Free Republic

Religions thrived to protect our ancestors against the ravages of disease, according to a radical new evolutionary theory of the genesis of faith. Prof Richard Dawkins the atheist and sceptic, has condemned religion as a "virus of the mind" but it seems that people became religious for good reason - actually to avoid infection by viruses and other diseases - according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences. Dr Corey Fincher and Prof Randy Thornhill of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, come to this conclusion after studying why religions are far more...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Some odd-looking fish fossils discovered in the bowels of several European museums may help solve a lingering question about evolutionary theory, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. The 50 million-year-old fossils -- which have one eye near the top of their heads -- help explain how flatfish such as flounder, sole and halibut developed the strange but useful trait of having both eyes on one side. For flatfish, which lie on their sides at the bottom of the sea, this arrangement gives them the use of two watchful eyes. But the trait has posed a problem for evolutionary...

There are many questions that this theory brings about. Not the least of which is who are the officials that were named in the report? Is there a continuing investigation on this drugs and weapons/ government officials link? If not, why not? This theory makes a wonder how many Congressmen/women are finding themselves in similar situations. Whether it be from an outside source or an inside source. Whether it be death threats or threats of assassination of character.

Gene studies confirm "out of Africa" theories By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two big genetic studies confirm theories that modern humans evolved in Africa and then migrated through Europe and Asia to reach the Pacific and Americas. The two studies also show that Africans have the most diverse DNA, and the fewest potentially harmful genetic mutations. One of the studies shows European-Americans have more small mutations, while the others show Native Americans, Polynesians and others who populated Australia and Oceania have more big genetic changes. The studies, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, paint...

The E8 pattern (left), Garrett Lisi surfing (middle) and out of the water (right) Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder (when he slept in a jungle yurt). In winter, he heads to the mountains near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where he snowboards. "Being poor sucks," Lisi says. "It's hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when you're trying to figure out where you and your girlfriend are going to sleep next month."

New Theory Predicts Location Of Oil And Gas Reserves Science Daily (Oct. 21, 2007) — Researchers in Stavanger, Norway, have developed a theory which can be important for future oil and gas exploration. The Golden Zone is the name of a an underground zone where temperatures range between 60 and 120 C. The name refers to a new discovery that 90 per cent of the world's oil and gas reserves are to be found just there. The theory has been tested and verified against a global database containing 120 000 oil fields under production, This gives geologists a tool that...

Contact: Lisa Nelson Lisa.Nelson@nau.edu 928-523-6123 Northern Arizona University Research team says extraterrestrial impact to blame for Ice Age extinctions A colorized scanning electron microscope image of a glassy carbon sphere that contains evidence of extraterrestrial impact. The sphere measures about .012 inches in width. What caused the extinction of mammoths and the decline of Stone Age people about 13,000 years ago remains hotly debated. Overhunting by Paleoindians, climate change and disease lead the list of probable causes. But an idea once considered a little out there is now hitting closer to home. A team of international researchers, including two Northern...

Da Vinci's Last Supper: New conspiracy theory By Matthew Moore Last Updated: 9:35am BST 30/07/2007 It is a conspiracy theory worthy of a Dan Brown novel. The composite version of the Last Supper, created by superimposing the original with its mirror image New claims that Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper contains a hidden image of a woman holding a child are provoking a storm of interest on the internet. The figure allegedly appears when the 15th Century mural painting is superimposed with its mirror image, and both are made partially transparent. The 'woman' leans across the group in Christ's...

HUMINT: In terms of economics, a dollar is a unitized reference for value. Think about it; we trade value everyday in the marketplace; not widgets, services or currency but value. If you’re like me however, you seldom stop to think about the fact that a product’s price is just a reference of its actual value. In a truly free market, Adam Smith philosophically asserts “price is set by what consumers are willing to pay”. Beyond supply and demand, we can see value being traded in the market place when, for example, a customer chooses one tomato over a less appealing...

