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Half of British adults do not believe in evolution, with at least 22% preferring the theories of creationism or intelligent design to explain how the world came about, according to a survey. The poll found that 25% of Britons believe Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is "definitely true", with another quarter saying it is "probably true". Half of the 2,060 people questioned were either strongly opposed to the theory or confused about it. The Rescuing Darwin survey, published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of ­Species,...

Socialism and Darwinism A compilation of interesting paragraphs from Enrico Ferri's Socialism and Positive Science, London Independent Labour Party, 5th edition 1909, translated from the french edition of 1896. Ferri, a professor of penal law at the university of Rome, was a student of the (crackpot) criminologist Cesare Lombroso and an influential communist. Lombroso was a monist and an honorary associate of Rationalist Press, along with Leonard Huxley and Ernst Haeckel. Enrico Ferri1.I have proposed to indicate, and nearly always by means of rapid and summary observations, the general relations between contemporary socialism and the trend of modern scientific thought.A...

Creationist cosmologies explain the anomalous acceleration of Pioneer spacecraft by D. Russell Humphreys A broad class of creationist cosmologies offer an explanation for the ‘Pioneer effect’, an apparent small Sunward anomalous acceleration of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. If a large volume of empty space surrounds the matter of the cosmos, so that the cosmos can have a centre of mass, then the matter is in a deep gravitational potential ‘well’. If space is expanding and spreading the matter outward, then the depth of the well is decreasing. According to general relativity, especially a new solution of Einstein’s equations...

David Klinghoffer of the anti-evolution Discovery Institute has an opinion column in the Jerusalem Post, attacking Jewish groups like the ADL for protesting against Pope Benedict’s reinstatement of Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson. Klinghoffer calls it “whining:” The wages of whining. But the real purpose of Klinghoffer’s column is to attempt to redirect Jewish anger toward the Discovery Institute’s main target: the theory of evolution... But Klinghoffer’s false equivalence is even more thoroughly destroyed by the fact that the Nazis banned Darwin’s books:...

Since the Big Bang story of the origin of the universe has been refuted by a host of external observations and internal contradictions,1 secular science has been forced to postulate additional, exceedingly improbable events to keep it afloat. One of these is “inflation,” which attempts to explain the apparent uniformity of the universe.2 But new observations by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe are forcing cosmologists to revamp inflation, at the cost of inventing yet another miraculous event to prop it up...

Epigenetics: More Information than Evolution Can Handle by Brian Thomas, M.S. Living things develop partly according to genetic instructions encoded on their DNA. The study of inheritance has widened the paradigms from genes to genomes, and now recent research has added yet another player to the field. Critical biological information is carried from one generation to the next in systems additional to DNA, called epigenetic factors, say scientists at the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). Medical doctor Art Petronis and his team at the CAMH compared methylated DNA patterns (possible epigenetic factors) across the entire genome of...

Socialism versus Religion Excerpts from the pamphlet Socialism v. Religion, Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, Jan., 1911. The excerpts appear in Socialism from the Christian Standpoint by Bernard Vaughan S.J., Macmillan, 1912, pg. 170--174. Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Great Britain As part of the essential educational work that must be done before this emancipation can be achieved the present pamphlet has its place. It is an entirely proletarian product, and treats a serious subject seriously and scientifically. It is issued, not as the view of an individual, but as the accepted manifesto of...

Loess, generally considered to be wind-blown silt, has caused a number of problems for uniformitarism. The major problems are the missing periglacial loess from past ice ages, a lack of a source for the immense volume of loess (covering about 10% of Earth’s land surface) and the lack of eroded loess from past ice ages. How loess is produced has also caused a quandary for uniformitarians, with only fluvial tumbling in mixed-sized sediment producing a large volume of silt. However, the Flood and post-Flood Ice Age provide a more plausible framework in which to explain the volume and distribution of...

Is Natural Selection Losing its Appeal? Jan 28, 2009 — Some recent science reports sound like they are ready to cast Darwin’s key phrase natural selection overboard, or at least demote it from its leading role in evolution. These articles each hint that long-held beliefs are being challenged...

Separation of Church and State, Church and School Excerpts from Religion in the USSR by E. Yaroslavsky, International Publishers, 1934, appearing in an exhibit in The Communist Conspiracy: Strategy and Tactics of World Communism, part 1, Section B, Committee on Un-American Activities, US House of Representatives, 1956, pg. 295-297. E. Yaroslavsky (Central Committee of the Communist Party, President of the League of Militant Atheists)On January 23, 1918, the Soviet Government issued a decree on the disestablishment of the church. This decree reads as follows: Decree of the Soviet of People's Commissars on the Separation of the Church from the...

