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Creation/Evolution in the News
Various ^ | 8/9/2002 | JennyP

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: creation; crevolist; evolution
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To: andy_card
That's true. As a political prisoner in the Lubyanka, you could have complained about your infringed "inaliable rights" to your heart's content. You'd be shot just the same.

not much of a "right" was it?
281 posted on 08/12/2002 5:16:46 PM PDT by Can i say that here?
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To: laredo44
I keep to the moral standards of God, those do not change. A church may change, God does not.

I am not a Churcher (one who keep the morals of the church). I am a Christian (one who is saved by the sacrifice of Jesus and loves and Trusts Him so much that I keep His Commandments, knowing His authorship of all Creation.)

No sex without marriage, after that, do it all you want.

Birth control you ask, nope not me. I am not that stupid, only ignorant people need Birth Control.

Speaking of stupid people. If it were not for my God and His authorship of all I would advocate the killing of all stupid people, then there would be no issue at all. And of course in your world it would be morally correct as it is my reality.

282 posted on 08/12/2002 5:17:00 PM PDT by CyberCowboy777
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To: Can i say that here?
not much of a "right" was it?

Exactly. We have no rights, other than those we grant ourselves.

283 posted on 08/12/2002 5:19:03 PM PDT by andy_card
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To: CyberCowboy777
And Me for Man Governed by God (true Freedom)

Now all we need is confirmation from God.

284 posted on 08/12/2002 5:19:18 PM PDT by laredo44
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To: Gumlegs
You seem to have a misconception of God. The Taliban is not God, it is a body of men forcing others to do want it deems moral.

You know, like what Andy here advocates. Man Ruling Man

285 posted on 08/12/2002 5:19:39 PM PDT by CyberCowboy777
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To: HumanaeVitae
Unless God tells us what he really meant when he said "Thou Shalt Not Murder", then murder is OK, right?

On the contrary, the fact that morals rest upon human intellectual analysis of the world is why it can be said that murder is not OK, even though millions of people say that God told them that it is OK.

286 posted on 08/12/2002 5:20:39 PM PDT by steve-b
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To: andy_card
So the Nazis were correct in giving themselves rights to kill Jews?

Hmm, what about the Jews rights? Did they not give themselves rights?

So confusing......Unless, no that can't be right, too simple....Yes that must be the answer, in-alienable rights exist no matter the person or oppressor.

287 posted on 08/12/2002 5:22:49 PM PDT by CyberCowboy777
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To: Can i say that here?
As a political prisoner in the Lubyanka, you could have complained about your infringed "inaliable rights" to your heart's content. You'd be shot just the same.

And being shot was morally correct? If not why?

Morality you say! Oh, that is why we fight for those pesky in-alienable rights that all men are created with.

288 posted on 08/12/2002 5:25:08 PM PDT by CyberCowboy777
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To: CyberCowboy777
Speaking of stupid people. If it were not for my God and His authorship of all I would advocate the killing of all stupid people, then there would be no issue at all. And of course in your world it would be morally correct as it is my reality.

One of the more bizarre and conflicted statements I've seen. You are probably not welcome in a wide variey of settings.

289 posted on 08/12/2002 5:28:08 PM PDT by laredo44
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To: HumanaeVitae
No, actually the checkmate is when you realize that atheistic libertarianism ends in either absurdity or arbitrary decision-making.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

If you would throw away your Clinton Erasable-Ink Dictionary and use the same language as the rest of us, it would be evident that the moral precepts of libertarianism are quite clear and inflexible.

290 posted on 08/12/2002 5:29:40 PM PDT by steve-b
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To: CyberCowboy777
What of your opinion on in vitro fertilization and frozen embryos? Not in favor?
291 posted on 08/12/2002 5:32:51 PM PDT by laredo44
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To: HumanaeVitae
It is impossible to found a society based on the idea of "liberty" or "fairness" or "justice" or "God's Will" or "Faith" or "Divine Revelation" or whatever because everyone disagrees about what these ideas entail.