CROWD THEORY: If you want to understand crowds, you’ve got to immerse yourself in them. Not just one kind of crowd, but all kinds of crowds. There are a number of cross cultural similarities between crowds. As an observer, I’ve always enjoyed watching crowd mechanics in action. Concerts, demonstrations, games in stadiums, lines, speeches and parties are just a few examples of situations where crowds coalesce. Why study crowds? Why not? We move through them every day. Every crowd is a microcosm of society. Case in point, your government represents an institutionalized manifestation of crowd control theory. CROWD MEMBERS:...

The doctrine of comparative advantage is perhaps the only settled doctrine in the discipline of Economics. It makes sense - if a country can produce something with less inputs relative to another country (note that comaparative advantage is relative, you can be better at producing everything, and it still works), if it specializes in producing that good or service, and other countries specialize in producing their goods or services, then they trade them back and forth, everyone's better off. But economists seem incapable of reading Ricardo's actual essay. Ricardo notes that because capital was relatively immobile in his time, relative...

A recently-observed supernova is making some astrophysicists doubt prevailing theories for how stars die. The massive star, located in galaxy UGC 4904 about 77 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Lynx, threw off a huge amount of material on October 20, 2004. This star, which may have been what's known as a Luminous Blue Variable (LBV), was mistaken for a supernova, as LBV's often are. In fact, some observers refer to them as "supernova imposters." Then, in the fall of 2006, the star exploded into a full supernova, much sooner than expected. Dubbed Supernova 2006jc, the dying star's blast...

Some experts have questioned the alarmists theory on global warming leading to shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers. VK Raina, a leading glaciologist and former ADG of GSI is one among them. He feels that the research on Indian glaciers is negligible. Nothing but the remote sensing data forms the basis of these alarmists observations and not on the spot research. Raina told the Hindustan Times that out of 9,575 glaciers in India, till date, research has been conducted only on about 50. Nearly 200 years data has shown that nothing abnormal has occurred in any of these glaciers. It is simple....

New Mexico State Senator Steve Komadina has introduced a bill into the New Mexico Senate which would protect the academic freedom of teachers to discuss scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolution. The bill requires that the New Mexico Department of Education adopt rules to “give teachers the right and freedom, when a theory of biological origins is taught, to objectively inform students of scientific information relevant to the strengths and weaknesses of that theory and protect teachers from reassignment, termination, discipline or other discrimination for doing so.” The bill would not only protect teachers, but also students: it requires the...

TRWS: TGS and TSS – The various real and virtual elements of TGS and TSS are based upon the doctrine of Game Theory which relates that gaming can be, and in some cases should be, training for various Real World Capabilities. Therefore TGS and TSS are components of the Transferable Real World Skills Game Theory doctrine. TRWS (and the various components which comprise the Doctrine) is a Virtual Training and Gaming Protocol designed to allow the development, practice, and transmission of Real World Skills into a Training Scenario or Gaming Environment. Likewise the practice of Gaming and Virtual skills in...

MEXICO CITY - Mexicans have long been taught to blame diseases brought by the Spaniards for wiping out most of their Indian ancestors. But recent research suggests things may not be that simple. While the initial big die-offs are still blamed on the Conquistadors who started arriving in 1519, even more virulent epidemics in 1545 and 1576 may have been caused by a native blood-hemorrhaging fever spread by rats, Mexican researchers say. The idea has sparked heated debate in Mexican academic circles. One camp holds that the epidemics could have been spread by rats migrating during a drought cycle; others...

In short, the second, pragmatic, altruistic approach has failed. ... The reason for this failure is that every one of the ideas we used to evaluate our options is wrong. In every case, the opposite of today’s “conventional wisdom” is true. A strong offense does not create new enemies; it defeats existing foes. Were this not so, we would be fighting German and Japanese suicide bombers today, while North Korea—undefeated by America—would be peaceful, prosperous, and free. Poverty is not the “root cause” of wars. If it were, poor Mexicans would be attacking America, not begging for jobs at Wal-Mart....

