Posted on 08/09/2002 10:52:13 PM PDT by jennyp
There have been a lot of little news items having to do with creation vs. evolution lately, each one not necessarily worth a thread on its own. Here are the last 10 days' worth of headlines culled from Creation/Evolution: The Eternal Debate:
Posted on 2002/08/09
New Fossil Discovery Sinks Evolutionary Theories
Harun Yahya - 2002/08/01
When the Toumaï fossil was found recently, and was quickly dismissed by some as just a female gorilla, most creationists rejoiced at the foolishness of those deluded evolutionists. But prominent Muslim creationist Harun Yahya is more impressed. He hopes Toumaï will "sink our current ideas about human evolution".
Posted on 2002/08/09
Scientific American's 15 Errors
Harun Yahya - 2002/08/01
Not to be outdone by the Christian ministry Answers in Genesis, the Muslim creationist Harun Yahya provides his own critique of Scientific American's recent "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense".
Posted on 2002/08/09
Revolution in science: a genetic discovery to change the world
The Independent - 2002/08/10
RNA interference (RNAi) is a new technique for turning off individual genes that could turn out to be revolutionary for curing genetic diseases, cancers, & viral infections of all kinds, not to mention for our understanding of which genes do what. (Set of 4 articles)
Posted on 2002/08/09
Researchers' Latest Results in Search for Ancient Martian Life
NASA-JPL - 2002/08/02
In the latest study of a 4.5 billion-year-old Martian meteorite (ALH84001), researchers have presented new evidence confirming that 25 percent of the magnetic material in the meteorite was produced by ancient bacteria on Mars. These latest results were published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
Posted on 2002/08/09
History of Science Society Adds its Voice for Evolution
NCSE - 2002/08/09
NCSE is pleased to announce a further addition to New Voices for Evolution: a statement from the History of Science Society reading, in part, that "such concepts as evolution and geological change are well established and belong in science curricula along with other basic scientific ideas. ... In view of this historical perspective, the History of Science Society disapproves of recent efforts by state school boards effectively to remove evolution as a subject from the secondary school curriculum, either through textbook disclaimers or censorship."
Posted on 2002/08/09
Speed of light slowing down after all?
AiG - 2002/08/09
...in addition to being different from the prediction of Barry Setterfield's theory, this research by itself does not support c-decay theory of the magnitude that Setterfield proposed. The change is billions of times too small. In fact, the newspaper hype surrounding Davies’ theory, and the quotes attributed to him, hardly seem to be justified by the Nature article itself, which is rather speculative. ...
Posted on 2002/08/09
KC conference explores evolution debate
Kansas City Star - 2002/07/29
Until intelligent design is accepted by a majority of scientists, don't look for it in public school science classes, a panel of evolution supporters said on Saturday (7/27). The idea that life arose not through unguided natural processes but from the intent of an intelligent being is an interesting postulate at this point, but nothing else, the panel said at a debate closing a Kansas City gathering of ID advocates. Four evolution advocates debated four ID adherents at the third annual Darwin, Design and Democracy conference at Rockhurst HS.
Posted on 2002/08/08
Moderates Lose 2 to Conservatives in Kansas Board of Ed Primaries
KC Star - 2002/08/07
Voters on Tuesday ousted two incumbent moderates on the Kansas Board of Education, raising the possibility that the board could return to a 5-5 moderate-conservative split. The split on the board has been an issue since Aug. 1999, when a then-conservative majority approved science standards that omitted many references to evolution, the big-bang theory and the age of the Earth. After a moderate majority was elected two years ago, the board reversed the 1999 vote.
Posted on 2002/08/07
Selection for short introns in highly expressed genes
Nature Genetics - 2002/07/22
Transcription is a slow and expensive process. Thus, at least for highly expressed genes, transcription of long introns, which are particularly common in mammals, is costly. We show that introns in highly expressed genes are substantially shorter than those in genes that are expressed at low levels.
Posted on 2002/08/07
T.O. Creates New Kent Hovind FAQs Portal
Talk.Origins - 2002/08/08
Talk.Origins has come out with a page that gathers together their several Kent Hovind pages, as well as several off-site links, into a handy starting point.
