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Intelligent Design is only one of many “alternatives” to Darwinian evolution There is rich irony in how the present battle over Creationism v. Darwinism has taken shape, and especially the ways that this round differs from previous episodes. A clue to both the recent success — and the eventual collapse — of “Intelligent Design” can be found in its name, and in the new tactics that are being used to support its incorporation into school curricula. In what must be taken as sincere flattery, these tactics appear to acknowledge just how deeply the inner lessons of science have pervaded modern...

Following up on my previous post about how creationists suffered a few setbacks, this news has also come to my attention: the creationist theme park Dinosaur Adventure Land, operated by the prominent evolution denier Dr. Dino (Kent Hovind) and the Creation Science Evangelism ministry, has just been shuttered by the authorities. All of this arises from the church's building without a permit back in 2002. (Here's the ministry's own account of the situation.) Links are at source.

'Perception' gene tracked humanity's evolution, scientists say A gene thought to influence perception and susceptibility to drug dependence is expressed more readily in human beings than in other primates, and this difference coincides with the evolution of our species, say scientists at Indiana University Bloomington and three other academic institutions. Their report appears in the December issue of Public Library of Science Biology. The gene encodes prodynorphin, an opium-like protein implicated in the anticipation and experience of pain, social attachment and bonding, as well as learning and memory. "Humans have the ability to turn on this gene more easily and...

Just wondering about this before the hurricane hits... But we have a wide diversity of people on FreeRepublic and I know many of us play the market. I think we need a stock market ping list for discussion (if we already have one, please clue me in). For example, I've made a great deal of money on GYI (options) and BBX (rolling stock) this year because I follow them closely (as well as a few dozen others). I would love to hear from other Freepers about establishing a ping list and discussing stocks that other Freepers are following. For the...

Sincerely, Richard P. Feynman Reviewed by Robert P. Crease Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman. Edited by Michelle Feynman, foreword by Timothy Ferris. xxiv + 486 pp. Basic Books, 2005. $26. In her introduction to Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track, Michelle Feynman says of her father's letters that "Taken as a whole, they present his character in a way that we have not seen before." This claim sounds preposterous. We have more information about the character of Richard P. Feynman, it is safe to say, than about that of any other...

The Fair Tax Fraud by Laurence Vance Since my recent article on the evils of the withholding tax, I have been inundated with e-mails by supporters of the " FairTax," including a request that I endorse "The Fair Tax Act of 2005" currently pending in the Congress. But like the calls for "fair trade" instead of "free trade," the FairTax is a fraud because it is based on the fallacy that government theft (taxation) should be done in a "fair" manner instead of eliminated altogether. FairTax proponents are correct in their assessment of the Internal Revenue Code: The current U.S....

THE fossil of Africa’s oldest fish — dating back to an early Ice Age when fish had neither bones nor teeth, has been found in the Cederberg in the Western Cape. The 450 million-year-old fossil was nicknamed Nelson by the scientists who first found parts of the ancient remains in 1994 when former President Nelson Mandela was voted into office. The team from the universities of Leicester in Britain and Stellenbosch did not realise the magnitude of their find at the time. Co-leader of the team, Professor Dick Aldridge of the Department of Geology at the University of Leicester, said...

CAIRO (Reuters) - An American palaeontologist and a team of Egyptians have found the most nearly complete fossilised skeleton of the primitive whale Basilosaurus isis in Egypt's Western Desert, a university spokesman said on Monday. Philip Gingerich of the University of Michigan excavated the well-preserved skeleton, which is about 40 million years old, in a desert valley known as Wadi Hitan (the Valley of the Whales) southwest of Cairo, spokesman Karl Bates told Reuters. "His feeling is that it's the most complete -- the whole skeleton from stem to stern," said Bates. The skeleton, which is 18 metres (50 feet)...

PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. (Army News Service, March 31, 2005) -- The Army has approved its new long-range .50-caliber sniper rifle, the M-107, for full materiel release to Soldiers in the field. The M-107 program is managed at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., by the Project Manager Soldier Weapons with engineering support provided by Picatinny’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center. The term “full materiel release” signifies that the Army has rigorously tested and evaluated the item and determined that it is completely safe, operationally suitable and logistically supportable for use by Soldiers, officials said. Product Manager for Crew Served Weapons Lt. Col....