Just correcting a few omissions

292 posted on 08/12/2002 5:36:41 PM PDT by steve-b
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To: HumanaeVitae
I will not, however, count the Black Plague

Sorry, but you have to count at least a large chunk of it. ("Ever since we burned all those cats, the demons seem to be taking the form of rats....")

293 posted on 08/12/2002 5:43:34 PM PDT by steve-b
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To: HumanaeVitae; jennyp
What did I say earlier? Checkmate is when it becomes obvious that libertarianism ends in either absurdity or arbitrary decision-making?

What a triumph you must feel. You define checkmate, you decide when the conditions you defined are satisfied. You've found the formula for winning EVERY argument.

But you knew that all along because you simply stipulated those conditions which you avow: absurdity and arbitrary decision-making. Thanks for including us in a rigged game.

294 posted on 08/12/2002 5:47:08 PM PDT by laredo44
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To: VadeRetro; PatrickHenry; jennyp
You know what? I'm amazed that this is still going on here in this forum. Of course, it's a great debate. And it has the advantage of attracting a large number of people who want to post replys, but this horse has been beat to death!

Over and Over!

Again and Again!

There's three groups. One is fully for Creationism. One is fully for Evolution. The third believes we really don't know yet.

I rank amongst the third. It took a little while for you folks to appreciate that, the last time I posted on a thread such as this. I'm still of the opinion that we do not know what happened. Punk tu lated evolution, evolution, creation, we just don't know.

We have text, we have fossils, and, we just don't have a resolution.

It's amazing to me the number of posts that these threads create (or evolve into). To tell you the truth, I'm just LOL! at the whole thing.

The Monkey Trials on Free Republic!!!!

Find it here!

295 posted on 08/12/2002 5:49:14 PM PDT by mjf
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To: HumanaeVitae
It's not vexing to me. Human life comes from God. I didn't create it, thus I can't destroy it. Nor can anyone else.

It is no more vexing to libertarian ethics (with the obvious correction of "can't destroy it" to "may not destroy it") -- it's not mine; therefore I may not destroy it.

In fact, this is a more compelling answer, since it applies independently of the question of whether a human life is self-owned or divinely owned.

296 posted on 08/12/2002 5:52:17 PM PDT by steve-b
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To: CyberCowboy777
And Me for Man Governed by God (true Freedom)

Really? I see it as Man governed by a Man invoking God. Which is a lot like Man governed by a Man invoking the Boogie-Man. Or Man ruled by a Man invoking The-Nameless-Thing-Under-The-Bed. Or Man ruled by Man invoking the Evil-That-Lurks-In-The-Dark. Or the lost ancestors. Or the river-god. Or the god-of-fire. Or the trickster-coyote. Or the Giant-Chicken-Named-Harry-From-Pasadena.

All it really sounds like is a mask for ignorance and fear; ruling the sheeple by intimidation.

297 posted on 08/12/2002 5:59:03 PM PDT by balrog666
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To: mjf
There's three groups. One is fully for Creationism. One is fully for Evolution. The third believes we really don't know yet.

I'm a Creationist for evolution.

298 posted on 08/12/2002 6:01:09 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: mjf
There's three groups. One is fully for Creationism. One is fully for Evolution. The third believes we really don't know yet.

I think you left out the largest group: those who don't care, those who don't want to be bothered, and those whose life is unaffected by any abstract or intellectual matter at all.

299 posted on 08/12/2002 6:08:02 PM PDT by balrog666
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To: HumanaeVitae
Let me cut to the chase here. It is impossible to found a society based on the idea of "liberty" or "fairness" or "justice" or whatever because everyone disagrees about what these ideas entail.

So we should base our society on God because we all agree there?

And because you can't appeal to God for authority, well then you have to appeal to force.

Explain, please how we appeal to God's authority. Who is to be the intermediary? How do we establish they're not just making stuff up?

300 posted on 08/12/2002 6:10:22 PM PDT by laredo44
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