Posted on 2002/08/07
Save Me from My Comrades: Dawkins Disses Bush
Here - 2002/08/07
Inside a longer article re: Iraq appealing to England to stop the invasion: "A Guardian survey yesterday of leading politicians, diplomats, military chiefs and scientists showed the depth of scepticism across British society about any involvement in an Iraq attack. ... Richard Dawkins, an Oxford science don, suggested Mr Bush was just as much of a danger to world peace as Saddam Hussein, adding: 'It would be a tragedy if Tony Blair were to be brought down through playing poodle to this unelected and deeply stupid little oil-spiv.'"
Posted on 2002/08/07
Inconstant Speed of Light May Debunk Einstein
Reuters - 2002/08/07
A team of Australian scientists has proposed that the speed of light may not be a constant, a revolutionary idea that could unseat one of the most cherished laws of modern physics -- Einstein's theory of relativity. The team, led by theoretical physicist Paul Davies of Sydney's Macquarie University, say it is possible that the speed of light has slowed over billions of years. If so, physicists will have to rethink many of their basic ideas about the laws of the universe. "That means giving up the theory of relativity and E=mc squared and all that sort of stuff," Davies told Reuters.
Posted on 2002/08/06
Evangelical colleges paid to teach evolution
AiG - 2002/08/06
Increasing numbers of evangelical colleges around the world are accepting large monetary awards from the John Templeton Foundation to run courses that promote evolutionary teaching and millions of years. One such course, run by an evangelical Bible college and taught by theistic evolutionists, never touched on the implications of evolution and millions of years for the Gospel of Jesus Christ or the implications for the authority of Scripture.
Posted on 2002/08/05
AiG Strikes a Nerve
AiG - 2002/08/03
Ken Ham revels in the fact that Scientific American's lawyers accused AiG of copyright infringement when it responded to SA's recent article "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense". Obviously it's proof that "the secular world is closely watching AiG and is trying to suppress our Biblical message", which "is seen as a serious threat by the ‘world.’"
Posted on 2002/08/02
Sheer vs. Real Possibilities: A Response to Allen Orr
designinference.com - 2002/08/02
This is Dembski's response to Allen Orr's review of No Free Lunch, which we reported on a week ago. Dembski repeats his demand that biologists produce actual causal explanations for IC structures instead of merely showing why they're plausible. At the same time, Dembski ignores Orr's critique of Dembski's use of No Free Lunch theorems to prove that Darwinism can't create specified complexity.
Posted on 2002/08/02
Human-Specific Retroviruses Developed When Humans, Chimps Diverged
U. of Georgia - 2002/08/02
Scientists have known that remnants of ancient germ line infections called human endogenous retroviruses make up a substantial part of the human genome. Once thought to be merely "junk" DNA, many of these elements in fact perform functions in human cells. Now, a new study suggests for the first time that a burst of transpositional activity occurred at the same time humans and chimps are believed to have diverged from a common ancestor - 6 million years ago. These new results suggest retroviruses may have had some kind of role in that divergence.
Posted on 2002/08/02
The Battle for the Cosmic Center
ICR Impact - 2002/07/25
Biblical teaching places man at the center of God's attention. Recent astronomical evidence restores man to a central place in God's universe. Over the last few decades, astronomers have become convinced that the red shifts of light from distant galaxies occur in distinct, evenly spaced groups. The Hubble Law implies that galaxies are expanding in evenly spaced spherical shells around us, who are sitting at the center of the universe - just where the Bible says we are.
Posted on 2002/08/02
Commentary on Scott and Branch's "'Intelligent design' Not Accepted by Most Scientists"
designinference.com - 2002/07/02
This is a must-read, if only to see Dembski say "All the design could have emerged through a cosmic evolutionary process that started with the Big Bang." Later, he compares evolutionists to the Taliban!
Posted on 2002/08/02
Boiled Creationist with a Side of Hexaglycine: Sarfati on Imai et al. (1999)
No Answers in Genesis - 2002/07/31
In an AiG web article titled Hydrothermal origin of life? Jonathan Sarfati manages to write three pages about a single five page original peer reviewed paper on growing short peptides in a simulated hydrothermal vent system, published in Science by Imai et al. (1999), and to make over seventeen errors of fact, emphasis or interpretation. Not bad, even for a fanatical creationist.