I shall refute here the proposition that “the economic value of all goods and services is derived from the cost of their production and ultimately from the labor expended on their creation—be it measured in terms of the time, effort, or disutility required to produce the goods or services in question—and the labor expended on the creation of goods necessarily endows them with economic value.” This proposition is the essence of the labor theory of value, a false view nonetheless embraced by such notable thinkers as Thomas Aquinas and Adam Smith and used by Karl Marx to justify socialism. I...

In the standard theory of gravity—general relativity—dark matter plays a vital role, explaining many observations that the standard theory cannot explain by itself. But for 70 years, cosmologists have never observed dark matter, and the lack of direct observation has created skepticism about what is really out there.Lately, some scientists have turned the question around, from “is dark matter correct?” to “is our standard theory of gravity correct?” Most recently, Fermilab scientists Scott Dodelson and former Brinson Fellow Michele Liguori demonstrated one of the first pieces of theoretical evidence that an alternative theory of gravity can explain the large scale...

Environment Canada says such low temperatures unusual for this time of year. The arctic deep freeze trapping Calgary is on track to break a 110-year-old weather record today, but the bitter cold is expected to ease in the coming days. With a forecast low of -31C today, Calgary could break the -27C record set on this day in 1896. But factoring in the wind chill, it will feel even colder to people who have to brave the elements, said Environment Canada meteorologist Ross Macdonald. It's even been too frosty to ski, with Canada Olympic Park shutting the hill yesterday in...

This thread is a continuation of the first thread "Questions For Atheists & Non-Atheists" Some points were brought up that I wish to address here. I look forward to the responses. Taken from one of my dictionaries in my personal library: "Occam's Razor. A principle devised by the English philospher William of Occam, which states that entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary. In a scientific context, Occam's Razor is the choice of the simplest theory from among the theories which fit what we know. In logic, Occam's Razor is the statement of an argument in its essential...

Social Construction of Reality Theory and Emancipatory Theory: A Comparative Analysis By Kriztine Rosales-Viray A. Introduction Social Construction of Reality Theory (SCR) and Emancipatory Theory have strenuously influenced the way twentieth century scholars perceive things that surround them. The SCR of P. Berger and T. Luckmann, since it was introduced in the book Social Construction of Reality published in 1967, has made enormous impact upon the fields of Sociology and Social Sciences. Likewise, Klaus Krippendorf’s Emancipatory Theory has its own effect on the way contemporary theorists formulate their critics a and analyses. This paper tries to inquire whether there are...

This is a reference thread with links to previous FR threads discussing the arrest of a suspect, John Mark Karr, in the decade-old cold case concerning the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, plus case resources for continued commentary on investigation of the crime.

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna said he thought Darwin's theories on evolution deserve to be studied in schools, along with the scientific question marks that remain. It is right to teach "the science of Darwin, not ideological Darwinism," Cardinal Schonborn said Aug. 23. He spoke at a meeting in Rimini sponsored by the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation, and his remarks were reported by Italian newspapers. In 2005, Cardinal Schonborn helped fuel the debate over evolution and intelligent design when he wrote in The New York Times that science offers "overwhelming evidence for design in biology." He later...

A comparison of peoples' views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower. Among the factors contributing to America's low score are poor understanding of biology, especially genetics, the politicization of science and the literal interpretation of the Bible by a small but vocal group of American Christians, the researchers say. “American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalist, which is why Turkey and we are so close,” said study co-author Jon Miller of Michigan State University. The researchers combined...