Forget hounds - foxes could become man's newest best friend, as scientists have shown they can be tamed. After 45 years of breeding, tame foxes that wag their tails, greet humans with excited barks and look cute have been born in Siberia. The original foxes were all black, but the new critters have white patches, big floppy ears, and curly tails. The new foxes are also more curious, better at understanding humans, and less frightened of new things. The scientists bred about 45,000 foxes to get to the tame stage. When breeding the animals, they only chose them on how...

Old Palafox Street is an aging, two-lane stretch of road running through the middle of Pensacola, Florida. To the east of Old Palafox, the next major road is Interstate 110 and in between those thoroughfares rests the sprawling campus of Pensacola Christian Academy, quickly followed by the even more sprawling campus of Pensacola Christian College. Both campuses are crammed with spotlessly maintained buildings and grounds. They stand out starkly amid the visible economic decline that surrounds them. The area is littered with empty, boarded-up buildings and abandoned strip malls. Less than a mile north of the Academy on Old Palafox...

Recent discoveries spark space race between Europeans and Americans to find another Earth The announcement by American astronomers last week that they had discovered the two smallest planets yet orbiting nearby stars, trumped a small planet discovery by European scientists five days earlier and capped the latest round in a frenzied hunt for other worlds like Earth. All three of these smaller planets belong to a new class of ''exoplanets'' - those that orbit stars other than our sun, the scientists said in a briefing last Tuesday. They define this new class by the planets' smaller mass - roughly 14...

Rival teams race to snap alien planet Conclusive proof of first direct image remains elusive. This image shows the star 2M1207, with what may be a planet to its bottom left. 2M1207 © ESO A group of astronomers working in Chile may have taken the first picture of a planet outside our Solar System. The claim comes just months after the sighting of another planet-like object, made using the Hubble Space Telescope and reported by news@nature.com in May this year (see Hubble snaps new world). Although astronomers have identified more than 120 worlds orbiting other stars, none has been pictured...

Beijing, China - Fengtek released their first motherboard based on the ancient Chinese philosophy of Feng Shui. Many interior designers use the principles of Feng Shui to arrange furniture in rooms, so the areas have positive energy. Fengtek is the first company to move these principles to motherboard design. Charles Huang, CEO of Fengtek, said he had been "looking for a way to combine modern technology with traditional Asian wisdom. My father had a motherboard company, so why not start there?" Vincent Xiang, lead designer at Fengtek, explained how positioning the components away from traditional locations brought peace to the...

Experts say NASA should pursue rescue mission. Hubble's battery and gyroscopes are failing. © NASA NASA should keep open the option of sending astronauts to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, a panel of experts advised on Tuesday. The panel was set up by the US National Academies, at the request of NASA, to advise the agency on how best to service and prolong the life of the ageing telescope. Astronomers view Hubble as vital for spying on distant black holes and baby galaxies, and for gleaning clues about the birth of the universe. In January, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe said...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - When Maggie Rogers spotted something bobbing in the water three miles into the Gulf of Mexico while on a scalloping trip with friends, she assumed it was a turtle, or a piece of sea kelp. But as the boat got closer and slowed down, she found it was a tiny, apricot-colored kitten. Nine inches long and screaming at the top of its lungs, the cat was paddling furiously. "We scooped him up and he sat on the boat with me for eight hours," said Rogers, who is the finance director at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. "He...

Filling in for Rush, Dr. Walter Williams implies that the NRST is just re-arranging the deck chairs, the real problem is government spending.

Explosions are still going off at an arms dump in south-east Ukraine more than four days after it caught fire. Five people were killed and thousands evacuated from a 10km radius of the base where almost 300,000 tons of ammunition was stored. The Ukrainian army has started clearing up the devastation and some people are returning to their homes. But the Ukrainian defence minister has warned that chances of a similar accident happening cannot be ruled out. Yevhen Marchuk told Ukrainian television that the army had inherited huge arsenals from the Soviet-era and was short of funds to ensure their...

<p>Internal Revenue Service agents are investigating a Pensacola man who operates a creationist theme park and museum off Old Palafox Road and who they say is evading taxes on more than $1 million in income.</p> <p>This week, federal IRS agents raided the home and businesses of Kent Hovind, 51, in the first block of Cummings Road, confiscating all computer and paper records of financial activity since January 1997.</p>