NEWS FROM EARLIER IN THE YEAR 2005
Posted December 22nd, 2005
NEWS FROM EARLIER IN THE YEAR 2005
Posted December 22nd, 2005
Dover Denouement...
Re the Dec. 20th <alliteration>Devastating Dover Decision Dumping on Design</alliteration>, here are some of the more memorable reactions:
William Dembski, on making Dover decision lemons into lemonade: "This galvanizes the Christian community. ... People I’m talking to say we’re going to be raising a whole lot more funds now.”
Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420ap_evolution_debate.html
Sen. Rick Santorum Quits Thomas More Law Center : SignOnSanDiego.com reports on Dec. 22nd that "Sen. Rick Santorum says he intends to withdraw his affiliation with the Christian-rights law center that defended a school district's policy mandating the teaching of 'intelligent design.' Santorum, the Senate's No. 3 Republican who is facing a tough re-election challenge next year, earlier praised the Dover Area School District for 'attempting to teach the controversy of evolution.' But the day after a federal judge ruled the district's policy on intelligent design unconstitutional, Santorum told The Philadelphia Inquirer he was troubled by testimony indicating religion motivated some board members to adopt the policy. ..."
Source: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20051222-0801-evolutiondebate-santorum.html
Oops, DI’s Freudian Slip is showing… read Dave Thomas's Dec. 21st blog on the Discovery Institute's "Freudian Slips"
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/12/oops_dis_freudi.html
"Evolution named 2005's top scientific breakthrough" - Reuters reports on Dec. 22nd that "Two days after a U.S. judge struck down the teaching of intelligent design theory in a Pennsylvania public school, the journal Science on Thursday proclaimed evolution the breakthrough of 2005. Wide-ranging research published this year, including a study that showed a mere 4 percent difference between human and chimpanzee DNA, built on Charles Darwin's landmark 1859 work "The Origin of Species" and the idea of natural selection, the journal's editors wrote. 'Amid this outpouring of results, 2005 stands out as a banner year for uncovering the intricacies of how evolution actually proceeds,' they wrote. 'Ironically, also this year, some segments of American society fought to dilute the teaching of even the basic facts of evolution.'..."
Ice Age Footprints in Australia...
AP reports on Dec. 21st that "Hundreds of human footprints dating back to the last Ice Age have been found in the remote Australian Outback, an official and media reported Thursday. ... The prints were made in moist clay near the Willandra Lakes 19,000 to 23,000 years ago, the newspaper reported ahead of archeologists' report on the find to be published in the Journal of Human Evolution. State Environment Minister Bob Debus said the site showed a large group of people walking and interacting. ..."
Source: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20051222/D8EKVVBO8.html
Reviving Mammoths..
LiveScience.com reports on Dec. 19th that "Scientists have mapped part of the genome of the woolly mammoth, a huge mammal that's been extinct for about 10,000 years. The breakthrough could lead to recreating the creatures. ..."
Source: http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/051219_mammoth_dna.html
Cloning Claim Questioned...
The Boston Globe reported on Dec. 20th that "A landmark 2004 paper in which South Korean scientists claimed to have cloned human stem cells for the first time contains photos that appeared in an unrelated paper, calling their claim into question and increasing the controversy that surrounds the team. ..."
Source: http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/12/20/photos_cast_new_doubt_on_cloning?mode=PF
Stalin wanted Ape-Human Soldiers...
The Scotsman reports on Dec. 20th that "The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents. Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior. ... Mr Ivanov's experiments, unsurprisingly from what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in human volunteers similarly fail. ..."
Source: http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=2434192005
Santa Fe Judge Restrains David Letterman from Psychic Badgering...
The Santa Fe New Mexican reported on Dec. 21st that "Late last week, a Santa Fe District Court judge [Daniel Sanchez] signed a temporary restraining order against talk-show host David Letterman alleging he has tormented a city resident for more than 10 years by using code words on his television program. ... [Colleen ] Nestler wrote that she began sending Letterman 'thoughts of love' after the Late Show With David Letterman began on CBS in 1993. 'Dave responded to my thoughts of love, and, on his show, in code words & obvious indications through jestures (sic) and eye expressions, he asked me to come east,' she wrote. Then, three days before Thanksgiving in 1993, Letterman asked Nestler to be his wife during a televised 'teaser' for his show when he said, 'Marry me Oprah,' Nestler wrote in the letter. 'Oprah had become my first of many code names,' she wrote. ..."
Source: http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/36651.html
Editor's note: This story is not newsworthy because it shows there are wacky people in Santa Fe. We all knew that. It's newsworthy because it shows how wacky Santa Fe judges can be.
Work on Synthetic Species Underway...
The Globe and Mail reports on Dec. 19th that "Work on the world's first human-made species is well under way at a research complex in Rockville, Md., and scientists in Canada have been quietly conducting experiments to help bring such a creature to life. ... The project is being spearheaded by U.S. scientist Craig Venter, who gained fame in his former job as head of Celera Genomics, which completed a privately-owned map of the human genome in 2000. Dr. Venter, 59, has since shifted his focus from determining the chemical sequences that encode life to trying to design and build it: "We're going from reading to writing the genetic code," he said in an interview. ..."
DNA/Protein Ingredients Found in Space...
RedOrbit reports on Dec. 20th that "NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered some of life's most basic ingredients in the dust swirling around a young star. The ingredients -- gaseous precursors to DNA and protein -- were detected in the star's terrestrial planet zone, a region where rocky planets such as Earth are thought to be born. ..."
Stossel Goofs...
ABC News reporter John Stossel often criticizes the Agency for International Development for acknowledging that DDT is safe, but not spending a penny on DDT to combat malaria in Uganda. John Fleck has dug up proof that Stossel's claim is erroneous.
Source: http://www.abqjournal.com/cgi-bin/weblog.pl?perma=2840&topic_name=NM%20Weather
Roswell's Walter Haut dead at 83...
The Albuquerque Tribune, via the AP, reported on Dec. 19th that "A U.S. Army lieutenant who issued a now-famous news release that sparked decades of speculation about whether aliens really crash-landed here in 1947 has died. Walter Haut, a former spokesman for the now-defunct Roswell Army Air Field, died of natural causes Thursday in Roswell ... Haut listened closely on July 8, 1947, as base commander Col. William Blanchard dictated information about a recovered flying saucer and ordered Haut to issue it. ..."
Source: http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/nw_local/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19858_4326715,00.html
Fumble Warning to AP: The claim that Col. Blanchard dictated the press release is highly disputed. Get Pflock's book.
ID Courses Appearing in Universities...
The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) reports on Nov. 21st that "According to the Wall Street Journal, classes questioning evolution have begun to establish themselves at universities across the country. ... Courses on the theory of intelligent design have emerged at state universities in Minnesota, Georgia and New Mexico, and at private institutions such as Wake Forest, Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne. ... The establishment of intelligent design on campuses has provoked a backlash. Last month, University of Idaho President Tim White declared that teaching of 'views that differ from evolution' in science courses is 'inappropriate.' Mainstream scientists cite what they claim as overwhelming evidence for evolution, and condemn 'wrong science.' Leslie McFadden, chair of earth and planetary sciences at the University of New Mexico, says: 'My interest is in making sure that intelligent design and creationism do not make the kind of inroads at the university level that they’re making at the K-12 level. You can’t teach whatever you damn well please. If you’re a geologist, and you decide that the earth’s core is made of green cheese, you can’t teach that.' ..."
Source: http://www.aacrao.org/transcript/index.cfm?fuseaction=show_view&doc_id=2956
'666' Demoted, No Longer "Number of the Beast"...
For this, our last News Post of 2005, we go all the way back to May for this under-reported shocker. Canada.com reported on May 4th that "Satanists, apocalypse watchers and heavy metal guitarists may have to adjust their demonic numerology after a recently deciphered ancient biblical text revealed that 666 is not the fabled Number of the Beast after all. A fragment from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dating to the Third century, gives the more mundane 616 as the mark of the Antichrist. Ellen Aitken, a professor of early Christian history at McGill University, said the discovery appears to spell the end of 666 as the devil's prime number. ..."
Posted December 20th, 2005
It's Over in Dover...
U.S. District Judge John Jones has ruled on the Kitzmiller case in Dover, PA, and it's a smashing defeat for "Intelligent Design." Here are some choice bits from the ruling:
To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.
Hey, Rio Rancho - did you hear that?
The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.
With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.
Source: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/051220_kitzmiller_342.pdf
As expected, the Discovery Institute has responded forcefully and inanely. After the decision came down, DI announced "'The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate, and it won't work,' said Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute, the nation's leading think tank researching the scientific theory known as intelligent design. ...[West said] ... Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science, religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of grandeur.""
Perhaps Discovery didn't notice that their claims of "censorship" and "judicial activism" were already addressed in passages from Jones' ruling above:
Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom. ...
Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID. ...
Read more about ... G. W. Bush appointee Judge John Jones
And catch up with the Blogosphere - Panda's Thumb, Red State Rabble, Pharyngula and Dispatches from the Culture Wars should get you started.
There'll be many a scientist partaking of a distilled beverage tonight, mateys!
Posted December 16th, 2005
Scientologists permit Tour of secretive New Mexico Facility...
The Albuquerque Journal reported on Dec. 11th that "Several San Miguel County officials recently got a look inside the Church of Scientology's compound east of here [Las Vegas, NM], which has been back in the news because of landscape markings visible only from the sky. The compound was built in the 1980s in high desert country near the community of Trementina, about 40 miles from Las Vegas, and includes an underground archive for the writings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. A Scientology corporation called the Church of Spiritual Technology runs the compound. ... The interlocking circles etched in the desert match the logo of the Church of Spiritual Technology. 'There's been speculation as to what it really is,' Najar said of the compound, noting rumors that have floated around about everything from the markings on the ground to the contents of the buildings on the premises. But in their invitation-only tour, Najar and the other county officials found no major surprises— just an apparently expensive archival center designed to safeguard many of Scientology's key works. ..."
Source: http://www.abqjournal.com/quirky/415579north_news12-11-05.htm
NM SpacePort Countdown Begins...
The Albuquerque Journal reported on Dec. 15th that "In the 1990 television movie 'Sparks: The Price of Passion,' actress Victoria Principal played the mayor of Albuquerque, caught up in an imbroglio over a high-profile economic development project. In 2009 or so, Principal hopes to play the role of one of the country's first paying astronauts, possibly from one of the largest economic development projects in the state's history— a planned $225 million spaceport in southern New Mexico that officials hope will be the hub of a new industry. By plunking down the full $200,000 cost earlier this year, she became one of 100 'founders' of space tourism company Virgin Galactic, which has announced plans to eventually take 10,000 passengers per year into space from its proposed headquarters south of Truth or Consequences. ..."
Source: http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/416545nm12-15-05.htm?lrail (subscription)
Bob Park of "What's New" has weighed in on the proposal: "SPACE DEVELOPMENT: WILL 'SIX FLAGS OVER THE MOON' BE NEXT? The big news this week is that New Mexico is building the first commercial spaceport. British entrepreneur Richard Branson says his Virgin Galactic Airline will use the spaceport to launch tourists on suborbital flights beginning in 2008. A $200,000 ticket will buy you five minutes of weightlessness, with no extra charge for space sickness. With America's once-proud space program hard-put to support a crew of only two, wandering lost in the cavernous ISS, the future in space seems to be theme parks. ..."
Source: http://www.bobpark.org/
Has the Internet killed the UFO Movement?
An interesting, if perhaps overly optimistic view, from Douglas Kern at Tech Central Station (Nov. 9th): "If you're looking for one of those famous, big-eyed alien abductors, try looking on the sides of milk cartons. The UFO cultural moment in America is long since over, having gone out with the Clintons and grunge rock in the 90s. Ironically, the force that killed the UFO fad is the same force that catapulted it to super-stardom: the Internet. And therein hangs a tale about how the Internet can conceal and reveal the truth. ...Yet in recent years, interest in the UFO phenomenon has withered. Oh, the websites are still up, the odd UFO picture is still taken, and the usual hardcore UFO advocates make the same tired arguments about the same tired cases, but the thrill is gone. What happened? Why did the saucers crash? ... The Internet showed this particular emperor to be lacking in clothes. If UFOs and alien visitations were genuine, tangible, objective realities, the Internet would be an unstoppable force for detecting them. How long could the vast government conspiracy last, when intrepid UFO investigators could post their prized pictures on the Internet seconds after taking them? How could the Men in Black shut down every website devoted to scans of secret government UFO documents? How could marauding alien kidnappers remain hidden in a nation with millions of webcams? ..."
Source: http://www.techcentralstation.com/110905A.html
He's Big, He's Hairy, and He's in Chuck Darwin's Corner...
Is One “King Kong” Movie worth 1000 Darwin Exhibits? Dave Thomas blogs about Simon Houpt's comments (in the Toronto Globe and Mail) on the new “King Kong” movie: "Kong laughs, he cries, he pouts, he is shamed, he is proud, he has childish temper tantrums, he takes his date skating in Central Park. He’s us, and we are him, and the filmmakers have placed a $207-million (U.S.) bet that audiences from Tacoma, Wash., to Dover, Pa., will be taken in by Kong’s humanity. Audiences may not realize it, but the movie is a forceful argument for shared traits, Darwin’s notion — the one that so disturbs creationists — that we’ve evolved from other primates. Which means that, as good as the efforts are of the American Museum of Natural History, in the end that big monkey may do more to crush the creationists than a thousand intelligently designed Darwin exhibits ever could. …"
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/12/is_one_king_kon.html
Posted December 9th, 2005
Dog DNA Shows Surprises...
The Guardian (UK) reports on Dec. 8th that "Tasha the boxer is about to help reveal why dogs have been man's trusted companions and hunting partners throughout recorded history. Researchers have compiled the 12-year-old's DNA recipe, bringing scientists a step closer to finding the genetic causes of diseases common to all mammals and identifying the differences between dog breeds. ... Today, an international consortium, including British teams from Oxford and Cambridge, and led by scientists from the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, unveils Tasha's DNA code in the journal Nature. ... By tracking evolution's genetic footprints through the dog, human and mouse genomes, the scientists found that humans share more ancestral DNA with dogs than with mice, confirming that dog genes can be used to understand human disease. They also found that selective breeding has shuffled large blocks of DNA code among dog breeds, which should make it easier to find the genes responsible for body size, behaviour and disease. 'The genetic contributions to many common diseases appear to be easier to uncover in dogs,' said Dr Lindblad-Toh, the report's first author. 'If so, it is a significant step forward in understanding the roots of genetic disease in both dogs and humans.' ..."
New Mammalian Carnivore Found in Borneo...
Reuters reported on Dec. 5th that "Environmental researchers are preparing to capture what they call a new, mysterious species of carnivore on Borneo, the first such discovery on the wildlife-rich Indonesian island in over a century. Swiss-based environmental group WWF said on Monday its researchers photographed the strange animal, which looks like a cross between a cat and a fox, in the dense, central mountainous rainforests of Borneo. 'This could be the first time in more than a century that a new carnivore has been discovered on the island,' said the WWF in a statement. ..."
More info, and a photograph: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/05/051206001323.v7bezwpo.html
Michael Fumento, Journalist or Tool?
John Fleck has the nitty gritty analysis on his Inkstain.net page. Fleck writes on Dec. 5th "There’s this strange sort of schoolyard bully pleasure in taunting Michael Fumento. I wonder, though, if we’re the bullies, or if he is. I sorta feel like the skinny guy, taking pleasure in the bully’s comeuppance. But I dunno. Maybe we’re being the bullies. Should I feel bad, picking on poor Michael? The thing is, Fumento is, at times, a quite talented journalist. But then, over and over again, he shows himself to be a complete tool. ... He said something that was false, easily demonstrated to be so, and his response was not to defend his argument, nor to correct his mistake, but to attack his critics. ... The falsehood remains on his own web site. ... The strange thing is, as I said above, Fumento seems to be capable of really good work. I happen to agree, for example, with the point he made in his Weekly Standard piece about the hyping of the bird flu. But, with little personal knowledge of the subject, I just have to wonder what sort of Lancet-style howlers might be in there that he’ll be unwilling to acknowledge and correct if he got them wrong. That’s why it’s important for journalists to acknowledge and correct their mistakes. Their credibility is at stake."
Source: http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/?p=1242
NM gets an "A" for Science Standards...
On the Panda's Thumb blog, I wrote on Dec. 7th that "It’s near the end of the fall term, and Report Cards are in! The Fordham Foundation report on America’s science standards, 'The State of State Science Standards 2005,' has been released. ... There are some key points emerging from this report. For one, this year’s dumbing-down of Kansas standards got the Fordham folks mad - really mad. 'Note added In Proof: The early warnings have been justified. Kansas has adopted standards whose treatment of evolutionary material has been radically compromised. The effect transcends evolution, however. It now makes a mockery of the very definition of science. The grade for Kansas is accordingly reduced to F.' Additionally, the report directly contradicts the claims of the Discovery Institute’s incessant revisionists. ..."
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/12/report_cards_ar.html
Fordham Report Comments on Creationism disguised as "Critical Thinking"...