Dilmun calendar theory backed By GEOFFREY BEW A SAUDI archaeologist who has been trying for nine years to prove his theory that the Dilmun civilisation celebrated New Year on June 21 - the first day of summer - has finally received some official recognition.Information Ministry Assistant Under-Secretary for Culture and National Heritage Shaikha Mai bint Khalifa Al Khalifa is said to have endorsed his judgement after visiting the 4,000-year-old Saar settlement to observe the phenomenon last month. Archaeologist Nabiel Al Shaikh says an ancient temple at the settlement, which features an oddly positioned triangular room, was used as an astronomical...

Whether you’re a free-loading virus or a meat-stealing monkey, selfishness pays. So how could cooperators survive in a cheater’s world? Thomas Flatt, a postdoctoral research associate at Brown, was part of a group that created a theoretical model that neatly solves this dilemma, which has stumped evolutionary biologists and social scientists for decades. The trick: Keep the altruists in small groups, away from the swindling horde, where they multiply and migrate. It’s a truth borne out in biology and economics: Selfishness pays. Viruses can steal enzymes to reproduce. Tax evaders can take advantage of public services to survive and thrive....

Scientists use quantum gravity to describe the universe before the Big Bang.Scientists may finally have an answer to a "big" question: If the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe, what could have caused it to happen? Using a theory called "loop quantum gravity," a group led by Penn State professor Abhay Ashtekar has shown that just before the Big Bang occurred, another universe very similar to ours may have been contracting. According to the group's findings, this previous universe eventually became so dense that a normally negligible repulsive component of the gravitational force overpowered the attractive component, causing...

An update on the amazing T. rex bone discovery announced a year ago this month Last year at about this time, it was disclosed that scientists had made an amazing discovery of a Tyrannosaurus rex thigh bone that still retained well-preserved soft tissue (which included blood vessels and cells). For evolutionists who argue that dinosaurs died about 65 million years ago, it was a startling discovery. AiG–USA’s Dr. David Menton (who holds a Ph.D. in cell biology from Brown University) wrote at the time that it “certainly taxes one’s imagination to believe that soft tissue and cells could remain so...

The Official Death of the Theory of Evolution – 2/25/2006 Theorem Name: The Illusion of Evolution DOA Theorem Theorem: There are not enough reproductive life cycle generations available in the projected age of the Universe to allow even the most basic form of evolution. Note: This Theorem looks at the Theory of Evolution from a completely abstract point of view. The formulas and discussion are presented from an Evolutionist point of view. This doesn’t necessarily represent the view of the author. AoU – age of the Universe. (1) AvRpdCyc - average reproductive life cycle generation (2)(3) TotalRpdCyc – total reproductive...

Ancient People Followed 'Kelp Highway' to America, Researcher Says Bjorn Carey LiveScience Staff Writer Sun Feb 19, 9:00 PM ET ST. LOUIS—Ancient humans from Asia may have entered the Americas following an ocean highway made of dense kelp. The new finding lends strength to the "coastal migration theory," whereby early maritime populations boated from one island to another, hunting the bountiful amounts of sea creatures that live in kelp forests. This research was presented here Sunday at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science by anthropologist Jon Erlandson of the University of Oregon. Today, a nearly continuous "kelp...

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.” —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass A curious metamorphosis of the language of evolution seems to be taking place as the Darwinian theory becomes more suspect in the eyes of scientists who advocate intelligent design, and with the public at large. The Gallup Organization has been polling the public on this issue since 1982, when 38 percent indicated a belief in the creationist explanation of life's origin, 33 percent believed in theistic (God-directed)...

Biologists are beginning to solve the riddles on which intelligent-design advocates have relied To advocates of intelligent design, the human sperm's tiny tail bears potent evidence that Charles Darwin was wrong--it is, they say, a molecular machine so complex that only God could have produced it. But biologists now are starting to piece together how such intricate bits of biochemistry evolved. Although the basic research was not meant as a response to intelligent design, it is unraveling the very riddles that proponents said could not be solved. In contrast, intelligent design advocates admit they still lack any way of using...

