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Texas State Board of Education Votes To Require Students to Analyze and Evaluate Evolution By: Staff Discovery Institute January 22, 2009 AUSTIN, TX--The Texas State Board of Education today voted to require students to analyze and evaluate common ancestry and natural selection, both key components of modern evolutionary theory. The surprising vote came after the Board failed to reinstate language in the overall science standards explicitly requiring coverage of the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. "The Texas Board of Education took one step back and two steps forward today," said Dr. John West of the Discovery Institute. "While we...

A Brief History of Intolerance in Modern Cosmology by Dr. Jerry Bergman January 21, 2009 Abstract A review of some recent well-documented cases of intolerance in the cosmology field illustrates a common problem in science. Many relate to the Big Bang theory, such as the case of Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge and Halton Arp. None of the accounts involved Intelligent Design advocates or creationists. This selection removes this compounding factor from the evaluation, but the cases have direct relevance to both Intelligent Design and creationism because both groups face the same resistance. It was concluded that it is critical for...

Charles Darwin's tree of life, which shows how species are related, is " wrong" and "misleading", claim scientists. They believe the concept misleads us because his theory limits and even obscures the study of organisms and their ancestries. Evolution is far too complex to be explained by a few roots and branches, they claim. Many of their species swap genes back and forth, or engage in gene duplication, recombination, gene loss or gene transfers from multiple sources. Dr John Dupré, a philosopher of biology at Exeter University, said: "If there is a tree of life it's a small irregular structure...

IN JULY 1837, Charles Darwin had a flash of inspiration. In his study at his house in London, he turned to a new page in his red leather notebook and wrote, "I think". Then he drew a spindly sketch of a tree. As far as we know, this was the first time Darwin toyed with the concept of a "tree of life" to explain the evolutionary relationships between different species. It was to prove a fruitful idea: by the time he published On The Origin of Species 22 years later, Darwin's spindly tree had grown into a mighty oak. The...

For His Birthday, Darwin Loses His Tree Jan 22, 2009 — The “tree of life” is the central icon of Darwinism. Charles Darwin’s only illustration in the Origin of Species was a drawing of organisms descending from a common ancestor in a branching tree pattern. It has been reproduced, expanded, embellished and decorated into a primal symbol of what science believes about biology. Why, then, are The Telegraph and New Scientist cutting it down? “Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life” is the title of the latter, and the former says, “Charles Darwin’s tree of life is ‘wrong...

From Pathfinders in Medicine by Victor Robinson, Medical Review of Reviews, 1912. Includes a dedication letter to Ernst Haeckel. Haeckel responded, but in German. Darwin, Saint of Science Victor RobinsonIn my opinion the doctrine of evolution has done more for the intellectual uplift of the human race than all other movements combined. Its chief pioneers were Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall, Wallace, Haeckel. Out of this group only Wallace and Haeckel survive. Wallace, unfortunately, has gone over to the enemy -- he has become a spiritualist; there remains to us, therefore, only Professor Haeckel, the boldest and most effective fighter of...

Antibody Variation Is Not Evolution by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Researchers at Wayne State University in Michigan have uncovered a key step in the formation of antibodies. It was already known that the immune system generates a variety of antibodies in response to an invading pathogen. The recent study discovered that many of the necessary antibody variations are produced when a cellular copying procedure is slowed down.1 Antibodies are manufactured with variations on one end, the “light chain” end. When a specific light chain variation is found that locks onto the outermost molecules of the invading bacterium or virus, the antibody...

Chapter 17 from The Riddle of the Universe by Ernst Haeckel, translated by Joseph McCabe, Harper & bros, 1905. [download] Some of you may remember being forced to learn Darwin Medalist Ernst Haeckel's embryo theories in your public-school evolution class. Aside from the fake embryos, not many know much about him. What you don't know is that Haeckel developed these theories to ridicule people who believe that humans have souls. Riddle of the Universe was Haeckel's most popular book. Germans of the pre-Nazi generation learned their evolution from this stuff and from the works of Haeckel's associates. This is...

Tuatara fossil props up Moa's Ark theory for NZ animal life Wed, 21 Jan 2009 9:09p.m. The discovery of a tuatara fossil in the South Island is helping prop up the "Moa's Ark" theory that some parts of New Zealand have always stayed above the sea surface. Scientists said the fossil provided strong evidence that the ancestor of the present-day tuatara covered the Zealandia landmass as it split from Gondwana, 82 million years ago.