In the aforementioned Fordham Foundation report, the authors make a comment that bears directly on the current Rio Rancho situation. They note that "Criterion E1, the first of the two concerned with seriousness about science education, denies credit points to any standards that include, inter alia, 'creationist anti-evolutionism disguised as critical thinking.' The inclusion of such anti-evolution content is a goal of contemporary 'intelligent design' creationism, now overtaking other, older forms of creationism in the perennial struggle to discredit 'Darwinism.' A decade ago, this movement, which acquired a command post and funding source in the Discovery Institute of Seattle, Washington, argued vigorously for explicit teaching of the evidence for intelligent design—for the role of external, conscious agency in the history of life on Earth. When examined by qualified scientists and mathematicians, however, that evidence turned out not to be evidence, and so it remains—no evidence— at the time of writing. The promoters of intelligent design creationism have perforce retreated to arguments that invoke the popular and conveniently vague educationist formula, 'critical thinking.' The claim now is that evidence against 'Darwinism' exists, that curriculum-makers should include it as an exercise in critical thinking, and that 'freedom of speech' or 'fairness' requires that they do so. The hidden agenda is to introduce doubt—any possible doubt—about evolution at the critical early stage of introduction to the relevant science. ..."
Source: http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/Science%20Standards.Final%20(12-6).pdf (page 14, 15)
Posted December 2nd, 2005
New Fossil Find Reveals Archaeopteryx Details...
National Geographic reports on Dec. 1st that "A 150-million-year-old fossil of Archaeopteryx, long considered the oldest bird, may put to rest any scientific doubt that dinosaurs—specifically the group of two-legged meat-eaters known as theropods—gave rise to modern birds. Until recently, the crow-size specimen was housed in a private collection. It is now owned by the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis.... Archaeopteryx, the fossil shows, had a hyperextendible second toe. Until now, the feature was thought to belong only to the species' close relatives, the deinonychosaurs. ..."
Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1201_051201_archaeopteryx.html
Creo Ken Ham: ID is a "Trojan Horse"...
The Sydney Morning Herald reports on Nov. 27th that "Ken Ham should be on the same side of the street as proponents of intelligent design. After all, he's in opposition to the atheistic view of science as an explanation for the world we see. He, like many people in the intelligent design movement, is a Christian. But intelligent design advocates probably won't thank Australian-born Mr Ham for articulating what many of them try to avoid saying. That is: for some, the intelligent design movement is essentially a stalking horse for religion and, in the US, a way of getting around the separation of church and state to get into schools and influence children's education. ..."
Ham's Website: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home.aspx
A different view: "Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design" by Barbara Forrest & Paul R. Gross, http://www.creationismstrojanhorse.com/
More Doings in Dover...
The York Dispatch reports on Dec. 2nd that "Attorneys for both sides of the Dover Area School District lawsuit over intelligent design say it may be too late to dismiss the case. Outgoing school board member David Napierski has called on the new school board to rescind the intelligent design policy in an effort to save the school district from paying the plaintiffs' attorney fees should it lose the federal case. ... Richard Thompson, chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, which represented the school district, said yesterday, 'Napierskie has the right to ask, but that would only have a bearing on prospective damages and future policies. It would not have any bearings on past actions of the board. Just because you change the policy does not change any alleged constitutional violation that may have occurred when the policy was instituted on Oct. 18, 2004,' Thompson added. Plaintiffs' attorney Witold Walczack of the American Civil Liberties Union said he and his team disagree with Napierskie's analysis. Citing Supreme Court case law, Walczack said a case does not become moot unless there is 'no reasonable expectation that the wrong will be repeated.' ..."
Source: http://www.yorkdispatch.com/local/ci_3273012
Also on Dec. 2nd, the Dispatch reported that "Dover Area School Board candidates James Cashman and Bryan Rehm will face each other in a special election next month, a judge ruled this morning. York County Court of Common Pleas Judge John S. Kennedy denied Cashman's request to include in the special election all eight candidates who ran for four-year seats in the special election, instead limiting it to only Cashman and Rehm. Rehm defeated Cashman by 96 votes, according to unofficial election night tallies. Cashman appealed the results earlier this week, citing a malfunction by one of the voting machines at Friendship Community Church. He said he believes the machine would have registered more votes for him had it worked correctly. ... Only the 817 people that voted at Friendship Community Church on Nov. 8 will be allowed to vote again. Results of the special election will be added to the votes already tabulated from the other Dover school board precincts to determine a winner. ..."
Source: http://www.yorkdispatch.com/local/ci_3272341
Can You Believe in God and Evolution?
Four very different answers, from Francis Collins (Director, National Human Genome Research Institute), Steven Pinker (Psychology professor, Harvard University), Michael Behe (Biochemistry professor, Lehigh University; Senior fellow, Discovery Institute) and Albert Mohler (President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary).
Source: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/172/story_17234_1.html
Does SETI Support Intelligent Design? NO, says SETI's Seth Shostak...
Shostak writes on Dec. 1st at Space.com that "...If SETI were to announce that we’re not alone because it had detected a signal, it would be on the basis of artificiality. An endless, sinusoidal signal – a dead simple tone – is not complex; it’s artificial. Such a tone just doesn’t seem to be generated by natural astrophysical processes. In addition, and unlike other radio emissions produced by the cosmos, such a signal is devoid of the appendages and inefficiencies nature always seems to add – for example, DNA’s junk and redundancy. ..."
Source: http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_intelligentdesign_051201.html
Posted November 26th, 2005
Zelicoff: Avian Flu is Hype, Not the Real Threat...
In a Nov. 16th commentary, former Sandia scientist Al Zelicoff says "You wouldn't know it from the hype, but the conditions that caused the 1918 worldwide flu disaster simply do not exist today, making it very unlikely that even modest numbers of humans will get infected with H5N1, become symptomatic or die. Indeed, we already know that some large number of Chinese chicken farmers have picked up the virus, but the overwhelming majority didn't develop so much as a sniffle because their immune systems rapidly eradicated the virus from their bodies. ..."
Source: http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/op_commentaries/article/0,2565,ALBQ_19866_4243448,00.html
Part I: http://www1.abqtrib.com/albq/op_commentaries/article/0,2565,ALBQ_19866_4240334,00.html
"Vatican votes for Charles Darwin"...
A Correspondent writes in the November 11 Rediff.Com news that "In a surprising move, the Vatican has come out in defence of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, saying it is perfectly compatible with the Bible's description of how God created the universe. ... Now, criticising Christian fundamentalists who reject Darwin in favour of a literal interpretation of the Bible's account, the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Paul Poupard, has said that both theories are 'perfectly compatible' if the Bible is read correctly. The statement has been viewed as an attack on creationist campaigners in America, who see both theories as mutually exclusive. ..."
Source: http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/nov/11vatican.htm
And Catholic News Service reports on Nov. 11th that "...the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture was preparing to host a conference on science and theology Nov. 9-11. Speaking to reporters, French Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the council, said the origin of the world is one area where scientists and religious believers must recognize the limits of their own discipline. He said people who support creationism as the only acceptable Christian explanation of the world's origins are 'taking something never meant to be a scientific explanation and calling it science.' ..."
Source: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0506452.htm
"Intelligent Design: The New Creationism Threatens All of Science and Society"By Marshall Berman, Now Online at the American Physical Society Site...
From the Oct. 2005 issue of APS News, New Mexican physicist Marshall Berman's stinging critique of Intelligent Design Creationism: "...The current Intelligent Design movement poses a threat to all of science and perhaps to secular democracy itself. The movement is highly political, very astute, extremely well-marketed, disingenuous, and grossly misunderstood by most Americans. ..."
Source: http://www.aps.org/apsnews/1005/100518.cfm
Posted November 11th, 2005
Homer is Happy: "Beer May Fight Disease"...
ABC News reports on Nov. 7th "'Mmmm … beer.' This oft-repeated sentiment of Homer Simpson is a mantra for the millions of beer drinkers in the United States. As popular as beer is, however, it often has gotten a bad rap as a calorie-loaded beverage that only serves to create paunchy beer bellies and alcohol-fueled lapses in judgment. But that negative image may begin to fade: Research is showing that beer could join the ranks of other guilt-inducing but wildly popular foods -- chocolate, coffee and red wine -- as a possible disease-fighter. ..."
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=1282177
Kansas Returns to 19th Century...
As expected, the Kansas Board of Education has adopted new science standards strongly critical of evolution. But the governor isn't happy. Television station WIBW reported this week that "Gov. Sebelius says Kansans should follow races for State Board of Education seats closely. The governor told reporters she views the board's approval of new science standards, which question evolution, as a step in the wrong direction. And she said changing the board's membership is the only way to change the standards again. But she stopped short of saying she'd campaign against board members. Four of the six who did, all Republicans, face re-election next year. Sebelius told reporters that she's worried about how the board's action will affect the state's efforts to recruit businesses. ..."
Source: http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/1963427.html
Dover Dumps ID Board Members, Robertson Reacts...