A highly unusual break-in at a grammar school in Klæbu resulted in a bit of mental exercise. The burglar(s) did not appear to be out after material gain. Instead of stealing, the intruder(s) sat down and began to solve the math problems intended for third grade students, newspaper Adresseavisen reports. According to local law enforcement officials a good job was done and all of the problems were solved correctly. There has been nothing reported missing or stolen from the school building and it remains a mystery how the intruder or intruders gained access to the school.

SACRAMENTO -- California regulators became the first in the nation today to designate second-hand tobacco smoke as a "toxic air contaminant,'' placing it in the same category as the poisons arsenic and benzene. The state Air Resources Board decided to target environmental tobacco smoke after evaluating studies that linked other people's smoke to increased cases of breast cancer, heart disease, asthma and low birth-weight babies. The designation will trigger investigations around the state. Air board staffers are expected to visit clusters of smokers outside buildings and other spots where smokers congregate. They want to figure out ways to reduce the...

For a long time now, secularists have been trying to come up with reasons why people believe in God. If you take a strictly naturalistic view of the world, after all, it can be pretty difficult to understand how anyone would put their faith in an invisible supernatural being. And yet, generation after generation continues to hold to do just that. It’s a question that has puzzled and fascinated some of the most prominent minds of our time. Now there’s an intriguing new explanation for religious faith. Paul Bloom, a Yale professor of psychology and linguistics, argues in the Atlantic...

The fundamental particles of the universe that physicists have identified—electrons, neutrinos, quarks, and so on—are the "letters" of all matter. Just like their linguistic counterparts, they appear to have no further internal substructure. String theory proclaims otherwise. According to string theory, if we could examine these particles with even greater precision—a precision many orders of magnitude beyond our present technological capacity—we would find that each is not pointlike but instead consists of a tiny, one-dimensional loop. Like an infinitely thin rubber band, each particle contains a vibrating, oscillating, dancing filament that physicists have named a string.

Induction Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery by John H. Holland, Keith J. Holyoak, Richard E. Nisbett and Paul R. Thagard Computational Models of Cognition and Perception series MIT Press, 1986 A brief description of this book (like the one on its cover) sounds like the beginning of a very academic shaggy dog story: ``So one day, see, a computer scientist, a philosopher and two psychologists write this book about induction...'' While there are some amusing bits (for a very academic value of amusement, admittedly), this is a serious book, and in fact one of the best I know of...

When a federal judge in Pennsylvania struck down the efforts of a local school board to teach "intelligent design," he rightly criticized the wholly unscientific nature of that enterprise. Some people will disagree with his view, arguing that evolution is a "theory" and intelligent design is a "theory," so students should look at both theories. But this view confuses the meaning of the word "theory." In science, a theory states a relationship between two or more things (scientists like to call them "variables") that can be tested by factual observations. We have a "theory of gravity" that predicts the speed...

Jeremy Seal on an Epic History BATH, England, DEC. 20, 2005 (Zenit.org).- The modern persona of Santa Claus is a far cry from its origins: St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra. So how did he go from a charitable saint to an icon of Christmas consumerism? Travel writer Jeremy Seal embarked on an international search to answer that question and recorded his findings in "Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus" (Bloomsbury". Seal told ZENIT what he discovered tracking the cult of Santa Claus across the globe and why he thinks St. Nicholas and his charism of charity still...

Why are physicists taking the idea of multiple universes seriously now? First, there was the discovery in the past few years that inflation seems right. This theory that the universe expanded spectacularly in the first fraction of a second fits a lot of data. Inflation tells us that the universe is probably extremely big and necessarily diverse. On sufficiently big scales, and if inflation lasts long enough, this diversity will produce every possible universe. The same process that forged our universe in a big bang will happen over and over. The mathematics are rickety, but that's what inflation implies: a...

No Safe Ground For Life To Stand On During World's Largest Mass Extinction The world's largest mass extinction was probably caused by poisonous volcanic gas, according to research published today.

