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This is just a short note to get this poll going in the direction it should be moved in Question"Should topics such as creationism or intelligent design be taught in public schools alongside the theory of evolution?",/P> Right now the poll has had 26224 responsesYes ---- 35.08% No ---- 64.43% Undecided ---- 00.48%

A FEARSOME mutant fish has started killing people after feeding on human corpses, scientists fear. They reckon that a huge type of catfish, called a goonch, may have developed a taste for flesh in an Indian river where bodies are dumped after funerals. Locals have believed for years that a mysterious monster lurks in the water. But they think it has moved on from scavenging to snatching unwary bathers who venture into the Great Kali, which flows along the India-Nepal border. The extraordinary creature has been investigated by biologist Jeremy Wade for a TV documentary to be shown on Five....

It’s Fun Seeing Evolution Falsified Oct 8, 2008 — “Mysterious Snippets Of DNA Withstand Eons Of Evolution” is the strange title of an article on Science Daily. Gill Bejerano and Cory McLean from Stanford are wondering why large non-coding sections of DNA are very similar, or “ultraconserved,” from mice to man. Evolutionary theory would expect that non-functional genetic material would mutate more rapidly than genes. Yet for unknown reasons, the ultraconserved segments stay the same throughout the mammal order. Experiments have shown that mice with these sections deleted do just fine. Why would natural selection purify these regions if they...

There is one serious problem with the specious idea of teaching intelligent design in science classes as a concomitant scientific theory to evolution: no credible member of the scientific or academic communities has ever proven that intelligent design is anything more than a faith-based philosophy masquerading as science, grounded on the Genesis account of the creation of life. Despite the fact that they have tried, in pressing the intelligent design theory, to distance themselves from their faith, supporters have still not been able to convince the courts that intelligent design can stand on its own as a body of knowledge...

Small stretches of seemingly useless DNA harbor a big secret, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. There's one problem: We don't know what it is. Although individual laboratory animals appear to live happily when these genetic ciphers are deleted, these snippets have been highly conserved throughout evolution.

Human evolution is grinding to a halt because of a shortage of older fathers in the West, according to a leading genetics expert. Fathers over the age of 35 are more likely to pass on mutations, according to Professor Steve Jones of University College London. Speaking Tuesday at a UCL lecture entitled "Human Evolution Is Over," Professor Jones will argue that there were three components to evolution — natural selection, mutation and random change. "Quite unexpectedly, we have dropped the human mutation rate because of a change in reproductive patterns," Professor Jones told The Times. "Human social change often changes...

Yale researchers have harnessed the power of 21st century computing to confirm an idea first proposed in 1916 — that plants with rapid reproductive cycles evolve faster. "Our study has profound consequence for the understanding of evolution made possible by the critical role of the computer in revealing major evolutionary patterns," said senior author Michael Donoghue, the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Botany at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History

The fossilized trail of an aquatic creature suggests that animals walked using legs at least 30 million years earlier than had been thought. The tracks -- two parallel rows of small dots, each about 2 millimeters in diameter -- date back some 570 million years, to the Ediacaran period. The Ediacaran preceded the Cambrian period, the time when most major groups of animals first evolved. Scientists once thought that it was primarily microbes and simple multicellular animals that existed prior to the Cambrian, but that notion is changing, explained Loren Babcock, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.

Human evolution is grinding to a halt because of a shortage of older fathers in the West, according to a leading genetics expert. Fathers over the age of 35 are more likely to pass on mutations, according to Professor Steve Jones, of University College London. Speaking today at a UCL lecture entitled “Human evolution is over” Professor Jones will argue that there were three components to evolution – natural selection, mutation and random change. “Quite unexpectedly, we have dropped the human mutation rate because of a change in reproductive patterns,” Professor Jones told The Times. “Human social change often changes...

There is nothing in the theory of evolution that supports aggressivity, cut-throat competition and “man’s inhumanity to man”. On the contrary, evolution teaches egbe bere ugo bere (let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch too); that is why all sorts of organisms, irrespective of when they evolved and their physical strength, are still around today. Only those that do not understand the subtlety, complexity and amazing varieties of adaptive and survival mechanisms in living things, justify their inhuman actions by appealing to the pseudo-scientific cliché, “survival of the fittest.” Our analysis of the competing claims of creationism and...

