Free Republic

While the rest of us can’t imagine life without beauty, its absence would certainly make life easier for evolutionists. They will just have to accept their beautiful plight. I don’t often think about evolution, but I recently found myself doing so under the warm, cerulean waters of Sharks Cove on the North Shore of Oahu. I was snorkeling, taking in the tropical fish schooling around me. I thought, how did their diverse and extravagant beauty come to exist? If natural selection is the engine that created the living world, what is the reason behind this opulence? Why does beauty even...

A hybrid derived from the Greek words meaning “well” and “born,” the term eugenics was coined in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton, a British cousin to Charles Darwin, to name a new “science” through which human beings might take charge of their own evolution. The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the unlikely –– and largely unknown –– movement that turned the fledgling scientific theory of heredity into a powerful instrument of social control. Perhaps more surprising still, American eugenics was neither the work of fanatics, nor the product of fringe science. The goal of the movement was simple and,...

Famed Yale computer science professor quits believing Darwin’s theories JENNIFER KABBANY - FIX EDITOR •JULY 30, 2019 ‘The origin of species is exactly what Darwin cannot explain’ David Gelernter, a famed Yale University professor, has publicly renounced his belief in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, calling it a “beautiful idea” that has been effectively disproven. Gelernter, who is known for predicting the World Wide Web and has developed many complex computing tools over the years, is today a professor of computer science at Yale, chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies, member of the National Council of the Arts, and a...

Russell Mapes, a graduate student from Grass Valley, Calif., ...explains that these sediments of eastern origin were washed down from a highland area that formed in the Cretaceous Period, between 65 million and 145 million years ago, when the South American and African tectonic plates separated and passed each other. That highland tilted the river's flow westward, sending sediment as old as 2 billion years toward the center of the continent. A relatively low ridge, called the Purus Arch, which still exists, rose in the middle of the continent, running north and south, dividing the Amazon's flow - eastward toward...

Times reporter Michelle Goldberg notes the “well-documented resurgence of occultism among millennials.” In investigating this, she visited a “fashionable occult boutique” in Brooklyn, attending a presentation on witchcraft by an individual called Dakota Bracciale: Bracciale, who uses the gender-neutral pronouns they and them, grew up in an evangelical household — somewhere “between ‘Jesus Camp’ and snake handlers” — and said that the new atheism of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens had a profound effect on their generation. But atheism wasn’t enough, said Bracciale: “It left this huge vacuum, and that vacuum had to be filled with something.” This is a...

Earth's flora is responsible for the glaciers and rivers that have created this planet's distinctive landscapeAstronomers are finding lots of exoplanets that are orbiting stars like the sun, significantly raising the odds that we will find a similar world. But if we do, the chance that the surface of that planet will look like ours is very small, thanks to an unlikely culprit: plants. We all know how Earth's landscape came about, right? Oceans and land masses formed, mountains rose, and precipitation washed over its surface; rivers weathered bare rock to create soil and plants took root. Well, new research...

Imagine if Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush and Speaker of the House John Boehner both accepted an award named for slave-owner and President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis.Imagine further that Jeb Bush enthusiastically defended his award by proclaiming: “I am really in awe of Jefferson Davis, and there are a lot of lessons we can learn from his life.”The editorial pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, not to mention the talking heads at MSNBC and CNN, would likely condemn Bush and Boehner as crypto-racists and insist they return — or trash — their awards.Of course,...

Since October 2014, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has regularly referred to the concept of a "Mastermind" (ust akil, "supra-intellect," in Turkish) that, he says, is plotting against Turkey. This concept has been applauded by the Islamist pro-AKP media. Erdogan's December 12, 2014 speech, which focused on this "mastermind" concept, inspired the production of a two-hour "documentary" by one of the leading Turkish television channels, the pro-AKP A Haber. The film, titled "The Mastermind," first aired on March 15, 2015 and has been broadcast repeatedly since then; in addition, the Turkish Islamist pro-AKP media are circulating the film on their...

Today is the 206th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, a day now celebrated by some as Darwin Day. Darwin, of course, is best known for his theory of evolution through natural selection. When Darwin's work was first made public in 1859, it shocked Britain's religious establishment. And while today it is accepted by virtually all scientists, evolutionary theory is still rejected by many Americans, often because it conflicts with their religious beliefs about divine creation.

Happy Darwin Day? If Darwin Day devotees want to be viewed as more than the mere members of a quirky cult, they need to start engaging their thoughtful critics. By John West Published on February 12, 2015 Today is the birthday of Charles Darwin, and enthusiasts around the globe will be marking the occasion with special dinners, lectures, birthday parties and more.Darwin boosters often insist they are inspired simply by a disinterested commitment to science, while their critics are motivated primarily by religion. But Darwin Day festivities make it painfully obvious that many promoters of Darwinian theory are just as interested...