Tuesday's election saw eight incumbent Dover School Board members defeated by pro-science challengers, all just a few days after the end of the Dover ID trial on Nov. 4th. Pat Robertson then used his "700 Club" to bash the people of Dover, PA, saying "I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover, if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city, and don't wonder why he hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin, and I'm not saying they will. But if they do, just remember you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, then don't ask for his help, because he might not be there." After the media took notice of this astonishing remark, Robertson explained "I was simply stating that our spiritual actions have consequences and it's high time we started recognizing it. God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in his eye forever. If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin ... maybe he can help them."
It's rumored that one could hear groans coming from Seattle's Discovery Institute, even hundreds of yards away from the building. So much for the old Dover board's insistence that this "isn't about religion."
Source: http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/94086/
Video: http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=19453
New Plot Uncovered - Tin Foil Hats ENHANCE Government Transmissions ...
In the good old days, kooks thought they could protect themselves from mental tampering by the government by wearing metallic hats as shields against nasty transmissions. Alas, electrical engineers at MIT have done the experiment, and found that the helmets actually enhance certain frequency bands - those used by the Federal Government! Is nothing sacred?
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/11/tinfoil_hats_as_government_plot/
MIT Report: http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/
Posted November 4th, 2005
Dover is Over...
The Dover, PA "Intelligent Design" trial is over. The Chicago Tribune reports on Nov. 4th that "The future of high school biology in one central Pennsylvania school district, and perhaps ultimately in the rest of the country, now rests in the hands of a federal court judge, as a landmark trial on the teaching of intelligent design came to a close here Friday. Judge John E. Jones III said he will decide by year's end whether the Dover Area School District and its board violated the constitutional ban on advancing religious belief in public schools by requiring 9th grade biology students to be informed of intelligent design, or ID. ...Jones essentially will rule on whether ID is a scientific theory or a religious belief. His decision is binding only on the parties concerned but may have a persuasive effect elsewhere in the country, according to lawyers. Attorneys for the defense have said they eventually may take the case to the Supreme Court. ... 'In order for intelligent design to be considered a science, the definition of science must be broadened to include supernatural causes?' plaintiffs' attorney Stephen Harvey asked final defense witness Scott Minnich. 'Correct,' answered Minnich, a Discovery Institute fellow and a microbiologist at the University of Idaho. ..."
Source: http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/13085182.htm
Coming next week: elections! ABC News reported on Nov. 1st that "At the polls in Dover, voters will render their decision Nov. 8 on whether to retain eight of the nine Dover Area School Board members all Republicans or replace them with a Democratic slate whose platform calls for removing intelligent design from the curriculum. Republican voters outnumber Democrats in the district nearly 8-5. But party affiliation may not matter in the election: While the challengers are running on the Democratic ticket, half of them are actually registered Republicans, according to a spokesman. ..."
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1272038&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
Also, there's a new Panda's Thumb blog by yours truly on some memorable "Homer Simpson" moments from the trial.
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/11/mark_hartwigs_h.html
Alabama Pi Mutates Again...
Our popular April Fool's Urban Legend, "Alabama Pi" (http://www.nmsr.org/alabama.htm), has mutated yet again, moving west to Crawford, Texas.
Source: http://english.ohmynews.com/TALK_BACK/bbs_view.asp?ba_code=63&bb_code=295976
Stomach as Lie Detector?
CBS News reports on Oct. 31st that "Polygraphs use electrocardiograms (ECGs) to measure changes in heart rate and sweating to detect lies. But researchers say the stomach and gastrointestinal tract are also extremely sensitive to stress, and this mind-stomach connection may betray even the best liars. Their results suggest that adding gastrointestinal monitoring to standard polygraph techniques may increase the accuracy of lie-detection methods, which are about 90% accurate. ..."
Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/31/health/webmd/main997173.shtml
"By the Universe's Early Light"...
MSNBC reports on Nov. 1st that "Astronomers may have detected the dawn’s early light — light from around the dawn of the universe. Researchers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland believe they have captured traces of radiation from long-extinguished stars that were 'born' during the universe’s infancy. The research represents the first tangible — but not conclusive — evidence of these earliest stars, which are thought to have produced the raw materials from which future stars, including our sun, were created. ..."
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9897294
Popular Science: Kansas Science Teachers have 3rd Worst Job in Science...
The Kansas City Star reported on Oct. 29th that "Researchers traipsing through jungles collecting orangutan urine have better jobs than a Kansas biology teacher, according to the latest edition of Popular Science. In the magazine's third annual take on the 10 worst jobs in science, those trying to teach evolution in Kansas classrooms come in at No. 3 on the list, topped only by 'human lab rat' test subjects dosed with pesticides and manure inspectors. ..."
Source: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/13026402.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp (registration)
Posted October 28th, 2005
Great Galloping Crinoids...
Science News reported on Oct. 22nd that "A video has caught an underwater animal, which looks like a flower, practically jogging along the ocean bottom. The stalked crinoid spends most of its time sitting and catching food with the flowerlike wheel of feathery arms that have earned it and its relatives the nickname sea lilies. Scientists had known for decades that stalked crinoids sometimes move—but barely. They had been clocked at speeds no greater than 0.6 meter per hour. Now, however, a video from a submersible dive off Grand Bahama Island reveals a speed demon, says Tomasz Baumiller of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. A stalked crinoid pulled itself along the bottom briskly enough for a viewer to notice. Baumiller and Charles Messing of Nova Southeastern University's Oceanographic Center in Dania Beach, Fla., measured its pace at 140 m per hour. ..."
Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051022/fob6.asp
Ken Miller Nails It...
NCSE reports that "On October 21, the American Enterprise Institute sponsored a forum titled 'Science Wars' that focused on the intelligent design/evolution controversy." Here's a great sound bite from Brown biologist Ken Miller, on the ongoig "Intelligent Design" trial in Dover, PA: "...what actually happened in Dover, and all you have to do is read the papers, is after the board of education instructed first its teachers to read the statement about intelligent design, the teachers refused. And they deserve, I think, awards for courage, and they gave as their reason, the PA teacher code of ethics, which they all had to sign, to become teachers in the state of PA, and one of the, the provision of which is I will never knowingly present false information to a student. And if the issues here is academic freedom, how about the academic freedom of the teacher not to present false information. And in a sense that's what the case is about. ..."
Source: http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2005/US/98_discovery_institute_and_thomas_10_23_2005.asp
More on Dover...
This week, former school board member William Buckingham was caught lying about who paid for getting the book "Of Pandas and People" into Dover school libraries (he did), and also about making the statement a year ago that "Darwinism" should be balanced with "creationism." Mike Argento of the York Daily Record notes on Oct. 28th that "On the tape, which you can see at http://www.ydr.com/mmedia/multi/528, Buckingham, wearing the same lapel pin he wore in court Thursday, said he wanted to balance evolution in the classroom with something else, 'such as creationism.' Oops. He said that the reporter 'ambushed' him and that he was 'like a deer in the headlights of a car' and that the newspapers were all reporting that he and the board were talking about creationism and that he thought to himself, 'Don't say creationism.' Double oops. It was like he had a Homer Simpson moment. He was thinking 'Don't say creationism. Don't say creationism. Don't say creationism.' And then he opens his yap and says 'creationism.' D'oh! ..."
Source: http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/92062/
The Panda's Thumb is updating stories on the trial daily. Last week, Michael Behe was skewered on cross-examination. Panda's Thumb reports "...there was a day full of cross examination, in which one would learn that Behe wasn’t as familiar with the scientific literature on the immune system as one might hope for someone billed as an 'expert,' that rigorous peer review in 'intelligent design' can be obtained in a ten-minute telephone interview — without the reviewer even having to see the manuscript, that the blood-clotting system can be reduced to a 'core' of four parts — except that when one does so the result is claimed to be lethal, and much more. ..."
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/09/waterloo_in_dov.html
The York Daily Record reported on Oct. 25th that "Testifying on behalf of the Dover Area School District in U.S. Middle District Court, philosophy of science expert Steve Fuller said intelligent design "can't spontaneously generate a following" because the scientific community shuts the door on radical views. ... during cross-examination, he said intelligent design — the idea that the complexity of life requires a designer — is 'too young' to have developed rigorous testable formulas and sits on the fringe of science. He suggested that perhaps scientists should have an "affirmative action" plan to help emerging ideas compete against the "dominant paradigms" of mainstream science. ..."
Source: http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/91258/
Rio Rancho Updates...
There is more on the ACLU letter to teachers, the Albuquerque Journal's business column dumps on "Design" in school, and a letter to the editor shows how policy 401 is perceived in the community.
Source: http://www.nmsr.org/riorncho.htm
Did Van Praagh contact Johnny Carson's Spirit?
