Free Republic

Ancient Oxygen-Rich Rocks Confound Evolutionary Timescale by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Many origin of life researchers have for decades argued that the early earth must have had a “reducing” atmosphere, meaning that it had very little oxygen. This argument has no direct evidence to support it other than the knowledge that oxygen destroys the delicate molecules that comprise cells today. If the first living cells evolved, they would have needed an atmosphere with little or no oxygen. But new research supports the idea that the earth’s surface was always oxygenated...

Writing for Time, a magazine on the brink, science-challenged eco writer and earth-doom hysteric Bryan Walsh describes a Planet On The Brink: It is the black-and-white indri, largest of the lemurs … the species — like many other lemurs, like many other animals in Madagascar, like so much of life on Earth — is endangered and dwindling fast. Time‘s editors would once have cut this sort of demented exaggeration. I know; I used to work there. But quality editing is, as Walsh might say, endangered and dwindling fast. Oddly, this runs parallel to magazine sales. Walsh continues: Through our growing...

Your Eye Works a Precision Jigsaw PuzzleApril 7, 2009 — You have twin 125 megapixel video cameras in your eyeballs. Each pixel, a rod or cone connected to a neuron, sees only a small bit of the total image. How do these bits, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, fit together? Scientists at the Salk Institute have found that they are finely tuned to fit together for optimum clarity. Writing in PLoS Biology, they said...

Judaism in the Year of Darwin David Klinghoffer BeliefNet April 5, 2009 Link to Original Article Welcome to the year of Charles Darwin. In coming months, the secular world will be celebrating two anniversaries relating to the originator of evolutionary theory. February 12 marks what would have been his 200th birthday and November 24, the 150th year since the publication of his book On the Origin of Species. The cultural and political battle over evolution in the United States will intensify. Yet I believe many Orthodox Jews feel that it somehow isn't "our fight." Darwin argued that a purposeless, unguided...

ScienceDaily (Apr. 7, 2009) — One of the perplexing questions raised by evolutionary theory is how cooperative behavior, which benefits other members of a species at a cost to the individual, came to exist. Cooperative behavior has puzzled biologists because if only the fittest survive, genes for a behavior that benefits everybody in a population should not last and cooperative behavior should die out, says Jeff Gore, a Pappalardo postdoctoral fellow in MIT's Department of Physics. Gore is part of a team of MIT researchers that has used game theory to understand one solution yeast use to get around this...

April 7, 2009 — Adult stem cells are continuing to promise revolutionary therapies, while embryonic stem cells remain a political football even after Obama’s loosening of restrictions.  Some stories seem to suppress the word “embryonic” and just talk about “stem cells,” but there is a big difference in the ethics of one over the other.  Embryonic stem cells require harvesting a human embryo. Adult Stem Cell News Diabetes:  Sufferers of peripheral artery disease, common among diabetics, may have hope using stem cells from their own bone marrow.  PhysOrg reported that researchers at the University of Western Ontario isolated three types...

Probably no God? Atheists bury their heads in the sand Published: 7 April 2009 Out and about on Britain’s roads, you probably wouldn’t expect an atheist to challenge you about your belief in God. But this is currently the case in England, Scotland and Wales) where what have been dubbed ‘atheist buses’ are currently sporting the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”...

Can Evolution Be Programmed?April 6, 2009 — Some researchers are employing “evolutionary computing” as an algorithm to solve problems. But is it really evolution?...

The Vital Doctrine of a Global Flood by John D. Morris, Ph.D.* Few biblical teachings are as controversial among evangelicals as that of the global nature of Noah's Flood. If Scripture is our guide, however, it could not have been just a local flood covering the Mesopotamian River Valley, as taught by most leading evangelicals today, but must have been worldwide in extent and effect. For instance, Scripture lists the primary mechanisms for the Flood...

Metal 'Snakes' Fall Far Short of Life by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Researchers at Argonne National Laboratories have observed nickel filings ordering into rows atop a special fluid. With precisely structured electromagnetic fields surrounding them, the snake-like rows undulated in their beakers. The magnetically-motivated metal’s meanderings appeared so lifelike that Wired Science writer Alexis Madrigal suggested the tiny nickel trains can provide “clues about how life originally organized itself.”...

Quick, Make Like an AntApril 5, 2009 — Ants deserve a lot of respect, despite being a nuisance in the kitchen.  The very fact they are so effective at bugging us is a testament to their ingenuity in foraging, communicating and organizing themselves into successful colonies.  We might just gain some valuable knowledge by watching them more closely. Foraging: Live Science says that ants forage haphazardly, but there might be a method to their madness.  Anyone who has watched ant scouts on the kitchen sink knows they seem to go this way and that without a plan.  Why don’t they...

