Free Republic

My endless rants here about the hot field of multiverse studies are mainly motivated by concern about the effect this is having on particle theory. Multiverse scenarios all too often function as an excuse for not admitting that string theory/extra-dimensional ideas about unification have failed. Such an admission would encourage people to move on to more promising ideas, but instead hep-th is stuck in an endless doldrums with the high profile public face of the subject dominated by excited claims about what a wonderful discovery this region is.Independently of the string theory problem, I’m personally a skeptic that multiverse...

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2012) — Many fossilized dinosaurs have been found in a twisted posture. Scientists have long interpreted this as a sign of death spasms. Two researchers from Basel and Mainz now come to the conclusion that this bizarre deformations occurred only during the decomposition of dead dinosaurs. A syndrome like that as a petrified expression of death throes was discussed for the first time about 100 years ago for some vertebrate fossils, but the acceptance of this interpretation declined during the following decades. In 2007, this "opisthotonus hypothesis" was newly posted by a veterinarian and a palaeontologist....

The philosophies embedded in public school curricula today encompass a very humanistic point of view where government is the center of the universe, and the nurturing and indoctrination of its children its most important function. The only morality comes not from God, but from the sacred collectivist view of conformity to group values.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” — The Declaration of Independence Thanks to Senator Dennis Kruse, Indiana educators may soon have the same freedom to express their beliefs about the origin of man as Thomas Jefferson did when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. This week the state Senate passed SB-89, which states, “The governing body of a school corporation may offer instruction on various theories of the origin of life....

Evolution professor Lawrence Krauss is now saying that the universe, and everything in it, came from nothing. Not only that, but there are probably billions and billions of universes that have spontaneously arisen. Occasionally a universe happens to have all the right properties for life to arise spontaneously within it, and that would be us. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Krauss, a theoretical physicist and head of The Origins Project at Arizona State University, is not the first evolutionist to defy the age-old wisdom that something does not come from nothing. World-famous physicist Stephen Hawking popularized the idea...

Researchers scanning the genomes of African-Americans say they see evidence of natural selection as their ancestors adapted to the harsh conditions of their new environment in America. The scientists, led by Li Jin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, report in the journal Genome Research that certain disease-causing variant genes became more common in African-Americans after their ancestors reached American shores — perhaps because they conferred greater, offsetting benefits. Other gene variants have become less common, the researchers say, like the gene for sickle cell hemoglobin, which in its more common single-dose form protects against malaria. The Shanghai...

This video tells us that are things in space that existed 47 Billion Years ago.

A fish that uses its fins to walk across the floor is causing scientists to rethink the evolution of walking on land, according to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers at the University of Chicago observed an African lungfish using its pelvic fins "as hind legs to propel itself along the bottom of the tank," reports Victoria Gill and Jason Palmer at BBC News. This could mean that our ability to walk developed underwater—before creatures grew toes or limbs necessary to move on land—essentially rewriting hundreds of millions of years of...

New planet discovery excites scientists: the discovery of a new planet 600 light years away with roughly the right temperature for plant and animal habitation is causing a buzz in the science community. Though much larger than Earth, scientists haven't ruled out the possibility of life being discovered. A newly discovered planet is eerily similar to Earth and is sitting outside Earth's solar system in what seems to be the ideal place for life, except for one hitch. It is a bit too big. The planet is smack in the middle of what astronomers call the Goldilocks zone, that hard...

In this exclusive video, Nobel-laureate F. A. Hayek discusses the evolution of morality and social norms, arguing that they result from unplanned, emergent processes. He contrasts this conclusion with other philosophical accounts of law and morality.

For the last several months there has been a flurry of discussion—mostly online, of course—about the impossibility of a literal Adam & Eve (see, e.g., here and here and here). This ruling-out has been accomplished recently by the Human Genome Project, which indicates that anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors about 100,000 years ago, from a population of something like 10,000. In short, science has confirmed what many of us already knew: there was not a literal first couple. So what else can we learn from this story? Plenty, it turns out. Peter Enns, a biblical scholar who blogs...