James Randi's commentary for October 21, 2005 has this article of note: "James Van Praagh claims he communicates with the dead. Such pretensions are always laughable, and often revolting. Now this tubby travesty of a man has gone over the line, big time. He has chosen to insult the memory of a friend who would kick his butt if he were here to defend himself. On the 'Insider' TV program, plugging his latest foray into deception via TV, Van Praagh claimed that he’d contacted the ghost of Johnny Carson. To no one’s surprise, hosts Pat O'Brien and Victoria Recano, were 'stunned' by his ability to look up information on them via the Internet, and to provide them with the usual array of picayune 'revelations.' ... Just look at the inane crap conjured up by the faker as he invaded the private beach walk where Johnny used to stroll near his Malibu beachside estate:
I think he felt very safe here. I think he would choose the same time every day to come down this path. I think this is where he got a sense of contemplation. He would think about things here. He would think about his family. He was a family man. I think he was a lot deeper than people gave him credit for but I think that he didn't want to let people to know about that part of him. I feel he wished that things were different. I think he felt guilty when he died that certain things in his family were not resolved at the time of his death.
In those 111 vapid words, Van Praagh manages to hedge even these simple, obvious, trite, guesses by working in modifiers – six 'I think' and one 'I feel' – the usual generalized escape-hatches. The actual content itself is so non-significant that it could be generated by a child. Somehow, it has escaped Van Praagh’s attention that Johnny Carson despised frauds, particularly those who choose to feed on the vulnerability of the grieving and needy. That wasn’t part of the 'message' that he shared with us from The Great Beyond. ..."
Source: http://www.randi.org/jr/200510/102105herbs.html#3
Posted October 22nd, 2005
ACLU States Rio Rancho Position to Teachers ...
The Albuquerque Journal reported on Oct. 20th that "Rio Rancho teachers should not be afraid to say 'no' to teaching intelligent design in their science classes. That's the message in an American Civil Liberties Union e-mail sent to 80 middle, mid-high and high school science teachers this week. The organization also offered to assist any teacher disciplined because of the matter. The letters also were sent to the five members of the Rio Rancho Public Schools Board of Education, ACLU executive director Peter Simonson said. ... Some Rio Rancho students are being prompted to provoke discussion leading to intelligent design, according to the ACLU letter. Simonson said that during an event Friday at Destiny Center church in Rio Rancho, students were encouraged to question evolution. Schlichte was at the Friday meeting, leading the closing prayer, he said. The ACLU letter encourages teachers to respond to those students 'with a brief comment on why intelligent design is not science— and therefore not appropriate material for the science classroom— and then direct the class to legitimate science curriculum.' ..."
Source: http://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/400207metro10-20-05.htm
Effect of Red Bull is bull...
Samara Alpern of the Daily Lobo (UNM) writes on Oct. 18th that "...Since the basic formula for Red Bull was developed in Thailand, it's possible that taurine, glucuronolactone and B vitamins are valued for different medicinal properties than they are in the United States, but according to Western science, these ingredients have questionable physiological value at best. A cup of sweetened coffee or a Coke or two will do basically the same for you as a Red Bull - at about a quarter of the price. ..."
Behe On Cross in Dover...
Mike Argento of the York Daily Record (PA) writes on Oct. 19th that "Dr. Michael Behe, leading intellectual light of the intelligent design movement, faced a dilemma. In order to call intelligent design a 'scientific theory,' he had to change the definition of the term. It seemed the definition offered by the National Academy of Science, the largest and most prestigious organization of scientists in the Western world, was inadequate to contain the scope and splendor and just plain gee-willigerness of intelligent design. ... Details aside, his definition was broader and more inclusive of ideas that are 'outside the box.' ... Eric Rothschild, attorney for the plaintiffs, asked Behe about whether astrology was science. And Behe, after hemming and hawing and launching into an abbreviated history of astrology and science, said, under his definition, it is. ..."
Source: http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/90330/
Will Global Warming Plague New Mexico?
Yahoo News reports on Oct. 18th that "Warming trends could cause more water shortages in New Mexico, a climatologist predicts. Experts point to carbon dioxide emissions at the primary cause of global warming. Researchers are trying to prove that fossil fuel emissions have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, trapping heat in the atmosphere and causing an increase in the Earth's temperature. Computer simulations support the idea, but that's not necessarily proof, said David Gutzler, a University of New Mexico climatologist. 'We've never gone through global temperature changes like this before,' he said. 'But if we're waiting for 100 percent ironclad proof, we'll just have to keep going and see what happens.' ..."
Posted October 22nd, 2005
ID in Clovis, NM? Yes, No ...
The Clovis News Journal reports on Oct. 13th that "Carl Armstrong is a Christian. He is also a Clovis High School science teacher, and he doesn’t think intelligent design has a place in his, or any other, science classroom, at least for now. There is just not enough evidence to support the theory, Armstrong said. ... A letter sent to superintendents from the New Mexico Secretary of Education, and forwarded to Clovis principals, may have squelched intelligent design hype. “New Mexico public schools,” the letter states, 'are not permitted to endorse a particular religion... We believe this prohibition extends to ‘creation science’ or any of its variations...' The state mandate puts Clovis High School teacher Peggy Ingram at ease. The biology, human anatomy and physiology instructor does not believe intelligent design should be taught in science class. ... Linda Bolyard, a Clovis Christian School science teacher, is of a vastly different mindset. She teaches creationism alongside evolution in her classrooms. Not doing so, she said, is a disservice to students. In order to become independent thinkers, students need to evaluate various theories, she said. ..."
Source: http://cnjonline.com/engine.pl?station=clovis&template=storyfull.html&id=13423
More Hobbit News...
Carl Zimmer has the latest updates on the "Hobbit" fossils of Indonesia. Were they just pygmies, or microcephalic? The debate heats up.
and http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/10/11/hobbits_again.php
Ancient Spaghetti ...
Followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are already crowing about this study, reported by the BBC on Oct. 12th. It says "The remains of the world's oldest noodles have been unearthed in China. The 50cm-long, yellow strands were found in a pot that had probably been buried during a catastrophic flood. Radiocarbon dating of the material taken from the Lajia archaeological site on the Yellow River indicates the food was about 4,000 years old. ..."
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4335160.stm
See Also: http://www.venganza.org/
Rushdie on Kansas, Bloody Kansas ...
The Lawrence Journal-World reports on Oct. 7th that "Citizens of the world should be concerned about religious extremism whether it’s in Iran or America, says author Salman Rushdie, who was once marked for death by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. Rushdie compared the emergence of religion into public life in Kansas with similar movements across the world in a lecture Thursday at the Lied Center. 'I would really love never to mention that word again: religion,' Rushdie said. 'But now it seems to be coming right at us all. I don’t just mean radical Islam, by the way. I believe we have some problems right here.' ... Rushdie also blasted intelligent design proponents. 'I never had any doubts about evolution theory,' he said. 'I gather there are parts of Kansas where the big bang did not take place.' ..."
Source: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/oct/07/famed_author_takes_kansas/?print
Posted October 7th, 2005
Is Harriet Miers a Young Earth Creationist?
From the Panda's Thumb, Oct. 6th, 2005: Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has "given 10 percent to 12 percent of her earnings — 'if not more' — to the evangelical Valley View Christian Church in Dallas, where she has been a congregant for about 25 years," according to Judge Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court. It so happens that the “Useful Links” page for Miers’s Valley View Christian Church links prominently to the Creation Evidence Museum, run by Dr. Carl Baugh, a creationist who is so far out as to have been strongly criticized by Answers in Genesis and the Creation Science Foundation. Baugh is perhaps most famous for his fakey “Paluxy Mantrack” footprints, specifically the “Burdick Print,” and his fossilized human finger.
A YEC on the Supreme Court? Connect the dots, people … connect the dots.
Source (with copious links to references & citations): http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/10/harriet_miers_a.html
Is Cardinal Schoenborn Evolution's Emily Litella?
Carl Zimmer of The Loom writes on Oct. 4th that "In July Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna wrote an eyebrow-raising op-ed in the New York Times that favored Intelligent Design over evolution. Now, as far as I can tell from this Reuters story, he's claiming he was misunderstood. ... Now he's saying that evolution's fine as long as biologists don't conclude that evolution proves there's no creator. Darwin's theory is 'one of the very great works of intellectual history.' Compare this with his claim in July that 'neo-Darwinism' was invented 'to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science.' ... As far as I can tell from the report, Schoenborn seems to be doing his best impression of Emily Litella: 'Never mind.' ..."
Source: http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/10/04/evolutions_emily_litella.php
Forrest: "Of Pandas and People" IS the ID/Creationism "Smoking Gun"...