When President Bush declared his support for the teaching of Intelligent Design (ID) theory in public schools along with Darwinian evolution, both he and the theory itself drew a lot of criticism. Among the many lines of attack the critics launch, one theme remains strikingly constant: the notion that ID is a Trojan Horse of Christian fundamentalists whose ultimate aim is to turn the U.S. into an theocracy. In a furious New Republic cover story, "The Case Against Intelligent Design," Jerry Coyne joins in this hype and implies that all non-Christians, including Muslims, should be alarmed by this supposedly Christian...

In an election in Pennsylvania this week, voters tossed out eight members of the Pittsburgh school board who wanted Intelligent Design theory to be taught alongside evolution in school. But should Intelligent Design -- the theory that living organisms were created at least in part by an intelligent designer, not by a blind process of evolution by natural selection -- be taught in public schools? In one way, the answer to this question is simple: if it's a scientific theory, it should; if it's not, it shouldn't (on pain of flaunting the Establishment Clause). The question, however, is whether Intelligent...

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount." However, in government, education, and in corporate America, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as: 1. Buying a stronger whip. 2. Changing riders. 3. Appointing a committee to study the horse. 4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses. 5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included. 6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired. 7. Hiring outside contractors to...

SNIP..... While the Democrats and their base now think that finally the elected Democrats have stood up on their hind legs and they're showing some guts and they're showing some backbone, they're now happy. Are they not? The base is happy, and this is another thing that's difficult to comprehend. Unless you realize these people are whacked-out. They are happy over nothing. They are happy over rhetoric. They think shutting down the Senate has changed the momentum. They're as out of touch with what's happening in this country as they are out of touch with the war and the whole...

An international group of scientists have filed a "friend of the court" brief with federal Judge John E. Jones III advising him that "the identification of intelligent causes is a well-established scientific practice" and asking him to allow "the freedom of scientists to pursue scientific evidence wherever it may lead." Jones is presiding over the Dover intelligent design trial. The 24-page brief — carrying the names of 85 scientists in fields including chemistry, molecular biology, mathematics, neurological surgery and environmental science — states "the definition of science and the boundaries of science should be left to scientists to debate." "Any...

A headline on the UK’s Guardian today reads, “Age cannot wither him,” referring to Gore Vidal. The author, Emma Brockes, pays homage at the feet of Vidal, praising him as an “aristocrat, intellectual and prolific novelist, playwright, and essayist,” flattering “his ongoing radicalism,” and gleefully exclaiming that he “is as outspoken as ever.” But Vidal’s left-wing hubris and insanity does not completely escape the awe-struck Brockes… sort of. Brockes interviewed Vidal at his “grand old palazzo” in Italy. She notes that Vidal just sold this palace for “£9.5m” ($17,173,147.00) so that he could move to another house he owns in...

Video @: rtsp://s96wm.castup.net/server12/60169184-61.wmv?s=&rid=509100539523751&ct=US&rg=US&aid=214 9-11 was a show, a production to gain 'international legiticimy' J00z all called off that day 150 Congressmen asked for inquires Bush knew of bombings and let them happen (Washington Post Quoted) Towers fell 'like a movie production' or 'play', not real. J00s control Osama, and used to go into Afganistan and Iraq (proof is that it "was broadcast live", and that Bush said "Oh, what a wonderful pilot" while at the Elementary School And thats just the 1st 10min of this clip (which runs over an hr)

LONDON - A new theory proposes that mad cow disease may have come from feeding British cattle meal contaminated with human remains infected with a variation of the disease. The hypothesis, outlined this week in The Lancet medical journal, suggests the infected cattle feed came from the Indian subcontinent, where bodies sometimes are ceremonially thrown into the Ganges River. Indian experts not connected with the research pointed out weaknesses in the theory but agreed it should be investigated. The cause of the original case or cases of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is unknown, but it belongs to...