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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: jennyp
Funny strip. I don't think it speaks to the discussion...
321 posted on 08/12/2002 9:22:08 PM PDT by HumanaeVitae
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To: PatrickHenry
... more than one hundred million native people were "eliminated" in the course of Europe's ongoing "civilization" of the Western Hemisphere.

Calling you on this, Patrick. The "native people" were not intentionally starved or liquidated, were they? The intent was not there and your citation is therefore utterly irrelevant. Surely you know this. So why did you post it?

322 posted on 08/12/2002 9:22:19 PM PDT by Phaedrus
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To: gore3000
In your description of the 50% bias you are assuming that it will be a problem, because only half of the descendants would have the trait. However, if 50% of the offspring have the feature and 50% don't, then the 50% with it will reproduce more successfully than the other 50%. The animals with the trait will produce more offspring than their competitors, and the animals with the feature will become more numerous. There is no 50% bias, because the 50% with the feature will have the advantage and will be more successful. Therefore the population will have evolved, because that trait would become the norm after many generations.
323 posted on 08/12/2002 9:23:45 PM PDT by berkeleybeej
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To: jennyp
I think you lost with your opening statement that 20th Century atheists killed 180 million people. (I assume you're including the Nazis in order to come up with the extra 80 million over & above the Communists' 100 million.)

The Nazis were certainly atheists also. But you forget one of the most murderous atheists around by just concentrating on Communists and Nazis. You forget Africa. Remember Idi Amin? Some 4-5 million in a pretty small country. Remember Rwanda a few years back - 2-3 million. The present war in the Congo has killed a few million by itself. Then there is also Somalia with deliberate starvation, there is Nigeria, there is Ghana, and numerous other places in Africa where wholesale murder has been the order of the day since it gained its independence from the 'evil Europeans'.

324 posted on 08/12/2002 9:24:50 PM PDT by gore3000
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To: Phaedrus
The "native people" were not intentionally starved or liquidated, were they?

No. In the Congo, they were worked to death. By the millions.

325 posted on 08/12/2002 9:26:00 PM PDT by general_re
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To: general_re
"atheism is materialistic"

It's not? You know, since you're flinging condescending insults, why don't you enlighten us with some definitions.

By the way, I think most Christians believe that their faith is Revealed Truth, not the product of a dialectic. But hey, maybe you know better than we do.

326 posted on 08/12/2002 9:26:30 PM PDT by HumanaeVitae
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To: laredo44
It is difficult for me to attribute the entirety of the barbarity of communism with atheism.

In the 20th Century, one complemented the other and they were almost universally found together. 100+ million murders were the direct result. These are documented facts and they are undeniable. They won't be interpreted or wordsmithed away.

327 posted on 08/12/2002 9:28:54 PM PDT by Phaedrus
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To: cinFLA
When I say that all scientific advances in the last 150 years have tended to disprove evolution, they cannot find anything to refute it. When I state that Darwin has been disproven by science numerous times, they cannot refute it either.

One cannot prove anything to those that do not believe in science.

You are right about that. Evolutionists do not believe in science, they believe in atheism. Evolution has always been a joke as science, see my post above regarding Darwin.

328 posted on 08/12/2002 9:29:09 PM PDT by gore3000
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To: HumanaeVitae
...the body of Anglo-American law is quite appropriately based on the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Another simple but very relevant fact, and certainly worth repeating, but there are those here who will eat worms before they will admit it. Facts, however, require no admissions.

329 posted on 08/12/2002 9:34:44 PM PDT by Phaedrus
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To: jennyp
Gay marriage, no: What harm is there in a gay marriage, either to the participants' individual rights or to the health of society at large?

Lots of problems. For one is the impermanence of such unions. Homosexuals are extremely promiscuos. For another we have the problem of children being adopted by such degenerates. Another problem is the tremendously large percentage of pedophiles amongst homosexuals. You will notice that no homosexual organization has ever attacked LAMBDA the organization which promotes love between adults and young children.

But most important though is that the family is the center of any society and by diluting the benefits of such unions we are encouraging the breakdown of the heart of a good society.

330 posted on 08/12/2002 9:34:55 PM PDT by gore3000
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To: balrog666
"Really, if you are carrying around an unleashed and lethal bio-weapon, why not?"

Libertarians would tell you that they have complete sovereignty over their bodies, lives etc, and that the "initiation of force" is the standard by which we know whether or not something is evil.