Have you ever lied about reading a book? Maybe you didn’t want to seem stupid in front of someone you respected. Maybe you rationalized it by reasoning that you had a familiarity with the book, or knew who the author was, or what the story was about, or had glanced at its Wikipedia page. Or maybe you had tried to read the book, even bought it and set it by your bed for months unopened, hoping that it would impart what was in it merely via proximity (if that worked, please email me).

Charles Darwin’s discovery of evolution is common knowledge but Darwin the person is barely known. Even on his 200th birth anniversary this year — he was born in England on Feb. 12, 1809 — much has been said about his works but little about his inner life of contrasts. Darwin loved the natural world from childhood. He roamed the wilderness to study insects while neglecting Greek and Latin, the essential subjects. He said of his schooling, “I was considered by all my masters and by my Father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect.” Sent...

Karl Rove may be trying to quell conservative concerns that his new political group is really an effort to crush the tea party. But actions will speak louder than words – and already, Mr. Rove's group may have a test case on its hands. Rove's Conservative Victory Project has a stated goal of making sure only electable candidates emerge victorious from GOP primaries. But he told Fox News Tuesday: "This is not tea party versus the establishment." So what is it? The campaign of Rep. Paul Broun (R) of Georgia, who on Wednesday filed paperwork to run for the seat...

They never stop – the God-deniers who worship at the altar of evolution. Who pay homage to their high priest, Charles Darwin. Who continue to place their faith in theories they contend to be indisputable science. The latest example is a new fossil study, published in the journal Science, co-authored by David Green, an anatomy professor at Midwestern University in Illinois, and Zeresenay Alemseged, chair of the anthropology department at the California Academy of Sciences. The study claims that that the 3.3 million-year-old remains of a baby monkey, discovered in Ethiopia, somehow confirm that our early human ancestors swung from...

A recent high-profile article in the journal Nature released the results of a study with implications that shocked the scientific community because they contradict long-held claims of human-chimp DNA similarity.1 A previous Acts & Facts article showed that much of the research surrounding the often touted claims of 98 percent (or higher) DNA similarity between chimps and humans has been based on flawed and biased research.2 The problem is that the similarity has been uncertain because no one has performed an unbiased and comprehensive DNA similarity study until now. And the results are not good news for the story of...

Saturday, May 05, 2012Clark University's "Freethought Society" promotes racist Charles Darwin and the fantasy of Darwinian Evolution I was not surprised to learn that Clark University's "Freethought Society," a student group which is Christianophobic and celebrates mocking Christian belief, promotes Darwin Day. Darwin Day is described as, "..a global celebration of science and reason held on or around Feb. 12, the birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin." It is most ironic that Darwin Day should be described as a "celebration of science and reason" since Charles Darwin epitomized neither. Darwinian evolution has been thoroughly refuted and has nothing to...

There was trepidation on both sides when a squadron of biologists set out to celebrate Darwin Day in rural America during the weekend. The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, N.C., which instigated the road trip in the name of scientific outreach, first held a workshop where seven of its Ph.D.’s staged role-playing games and practiced debunking misconceptions about evolution without sounding confrontational. The group’s small-town hosts took their own precautions. A high school principal in Ringgold, Va., sent out permission slips so parents could opt out of sending their children to the event (two did). A museum vice president...

Last night, Glenn Beck blended his anti-progressive polemics with anti-evolution dogma, attacking Charles Darwin as "the father of modern day racism" who "plant[ed] the seed that leads to progressivism, eugenics." He expanded on this critique on the radio this morning, saying that Darwin wrote about "the savages" and announcing: "I understand why Darwin has to be taught in schools now. You have to teach evolution, because if you don't teach evolution, progressivism falls apart." According to Beck and his cohorts, a direct line can be drawn between Darwin, eugenics, and Hitler: "Charles Darwin is the father of the Holocaust."

"It is often assumed by the anti-God brigade, though unvoiced, that the designer created everything as we see it today. Within the biblical model, degeneration is expected because of the Fall. The Fall subjected the Creation to bondage to decay (Romans 8:18–25), of which mutational degeneration is one example." Vestigial arguments: remnants of evolution by Shaun Doyle The coccyx (tailbone) has long been wrongly thought to be vestigial by evolutionists ‘Vestigial’ organs have been used as an argument against a designer for many years, and have been used as a major ‘proof’ of evolution. The ‘vestigial organs’ argument is merely...

Today, November 24, it is exactly 150 years since Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species. The world has been gearing up for this “second echelon” of celebrations for this international “Year of Darwin”, following on from the 200th anniversary of his birth this last February. Atheists and humanist groups in particular have seemed to be relishing the thought of giving further prominence to the ideas of their patron saint. Their adulation is heightened by their knowledge that...