Posted on 2002/08/01
Updates to Talk.Origins Fossil Hominids Pages
Talk.Origins - 2002/07/31
Jim Foley's comprehensive set of pages on hominid & australopithicene fossils at Talk.Origins has been updated. Includes new pages on the spectacular new skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, which causes problems for creationists who claim that habilis is an ape and erectus is a human, the new 6-7 million year old Toumaï skull from Chad, and Homo habilis: is it an invalid taxon?
Posted on 2002/07/31
Pufferfish DNA Yields Clues to Human Biology [Another 1,000 Human Genes?]
DOE Joint Genome Institute - 2002/07/25
An int'l research consortium led by the US DoE’s Joint Genome Institute reported today on the draft sequencing, assembly, and analysis of the genome of the Japanese pufferfish Fugu rubripes. Pufferfish have the smallest known genomes among vertebrates. While it has roughly the same number of genes as the much larger human genome, it's in a compact form streamlined by the relative scarcity of the “junk” DNA that fills much of the human sequence. Through comparison of the human and pufferfish genomes, the researchers were able to predict the existence of nearly 1,000 previously unidentified human genes.
Posted on 2002/07/30
Race Is Seen as Real Guide to Track Roots of Disease
NY Times - 2002/07/30
Challenging the widely held view that race is a "biologically meaningless" concept, a leading population geneticist says that race is helpful for understanding ethnic differences in disease and response to drugs. Dr. Neil Risch of Stanford U says that genetic differences have arisen among people living on different continents and that race (i.e. geographically based ancestry) is a valid way of categorizing these differences.
Posted on 2002/07/30
Species and languages flock together
Nature Science Update - 2002/07/30
Areas with the most animal species also contain the greatest number of human languages, say researchers. The coincidence of biological and cultural diversity hints that preserving cultures may also preserve species, and vice versa. Development and conservation "probably need to go hand in hand", says Carsten Rahbek of the U. of Copenhagen. His findings call into question the wisdom of trying to save wildlife in remote uninhabited areas.
Posted on 2002/07/30
U.S. News and World Report joins in the evolution onslaught
AiG - 2002/07/30
U.S. News and World Report ran a major story pushing evolution on 29 July, 2002, giving it cover story exposure. The usual evolutionist hand-waving and bait-and-switch tactics were employed in a grand piece of propaganda. Here is our detailed response, interspersed between their actual item which is reproduced in full to avoid suggestions of misrepresentation:
Posted on 2002/07/29
Boeing tries to defy gravity
BBC News: Science/Nature - 2002/07/29
Researchers at the world's largest aircraft maker, Boeing, are using the work of a controversial Russian scientist to try to create a device that will defy gravity. The company is examining an experiment by Yevgeny Podkletnov, who claims to have developed a device which can shield objects from the Earth's pull. Dr Podkletnov is viewed with suspicion by many conventional scientists. They have not been able to reproduce his results.
Posted on 2002/07/29
Bacteria defies last-resort antibiotic
Nature Science Update - 2002/07/29
US doctors have reported the first case of a new strain of Staphylococcus aureus that is completely resistant to the antibiotic vancomycin, one of the last lines of defence against bacteria. Further outbreaks of infection are expected.
Posted on 2002/07/29
Jonathan Wells and Darwin's Finches
Talk.Origins - 2002/07/27
In Chapter 8 of Icons of Evolution, Jonathan Wells examines the case of "Darwin's Finches", and claims that textbooks exaggerate not only the importance of the finches to Darwin's thinking, but also the evidence that they are an excellent example of evolution in action. He also accuses biologists Rosemary and Peter Grant, who spent 30 years studying these birds, of exaggerating the evidence as well. As we shall see, Wells's case is weak. Darwin's Finches remain one of the best examples of adaptive radiation in the literature of evolutionary biology.
Posted on 2002/07/26
Book Review: No Free Lunch
Boston Review - 2002/07/25
Excellent, engaging article by Orr, as he cooly dismantles Dembski's latest book. Assuming his understanding of "NFL" was correct, his critique is devastating. And to think I found this at the ARN site! If they're highlighting this review, then it can only mean there's a fierce counterattack in the works. Read this article now to understand what all the fireworks will be about shortly.