Earlier this year, the popular blog Little Green Footballs (LGF) made an outrageous attempt to link Discovery Institute to the Muslim creationist Harun Yahya (a.k.a. Adnan Oktar). Their post claimed, “Discovery Institute is in league with Islamist creationists, a fact that is indisputably true,” specifically referring to Yahya / Oktar. Discovery Institute's president Bruce Chapman dignified their charges with a forceful refutation, but LGF’s reply to Mr. Chapman was basically a string of ad hominem attacks that relied on a tenuous chain of distorted and incomplete facts. If there was any doubt left that Discovery Institute and Islamic creationists are...

Before Thursday night’s highly anticipated vice-presidential debate, an equally intense discussion was taking place in Battell Chapel — on the reconciliation of science and spirituality. Francis Collins, who won the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 for his work as director of the Human Genome Project, spoke to more than 100 members of the Yale community on the conflict that arises when combining spirituality with a trust and faith in science. “I don’t think that science has to win and God has to lose or that God has to win and science has to lose,” he told the audience. Collins...

The same day Sarah Palin told Katie Couric that "science should be taught in science class," a group of scientists were making that very point to the Texas Board of Education. Is Sarah Palin a closet evolutionist? Hardly, but it's difficult to peg her as the sort of strict Creationist many academics and people of faith accuse of trying to undermine the teaching of evolution. Like many people of faith, Palin seems to believe that science and religion are not necessarily incompatible and that a good education should make room for both.

Dozens of admirers surrounded the eighth-grade science teacher in the middle of the town square. It was April, and the first of several rallies that John Freshwater and his supporters would hold to drive his point home: He would not remove his Bible from the desk of his public-school classroom. Mount Vernon school administrators had ordered him to do that, among other things. "This is nothing short of another blatant attack on free-speech rights," he said. That's how Freshwater and his supporters frame the issue: A veteran teacher is fighting for his right to keep his Bible on his desk....

With current talk of possible ‘meltdown’ in the world economy, trillion-dollar bailouts and the like, I was reminded of a newsletter article I wrote some 18 years ago.1 This was at a time when a major Australian newspaper had issued a dramatic call for ‘the churches to “preach” ethics and morals to the embattled Australian business community”. Why? Because they clearly saw the link between declining morality and the then-deteriorating economic health of our country Australia had been sinking into banana-republic-type foreign debt, then undergoing ‘the recession we had to have’.2 High-flying entrepreneurs who were public heroes in the 80s...

Adnan Oktar, a creationist and rival of Richard Dawkins, has offered trillions of pounds to any scientists who can show proof of evolution.Mr Oktar, 52, who successfully campaigned for Mr Dawkins' official website to be banned in Turkey, has said he will give 10 trillion Turkish lira, roughly equal to £4.4trn "to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution."

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is once again coming under attack because of her Christian faith. A recent Los Angeles Times story claimed that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin espoused young-earth creationism. The report prompted liberal Internet columnist Robert Paul Reyes to brand Palin a "religious fanatic" with a "Neanderthal faith" who "thinks that 'The Flinstones' is a reality show." Reyes suggests that during tonight's vice-presidential debate, Palin should be questioned about her reported belief that God created the earth 6,000 years ago and that dinosaurs and men coexisted. Mark Looy is co-founder of the creation apologetics ministry...

Reducing Human Behavior to Natural Laws Oct 02, 2008 — Can human behavior be reduced to natural laws that science can study in a morally neutral way? Darwin sought to incorporate all aspects of the living world, including behavior, in natural laws that were amenable to scientific explanation. Evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists continue in that tradition today. Consider two recent examples in the literature that described how human behavior evolves. 1. One nation, under Darwin: PhysOrg published a short article 9/24/08 about how a strong leader can benefit society. “In a study that looks at the evolutionary role of leaders...

Some cichlid fish see red better while others only have eyes for blue. This difference in vision, observed in fish in an African lake, could be pushing red-bodied cichlids to branch off from their blue-bodied brethren and to form a new species. If so, it would be the first time that scientists have caught evolution in the act of creating a new species because of changes in sense organs. For one species to diverge into two, some barrier must prevent two groups of individuals from interbreeding. Physical separation of two groups and changes to reproductive organs are two of the...