So, if you had to force a libertarian to be quarantined or to receive a vaccination that may result in them actually contracting the disease (small pox vaccine, like polio vaccine, actually has a small chance of infecting you with the disease and permanently damaging your health), this would be an "initiation of force", would it not?

331 posted on 08/12/2002 9:35:59 PM PDT by HumanaeVitae
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To: gore3000
Yes, there's all kinds of research showing the destructive nature of the homosexual lifestyle. But I've got a better answer from the Burkean/Kirkean conservative point of view that I'll post after work tomorrow.
332 posted on 08/12/2002 9:38:21 PM PDT by HumanaeVitae
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To: general_re
HV wants to concentrate on the materialistic end of it - I choose to pay attention to the dialectics of it.

Well we were talking about materialism were we not? Also, the process does not mean the result is the same, in fact your 'reasoning' in the rest of your post is pure nonsense, and the worst of it is that you think it is quite profound.

333 posted on 08/12/2002 9:41:21 PM PDT by gore3000
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To: PatrickHenry
... atheists can kill and non-atheists can kill.

Nonsense, Patrick. That's the "everybody does it" argument so cherished by the Clintonoids. And shouting doesn't impress. The central point is, of course, that massive numbers of people died under atheist regimes in the 20th Century. That was patently not true, for example, in the United States, a Christian nation whose citizens have intrinsic individual value and inalienable rights granted to them by their Creator.

334 posted on 08/12/2002 9:43:19 PM PDT by Phaedrus
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To: HumanaeVitae
You know, since you're flinging condescending insults, why don't you enlighten us with some definitions.

Hang around a while and see if Blue is someone you're ready to call a fellow traveller.

In any case, if your logic is valid, my logic is equally valid, as it is of the same form as yours. Why not ask yourself if your conclusion really follows from your premisses?

By the way, I think most Christians believe that their faith is Revealed Truth, not the product of a dialectic.

Dialectics reveals the truth. Just ask Hegel.

335 posted on 08/12/2002 9:44:16 PM PDT by general_re
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To: HumanaeVitae
Yes, there's all kinds of research showing the destructive nature of the homosexual lifestyle. But I've got a better answer from the Burkean/Kirkean conservative point of view that I'll post after work tomorrow.

I will love to hear it. Also, it is interesting that the evolutionists are coming out for complete immorality and calling it 'good'. Never seen them come out so far out on these threads though I always knew that their hatred for Christianity was due to a love of immorality.

336 posted on 08/12/2002 9:45:30 PM PDT by gore3000
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To: Lurking Libertarian
One can be a believer in God and still be an evolutionist.

No, they can't, or at least not of the Dawkins or Gould variety.

337 posted on 08/12/2002 9:46:01 PM PDT by Phaedrus
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To: gore3000
...in fact your 'reasoning' in the rest of your post is pure nonsense, and the worst of it is that you think it is quite profound.

Take it up with HV - I have, as I said, merely expropriated the argument.

338 posted on 08/12/2002 9:46:43 PM PDT by general_re
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To: gore3000
You are right about that. Evolutionists do not believe in science, they believe in atheism. Evolution has always been a joke as science, see my post above regarding Darwin.

You probably know nothing about evolution except for the propaganda that you have been fed.

339 posted on 08/12/2002 9:48:34 PM PDT by cinFLA
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To: berkeleybeej
In your description of the 50% bias you are assuming that it will be a problem, because only half of the descendants would have the trait. However, if 50% of the offspring have the feature and 50% don't, then the 50% with it will reproduce more successfully than the other 50%.

Jeez, did you not at least have the courtesy of reading the whole post before responding? I dealt with that Darwinian hopeful math in it also:

Now you can say, but wait if the new trait is extremely useful, then the individual will reproduce much more than the rest and be able to overcome this problem and pass it on to the rest of the species. Problem with that is the theory of evolution itself, that all changes are slow and gradual. Such gradual changes cannot overcome the 50% bias against its being passed on to future generations.

However, you might say, but wait, what if evolution does not work that way, maybe it works the way Gould said and we have sudden changes? We have problems then too. Let's say that a lizard suddenly sprouted wings and learned to fly. Now this is an incredibly favorable change which would surely be spread through the species. Or would it? Would a female lizard want to mate with such a monstrosity? I doubt it. Even more important, due to the extreme genetic changes required in such a transformation, would it even be possible for the female to mate and produce winged lizards? Definitely not. So no, anyway you slice it, these new traits will not be passed on.

340 posted on 08/12/2002 9:52:12 PM PDT by gore3000
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