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Environment Canada says such low temperatures unusual for this time of year. The arctic deep freeze trapping Calgary is on track to break a 110-year-old weather record today, but the bitter cold is expected to ease in the coming days. With a forecast low of -31C today, Calgary could break the -27C record set on this day in 1896. But factoring in the wind chill, it will feel even colder to people who have to brave the elements, said Environment Canada meteorologist Ross Macdonald. It's even been too frosty to ski, with Canada Olympic Park shutting the hill yesterday in...

This thread is a continuation of the first thread "Questions For Atheists & Non-Atheists" Some points were brought up that I wish to address here. I look forward to the responses. Taken from one of my dictionaries in my personal library: "Occam's Razor. A principle devised by the English philospher William of Occam, which states that entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary. In a scientific context, Occam's Razor is the choice of the simplest theory from among the theories which fit what we know. In logic, Occam's Razor is the statement of an argument in its essential...

Social Construction of Reality Theory and Emancipatory Theory: A Comparative Analysis By Kriztine Rosales-Viray A. Introduction Social Construction of Reality Theory (SCR) and Emancipatory Theory have strenuously influenced the way twentieth century scholars perceive things that surround them. The SCR of P. Berger and T. Luckmann, since it was introduced in the book Social Construction of Reality published in 1967, has made enormous impact upon the fields of Sociology and Social Sciences. Likewise, Klaus Krippendorf’s Emancipatory Theory has its own effect on the way contemporary theorists formulate their critics a and analyses. This paper tries to inquire whether there are...

This is a reference thread with links to previous FR threads discussing the arrest of a suspect, John Mark Karr, in the decade-old cold case concerning the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, plus case resources for continued commentary on investigation of the crime.

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna said he thought Darwin's theories on evolution deserve to be studied in schools, along with the scientific question marks that remain. It is right to teach "the science of Darwin, not ideological Darwinism," Cardinal Schonborn said Aug. 23. He spoke at a meeting in Rimini sponsored by the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation, and his remarks were reported by Italian newspapers. In 2005, Cardinal Schonborn helped fuel the debate over evolution and intelligent design when he wrote in The New York Times that science offers "overwhelming evidence for design in biology." He later...

A comparison of peoples' views in 34 countries finds that the United States ranks near the bottom when it comes to public acceptance of evolution. Only Turkey ranked lower. Among the factors contributing to America's low score are poor understanding of biology, especially genetics, the politicization of science and the literal interpretation of the Bible by a small but vocal group of American Christians, the researchers say. “American Protestantism is more fundamentalist than anybody except perhaps the Islamic fundamentalist, which is why Turkey and we are so close,” said study co-author Jon Miller of Michigan State University. The researchers combined...

Dilmun calendar theory backed By GEOFFREY BEW A SAUDI archaeologist who has been trying for nine years to prove his theory that the Dilmun civilisation celebrated New Year on June 21 - the first day of summer - has finally received some official recognition.Information Ministry Assistant Under-Secretary for Culture and National Heritage Shaikha Mai bint Khalifa Al Khalifa is said to have endorsed his judgement after visiting the 4,000-year-old Saar settlement to observe the phenomenon last month. Archaeologist Nabiel Al Shaikh says an ancient temple at the settlement, which features an oddly positioned triangular room, was used as an astronomical...

Whether you’re a free-loading virus or a meat-stealing monkey, selfishness pays. So how could cooperators survive in a cheater’s world? Thomas Flatt, a postdoctoral research associate at Brown, was part of a group that created a theoretical model that neatly solves this dilemma, which has stumped evolutionary biologists and social scientists for decades. The trick: Keep the altruists in small groups, away from the swindling horde, where they multiply and migrate. It’s a truth borne out in biology and economics: Selfishness pays. Viruses can steal enzymes to reproduce. Tax evaders can take advantage of public services to survive and thrive....

Scientists use quantum gravity to describe the universe before the Big Bang.Scientists may finally have an answer to a "big" question: If the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe, what could have caused it to happen? Using a theory called "loop quantum gravity," a group led by Penn State professor Abhay Ashtekar has shown that just before the Big Bang occurred, another universe very similar to ours may have been contracting. According to the group's findings, this previous universe eventually became so dense that a normally negligible repulsive component of the gravitational force overpowered the attractive component, causing...

An update on the amazing T. rex bone discovery announced a year ago this month Last year at about this time, it was disclosed that scientists had made an amazing discovery of a Tyrannosaurus rex thigh bone that still retained well-preserved soft tissue (which included blood vessels and cells). For evolutionists who argue that dinosaurs died about 65 million years ago, it was a startling discovery. AiG–USA’s Dr. David Menton (who holds a Ph.D. in cell biology from Brown University) wrote at the time that it “certainly taxes one’s imagination to believe that soft tissue and cells could remain so...