AUSTIN — Scientists from Texas universities on Tuesday denounced what they called supernatural and religious teaching in public school science classrooms and voiced opposition to attempts to water down evolution instruction. The newly formed 21st Century Science Coalition said so far it has 800 members who have signed up online. "Texas public schools should be preparing our kids to succeed in the 21st century, not promoting political and ideological agendas that are hostile to a sound science education," said David Hillis, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin. The State Board of Education is considering...

When Bill Nye spoke here earlier this year, I got to ask one of the men who started my love affair with science what we can do to champion science. Thus, when Orekoya Moyosoreoluwa wrote his articles, I felt my duty as not only a scientist, but also a citizen concerned with how science will be perceived. Will my generation produce more great scientists like Feynman, Salk and Gould, or will future generations regard science as, to paraphrase Ben Stein, something that leads you to kill people?

The remains of a 30-foot-long predatory dinosaur discovered along the banks of Argentina's Rio Colorado is helping to unravel how birds evolved their unusual breathing system. University of Michigan paleontologist Jeffrey Wilson was part of the team that made the discovery, to be published Sept. 29 in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE and announced at a news conference in Mendoza, Argentina. The discovery of this dinosaur builds on decades of paleontological research indicating that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Birds have a breathing system that is unique among land animals. Instead of lungs that expand, birds have a...

Darwinists Root for Obama Sept 28, 2008 — Ministers in churches are not allowed to promote political candidates, even though they do not take government money.1 Scientists, who often do take federal money in the form of grants, openly take positions on the presidential candidates they feel will further their interests. Is this proper? Both Nature and Science this week did extensive reporting on the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. While the magazines and the organizations behind them do not receive tax money directly, they act as the leading voices of scientists who are largely supported by grants, and thus they...

Dogs are no better than wolves at picking up on human cues... When tasked with choosing between two paint cans based on a trainer's hand signal, tamed wolves actually proved more adept at picking the right can. This casts doubt on the idea that domestication some 15,000 years ago imbued dogs with a window into the human mind, says Clive Wynne, an animal psychologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Rather, dogs -- and tamed wolves -- probably learn to associate human arm movements with treats, play and affection. Researchers who argue for a dog "theory of mind" are...

The Discovery Institute, as indicated by its wedge document, wishes to eliminate science's focus on natural causes. The group views this focus as the source of society's increasing materialism, which makes it anathema in the belief system of Discovery's members. Stephen C. Meyer, the lead author of EE, heads the Discovery Institute and is mentioned by name in the wedge document, as is coauthor Paul Nelson. Evolution has been singled out for special ire by Discovery, as it provides an explanation for the origin of humanity based solely on natural processes. Although the ID movement has not developed a research...

These molecules, called quinones, received considerable attention by the astrobiology community because they are common to all life forms. They are potentially significant for the “origin of life” or the habitability of planets. How does a planet become habitable? “Molecules from space helped to make the Earth the pleasant place that it is today,” said Allamandola, founder of the Ames Astrochemistry Laboratory. “Our findings were new because we showed how these molecules formed. It was already known that these molecules were in meteorites and delivered to the planets,” said Bernstein. “We now understand why these life-like carbon compounds are raining...

In the media, Catholicism is the religious tradition most frequently, and misleadingly, held up for approbation as having no problem reconciling Darwinism with theistic faith. The tradition next most often cited as Darwin-friendly is my own, Judaism. You can bet a new Rabbis’ Letter in support of evolution will garner the usual uncomprehending applause. Boasting 305 signatures so far, the letter holds that "It is possible to be inspired by the religious teachings of the Bible while not taking a literalist approach and while accepting the validity of science including the foundational concept of evolution." The Open Letter Concerning Religion...

A proposal for curriculum standards for science courses in Texas would remove language requiring students be taught the "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories, wording which some say has been used to undermine the theory of evolution. Proposals released Tuesday from review committees of teachers and academics would also put up roadblocks for teachers who want to discuss creationism or "intelligent design" in biology classes when covering the subject of evolution. The biology review committee proposed language that states supernatural and religious-based concepts such as creationism have no place in science classes. The standards are subject to approval by...

