Free Republic

Weekend Roundup --snip-- Picture Highlight: the new Herschel Space Telescope, is seeing first light and creating dramatic images of gas clouds in the Milky Way...

Anchiornis huxleyi: new four-winged feathered dino?...

Review Of The Seventh Chapter Of Signature In The Cell by Stephen Meyer ISBN: 9780061894206; ISBN10: 0061894206; Imprint: HarperOne The distinction between historical and experimental science is one that extends back over the centuries and at its core seems easy to grasp. Whereas historical science has as its focus events that have defined the history both of our planet and larger cosmos, experimental science has its eye on the current operation of nature.The 19th century philosopher William Whewell coined the term ‘palaetiological sciences’ to describe those fields of science, such as geology and paleontology, that have a historical perspective (1)....

Oct 2, 2009 — A new fossil human ancestor has taken center stage. Those who love Lucy, the australopithecine made famous by Donald Johanson (and numerous TV specials), are in for a surprise. Lucy is a has been. Her replacement is not Desi Arnaz, but is designated Ardi, short for Ardipithecus ramidus – the new leading lady in the family tree. Actually, she has been around for years since her discovery in Ethiopia in 1992. It has taken Tim White and crew 15 years to piece together the bones that were in extremely bad condition. But now, Ardi has made...

Storming the Beaches of Norman Norman, Oklahoma, that is. Okay, so there aren’t any real beaches in Norman, Oklahoma. But when Steve Meyer and I went there recently, the Darwinists who have installed themselves as absolute dictators at the University of Oklahoma (OU) made our arrival feel like D-Day. On September 28, Steve gave a talk on his best-selling book Signature in the Cell at the Oklahoma Memorial Union on the OU campus. The following evening, September 29, Steve and I answered questions after a showing of the new film Darwin’s Dilemma at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History,...

Anchiornis: Foot Feathers Confuse Bird Evolution Story --snip-- This is an opportunity to compare hype with fact. The news media and the discoverers are all chirping that they have an example of bird evolution here. A transitional form between dinosaurs and birds has been found, and now the naysayers need to bow at the feet of the Charlie idol and admit they were wrong. It should be noticed that the Darwinists did not predict finding a dino-chicken with long feathers on its feet. What is this thing? Look at the predictions they had made...

The recent clarification by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on the question of assisted suicide is closer to the thick than the thin end of the wedge. Gone are the halcyon days when foetuses developed calmly in their mother’s wombs. Gone, too, the peaceful days when old people were respected and treated despite their chronic conditions and the cost this entailed. It must be unbearable to feel helpless seeing a loved one suffer, and I sympathise deeply with those who find themselves in such a predicament. Nevertheless, as Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks once wrote concerning assisted dying, “…...

The papers and news sites are full of claims about what some still think is a “new” candidate for an evolutionary ancestor of humans. Called Ardipithecus ramidus (often just “Ardi”), most of the articles actually explain that it’s really a detailed reanalysis of a fossil category that’s been around for years, but still the phones run hot with concerned creationists or gloating skeptics. Perhaps this is not surprising, given the journalistic temptation to run with headlines such as “Before Lucy came Ardi, new earliest hominid found”—even though the article itself states that the bones were first discovered in 1994!1 In...

boom in affordable housing in the 1950s was helped by the invention of a distinctive multifunctional piece of equipment: the backhoe. Its strong yet relatively slender articulated arm allowed precise yet rapid placement for digging or lifting. The manipulative device is trim and fast, since hoses transfer power to it from a powerful hydraulic pump within the main chassis. The "arm" of the backhoe makes many people think the equipment design is similar to a human arm, but what makes it so versatile is that it is actually more like a giant human finger. If a valuable piece of equipment...

Darwin's Dilemma Los Angeles Premiere Will Mark 150th Anniversary of Darwin's Origin of Species with Focus on Controversy over Evolution and Intelligent Design --snip-- LOS ANGELES, CA -- Highlighting the continuing controversy over the origins of life on earth, the American Freedom Alliance will premiere “Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Explosion” at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Sunday October 25 at 7:00 pm. The event will feature a panel discussion with filmmakers and leading...

Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. If dinosaur DNA doesn't "look like chicken" (or a crocodile), it will most likely be discarded as "unreliable data" prior to publication--and thus be effectively censored from public access. Why? Because evolutionary scientists are committed to only publish dinosaur DNA data that match their naturalistic tale of origins. Despite the amazing discoveries of soft tissue from dinosaur bones,[1] dinosaur DNA research results (and other dinosaur "connective...

While the horrors of Germany’s Nazi past are well known, it is a well-kept secret that similar programs were also prevalent in some Allied countries. The award-winning investigative journalist Edwin Black has documented America’s huge selective breeding and forced sterilization program in his book War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race...

Outer Limits Not Lively Sept 29, 2009 — One of the “cosmic coincidences” cited in the intelligent-design treatise The Privileged Planet1 is the “galactic habitable zone” – a fairly narrow region of the galaxy where planets can form and exist safely.  The outer regions of the galaxy were described as lacking the heavy elements necessary for planet formation. Score one for the authors.  New Scientist reported on a planet search by astronomers at the University of Tokyo who failed to find planets in the outer reaches of the galaxy.  “Astronomers have long doubted that life could exist there,” the article...

In a Commentary essay, Carl Woese and Nigel Goldenfeld provide an analysis of biological thought that differs profoundly from that presented by those celebrating the Bicentenary of Darwin's birth and, incidentally, the recently published AP Biology Standards. "This is the story of how biology of the 20th century neglected and otherwise mishandled the study of what is arguably the most important problem in all of science: the nature of the evolutionary process. This problem [ . . ] became the private domain of a quasi-scientific movement, who secreted it away in a morass of petty scholasticism, effectively disguising the fact...

Many atheopaths1 and their compromising churchian allies claim that biblical belief and science are mortal enemies. Yet historians of science, even non-Christians, have pointed out that modern science first flourished under a Christian world view while it was stillborn in other cultures such as ancient Greece, China and Arabia. The historical basis of modern science depended on the assumption that the universe was made by a rational Creator. An orderly universe makes perfect sense only if it were made by an orderly Creator (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:33). For example, evolutionary anthropologist and science writer Loren Eiseley stated:...

Intelligent Design Comes to University of Oklahoma With ID Lecture and Screening of Darwin's Dilemma... (Starts tonight!...click excerpt link to learn more)

As you know, Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, begins today at sundown and ends tomorrow at sundown. The evening service begins with the Kol Nidre. It has a haunting melody and I thought you might like to hear it (guess the singer). This is the translation from Aramaic: "All vows, obligations, oaths, and anathemas, whether called 'konam,' 'konas,' or by any other name, which we may vow, or swear, or pledge, or whereby we may be bound, from this Day of Atonement until the next (whose happy coming we await), we do repent. May they be...

Flying Reptiles: A Lesson in Specialized Function The great flying dragons of the sky, the pterosaurs, fascinate kids of all ages. With unique body adaptations such as an elongated fourth finger connected to wing membranes, this airborne hunter/scavenger was totally different from birds and other reptiles. An agile flyer with a "specialized brain and inner ear structure,"[1] its fossil remains suddenly appear in the sediments, fully formed and with no evident ancestors....

Folks, a while back I talked about Islamic Proselytism Increasing Among Latinos in New York and now this piece from CNN, Brooklyn family keeps Latino-Jewish traditions alive, sends me in the direction of an increasing "return to Judaism" movement in Latino communities that I've seen gaining exposure in the media: Every Friday evening, the Núñez family sits down to a traditional religious dinner. Like most families in their Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, their Jewish Sabbath meal includes blessings over the wineand bread, the company of family and friends and excellent food. But for the Núñez family, the...

Wolf and Mellett in their Talk origins paper, The Role of ‘Nebraska man’ in the creation-evolution debate,[1] claim Nebraska man was a careless mistake by an honest scientist. However, the evidence suggests that Osborn deliberately overstated the find because the theory of evolution was centre stage in a struggle for control of education policy in America...

