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Darwin's (Failed) Predictions: An Interview with Cornelius Hunter, Part I The testability of scientific ideas by making predictions about reality is a favorite theme with Darwinists and the atheists who love them. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins endorses a new atheist Ten Commandments, whose seventh commandment reads: “Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be read to discard even a cherished belief it if does not conform to them.” Incidentally, that would replace the old seventh commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Dawkins hails evolution’s “strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in...

Whitewashing Darwinism's Ongoing Moral Legacy Is it somehow petty, offensive, exploitative, and beyond the pale to point out how the Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter, who murdered a guard on Wednesday, writes about evolution in his sick manifesto? Should it be considered beneath one's dignity to quote the man and let his words speak for themselves?James von Brunn, the suspect in question, is a white supremacist, a bitter anti-Semite, a Holocaust-denier, a wacked out conspiracy theorist, who served more than 6 years in a federal prison for attempted kidnapping. All this is fair game to report. Everyone agrees to that. But...

Enlarge ImagePre-RNA? Hybrids between proteins and nucleic acids may have helped genetic molecules evolve.Credit: Science/AAAS Researchers pondering the origin of life have long struggled to crack the ultimate chicken-and-egg paradox. How did nucleic acids like DNA and RNA--which encode proteins--first form, when proteins are needed for their synthesis? Now, scientists report that they've cooked up molecular hybrids of proteins and nucleic acids that skirt the dreaded paradox. Although it's unknown whether such molecules existed prior to the emergence of life, they offer insight into a chemical pathway that might have helped life arise. DNA and RNA sport a backbone...

String theory “philosophy” challenged --snip-- The big bang is fundamental to cosmic evolution or the idea that somehow the universe made itself. The article majored on the varying ideas that emanate from big bang philosophy, such as dark energy and dark matter etc. that are used to solve some of the “science” problems of the big bang. It then went on to say that string theory is just another one of these ideas with no basis in experimental science...

Wendy Freedman, director of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, and two colleagues were named this month as recipients of the $500,000 Gruber Prize, one of the world's top awards in the field of cosmology. The Freedman team's work helped scientists to arrive at the currently accepted age of the universe: 13.7 billion years.

Darwin-Only Advisors Hunker Down to Re-Strategize June 12, 2009 — Strict Darwinian materialists are a minority in the United States, yet they enjoy autocracy in educational policy, complete control of scientific institutions, and nearly complete unquestioned support from the mainstream media. Nevertheless, they have to face living in a country that is predominantly religious. Once in awhile they suffer setbacks, like the recent changes in textbook policy in Texas that will require more scrutiny of the claims of evolution. What do they say amongst themselves when strategizing how to handle the public?...

Read the following stories and much more by clicking the excerpt link at bottom: 1. ScienceDaily: “Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-Bird Links" The allegation that birds evolved from dinosaurs is frequently treated as factual by evolutionists. Now, researchers have refuted that notion—and it starts with an unexpected discovery about bird anatomy. 2. LiveScience: “Do Dinosaurs Still Exist?” Creationists don’t claim that dinosaurs are still alive today. But because we believe at least two of each dinosaur kind survived Noah’s Flood (i.e., were on the Ark), we view the possibility as distinctly more likely than evolutionists. 3. BBC News: “Early...

Grandma’s Common Sense By Norma Zager “Common Sense is Common Sense” according to Your Grandma. “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” Buddha An interesting sidelight to penning a controversial point of view is the strange conglomeration of followers one recruits along the way. An ideal, universally proposed, that is simply every day common sense seems to transcend nationality, ethnicity, religion or gender. I have been happily surprised that so many corners of our world read...

Re-Analysis of the Marinov Light-Speed Anisotropy Experiment Reginald T. Cahill School of Chemistry, Physics and Earth Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide 5001, Australia E-mail: Reg.Cahill@flinders.edu.au The anisotropy of the speed of light at 1 part in 10^3 has been detected by Michelson and Morley (1887), Miller (1925/26), Illingworth (1927), Joos (1930), Jaseja et al. (1964), Torr and Kolen (1984), DeWitte (1991) and Cahill (2006) using a variety of experimental techniques, from gas-mode Michelson interferometers (with the relativistic theory for these only determined in 2002) to one-way RF coaxial cable propagation timing. All agree on the speed, right ascension and declination of...