Have you heard of the massive celebrations in progress around the world to promote the life and achievements of Charles Darwin? Nature launched a special issue featuring his life, his science and his legacy.1 The Natural History Museum in London, UK, dedicated a website promoting a national program of events celebrating his scientific ideas.2 Museums, universities and science organizations are networking globally to promote Darwin through exhibitions, lectures and conferences. Events are planned in dozens of countries including the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, China, South Korea, Portugal, Germany, Egypt and Hong Kong. Stanford University, California, will jet 90 pilgrims along...

The next skirmish in the long-running dispute about the teaching of evolution in Texas public schools is set for Wednesday. That’s when scores of people, including six appointed curriculum reviewers, are expected to testify before the State Board of Education on a proposal for the next decade’s science curricula...

For years researchers have puzzled over whether adaptation plays a major role in human evolution or whether most changes are due to neutral, random selection of genes and traits. Geneticists at Stanford now have laid this question to rest. Their results, scheduled to be published Jan. 16 online in Public Library of Science Genetics, show adaptation-the process by which organisms change to better fit their environment-is indeed a large part of human genomic evolution. "Others have looked for the signal of widespread adaptation and couldn't find it. Now we've used a lot more data and did a lot of work...

New evidence from a study of yeast cells has resulted in the most detailed picture of an organism’s evolutionary process to date, says a Texas A&M University chemical engineering professor whose findings provide the first direct evidence of aspects, which up until now have remained mostly theory. Working with populations of yeast cells, which were color-coded by fluorescent markers, Katy Kao, assistant professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, and Stanford University colleague Gavin Sherlock were able to evolve the cells while maintaining a visual analysis of the entire process.

Jan 19, 2009 — Three recent fossil finds are rearranging Darwin’s tree of life. Pro-Darwinists will interpret this as pruning; Darwin skeptics will interpret it as uprooting....

John Luddun of the British Geological Survey told New Scientist that “this may well result in a revision of exploration models for kimberlites and the diamonds they host.”1 It could instead lead to a revision of old-age thinking about diamond formation and the age of the earth. With this proposal—that deep diamonds formed when Gondwana did—comes the instant removal of about 2.8 billion years of evolutionary time (93 percent of the standard age)! That these evolutionary time scales are largely fictional is corroborated by the presence of very young carbon-14 in the diamonds’ mineral matrices.2...

The new Earth and Space Science (ESS) course standards (and all other science course standards) will be up for approval before the State Board of Education (SBOE) during January 21-23. Some SBOE members--the seven who are Young Earth Creationists (YECs)--will attempt to make changes to the ESS standards in ways that will damage the scientific integrity and accuracy of the course. In particular, these SBOE members will try to negatively modify or delete the standards that require students to understand the following topics that deal with scientific topics they consider controversial: age of the Earth and universe, radiometric dating, evolution...

Skippy surprises scientists by Carl Wieland 20 January 2009 Feeling jumpy? It may not be from what you think. Researchers at Australia’s government-backed Centre of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics have mapped the genetic code of these marsupials, and were surprised at the amazing similarity to that of humans...

Public hearing on hot topic planned for Wednesday. The State Board of Education will meet this week to vote on how to teach evolution in the classroom and take up other changes to the Texas public school science curriculum that have been recommended by a panel of experts. Science students should be expected to "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning and experimental and observational testing," according to the final recommendations by the six-member panel, which were made public earlier this month. Since 1988, the state has required that students learn the "strengths and weaknesses" of all...

Lab-'evolved' Molecules Support Creation by Brian Thomas, M.S. Scientists attempting to demonstrate random evolution in the laboratory have found something entirely different: evidence supporting creation. Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute coaxed an RNA-like long chain molecule, called R3C, to copy itself. The journal New Scientist stated that Joyce’s “laboratory-born ribonucleic acid (RNA) strand evolves in a test tube.” But it “evolved” only after “Joyce's team created” it. “After further lab tinkering,” Joyce’s colleague Tracy Lincoln “redesigned the molecule” so that it would replicate more effectively.1 What Joyce and his team actually discovered was how difficult it is and...

This is taken from "Final Causes: A Refutation" by Wathen Call, 1891. The book is dedicated to demolishing all notions of purpose, design, meaning and intention in nature, by means of Darwinism and related philosophies. The fascinating thing about Call's book is the autobiographical introduction, where he records the deformation and loss of his faith in detail. Bad childhood catechesis, atheist poets, modern philosophers, German biblical criticism, third-rate rationalist theologians, and finally Comte and Darwin, reduced him from Anglicanism to nothingism. An Exhibit at the Museum of Rationalism Exerpts from Final Causes: A Refutation (1891), preface, introduction, conclusion (much...