Sept 24, 2009 — The evolutionary story of human origins is often told like a cultural myth that is intuitively obvious. Humans emerged in Africa after their ancestors came down from the trees and walked upright. They began to hunt with stone tools and used fire. They migrated north out of Africa and populated Europe, overtaking the Neanderthals who lacked the brain power and culture of their more evolved cousins. How much of this story is based on actual evidence? How much is interpolation of what “must” have happened based on an evolutionary view of natural history? As part of...

Russia and Islam are not Separate: Why Russia backs Al-Qaeda By Konstantin Preobrazhensky Konstantin Preobrazhensky, a former Lt. Colonel in the KGB who defected to the United States in 1993, is an intelligence expert and specialist on Japan, about which he has written six books. His newest book Russian-American, A New KGB Asset will be published in late 2007. This article was first published by Gerard Group International, Intel Analyses, 31 August 2007.Americans generally believe that Russia is afraid of Islamic terrorism as much as the U.S.A. They are reminded of the war in Chechnya, the hostage crisis at the...

Irving Kristol, Darwin Doubter, RIP If you’re ever given a choice between seeing one of two doctors about a health concern, with all else about them being apparently equal, you’d be well advised to choose the older one. Oh but won’t the young guy have all the latest techniques and therapies at his disposal, fresh from med school? Maybe or maybe not. What’s more likely, and more important, is that the seasoned practitioner will have wisdom and experience of the human condition. So too in the political world, where on the conservative side of the spectrum you have “neocons,” “paleocons,”...

Sept 21, 2009 — The Martians are singing How dry I am. Scientists have a new explanation for how Mars turned red without water...

Jews intone theses words: …mi yichie umi yamut (who will live and who will die)… mi bamayim umi ba’esh (who by water and who by fire)…As we look around the world, between the current economic meltdown and the forces that wish to destroy the West… the horizon looks rather bleak. Evil seems to be ascendant, the western nations are plagued by the cancer within, wittingly or unwittingly, working for their destruction. Western politicians of every political stripe, are guilty of the current situation whether for personal gain, for personal glory or merely because of absolutely naive misguidance. The world, as...

Bunnies Bug Darwin Rabbits are cosmopolitan, herbivorous mammals in the scientific order Lagomorpha, which includes cottontails, pikas ("conies"), and hares. Rabbits burrow and give birth to blind, naked young, whereas hares are born above ground, fully furred with eyes open. Pikas' hind limbs are only slightly longer than their forelimbs. Tooth structure is one big difference between rodents (gnawing mammals) and the lagomorphs. Both have long incisors that constantly grow. But unlike rodents, lagomorphs have additional peg-like incisors behind the first pair. Most fossil mammals are fragmentary, sometimes containing just teeth. The enamel microstructure of various mammal teeth differs widely,...

Genesis: Real, Reliable, Historical by Andrew A. Snelling, Ph.D.* Introduction to (new book entitled) Earth's Catastrophic PastWhy Take Genesis Seriously? The first eleven chapters of the Bible have been relegated by many to the category of myths, not real history. These are said to contain spiritual truth, but they cannot be taken seriously as records of real people and events. Many sincere Christians who believe the Bible do not know what their pastors believe about the historicity of Genesis. Is it safe to assume that these believe in the following truths? 1. God created everything in six 24-hour days. 2...

You’d think that a man who made such a big deal about a Muslim Congressman getting sworn into Congress using a Koran would be the last person to spend Judaism’s most important holiday with an extremist Muslim–the last person to use the day as an exercise in moral equivalency and interfaith multi-culti crap.

Man-made geographical high points in southern England and Wales have been observed for centuries, including earthworks, stone monuments like Stonehenge, and hill camps. But something quite unexpected about their distribution may have been verified...

No bridge was ever built with girders like this! The bones in our bodies aren’t just strong and flexible, they’re constantly building and repairing themselves. --snip-- Bones serve three kinds of critically important functions in our body—mechanical functions, maintenance of mineral levels, and blood production...

The Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) project has discovered a planet that orbits backward, against the rotational direction of its star. Methodological naturalists think collisions or near-collisions are the causes of unusual cosmic phenomena like this. But this reverse-orbit observation adds to a growing list of astronomical features that should not exist if collisions and other random physical processes are all that could have caused them.[1]...