Posted on 2002/07/25
Paranormal beliefs linked to brain chemistry
New Scientist - 2002/07/24
Whether or not you believe in the paranormal may depend entirely on your brain chemistry. People with high levels of dopamine are more likely to find significance in coincidences, and pick out meaning and patterns where there are none.
Posted on 2002/07/24
UCSD Researchers Identify Eye-Formation Strategy in Mice That Provides Clues to Development of Other Organs
UCSD Health Sciences - 2002/07/23
Researchers at the UC San Diego School of Medicine have discovered a linkage between proteins that is an essential part of the complex series of molecular events leading to normal eye development in mice. The investigators also suggest that the combination of specific proteins in eye formation may be similar to yet unidentified genes that act together to allow development of other organs.
(Excerpt) Read more at crevo.bestmessageboard.com ...
Funny you should mention the pink flamingo. China's psychiatric ministry recently declared that homosexuality was no longer considered a "disorder". Apparently they've done the math and are preparing accordingly.
If history is any guide, 40 million active homosexuals is pretty close to the definition of (societal) disorder.
Exactly. Freedom has limits. Welcome to conservatism.
If morality is nothing more than a set of rules man has reasoned to and forced upon by others, it has no bind on anyone who chooses to ignore.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Everybody wants their morality to be universal. Due to the realities of human existence, that will always be impossible. What we've done, nevertheless, is to create a framework of a few rules by which most of us can agree (i.e. murder is wrong). Many other moral points are far more contentious, but at least we've agreed to set up a framework where each side to an issue can present their view without fear of being in physical danger.
Good point! In discussing morality, we are necessarily talking about principles. And principles are by definition universally applicable to everyone in a similar context. This is something that the Dostoyevsky argument ("without God all things are permitted") misses. (I guess HV would call it the "Dostoyevsky gambit", since he's just playing chess. :-)
When a sociopath declares they have the right to murder people for the thrill/money/etc., he automatically declares that people in general have the right to murder innocents as well. Such a society would quickly collapse. It would also collapse if people in general were allowed to cheat, steal, rape, & extort.
What's also usually not appreciated is the power of moral judgement. A society flourishes when most people are willing to pass judgement on the statements & actions of others, and it tends to collapse when "good men do nothing". As Ayn Rand put it, "Judge, and prepare to be judged!"
Societies also flourish when people approach the world with an attitude of justice, biased a bit towards benevolence. For example, businesspeople extend credit & cheerfully accept returns, and the most successful companies are always trying to find better ways to please their customers; meanwhile the credit & checking industry has evolved ways to comprehensively track a person's reputation, business fraud earns a CFO the perp walk on TV, etc.
These truths are by no means self-evident. They were only learned thru lots of trial & error. But underlying it all is the fact that human nature is essentially the same for all of us. Our rational minds are the only thing we have going for us against the elements & the other animals. And some kind of libertarian society is by far the best framework for letting rational beings with free will to thrive. All that rational beings need to thrive is an underlying consistency to the world. We don't need to create a supernatural Authority Figure to come down like a deus-ex-machina to impose some arbitrary standard of right & wrong to provide that consistency. It's already there.
No it isn't. I have no ideology. I'm a pragmatist, and I'm just calling it like I see it. We've got to face the reality of the situation, and the reality is that morality is a human invention. The nature of that morality is different in all six-billion of us, but in order to survive and prosper, we are compelled to dictate some semblence of common morality on everybody, whether they're willing or not to accept it.
This is the similarity between Atheist, Communist, Neo-Pagans and all non-Judeo-Christian ideologies. One body forcing another into whatever it deems fit.
Sorry. Zoroastrian-Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought is just as guilty. You just excuse your resort to force by claiming that you're only following the orders of a dictatorial ethereal phantasm named Zoroaster, Yahweh or Allah. Its the same dictatorship without the accountability. At least us atheists are honest about where our power is coming from.
The only law that can be enforce is a prefect law from a moral authority. Man can never meet those requirements
Agreed. Until such time, however, as we find that perfect moral authority, we'll have to make do with our own, flawed, human institutions.
The American system of Law and Morality was based on the perfect Law of the Creator, the one who has true Moral Authority.