Over at Evolution News & Views, I reflect on the question of whether it's "beyond the pale" to read, quote from, and reflect on the worldview implications of James von Brunn's addled thoughts on evolution and eugenics. Excerpt (keep reading after the jump): "Our culture is very comfortable reminding us often of atrocities committed in the name of religion -- whether it's the Crusades, the Inquisition, or 9/11. Ironically, the day of the Holocaust Museum shooting, an interesting new Jewish web magazine, Tablet, published a fascinating scholarly essay by Paula Fredriksen about how under the Nazis, some German theologians tried...

CORVALLIS, Ore. Researchers at Oregon State University have made a fundamental new discovery about how birds breathe and have a lung capacity that allows for flight and the finding means it's unlikely that birds descended from any known theropod dinosaurs.

Darwin Versus His Colleagues This is the second part of a review of The Darwin Myth by Benjamin Wiker. Part one is available here. An element of the Darwin story that may surprise many readers of Benjamin Wiker’s fine new biography The Darwin Myth is the ultimate disconnect between Darwin and many of his colleagues. Wiker points out that many of Darwin’s avid supporters, who accepted and helped popularize his theory, rejected Darwin’s materialistic reductionism. They argued, indeed, that the evidence did not support Darwin’s materialistic understanding of evolution. Biologist Asa Gray at Harvard was Darwin’s strongest champion in...

“Folks, this is one of the most exciting games in Super Bowl history! In case you just tuned in, here’s what’s happening: With only 8 seconds to go, the Buffalo Bills are trailing the New York Giants 20-19, but in the past two minutes Bills quarterback Jim Kelley has moved his team to the Giants’ 29-yard line, setting up kicker Scott Norwood for a field goal attempt. If Norwood makes it, the Buffalo Bills will win 22-20.” Watched by tens of thousands in Tampa Stadium and millions more on TV, the Buffalo Bills line up for what will probably be...

Guppies are small fresh-water fish that biologists have studied for long. UC Riverside-led study shows wild Trinidadian guppies adapted in less than 30 generations to a new environment RIVERSIDE, Calif. – How fast can evolution take place? In just a few years, according to a new study on guppies led by UC Riverside's Swanne Gordon, a graduate student in biology. Gordon and her colleagues studied guppies — small fresh-water fish biologists have studied for long — from the Yarra River, Trinidad. They introduced the guppies into the nearby Damier River, in a section above a barrier waterfall that excluded all...

Well-Engineered Ecosystems Bounce Back by Brian Thomas, M.S.* How fast can a disaster zone bounce back? Apparently, faster than previously thought. Yale University ecologists conducted a meta-analysis of 240 studies of devastated ecosystems. They found that ecosystems damaged by pollution can be restored in as few as 10 years. Why then was it believed they would take so much longer to recover?...

According to Benjamin Wiker’s provocative new biography, The Darwin Myth: the Life and Lies of Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin was an honorable and likable man, a family man. He loved his siblings; he was devoted to his wife; he loved his children and grieved deeply over his daughter’s death. But Darwin was also someone who presented to the public an elaborate and even deceptive story about himself and his work to advance a philosophical agenda. While there are many biographies of Charles Darwin, Wiker’s deserves attention because...

This summer, how would you like to lean back in your lawn chair and toss back a brew made from what may be the world’s oldest recipe for beer? Called Chateau Jiahu, this blend of rice, honey and fruit was intoxicating Chinese villagers 9,000 years ago—long before grape wine had its start in Mesopotamia. University of Pennsylvania molecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern first described the beverage in 2005 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences based on chemical traces from pottery in the Neolithic village of Jiahu in Northern China. Soon after, McGovern called on Sam Calagione at the...

June 8, 2009 — Most of the sediments in the world are mudstones – including shales and clays. Until recently these were thought to form only in calm, placid seas. Now, two geologists are continuing to show that they can form in flowing or turbulent water...

June 9, 2009 — In the artwork, it looks so simple: dust clumps into planets that grow into nice, orbiting solar systems – like ours. It’s not so simple when you try to nail down the real physics. Planet-building models have to contend with a host of variables and barriers to growth (accretion). Another barrier was discussed in Astrophysical Journal this month: the electric barrier...

Marvin Olasky spoke at the Discovery Institute yesterday and I had the opportunity to bounce off him a small heresy I've been cultivating. Olasky is the editor of World Magazine, a conservative Christian biweekly that I admire, and provost of King's College, a Christian college headquartered in New York City's Empire State Building. In his speech he made the case strongly that conservatives and especially conservatively inclined religious folks make a strategic error when they retreat from combat and engagement with the world and seek instead to wall themselves off in monasteries, figuratively speaking -- communities isolated from the sin-tainted...