Free Republic

The Evolution of Creationism and Other Intangibles March 6, 2009 — If you are a creationist, you can’t help yourself, because evolution made you that way. It might have also made you moral and religious, especially if you are a woman. These and other evolutionary stories are making the rounds...

Terrible lizards trapped by terrible Flood Tas Walker A trail of fossilized claw marks found in northern Spain reveals the desperation of animals struggling to escape drowning in the Genesis Flood. ... That the footprints were preserved at all indicates the dinosaurs were engulfed by abnormal conditions. Today footprints are quickly obliterated, especially on a beach or in a strong current. But in the sandstone in Spain even the delicate features of the scratches were preserved, which means that sediment covered the tracks (and the ripple marks) soon after the dinosaur struggled past...

... In an SF State news release, Randall said that “we must rethink our evolutionary models of hormones” because “we see species specific adaptation of control systems.”1 Darwinian evolution would predict that once a hormone control system evolved in a common ancestor, that system should be retained in its descendants—the creatures that are alive today. But this is not what scientists have observed. The same hormone does not produce the same effect in similar tissues of different species, or kinds. What would the survival advantage be for an organism to spend its precious energy inventing new solutions to technical problems...

ScienceDaily (Mar. 3, 2009) — As the world marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, there is much focus on evolution in animals and plants. But new research shows that for the countless billions of tiniest creatures – microbes – large-scale evolution was completed 2.5 billion years ago. "For microbes, it appears that almost all of their major evolution took place before we have any record of them, way back in the dark mists of prehistory," said Roger Buick, a University of Washington paleontologist and astrobiologist. All living organisms need nitrogen, a basic component of amino acids and proteins....

Atheists strategize against book on God Online plot reveals plan to give Christian writing low rating The Christian author whose book "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can't Make Him Think" bumped atheist Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" on Amazon.com's best-seller list says he's uncovered a conspiracy to attack his work...

150 Years Later, Fossils Still Don't Help Darwin by Brian Thomas, M.S.* “Creationists claim there are no transitional fossils, aka missing links. Biologists and paleontologists, among others, know this claim is false,” according to a recent LiveScience article that then describes what it claims are 12 specific transitional form fossils.1 But do these examples really confirm Darwinism?Charles Darwin raised a lack of transitional fossils as a possible objection to his own theory: “Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms?”2 Later in this chapter of his landmark book, he...

First Draft of the Neandertal Genome Sequence Released by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D.* The highly anticipated initial draft assembly of the Neandertal genome was announced at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in the United States and at a European press conference.1 This genomic milestone involves approximately 3 billion bases of ancient human (Neandertal) DNA sequenced so far, which is the same amount of DNA contained in one set of human chromosomes or a single genome coverage. This is a major event in the booming scientific field referred to as “paleogenomics,” a discipline that...

Feb. 27, 2009 -- When NASA began thinking about missions to look for life beyond Earth, it realized it had a problem: how to recognize life if it were found. Scientists came up with a definition for life -- a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution -- but remained understandably fuzzy on the details. It is still not known how life on Earth took hold, what happened to a bunch of chemicals that made them capable of supporting a metabolism, replicating and evolution. But a new field of science, called synthetic biology, is aiming to find out. One of...

Darwin’s real message: have you missed it? by Carl Wieland Harvard’s renowned Professor Stephen Jay Gould1 is a vigorous anticreationist (and Marxist — see documentation), and perhaps the most knowledgeable student of the history of evolutionary thought and all things Darwinian. I’m glad he and I are on the same side about one thing at least—the real meaning of ‘Darwin’s revolution’. And we both agree that it’s a meaning that the vast majority of people in the world today, nearly a century and a half after Darwin, don’t really want to face up to. Gould argues that Darwin’s theory is...

Using Engineering to Prove Evolution    March 3, 2009 — David Deamer smiling at a tide pool: is there an evolutionary connection?  The picture accompanies an article on Science Daily about Deamer’s latest thinking on the origin of life.  He’s going to share his ideas at a symposium in Oakland, California, organized by Eugenie Scott of the NCSE. According to Deamer, life began with complex systems of molecules that came together through the self-assembly of nonliving components.  A useful metaphor for understanding how this came about, he said, can be found in combinatorial chemistry, an approach in which thousands...