A sage once said, "It's not what you know you don't know that's the problem; it's what you don't know that you don't know." When Charles Darwin advanced his theory of biological evolution, there was a lot of biology he didn't know. Some of it he recognized. But there was much he never even thought about. During the 150 years since then, scientific advance has yielded important understanding about life's origin, history and characteristics. These accomplishments provide the framework for modern biology. Even more, they are causing scientists to question his theory. Learning what scientists know will equip Christians with...

Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he receives hate mail from viewers for failing to credit God in his documentaries. In an interview with this week's Radio Times about his latest documentary, on Charles Darwin and natural selection, the broadcaster said: "They tell me to burn in hell and good riddance." Telling the magazine that he was asked why he did not give "credit" to God, Attenborough added: "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot...

The Art Instinct by: Daniel Allen, January 27, 2009 It is hard to imagine what purpose art could have served in a world where every day was largely a struggle to survive until the next day. How did art develop among our ancestors, and what role did it play in their ability to survive and progress? In The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution, Denis Dutton seeks to answer these questions as he explores the characteristics of art in the framework of Darwinian philosophy and human evolution. Many readers will doubtless reject The Art Instinct out of hand, disagreeing...

Failed expectations are not necessarily a problem for a theory. [1] But what if fundamental predictions are consistently falsified? As we shall see this is the case with Darwin’s theory of evolution...

Darwin is dead and his unscientificracist ideas should to be buried also.Led by the atheistic and misnamed National Center for Science Education and enabled by the main-stream media, colleges, museums, and public schools have launched a last ditch effort to salvage Darwinism.The theme is a yearlong celebration based upon Darwin's 200th birthday on February 12 and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his famous book (see blow) on November 24.In my state, West VirginiaUniversity has already placed a newspaper add listing events WVU will use to honor Darwin.Revealing consummate hypocrisy is the fact that WVU evolutionist professors are exposed...

In Defense of the Communists Excerpts from Argument in Defense of the Communists by Clarence Darrow (ACLU), published by Charles Kerr & Co., [1] 1920. Darrow was defending twenty Chicago communists who were charged in August 1920 under the 1919 Illinois anti-communist statute. The Communist Party in the USA had just been formed at Chicago in September 1919. The Scopes Trial came later, in 1925. Too bad they didn't mention this in the film Inherit the Wind. Clarence Darrow [2]I shall attempt to say it honestly; and I fancy not one of this jury, after I am done, can...

Postcards from The Wedge: review and commentary on Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism by Steven C. Meyer et al. Brian D. Metscher a a Department of Theoretical Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Correspondence (email: brian.metscher@univie.ac.at) Copyright Journal compilation © 2009 Wiley Periodicals ABSTRACT No Abstract -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI) 10.1111/j.1525-142X.2008.00309.x About DOI Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism by Steven C. Meyer et al. 2007 . Hill House Publishers, Melbourne & London . ISBN 0-947352-48-6 . The latest out of the Discovery Institute is 159 glossy pages of color-illustrated creationist nostalgia published by...

LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - A new book on Charles Darwin says a passionate hatred of slavery was fundamental to his theory of evolution, which challenged the assumption held by many at the time that blacks and whites were separate species. "Darwin's Sacred Cause" is among the first of dozens of works about the 19th century scientist to appear in 2009, the bicentenary of his birth and 150th anniversary of the publication of his groundbreaking "On the Origin of Species". Its authors, Adrian Desmond and James Moore, also expect it to be one of the most controversial, because it explores...

Penn State Assistant Professor of Biology Tracy Langkilde has shown that native fence lizards in the southeastern United States are adapting to potentially fatal invasive fire-ant attacks by developing behaviors that enable them to escape from the ants, as well as by developing longer hind legs, which can increase the effectiveness of this behavior. "Not only does this finding provide biologists with an example of evolution in action, but it also provides wildlife managers with knowledge that they can use to develop plans for managing invasive species," said Langkilde. The results will be described in a paper to be published...

Rationalism, Communism, Darwinism There is a relationship between Rationalist Press and Kerr & Co., which published communist books, tracts, and The International Socialist Review. [1] Charles Kerr was himself a raving communist, and there is much overlap in the choice of materials published by Kerr and RPA-Watts. Kerr & Co published the 1904 book God and My Neighbour, a dismal and idiotic tract by the communist Robert Blatchford, a compendium of insufferable moralizing atheist intellectual lobotomizations, and in the lowest denomenator of it as well. This is an interesting book for two reasons. First, absolutely anything you are likely to...