In neo-Darwinian theory, mutations are uniquely biological events that provide the engine of natural variation for all the diversity of life. However, recent discoveries show that mutation is the purely physical result of the universal mechanical damage that interferes with all molecular machinery. Life’s error correction, avoidance and repair mechanisms themselves suffer the same damage and decay. The consequence is that all multicellular life on earth is undergoing inexorable genome decay. Mutation rates are so high that they are clearly evident within a single human lifetime, and all individuals suffer, so natural selection is powerless to weed them out. The...

New Book Debunks Human-Chimp Similarity by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Evolutionary science repeatedly declares that chimps and humans are 98 percent genetically identical, which is then taken as solid evidence that mankind evolved from an apelike ancestor. But a former BBC producer’s new book has found reasons to emphasize research that is often overlooked by evolutionary advocates—scientific results that reveal the uniqueness of man. In Not a Chimp: The hunt to find the genes that make us human, which was reviewed in New Scientist magazine, evolutionist Jeremy Taylor investigated not only the genetic distinctions between humans and apes, but also the...

Deepening Darwin's Dilemma By: Jonathan WellsDiscovery Institute September 16, 2009 The newly released film “Darwin’s Dilemma� argues that the geologically abrupt appearance of the major groups of animals (the “phyla�) in the Cambrian Explosion posed a serious problem for Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution (as he himself knew), and that subsequent fossil discoveries—far from solving the problem—have made it worse. In January 2009, however, the Journal of the Geological Society, London published an article titled “A solution to Darwin’s dilemma of 1859.� So, is Darwin’s dilemma solved, or not?According to Darwin’s theory, all living things are modified descendants of a...

After 100 years, automobiles still need engine oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, antifreeze, power-steering fluid, and so on. Wouldn't it be great if just a single multipurpose fluid could be circulated from a central reservoir? Each part would use only the needed properties of the fluid, exclude detrimental properties, and then send it back. The new system’s worldwide impact would ensure a huge market--and academic honors--for the clever developers. This lucrative breakthrough, however, would not be pioneering. Just such a brilliant integration of fluid properties to the diverse needs of the physical body has already been achieved in human blood--in...

This past May, a fossil nicknamed Ida was loudly heralded by the evolutionary scientific community as the long-sought-after “missing link” that supposedly proved ape-to-human evolution. Directly following the unveiling, ICR News reported reasons why Ida, in fact, linked nothing, being merely an extinct variety of lemur.[1] ICR News also predicted what has now occurred with Ida’s popularity campaign, stating, “After further study, however, this claim will be quietly rescinded.”[2] Ida has been surreptitiously...

Sept 13, 2009 — What’s an article advocating hedonism doing on Science Daily? Sure enough, an article entitled “Hedonism As the Explanation of Value” appeared today on the science news site without controversy or debate. The entry gave David Brax of Lund University a platform to preach that “pleasure is the only thing that is valuable in itself.”...

Thousands of DNA segments have been found to be nearly identical across a wide range of species including human, mouse, rat, dog, chicken and fish. --snip-- It is yet another pattern that is the opposite of what evolution expected...

Several varieties of spiny lobsters exist throughout the world’s oceans, and they all have an ability to navigate. Experiments in 2003 concluded that they orient themselves by accessing an internal map of local magnetic anomalies, or tiny fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field.[1] When a Finnish computer programmer read about this, he began designing a similar system for use in robots. Janne Haverinen provided a magnetic map of a local hospital corridor to a mobile robot. The robot was able to successfully navigate the hall using only the magnetic anomalies that characterized that building.[2] Magnetic mapping technology could provide an...

No doubt some filmgoers will be more than a little surprised by the overtly religious themes explored in A Serious Man, the latest film from brother-filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen***** While they are Jewish and were reared in a religious home in suburban Minneapolis, the Coens have never dabbled in heavy-handed religious fare à la Cecil B. de Mille's epics, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ or, more unfortunately, John Travolta's tribute to his Scientology faith, Battlefield Earth. A Serious Man is a black comedy set in the Coen brothers' real-life hometown of St. Louis Park, Minn., in 1967...