Now that the Dover, PA "Intelligent Design" Lawsuit has begun, it could become to "Intelligent Design" what the Scopes Monkey Trial or the Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court case were to creationism. Testimony has begun in the trial, which is expected to last six weeks. The Patriot-News [Harrisburg, PA] reported on October 6th that "Authors of a textbook critical of evolution replaced the word 'creationism' with 'intelligent design' in 1987, soon after the U.S. Supreme Court barred the teaching of creation science in public schools, a professor and researcher of the history of intelligent design testified in federal court yesterday. After the ruling, authors deleted more than 250 references to 'creationism' and the 'creator' from draft versions of the book, 'Of Pandas and People,' and replaced them with 'intelligent design' and 'intelligent designer,' said Barbara Forrest, philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University and author of the book 'Creationism's Trojan Horse -- The Wedge of Intelligent Design.' 'The substitution was made throughout' the book, Forrest said. Gesturing to a chart on a courtroom screen, she said a computer word search showed how creationism and similar words were eliminated from the 'Pandas' text after the Supreme Court ruling. 'You just saw the smoking gun,' Nick Matzke, spokesman for the National Center of Science Education, said in an interview after hearing Forrest's testimony. 'This proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that intelligent design is creationism.' ..."
The Discovery Institute is apoplectic. They are trying to distance themselves from the Dover school board, all while still trying to defend "Intelligent Design." It does bring the Keystone Cops to mind.
Source: http://www.pennlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/1128609607294300.xml?pennnews&coll=1
Your One-Stop Site for All Things Dover: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/09/waterloo_in_dov.html
New Mexico faces its past and future in space...
MSNBC reports on Oct. 7th that "In a sense, America's space age began near here back in 1946, with the firing of a German V-2 rocket to an altitude of 71 miles from White Sands Missile Range. On Friday, rocketeers and schoolchildren came full circle, bringing model rockets and big-rocket dreams back to the V-2's old haunting grounds. 'This is where it all started, and this is where it's all going to start again,' said Steve Bennett, chief executive officer of Starchaser Commercial Space Access, a British-based company that recently expanded to New Mexico. ... Friday's round of educational activities, tied to this week's Countdown to the X Prize Cup exposition, was conducted almost literally in the shadow of a Canadian Arrow rocket mockup that was modeled after the V-2. The Canadian Arrow team, backed by a recently formed venture called PlanetSpace, brought the mockup to the museum to show it off. ..."
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9624451/
Weather Control Schemes "Clouded" by Failure...
LiveScience reported on Oct. 3rd that "Scientists agree they can't totally control the weather. But some experts think they can tame it a bit. Schemes are wide-ranging, with proposals to throttle everything from fog to global warming. Results have been mixed and the controversy constant. Nature's most powerful storms, hurricanes, are another matter. Hurricanes rely on warm water for fuel. Experts disavow schemes from ocean plowing (to cool the water and remove the energy source) to dragging icebergs into the path of a storm. Smaller-scale weather systems might be more open to change. One idea floated a few years back was to beam microwave energy from a satellite to disrupt the convection that drives a tornado. Another idea that remains alive after decades of research is cloud-seeding to increase or decrease rain, fog or hail in certain locations. ..."
Source: http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/051003_weather_control.html
Posted September 30th, 2005
Panda Prof Sinks Flood Theory: "Steve Steve and the Fossil-Fossils of De-Na-Zin"...
Prof. Steve Steve of the University of Ediacara has finally written up his fascinating trip to New Mexico's De-Na-Zin Wilderness area (a.k.a. the Bisti Badlands, a.k.a. "Dinosaur Land.") The professor has posted a splendid pictorial journey, and demolishes creationist flood geology to boot! Read "Steve Steve and the Fossil-Fossils of De-Na-Zin" here:
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/09/steve_steve_and_1.html
Magnetic Insoles as Placebos...
At TechnologyReview.com, David Appell writes on September 26th that "Magnetic medical devices are a $5 billion/year worldwide industry--an estimated $500 million/year in the United States alone--yet there's little to no evidence that they work to relieve pain. Here's more evidence that they don't: 'Magnetic shoe insoles did not effectively relieve foot pain among patients in a study, researchers report in the current issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.' ... What's interesting, though, is that the magnetic insoles provided relief to patients who believed they would: "...the results indicate that patients who strongly believed in magnets had pain relief even if they were given false magnets to wear." More evidence that the placeo effect can provide real, positive, physical benefits if you only believe a medical treatment works. ..."
Source: http://archives.trblogs.com/2005/09/magnetic_insole.trml
Gorillas using Tools in the Wild...
ABC News reported on Sept. 30th that "For the first time, biologists have documented gorillas in the wild using simple tools, such as poking a stick in a swampy pool of water to check its depth. Until now, scientists had seen gorillas use tools only in captivity. Among the great apes, tool use in the wild was thought to be a survival skill reserved for smaller chimpanzees and orangutans. ..."
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1172154
Study - Crime, Immorality higher in "Godly" Countries...
The Times Online (UK) reports on Sept. 27th that "Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today. According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems. The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society. ... The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: 'Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world. In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.' ... The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from 'uniquely high' adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested. ... 'The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is therefore refuted.' ..."
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html
Dover, PA is the 21st Century's Dayton, Tennessee...
The "Intelligent Design" trial has started in Dover, Pennsylvania. Will this case be to ID what Scopes was to Creationism? ABC News reports on Sept. 29th that "The concept of 'intelligent design' is a form of creationism and is not based on scientific method, a professor testified Wednesday in a trial over whether the idea should be taught in public schools. Robert T. Pennock, a professor of science and philosophy at Michigan State University, testified on behalf of families who sued the Dover Area School District. He said supporters of intelligent design don't offer evidence to support their idea. ..." Biologist Ken Miller was a sizzling witness earlier in the week, according to reports.
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/LegalCenter/wireStory?id=1168139&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
The Panda's Thumb has a page with links to news, transcripts, and analysis:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/09/waterloo_in_dov.html
My pick for the best sound bite of the week is this: "The morning session included several light moments. Dr. Pennock testified that referring to a 'designer' rather than 'God' is like referring to 'Ambassador Wilson's wife' rather than 'Valerie Plame Wilson.' As the gallery laughed, Judge Jones chuckled and said, 'As an example.' ..."
Source: http://www.stcynic.com/blog/archives/2005/09/report_on_pennocks_testimony.php
Posted September 23rd, 2005
Rio Rancho: No Plans to Revisit Science Policy, FSM Appearance, Steve Steve in NM...
The Rio Rancho School Board says it won't reconsider Science Policy 401. Meanwhile, the Flying Spaghetti Monster has appeared in the pages of the Rio Rancho Observer, and Professor Steve Steve, of the University of Ediacara, stops in New Mexico to taste some spirits, ride some horses, get a CESE pin, attend an NMSR meeting, and attempt to speak at a Rio Rancho School Board meeting.
Source: http://www.nmsr.org/riorncho.htm (NMSR's Rio Rancho Updates page)
Darwin the Reclusive Geologist (and Meteorologist, too!)...
Tom Hundley of the Chicago Tribune writes on Sept. 18th "So what would Charles Darwin have to say about the dust-up between today's evolutionists and intelligent designers? Probably nothing. Shy and reclusive, Darwin disliked argument. He also was plagued by poor health. In particular, he suffered from terrible flatulence that made him reluctant to venture out in public. Even after he became one of the most famous and controversial men of his time, he was always content to let surrogates argue his case. ..."
Source: http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/world/12679446.htm
And John Fleck writes in his Science Blog at the Albuquerque Journal about Darwin's recognition as a geologist, and his skills in meteorology: "A few years back, a reader got cheesed off at me for calling Charles Darwin a geologist, suggesting that perhaps readers would be better off if the people writing about science in the newspaper knew more about science. In fact, I wrote in an email in my defense, Darwin was a geologist. He studied as one before he left on his voyage on the Beagle, and his first important writings after the trip were about the geology of what he'd seen. ... Comes now Randall Cerveny, from Arizona State, with a delightful look at Charles Darwin's studies of meteorology and climate on the voyage of the Beagle. It's in the latest Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (large PDF download). Cerveny shows Darwin, for example, noting on Argentine climate variability, noting things that we now know as El Niño long before it was all the rage among today's climate wonks with their buoy networks and computer models. 'These droughts to a certain degree seem to be periodical,' he wrote. That Charles, he was thinking. ..."
Source: http://www.abqjournal.com/cgi-bin/weblog.pl?perma=2717&topic_name=NM%20Weather
Eye Evolution Insights Deal Blows To Intelligent Design...
Scienceagogo,com reports on Sept. 23rd "How complex and physiologically remarkable structures such as the human eye could evolve has long been a question that has puzzled biologists. But in research reported this week in Current Biology, the evolutionary history of a critical eye protein has revealed a previously unrecognized link between certain components of sophisticated vertebrate eyes - like those found in humans - and those of the primitive light-sensing systems of invertebrates. The findings, from researchers at the University of Oxford, the University of London and Radboud University in The Netherlands, put in place a conceptual framework for understanding how the vertebrate eye, as we know it, has emerged over evolutionary time. ... The new findings deal a serious blow to the Intelligent Design movement which has long contended that the lack of an apparent evolutionary pathway for complex eye development indicated the presence of a supreme designer. ..."