Tetrapods, the first four-legged land animals, are regarded as the first organisms that had fingers and toes. Now researchers at Uppsala University can show that this is wrong. Using medical x-rays, they found rudiments of fingers in the fins in fossil Panderichthys, the “transitional animal,” which indicates that rudimentary fingers developed considerably earlier than was previously thought.

One of the world's leading biologists, who is also an ordained Anglican priest, has sparked uproar in both religious and scientific circles by campaigning to teach creationism, along with evolution and the "Big Bang" theory in science classrooms. Creationism, an issue that has triggered furious debates in churches, schools and even courts in the United States, rejects Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and holds that God created the universe and all that goes with it - most of all, man - in six days. The Rev. Michael Reiss has truly stirred the pot - and the fury of his fellow...

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, together with American colleagues, have decoded the genome of the Pristionchus pacificus nematode, thereby gaining insight into the evolution of parasitism. In their work, which has recently been published in Nature Genetics, the scientists from Professor Ralf J. Sommer’s department in Tübingen, Germany, have shown that the genome of the nematode consists of a surprisingly large number of genes, some of which have unexpected functions. These include a number of genes that are helpful in breaking down harmful substances and for survival in a strange habitat: the Pristionchus uses beetles as...

The theory of Darwinian evolution is one of the least rigorous scientific theories in modern memory. It cannot address the mathematical probability problems associated with the development of favorable new structures by means of successive mutations. The fossil record looks nothing like it should look if Darwinian evolution were actually the mechanism for the creation of new species. Scientists have never been able to reproduce the development of a new species in a laboratory, even with the simplest life forms. There are no indications, in the laboratory or the fossil record, of anything other than micro-evolution (change within a...

This week, in Britain, we have had the highest profile proof that even a hint that your views on evolution might differ from those of the scientific establishment is enough to force you out. Prof. Michael Reiss, an evolutionist and the Royal Society’s director of education, resigned under pressure (given the push) within a couple of days of merely suggesting that creationism and ID could be discussed in classrooms—even if it was in order to explain why they were, in his view, wrong.2 Immediately, atheistic scientists called for him to be ousted, claiming he was wanting creationism to be taught...

However, as you might expect, there is a downside to belligerence and bravery. While both these traits offer advantages during war for a tribe, both traits are also considered high-risk social behaviors. An individual possessing the traits has a greater chance of dying, which means the tribe not only loses a warrior, but the death also opens a spot for another male to appropriate the first male's reproduction-enhancing resources. This trade-off leads to another question: if an individual himself does not benefit from belligerence and bravery, but only his tribe, why would humans evolve this altruistic trait? The scientists explain...

Darwin Quotes: 1. “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.” 2. “It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist. 3. “I hardly see how religion & science can be kept as distinct as [Edward Pusey] desires… But I most wholly agree… that there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness.” 4. “In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of...

Just as human beings evolved, so has the understanding of human evolution. Since the discovery in 1974 in Ethiopia of "Lucy," a 3.2 million-year-old skeleton of a female primate who walked upright, the evidence has mounted that Africa, and not Europe, was the birthplace of many of the talents and abilities - notably tool-making - that have defined human beings. That's according to Donald C. Johanson, who found what is considered the world's most famous fossil.

Seeing evidence of the divine in the theories of Charles Darwin meant that Gerson did not hesitate to sign an open letter drafted by a suburban Chicago rabbi this summer supporting the teaching of evolution in public schools. The two-paragraph letter, written by Rabbi David Oler of Congregation Beth Or in Deerfield, Ill., has attracted 235 signatures since its completion in July, with Jewish leaders from across the United States supporting its cause.

Yale researchers have shown that the origin and evolution of the placenta and uterus in mammals is associated with evolutionary changes in a single regulatory protein, according to a report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Many past studies have shown that genes are regulated and altered by changes within their own structures. This is the first work suggesting that the evolution of transcription factors — separate regulatory proteins — may play an active role in the origin and evolution of structural innovations like the placenta and uterus," said senior author Gunter Wagner, the Alison Richard Professor of...

Hundreds of new kinds of animal species surprised international researchers systematically exploring waters off two islands on the Great Barrier Reef and a reef off northwestern Australia -- waters long familiar to divers. The explorers have released some initial results and stunning images from their landmark four-year effort to record the diversity of life in and around Australia’s renowned reefs. Discoveries at Lizard and Heron Islands (part of the Great Barrier Reef), and Ningaloo Reef in northwestern Australia, included: About 300 soft coral species, up to half of them thought to be new to science; Dozens of small crustacean species...

