in one short article entitled, “Why Everyone Should Learn the Theory of Evolution” as if...

Recently, President George W. Bush stated that he believes that the concept of evolution does not conflict with a belief that God created the world. In an interview with ABC’s Cynthia McFadden at the White House that aired on Monday, December 8, 2008, on Nightline, Bush said that he isn’t a literalist when it comes to reading the Bible, but he thinks “you can learn a lot from it.”1 When asked about creation and evolution, he said, “I think you can have both.” He clarified:...

When Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species issued from the presses (November 24, 1859), it marked a history-changing event. The world has not been the same since—unfortunately. The theory of evolution has wielded its malevolent influence over the past century and a half in a host of ways. “There is not a single field of scientific and academic study which has not been greatly modified by the concept of evolution. It provided a new approach to astronomy, geology, philosophy, ethics, religion, and the history of social institutions” (Bewkes, et al., 1940, p. 549). In this article, I will survey briefly some...

Strength For The Journey New Creation People Part 1 August 4, 2005 Is Evolution A Fact? READ: Genesis 2:1-7, Hebrews 11:1-3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. —Hebrews 11:3The theory of evolution is not without its problems. One scientist says this about life starting on its own: "Amino acids would have to be arranged in an exact sequence to form a protein . . . just like the letters in a sentence. Mere laws of chemistry and physics cannot do that. The probability of a protein forming by chance would be 1064...

Franklin County students participating in a media course are getting an unplanned lesson in the First Amendment. Brandon Creasy, a 16-year-old junior who attends the Leonard A. Gereau Center for Applied Technology and Career Exploration, claims that an opinion piece he wrote backing the theory of evolution is being censored by the school's principal.

In case you missed it, President George W. Bush was asked this week if the Bible is literally true. "You know. Probably not," Bush told ABC's Cynthia McFadden. "No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it, but I do think that the New Testament for example is ... has got ... You know, the important lesson is 'God sent a son."' He also said he thinks God's creation of the Earth could have taken place along with human evolution. "I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution," he...

The Brain's Emergency Brakes by Brian Thomas, M.S. Emergency brakes are an important safety component in elevators. In a dangerous episode, such as an earthquake, these brakes activate and stop the elevator from moving, keeping the passengers inside from plunging to the bottom floor. Human brains also have an ingenious “brake” system. Discovered by University of Oslo researcher Johan Storm, these remarkable systems within brain cells restrict the inflow of calcium ions from the cell’s fluid surroundings, an action that could save cells during trauma. Precise cellular calcium levels are integral to neuron function, and stressful situations like strokes can...

Dec 10, 2008 — What could be more scientific than the scientific method? A scientist observes an unexplained phenomenon. He or she gathers data, analyzes it, proposes a hypothesis to explain it, and tests it. The results are published in a peer-reviewed journal. Mission accomplished, right? Here are two papers on very different phenomena – one dealing with the geology of Mars, one dealing with DNA. Both papers follow the scientific method outlined above. Do they succeed in explaining the phenomena? If so, how trustworthy are the explanations?...

For Brosh to employ this well-known analogy for his own purposes, without giving credit to Behe, and then to slap Behe’s face with a link to a flawed refutation of Behe’s concept without giving him a chance to respond, is disgustingly irresponsible. You would think the world’s leading science journal would demand proper citation. What happened to academic ethics? Mousetraps are common, but Behe’s use of a mousetrap as a symbol of an irreducibly complex system in the cell is so well-known throughout the biological community, Brosh cannot argue that each writer has equal access to the common household item...