Source: http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20050822230316data_trunc_sys.shtml
Intelligent Design: An Ambiguous Assault on Evolution...
The first part of an extensive look at "ID" by Ker Than of LiveScience.com is online as of Sept. 22nd. Part 1 is "An overview of the increasingly heated exchange between scientists and the proponents of intelligent design." Part 2 is "'The Death of Science': Proponents argue that intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory, but a close look at their arguments shows that it doesn't pass scientific muster." Look for capsules on the major players - Darwin, Minnich, Krauss, Johnson, Forrest, and Miller.
Source: http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050922_ID_main.html
Dalai Lama on Science...
George Johnson reviews the Dalai Lama's new book, "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality." While he was initially fearful "that His Holiness, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, was adding to the confusion between reason and faith," Johnson was put at ease by these words from the Dalai Lama: "If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims... [No one who wants to understand the world] can ignore the basic insights of theories as key as evolution, relativity and quantum mechanics. ..."
Posted September 16th, 2005
Rio Rancho Updates...
In an Albuquerque Tribune Editorial titled "Religion, Science Don't Mix" (Sept. 15, 2005), Dr. Marshall Berman writes "... Schlichte insults those who disagree with him, calling them 'fearmongers,' opponents of 'critical thinking,' intolerant, and opposed to free speech and freedom of religion. But opponents of the policy are none of these. They strongly favor scientific debate, but not fifth-column attempts to introduce unscientific concepts into science classrooms. Does Schlichte's concept of academic freedom and open debate also include teaching astrology, holocaust denial, racism, slavery, Jihad or similar concepts in order to present both sides of issues? ..."
Source: http://www.nmsr.org/MB_91505.pdf
And on Sept. 13th, 2005, the Editorial Staff of The Albuquerque Tribune, in a piece called "Scientists, public must protest board's policy," declared "Shame on the Rio Rancho Board of Education, specifically board members Don Schlichte, Kathy Jackson and Marty Scharfglass. ... The Rio Rancho Board of Education should be about the business of educating, not preaching to, its students. It is obligated to revisit the issue immediately and right this wrong. ..."
Source: http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/op_editorials/article/0,2565,ALBQ_19867_4077260,00.html
RIO RANCHO UPDATES PAGE: http://www.nmsr.org/riorncho.htm
Ape Treaty Signed...
The Independent (UK) reports on Sept. 12th that "They are man's closest cousins and they are staring into the abyss. But in one of the most important environmental treaties, hope has been offered to stop the headlong slide towards extinction of humankind's nearest relatives, the great apes. The agreement signed in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is on a par with the 1982 whaling moratorium and the 1997 Kyoto protocol on climate change. It offers a real chance to halt the remorseless jungle slaughter of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos [pygmy chimpanzees] and orang-utans, which on current trends is likely to kill them all off within a generation. ..."
Source: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/article311909.ece
Creepy News - ZOMBIE GRASSHOPPERS!...
The New York Times reported on Sept. 6th that "Only in science fiction do people's minds get possessed by alien beings. For grasshoppers, zombification is an everyday hazard, and it obliges them to end their lives in a bizarre manner. Biologists have discovered and hope to decipher a deadly cross talk between the genomes of a grasshopper and a parasitic worm that infects it. The interaction occurs as the worm induces the grasshopper to seek out a large body of water and then leap into it. ..."
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/06/science/06hopp.html?ex=1126929600&en=1f63988ffb215bf8&ei=5070
ID Creationists in Dover, PA: "Can we just say We Win?" Judge - DENIED!
The York Daily Record reported on Sept. 14th that "The attorney for the Dover Area School Board calls his client's decision to include intelligent design into the biology curriculum a 'modest proposal.' 'That this very modest proposal is in fact a violation of the (First Amendment's) establishment clause is ridiculous,' said Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center. But apparently a federal judge thinks that it's at least a possibility. In a ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III denied Dover's request for summary judgment to throw out a case filed against the district by 11 parents over the intelligent design inclusion. He wrote that 'genuine issues of material fact exist regarding as to whether the challenged policy has a secular purpose and whether the policy's principal or primary effect advances or inhibits religion.' The trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 26 in Harrisburg federal court. ..."
Source: http://ydr.com/story/doverbiology/85138/
Posted September 9th, 2005
Some Saw Katrina Coming...
"... the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however - the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party. The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Ponchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level - more than eight feet below in places - so the water poured in. ... Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as theu waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the United States. When did this calamity happen? It hasn't - yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched."
- Joel K. Bourne, Jr. writing in the October, 2004 National Geographic.
Source: http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/
New Trouble for Wells’s “Icon of Anti-Evolution #1”…
On the website for Jonathan Wells’s book Icons of Evolution, there’s a page titled “Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution.” All are about supposed flaws in the “Icons of Evolution” - the Miller-Urey experiments, Darwin’s Finches, Horse Evolution and more.
Here is Question #1:
ORIGIN OF LIFE. Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life’s building blocks may have formed on the early Earth — when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?
This week, NASA’s Astrobiology Institute and Washington University in St. Louis made an announcement that should, once again, sound the death-knell for this particular “Icon of Anti-Evolution.”
Continued on the Panda's Thumb: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/09/whats_that_soun.html
See Also: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-09/wuis-cfr090705.php
Rio Rancho Update: NM Tech, Letter Writers blast "Science" Policy ...
Today (Sept. 8th), the Faculty Senate of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology issued a statement strongly condemning Rio Rancho’s new “science” policy, which has been discussed previously (see the Rio Rancho Update page: http://www.nmsr.org/riorncho.htm). Also, an excellent letter opposing the policy appeared in the Rio Rancho Observer.
Continue reading “More Reaction to Rio Rancho "Science" Policy” on the Panda's Thumb:
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/09/more_reaction_t.html
Posted September 2nd, 2005
Hectic Hurricane Activity Not Global Warming, Expert Says...
Kenneth Chang reports in the Aug. 30th New York Times that "Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming. But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught 'is very much natural,' said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season. ..."
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/national/30cycle.html?ei=5065&en=9e0e24b0c5ee1d90&ex=1125979200&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print (registration)
Brazil Nearly Built the Bomb...
The AP reported on Aug. 30th that "Brazil's military continued work on an atomic bomb after it was ordered to scrap the program in 1985 and by 1990 had nearly finished building one, a leading nuclear scientist said. Jose Luiz Santana, the former president of Brazil's nuclear energy commission, known by its Portuguese acronym CNEN, said the military was preparing a test explosion when the program was ultimately dismantled in August 1990. ..."
Source: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/30/D8CA0EL80.html
Some nice publicity for Skeptical Inquirer in the National Review ...
In an excellent column titled "Teaching Science: The president is wrong on Intelligent Design," John Derbyshire writes in the August 30 National Review Online that "I think intelligent teenagers should also be given some acquaintance with pseudoscience, just so that they might learn to spot it when they see it. A copy of that excellent magazine Skeptical Inquirer ought to be available in any good high school library, along with books like Gardner's. I am not sure that either pseudoscience or its refutation has any place in the science classroom, though. These things properly belong in social studies, if anywhere outside the library. And what should we teach our kids in biology classes, concerning the development of living things on earth? We should teach them Darwinism, on exactly the same arguments. There is no doubt this is consensus science. ..."
Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire200508300823.asp
A Big Week for Chimps...
The Chimp Genome has been sequenced. This will be Huge.
Source: http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/chimpgenome/index.html
The BBC reports on Aug. 31 that "The study shows that our genomes are startlingly similar. We differ by only 1.2% in terms of the genes that code for the proteins which build and maintain our bodies. This rises to about 4%, when non-coding or "junk" DNA is taken into account. ..."
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4197844.stm
Oh, and the first ever Chimp Fossils have been found! The California Academy of Sciences announced on Aug. 31st that "Lucy may be the most famous of the fossil hominins, but she does not stand alone in that category – over the past few decades, researchers have found thousands of fossils from our early human ancestors. Surprisingly, however, scientists had not identified a single fossil from a chimpanzee until Nina Jablonski, Curator and Irvine Chair of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences, identified three chimp teeth from a fossil site in Kenya ’s Rift Valley in late 2004. Her intriguing discovery will be announced in the cover story of the September 1 issue of Nature. ..."
Source: http://www.calacademy.org/geninfo/newsroom/releases/2005/Jablonski%20fossil%20chimp.html
Rio Rancho Updates...
The Flying Spaghetti Monster has arrived in Rio Rancho, and UNM profs have come out against Rio Rancho's new science policy. Read all about it on the Panda's Thumb.
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/09/rio_rancho_nm_u.html
I have an op-ed in Thursday's Albuquerque Tribune (Sept. 1): "Pseudoscience: Backers of intelligent design have cluttered the Rio Rancho curriculum."