The Official Death of the Theory of Evolution – 2/25/2006 Theorem Name: The Illusion of Evolution DOA Theorem Theorem: There are not enough reproductive life cycle generations available in the projected age of the Universe to allow even the most basic form of evolution. Note: This Theorem looks at the Theory of Evolution from a completely abstract point of view. The formulas and discussion are presented from an Evolutionist point of view. This doesn’t necessarily represent the view of the author. AoU – age of the Universe. (1) AvRpdCyc - average reproductive life cycle generation (2)(3) TotalRpdCyc – total reproductive...

Ancient People Followed 'Kelp Highway' to America, Researcher Says Bjorn Carey LiveScience Staff Writer Sun Feb 19, 9:00 PM ET ST. LOUIS—Ancient humans from Asia may have entered the Americas following an ocean highway made of dense kelp. The new finding lends strength to the "coastal migration theory," whereby early maritime populations boated from one island to another, hunting the bountiful amounts of sea creatures that live in kelp forests. This research was presented here Sunday at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science by anthropologist Jon Erlandson of the University of Oregon. Today, a nearly continuous "kelp...

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.” —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass A curious metamorphosis of the language of evolution seems to be taking place as the Darwinian theory becomes more suspect in the eyes of scientists who advocate intelligent design, and with the public at large. The Gallup Organization has been polling the public on this issue since 1982, when 38 percent indicated a belief in the creationist explanation of life's origin, 33 percent believed in theistic (God-directed)...

Biologists are beginning to solve the riddles on which intelligent-design advocates have relied To advocates of intelligent design, the human sperm's tiny tail bears potent evidence that Charles Darwin was wrong--it is, they say, a molecular machine so complex that only God could have produced it. But biologists now are starting to piece together how such intricate bits of biochemistry evolved. Although the basic research was not meant as a response to intelligent design, it is unraveling the very riddles that proponents said could not be solved. In contrast, intelligent design advocates admit they still lack any way of using...

A highly unusual break-in at a grammar school in Klæbu resulted in a bit of mental exercise. The burglar(s) did not appear to be out after material gain. Instead of stealing, the intruder(s) sat down and began to solve the math problems intended for third grade students, newspaper Adresseavisen reports. According to local law enforcement officials a good job was done and all of the problems were solved correctly. There has been nothing reported missing or stolen from the school building and it remains a mystery how the intruder or intruders gained access to the school.

SACRAMENTO -- California regulators became the first in the nation today to designate second-hand tobacco smoke as a "toxic air contaminant,'' placing it in the same category as the poisons arsenic and benzene. The state Air Resources Board decided to target environmental tobacco smoke after evaluating studies that linked other people's smoke to increased cases of breast cancer, heart disease, asthma and low birth-weight babies. The designation will trigger investigations around the state. Air board staffers are expected to visit clusters of smokers outside buildings and other spots where smokers congregate. They want to figure out ways to reduce the...

For a long time now, secularists have been trying to come up with reasons why people believe in God. If you take a strictly naturalistic view of the world, after all, it can be pretty difficult to understand how anyone would put their faith in an invisible supernatural being. And yet, generation after generation continues to hold to do just that. It’s a question that has puzzled and fascinated some of the most prominent minds of our time. Now there’s an intriguing new explanation for religious faith. Paul Bloom, a Yale professor of psychology and linguistics, argues in the Atlantic...

The fundamental particles of the universe that physicists have identified—electrons, neutrinos, quarks, and so on—are the "letters" of all matter. Just like their linguistic counterparts, they appear to have no further internal substructure. String theory proclaims otherwise. According to string theory, if we could examine these particles with even greater precision—a precision many orders of magnitude beyond our present technological capacity—we would find that each is not pointlike but instead consists of a tiny, one-dimensional loop. Like an infinitely thin rubber band, each particle contains a vibrating, oscillating, dancing filament that physicists have named a string.

Induction Processes of Inference, Learning, and Discovery by John H. Holland, Keith J. Holyoak, Richard E. Nisbett and Paul R. Thagard Computational Models of Cognition and Perception series MIT Press, 1986 A brief description of this book (like the one on its cover) sounds like the beginning of a very academic shaggy dog story: ``So one day, see, a computer scientist, a philosopher and two psychologists write this book about induction...'' While there are some amusing bits (for a very academic value of amusement, admittedly), this is a serious book, and in fact one of the best I know of...

When a federal judge in Pennsylvania struck down the efforts of a local school board to teach "intelligent design," he rightly criticized the wholly unscientific nature of that enterprise. Some people will disagree with his view, arguing that evolution is a "theory" and intelligent design is a "theory," so students should look at both theories. But this view confuses the meaning of the word "theory." In science, a theory states a relationship between two or more things (scientists like to call them "variables") that can be tested by factual observations. We have a "theory of gravity" that predicts the speed...