Most American moralities may be (I don't completely buy that argument, but I'll accept it for the sake of argument). The legal system, however, isn't. Our legal system is based on Anglo-Saxon law, which, in turn, is composed of an amalgam of Germanic tribal traditions and Roman law, neither of which have monotheistic roots.
I cannot believe I am reading a Freeper who believes that a group of men can rule over another group.
I don't like it either, but that's the reality of the world. My solution is to minimize that hegemony as much as possible. Eliminating it, however, yields only to anarchy.
For the betterment of society of course.
Give me a better reason for opposing murder.
Though I am sure that when that same majority takes your right (your group of man given i.e. GOVERNMENT right) to bear arms you will protest.
Absolutely. Except I don't think gun-ownership is a moral question (its a public policy issue). But even if it were, I'd have no problem disagreeing with the majority. As I've said before, the tyranny of the majority is far from a perfect system, but its the least-bad option around
Your ideology says man in all his corruption can group together and force others to submit to whatever standard they deem fit. How very similar to Communism and Nazism
Again, you fail to understand. I'm not passing judgement on whether this behavior is right or wrong, merely saying its necessary to maintain the current society as we know it. You can play reductio ad aburdum all you want, but you already know I personally oppose more than a modicum of popular control.
Do you truly believe that man can force others to obey whatever law the majority deems fit? That morality is relative and that the majority decides on the final standard?
By what standard can the most people pass judgment on the statements & actions of others? Who sets that Standard and how can we know it is correct? There are majorities that believe killing Christians is Moral and just, how can you argue otherwise. You have no moral authority over them.
Oh geez. You seem to be saying that the only alternatives are anarcy or Communism. Any government control at all == total Communism. Yeah, I was almost an anarcho-libertarian once myself.
You may think you're being clever, but I take that very personally.
My mother had etched on her arm, in faded blue ink, the number 37448. For the rest of her life, she could never stand to be alone for more than a few minutes, or else she'd start to relive the traumatic horrors of her youth.
I would never condone the attrocities of the Nazis. My morality could not differ more sharply. But the fact that the Nazi barbarians did do what they did helps prove my point. The powerful will impose their views on the weak, regardless. The only way around that is to arbitrarily decide that we, as a society, wish hold that imposition to a minimum, and will tolerate the existence of a diversity of opinions and beliefs, whether we agree with them or not. Our Constitution helps us do that. The Nazis, however, believed in no such limits. You know the result.
It would also be morally correct for the Majority of Muslims to kill all non-Muslims and Morally correct for the USA to fight that cause. Or would the Muslims be more correct as they would have much higher numbers in their majority?
Ok, but please turn pyour radio down... lol.
Could you tell my by what authority rights are granted?
We grant ourselves our own rights, based on our own conceptions of morality.
Are you changing the standards of morality?
And the Buddhist respect for life (some won't even swat mosquitos) comes from where?
And the Nazi's granted their own rights, based on their own conceptions of morality. Yet you take issue and seem to imply that they were wrong.
Regrettably, you are correct. There are no innalienable rights. Just ask the Cambodians under Pol Pot what rights they had, or the Cossacks under Stalin. We have what rights we give ourselves. We are the masters of our own fate.
Being Created gives Moral Authority to the Author of the Creation. He can set rules and give inalienable rights.
Even if that were true, which it isn't, its irrelevent. Those inalienable rights only exist when a government predisposed to limiting its own power grants them. If you're mixing cement in a Gulag, you have no right to life, no right to liberty, and certainly no right to the pursuit of happiness.
And when a body of men reason new rules that violate the Creator's standards we can fight, as they have no right to rule over us outside the Creators standard.
We can fight whenever we feel like it. The Joint Chiefs of Staff could lead a coup tomorrow, if they wanted to, regardless of any justification. Again, if there are any standards, they are completely irrelevent. You either agree to live by the rules, or you don't.
Thanks. I never realized I'd left it.
And Christian societies, too. What do you think the pogroms, inquisitions and crusades were really about?
Well, gosh, why do think we're opposed to a One-World-Goverment that would grant equal policy-setting rights to every ignorant dirtfarmer, goatherder, and beggar in the third world. /sarcasm-mode
Do you really this spelled out to you? Read jennyp's post again about "limits" and then read this:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Here's another important idea in black and white:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
I hope that wasn't too simple for you.
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