Source: http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/op_commentaries/article/0,2565,ALBQ_19866_4050450,00.html
And there's a new NMSR page devoted entirely to keeping track of the Rio Rancho situation:
Source: http://www.nmsr.org/riorncho.htm
Link 'O the Week...
Creation Science is finally maturing, and is now producing... Creation Technology!
Source: http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2005/08/creation-science-creation-technology.html
Runner Up: New Stamps celebrate America's Creation Scientists!
Source: http://blog.stayfreemagazine.org/2005/08/science_stamps.html
Posted August 26th, 2005
New Mexico Science Standards Do NOT Support ID’s Concept of Teach the “Controversy”...
On the Panda's Thumb blog on August 23, Marshall Berman and Dave Thomas write "On Sunday, August 21, 2005, the New York Times published an article entitled 'Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive.' This otherwise excellent article unfortunately contained several errors that resulted from treating some false information from the Discovery Institute (DI) as accurate. One major error was accepting the DI view that New Mexico has 'embraced the institute’s ‘teach the controversy’ approach.' This is absolutely false, as the following evidence will show. ..."
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/08/new_mexico_scie.html
Rio Rancho, NM School Board “Creates” Standards Controversy...
Writing on the Panda's Thumb on August 26, Dave Thomas notes "Well, it’s Official. It’s not just the New York Times believing the Discovery Institute’s line that New Mexico’s new school science standards 'embraced the institute’s ‘teach the controversy’ approach.' Now it’s the Rio Rancho Public Schools. On Monday, August 22nd, the Rio Rancho (NM) School Board adopted 'Science Policy 401,' over the protests of most of the attendees at the meeting. The policy begins by saying "The Rio Rancho Board of Education recognizes that scientific theories, such as theories regarding biological and cosmological origins, may be used to support or to challenge individual religious and philosophical beliefs. Consequently, the teaching of science in public school science classrooms may be of great interest and concern to students and their parents. ..." It gets worse from there. Much worse. ..."
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/08/rio_rancho_nm_s.html
The New Mexico Academy of Science has come out swinging against the new policy, stating "The Academy opposes policy 401 because it proposes a completely inaccurate definition of science itself. Saying that 'reasonable people may disagree about the meaning and interpretation of data' obscures the fact that, in science, all ideas and observations are not created equal. Alternative ideas are tested in science every day – but if they fail, they are discarded for better explanations and conclusions …. If scientists simply agreed to disagree about 'the meaning and interpretation of data,' scientific progress would cease. Science is about testing ideas and claims, not pretending that all 'interpretations' are equally valid. ..."
Source: http://www.nmas.org/NMAS_RRF.pdf
399, and Counting Down...
In good news this week, the Seattle Times reported on August 24th that "Bob Davidson is a scientist — a doctor, and for 28 years a nephrology professor at the University of Washington medical school. He's also a devout Christian who believes we're here because of God. It was these twin devotions to science and religion that first attracted him to Seattle's Discovery Institute. That's the think tank that this summer has pushed 'intelligent design' — a replacement theory for evolution — all the way to the lips of President Bush and into the national conversation. Davidson says he was seeking a place where people "believe in a Creator and also believe in science. 'I thought it was refreshing,' he says. Not anymore. He's concluded the institute is an affront to both science and religion. ..."
Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002450329_danny24.html
Bob was formerly one of the Discovery Institute's celebrated signers of the "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" document. That's one down, 399 to go...
See: http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=443
Posted August 19th, 2005
And Now, Bill Frist...
Senate Majority leader Bill Frist has come out swinging for "Intelligent Design." MSNBC reports on August 19th that "Echoing similar comments from President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said "intelligent design" should be taught in public schools alongside evolution. Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, spoke to a Rotary Club meeting Friday and told reporters afterward that students need to be exposed to different ideas, including intelligent design. 'I think today a pluralistic society should have access to a broad range of fact, of science, including faith,' Frist said. ..."
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9008040/
The Seamy Side of Kansas Board Member Connie Morris ...
In an article titled "The strange redemption of Connie Morris, high school slut turned Kansas State Board of Education anti-evolutionist," Justin Kendall of the Pitch (KS) reports on August 18th that "A member of the Kansas State Board of Education, the conservative Republican from St. Francis -- a town with 1,497 residents in the far northwestern corner of the state, just 20 miles east of the Colorado line -- had publicly written off the theory of evolution in her newsletter as an 'age-old fairytale.' ... Her 208-page tell-all autobiography, From the Darkness: One Woman's Rise to Nobility (available on Amazon.com for as little as $3.09), reveals that she wasn't always so conservative. Before she was Connie Morris, enemy of evolution, she was Connie Littleton, black-haired siren. ... She frolicked in free love, drowned in drugs and endured domestic violence and sexual abuse before giving herself to Christ. But even Jesus couldn't tame her. ... From the Darkness provides a striking insight into the life of an elected official who has publicly claimed that she is not trying to insert religion into public-school classrooms even as she has vowed that her political career is intended solely 'to lead many to Christ, so the population of Heaven will be greater because of me.' Such grandiosity pervades Morris' book; even when writing about her life at the depth of depravity, she never tires of reminding readers that she's pretty. ..."
Source: http://www.pitch.com/Issues/2005-08-18/news/feature_print.html
Santorum Slips...
Writing in the August 18th Palm Beach Post, editorial writer Jac Wilder VerSteeg sees right through the “Intelligent Design” fog to the heart of the matter. I've discussed the piece over at the Panda's Thumb, in a piece called "Santorum shines spotlight on ID’s 'Wink Wink Nudge Nudge.' "
Source: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/08/santorum_shines.html
and http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2005/08/18/a16a_versteegcol_0818.html
Nuns Protest 'da Vinci Code" Filming..
"This is London" (from the Evening Standard) reports on Aug. 16th that "When he walks on to a movie set, he usually gets star treatment. But as Tom Hanks arrived at Lincoln Cathedral yesterday, he found himself somewhat upstaged. A handful of protesters were making their feelings known about the decision to film scenes from The Da Vinci Code in the historic building. Led by a Catholic nun, Sister Mary Michael, they claimed the movie, based on the bestselling novel by Dan Brown, should be filmed elsewhere. She led a 12-hour prayer vigil to push the message home. ..."
Source: http://www.thisislondon.com/films/articles/20086499?source=Daily%20Mail&ct=5
Goddess Arrives to Placate Tsumani Ghosts...
Breitbart.com reported on August 19th that "With Asian tourists still shunning its southern beaches, Thailand is calling in a revered Chinese sea goddess to ward off the restive spirits of the thousands who died in last December's tsunami. A statue of Godmother Ruby, known as Mazu in Chinese, will be brought to the Thai island of Phuket from the Chinese coastal province of Fujian next month for ghost-clearing rites, said Suwalai Pinpradab of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. ..."
Source: http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/19/MTFH93061_2005-08-19_15-46-07_EIC956684.html
Alcoholism Gene? Good News, Bad News...
MSNBC reported on August 11th that "Fruit flies carry a gene — aptly named the 'hangover' gene — that appears to help them become tolerant to alcohol. Tolerance is thought to promote dependence, so if a similar gene is found in humans, it might lead to drugs to treat or prevent alcoholism. In the journal Nature, researchers report that only fruit flies that carry a functioning 'hangover' gene develop a tolerance for alcohol. 'If humans have a gene that has a function similar to that of 'hangover,' we could interfere with the function of such a gene,' thereby preventing people from developing addiction to alcohol, study author Dr. Ulrike Heberlein of the University of California at San Francisco told Reuters Health. ..."
So, the new discovery offers promise, but only to alcoholic fruit flies.
Source: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8914795/
And: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050808/full/050808-8.html (Subscription)
Posted August 12th, 2005
Have Bush's ID Comments gotten us to the Tipping Point?
Since President Bush made a remark on presenting Intelligent Design along with evolution in schools, the press has been going bonkers over the issue. Significant coverage this week included these items, among many:
TIME Magazine, August 15th issue Cover Story: The Evolution Wars. "When Bush joined the fray last week, the question grew hotter: Is 'intelligent design' a real science? And should it be taught in schools?" Here's a snippet: "The new, presumably Constitution-proof way of providing coverage for communities that wish to teach ideas like intelligent design is to employ such earnest language as 'critical inquiry' (in New Mexico), 'strengths and weaknesses' of theories (Texas), and 'critical analysis' (Ohio). It's difficult to argue against such benign language, but hard-core defenders of Darwin are wary. 'The intelligent-design people are trying to mislead people into thinking that the reference to science as an ongoing critical inquiry permits them to teach I.D. crap in the schools,' says David Thomas, president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason. ..."
Source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1090909,00.html (subscription)
ABC's NIGHTLINE, Wednesday Aug. 10th: "Despite Criticism, 'Intelligent Design' Finds Powerful Backers; Seattle Group Works to Create National Debate Where Scientists Say None Exists." From the repor