One man and a vision Frans Gunnink chats with Johan Huibers, Dutch ‘Ark’-builder Johan Huibers is now well-known as the self-employed Dutch carpenter who has built a working ‘Ark’ nearly half as long as Noah’s original. Since opening for public viewing in mid-2007 in the Netherlands, many thousands of visitors have ‘flooded’ into the ‘Ark’...

Cell Motors Play Together Feb 27, 2009— If one molecular machine by itself is a wonder, what would you think of groups of them playing in concert?  Recent papers and news articles are claiming that’s what happens in living cells: molecular motors coordinate their efforts...

Humanists wish Darwin happy 200th: Evolution theme of party Charles Darwin got a birthday celebration in Kingston yesterday. The Kingston Humanist Association threw a Happy Birthday Chuck celebration, marking the 200th birthday of the scientist who first posited the Theory of Evolution. There was a cake with "200" spelled out in candles, a rendition of happy birthday and a lecture on evolution by Queen's professor Adam Chippendale, as well as the screening of a movie questioning the religious-based intelligent design movement put forth by evangelicals as a rival to evolution. Darwin Day was celebrated around the world in February, and...

Star Children for DarwinFeb 28, 2009 — Why should we be looking for alien intelligence around other stars when it is right behind your eyeballs?  You may not have known that you are a star child, but that’s what a leading astronomer called you.  As a good star child, you need to pay tribute to Charles Darwin.     In New Scientist, Lawrence Krauss called on children of spaceship Earth to “Celebrate evolution as only star children can.”  In this, he tied together the International Year of Astronomy 2009, the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of the telescope on...

For the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth (February 12, 2009), National Geographic News asked leading scientists for their picks of the most important fossils that show evolution in action ...

News to Note, February 28, 2008 (go to link below to read stories) 1. CBC News: “Montreal Scientists Unlock Mystery of Early Molecular Mechanism”. Have Canadian scientists uncovered the key that makes an evolutionary origin of life plausible? 2. Forbes: “The Dangers of Overselling Evolution” Philip Skell, a member of the National Academy of Sciences for more than three decades, cautions against protecting Darwinism through censorship. 3. The Boston Globe: “Cod in the Act of Evolution” Another example of “evolution in action”—-need we even bother examining the reality to confirm this isn’t what Darwin predicted? 4. BBC News: “‘Ghost Peaks’...

... Unfortunately, many theologians have decided that claims made by the majority of scientists represent scientific “facts.” In turn, these “facts” represent ultimate truth, which must then be used to understand biblical teachings. However, the Bible contains numerous claims and events that are not going to be popularly accepted as “scientific.” Are these claims now unacceptable to Christians? Scripture records the occurrence of numerous miracles performed by God. By definition, a miracle is an event not explainable by natural processes. Otherwise, it would hardly constitute a miracle. Are these miracles going to be accepted as “scientific?” What do these theologians...

Leading atheist Richard Dawkins himself admits: “[T]here is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over.” [The Blind Watchmaker, cited in my book Refuting Evolution, ch. 9] Just as the Britannica had intelligent writers to produce its information, so it is scientific to believe that the information in the living world likewise had an original Writer. Furthermore, the DNA information requires a complex decoding machine, the ribosome, but the instructions to build ribosomes are on the DNA. And decoding requires energy from ATP, built by...

... Dawkins loves ‘science’, Darwinism in particular, and delights in singing its praises. Christians delight in science as well—as the handiwork of God. But Dawkins loves science as god, and consciously tries to build a world and life view around science, wearing many hats in the process...

Last week, University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne criticized Forbes (See "Why Evolution Is True") for including views skeptical of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in its forum on the 200th anniversary of his birth. As a member of the National Academy of Sciences, I beg to differ with Professor Coyne. I don't think science has anything to fear from a free exchange of ideas between thoughtful proponents of different views. Moreover, there are a number of us in the scientific community who, while we appreciate Darwin's contributions, think that the rhetorical approach of scientists such as Coyne unnecessarily polarizes...