The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed—inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without them, the observations made by astronomers fatally contradict the ‘predictions’ of big bang theory.11,12 Such continual appeal to new fudge factors to bridge the gap between theory and observation would not be tolerated in any other branch of physics. Rather, physicists would question the underlying theory...

Church of England apologises to Darwin Anglican Church’s neo-Chamberlainite appeasement of secularism 20 September 2008 ...it’s notable that many evolutionized clergy not only have appeased secularism but also appeased radical Islam: the leading cleric in the CoE, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, stated earlier this year that adoption of sharia law in the UK seems unavoidable. (Click link to read entire article...a must read!)

A Turkish court has banned internet users from viewing the official website of the leading biologist and science writer Richard Dawkins after a Muslim creationist writer claimed its contents were defamatory and blasphemous. Adnan Oktar complained that Dawkins, who is a fierce critic of creationism and intelligent design, had insulted him in comments made on forums and blogs. "We are not against freedom of speech or expression but you cannot insult people," said a spokesman for Oktar. "We found the comments hurtful. It was not a scientific discussion. There was a line and the limit has been passed. We have...

For Rabbi Gary Gerson of the Oak Park Temple B'nai Abraham Zion, evolution does not oppose religious belief but strengthens it. "If anything, it all the more underscores the magnificence of creation as the expression of some highest order," Gerson said. "We as Jews every day praise God for the times and seasons and the order of being, and that perhaps is the greatest miracle of all. This is not caprice. There is a natural order to things." Seeing evidence of the divine in the theories of Charles Darwin meant that Gerson did not hesitate to sign an open letter...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Tuesday the theory of evolution was compatible with the Bible but planned no posthumous apology to Charles Darwin for the cold reception it gave him 150 years ago. Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican's culture minister, was speaking at the announcement of a Rome conference of scientists, theologians and philosophers to be held next March marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's "The Origin of Species". Christian churches were long hostile to Darwin because his theory conflicted with the literal biblical account of creation.

Christians - at least C of E members - may agree. The Church's website assures us there is nothing in natural selection that "contradicts Christian teaching". I beg to differ: Christianity demands a rational being capable of moral choices. It can accept that such a being may take time to evolve and share ancestry with chimpanzees. It can even accept that the being might not take a human form, though I'm not sure what that does to the stuff about "made in the image of God". But unless something like us comes along eventually, and unless things are designed for...

A professor at a Vatican-sponsored university expressed dismay Tuesday that some Christian groups reject the theory of evolution — implicitly criticizing the literal interpretation of the Bible. Further emphasizing the official Catholic stance, a Vatican official restated the Church position that evolution is not incompatible with faith. Both men spoke at a press conference ahead of a March event aimed at fostering dialogue between religion and science, and appraising evolution 150 years after Charles Darwin's landmark "On the Origin of Species."

The crashing of the enormous fluked tail on the surface of the ocean is a “calling card” of modern whales. Living whales have no back legs, and their front legs take the form of flippers that allow them to steer. Their special tails provide the powerful thrust necessary to move their huge bulk. Yet this has not always been the case. Reporting in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, paleontologist Mark D. Uhen of the Alabama Museum of Natural History describes new fossils from Alabama and Mississippi that pinpoint where tail flukes developed in the evolution of...

Lord Robert Winston has renewed his attack on atheist writers such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, whose arguments he said were "dangerous", "irresponsible" and "very divisive". The science populariser and fertility expert said...

The Rev Professor Michael Reiss, who was director of education at Britain's scientific academy as well as an ordained Church of England minister, sparked controversy last week when he suggested that pupils should learn about the idea that evolution is wrong and the Earth is only 10,000 years old. He claimed just "banging on" about natural selection would not lead devout Christian or Muslim children to change their beliefs, and said creationism should be treated as a "world view" rather than a misconception. Two Nobel laureates condemned his "dangerous" and "outrageous" views while the renowned zoologist and atheist Professor Richard...

Looking for Laws to Make Darwinism Scientific Sept 15, 2008 — Science needs natural laws. Darwinian laws that have been put forward by evolutionists contain so many exceptions and complexities, they seem to have a bad case of physics envy...