Click the excerpt link to read this week's feature...

Cambrian rock layers contain fossils that represent almost every modern phylum of animal, plus many that are now extinct. One animal fossil in particular would win the weird prize, if there were one. Paleontologists have been piecing together this strange creature’s body parts, which look as though they were taken from an array of totally different sea animals. This variety of features eludes an evolutionary explanation. The parts of this particular fossilized animal had previously been described separately and given different names, as though they belonged to different creatures. But a recent study revealed that all these parts came from...

Each of the following news reports does not provide a crucial piece of information, but simply assumes it. Can you spot what’s missing?...

With Houses Of Worship Constantly Under Threat, Former NYC Cop Offers Class Designed To Keep People Inside Safe NEW YORK (CBS) -- Some might call it the "God squad," others a proactive approach to safety. A rabbi in Queens is beginning a training program aimed at keeping places of worship worry free. Inside a Kew Gardens place of prayer is a team of experts whose goal is to make synagogues safer by teaching martial arts, how to use a gun and protecting worshipers if someone came in with guns blaring. It's the brainchild of Rabbi Gary Moscowitz, a former New...

In my last post I commented on Nobel Prize winning physicist Eugene Wigner’s article “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” in which Wigner describes as “miraculous” (1) that “laws” of nature exist; and (2) that we should be able to discover those laws. In this post I will use an exchange in the comment section of that post between ID proponent “StephenB” and Darwinist “Delurker” to illustrate the utter vacuity of Darwinist argumentation...

These days it seems like non-Jews all over the place are trying to take a piece of Jewish learning or history and make it their own. The problem is that in many cases they are copying Jews who just don’t understand the Torah foundation supporting the traditions. See the “Faux Mitzvah” — a party for 13-year-old Gentile children that skips the religious ceremony part. In some cases the non-Jews are being duped, as with Hollywood’s Kabbalah fad which turns sacred texts into little more than red string bracelets and “holy water.” There are those of the Jewish faith who will...

What Will Artificial Life Demonstrate? The production of artificial life is supposedly just around the corner. But ever since the famous 1953 Miller and Urey experiment failed to spark life in the laboratory just from chemicals, that corner has proven painstakingly long to get around.In August, biologist Craig Venter of the J. Craig Venter Institute in Maryland was reported as predicting that artificial life is just months away. His team had cloned, added to, and modified the DNA of a “simple� bacterium called Mycoplasma mycoides (a prokaryote). The complex procedure they used involved taking plasmid sequences from yeast (eukaryote) and...

In his article, "How to Argue with (Guilty) Liberals," Carey Roberts wrote, "Like a demanding and ill-mannered child, liberals are used to getting their way. Whenever they lapse into the losing side of an argument, they reflexively resort to name-calling and mud-slinging. Epithets like "neo-Nazi," "crypto-fascist," and "imperialist stooge" buzz like mosquitoes hovering over a Potomac swamp. But how many conservatives who are targets of such slurs know these liberals are indulging in one of the greatest intellectual ruses in history? How many realize it's a matter of the red-faced pot calling the kettle black?" (http://www.chronwatch-america.com/5457/1/How-to-Argue-With-a-Guilty-Liberal/Page1.html) In response to Carey's...

Molecular Machines on Parade Sept 3, 2009 — Scientific papers continue to exhibit the exquisite mechanisms in the cell for handling all kinds of situations, through the operation of molecular machines. Here are a few recent examples from this week’s issue of Nature (Sept 3, 2009)...

A group of rabbis and Jewish mystics has taken to the skies over Israel, praying and blowing ceremonial horns in a plane to ward off swine flu. About 50 religious leaders circled over the country on Monday, chanting prayers and blowing horns, called shofars. The flight's aim was "to stop the pandemic so people will stop dying from it", Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri was quoted as saying in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. The flu is often called simply "H1N1" in Israel, as pigs are seen as unclean. SWINE FLU Swine flu is a respiratory disease thought to spread through coughing and sneezing...