Zoogenesis—a theory of desperation by Russell Grigg Austin H. Clark (1880–1954) was an American evolutionary zoologist who wrote 630 articles and books in six languages.1 Not many people have heard of him today, because he had a major problem with Darwinism, and to get around this he proposed a new theory, which challenged the evolutionary orthodoxy of his contemporaries. The problem In an extraordinary book, The New Evolution: Zoogenesis,2 Clark showed that there was no evidence that any major type of plant or animal had evolved from or into any other type. He wrote, ‘When we examine a series of...

The Nature of Naturalism by David F. Coppedge* The arrogance of anti-creationists stems largely from their pride in offering natural explanations for the world instead of supernatural explanations. No matter how much evidence can be shown for God's action in nature, secular scientists always rule it out of bounds from the outset, because they argue that any appeal to the supernatural is forbidden in science. It is time to challenge this claim, because it is flawed at its core. The natural/ supernatural distinction breaks down under scrutiny...

Texas Hold 'Em: Calling Evolutionist Julie Berwald’s Bluffs in her Report on the Texas Science Standards Hearing Casey Luskin April 3, 2009 Juli Berwald, a freelance textbook writer who testified against critical thinking on evolution last week before the Texas State Board of Education (TSBOE), has written an inaccurate and unhappy report at the highly partisan Wired Magazine website about the Texas Science Standards hearing on March 25. According to Berwald’s account, she stated: "It's really hard to come up with scientifically based weaknesses to evolution." The intelligent-design supporters exploded in protest. The chairman banged his gavel repeatedly. "I will...

It is with out a doubt that a majority of Americans believe “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” Genesis 1:1. Unfortunately, most who believe these words cannot answer the questions raised by the thousands of fossils that archeologist's have dug up and claim are millions of years old. ...

The Israel Test By: David Klinghoffer The Jerusalem Post April 3, 2009 Israel stands out from other nations in many ways, not least that its survival appears to depend on powerful but geographically very distant countries. That observation should lead Jews to wonder what makes friends of Israel feel as they do. America has been the country's closet ally, while other Western countries showed less affection even before absorbing huge new Muslim populations. Why? In the American context, why do Republicans on average judge Israel more favorably than Democrats - by a significant spread of 20 percent, 84% compared to...

Biblical creation impedes evangelism? Plus yet another uninformed atheist. Published: 4 April 2009 First, Matthew P, a Christian evolutionist from the UK asserts that young-earth creation is harmful to evangelism. Dr Jonathan Sarfati shows the opposite, and explains the baneful consequences to the Gospel of denying its foundation in Genesis. Then Nigel H, an atheist from the US, hurls elephants about science and asserts that God deceived us and set up Adam and Eve to fail. Dr Sarfati explains some of the science and why God did NOT entrap the first couple...

Evolutionists Tell Us What Nature Intended April 2, 2009 — Can nature intend anything?  A true materialist lacks access to the concept of purpose and intentionality.  Whatever is, is.  Nevertheless, some staunch evolutionists avail themselves of the purpose-driven life by telling us what evolution intended. Meredith Small tells us on Live Science, for instance, that nature did not intend single parents.  Having become one herself recently, she can vouch for the fact that single parenting is hard.  She used the subject to tell us that evolution intended for us to be social, cooperative creatures.  She got this inspiration not just...

Early Large Galaxies Stun CosmologistsApril 02, 2009 — Cosmology has a kind of Cambrian Explosion of its own to grapple with.  Contrary to expectations, some of the earliest galaxies appear as large as current ones, if not larger.  Astronomers, using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii, examined five galaxy clusters with ages estimated at 5 billion years after the Big Bang.  Statements in a report on this study in Nature News make it sound revolutionary: The findings could overturn existing models for the formation and evolution of galaxies that predict their slow and steady growth through mergers. They calculated the mass...

Evolutionists, Atheists Admit Defeat in Texas by Christine Dao* After months of hearing debates over Texas science education standards, the 15-member State Board of Education voted to remove the requirement for teachers to teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories, such as evolution, and instead adopted a requisite for students to critically analyze and evaluate “all sides of scientific evidence.”The board voted 13-2 in favor of the new curriculum requirements, which state: In all fields of science, analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental observation and testing, including examining all sides of...