Muslim students, including trainee doctors on one of Britain's leading medical courses, are walking out of lectures on evolution claiming it conflicts with creationist ideas established in the Koran. Professors at University College London have expressed concern over the increasing number of biology students boycotting lectures on Darwinist theory, which form an important part of the syllabus, citing their religion. Similar to the beliefs expressed by fundamentalist Christians, Muslim opponents to Darwinism maintain that Allah created the world, mankind and all known species in a single act. Steve Jones emeritus professor of human genetics at university college London has questioned...

I am surprised the headline wasn't 'Darwin hate speech incites Muslim extremism. The idea that they reject that which conflicts with their belief system is consistent with everything we have suffered in this war on the West. They rewrote the history on Israel and the Middle East (not to mention taking credit for "scientific inventions" invented by others)  and the left swallowed it whole - let's see where this goes.Muslim medical students boycotting lectures on evolution... because it 'clashes with the Koran' By Daily Mail Reporter (hat tip Phillipa)   Conflict: An increasing number of Muslim biology students are boycotting...

h/t Speedunque

Dinosaur fossils don't come much more impressive than this. With 98 per cent of its skeleton preserved, this young predatory theropod from southern Germany may be the most complete dinosaur ever found. Oliver Rauhut, curator of the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology in Munich, announced the find yesterday. Although Chinese bird and dinosaur fossils are famed for delicate details such as their feathers, they don't match this 72-centimetre-long theropod in terms of clarity and completeness of preservation. The young dinosaur has been dated at 135 million years old, putting it in the early Cretaceous, but it has yet...

Even in relatively modern societies, humans are still changing and evolving in response to their environment, new research indicates. The study was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers found a genetic push toward younger age at first reproduction and larger families while studying an island population in Quebec. The study used data from 30 families who settled on île aux Coudres, located in the St. Lawrence River outside of Quebec City, between 1720 and 1773. The researchers analyzed the data from women who married between 1799 and 1940, comparing their family relationships,...

WASHINGTON (RNS) White evangelicals and Tea Party members are less likely to believe in evolution and climate change than most Americans, a finding that could pose a particular problem for Republican presidential hopefuls. A new poll released Thursday (Sept. 22) also showed that a majority of Americans (57 percent) believes in evolution, and an even larger majority (69 percent) believes in climate change—though many still disagree that the phenomenon is based on human activity. But most Americans do not insist that their presidential candidates share their views on these issues, nor do they believe scientists have come to a consensus...

The purpose of this column is not to endorse a political contender for the Republican presidential race but rather to point out the strategy of the leftist media to undermine any candidate who shows the potential of being the alternative choice to their false prophet in the White House. The nation was recently treated to yet another child being exploited by a parent offering her son as a sacrifice of dignity on behalf of Barack 0bama. It came not in the usual third world dictator tactic of forcing the clueless child to sing praise to the tyrant but this time...

One of the world's most famous fossil creatures, widely considered the earliest known bird, is getting a rude present on the 150th birthday of its discovery: A new analysis suggests it isn't a bird at all. Chinese scientists are proposing a change to the evolutionary family tree that boots Archaeopteryx off the "bird" branch and onto a closely related branch of birdlike dinosaurs. Archaeopteryx (ahr-kee-AHP'-teh-rihx) was a crow-sized creature that lived about 150 million years ago. It had wings and feathers, but also quite un-birdlike traits like teeth and a bony tail. Discovered in 1861 in Germany, two years after...

In the last few months, in the run-up to the Republican primary, the press (and others) have made quite a bit of noise about the beliefs of the candidates on the issue of evolution. The goal of this post is to elucidate why the question of origins is important within politics at all. Even more so, my hope is that this will help parents understand and teach the practical consequences of our beliefs within everyday life. It may seem to some people that the position of a political candidate on an issue like evolution is like asking them what their...