08.31.06
Posted in Evolution at 6:53 pm by nemo
Darwinism in the light of modern genetics
Terrestrial life originated through the long process of evolution. Many tantalising details of this process are unknown, but much is very well known indeed. The general principles, expressed in the neodarwinian synthesis, are the best scientific explanation currently available.
Evolution remains a very active field of research. Long stretches of the genomes of numerous species are available, and the number of genomes that have been completely sequenced is growing rapidly, enabling detailed comparison of nucleotide sequences of species as distantly related as fungi and chimpanzees, and providing new insights into evolutionary relationships and the process of evolution itself.
These insights will be discussed by researchers from various disciplines, with particular emphasis on what is known about the appearance of humans on Earth and the stages of human evolution.
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Posted in Evolution at 5:11 pm by nemo
Gooble books
Googler insights into product and technology news and our culture.
Download the classics
8/30/2006 09:38:00 AM
Posted by Adam Mathes, Associate Product Manager, Google Book Search
Starting today, you can go to Google Book Search and download full copies of out-of-copyright books to read at your own pace. You’re free to choose from a diverse collection of public domain titles — from well-known classics to obscure gems.
Before the rise of the public library -– a story chronicled in this 1897 edition of The Free Library – access to large collections of books was the privilege of a wealthy minority. Now, with the help of our wonderful library partners, we’re able to offer you the ability to download and read PDF versions of out-of-copyright books from some of the world’s greatest collections.
Using Google Book Search, you can find The Free Library and many other extraordinary old books, such as:
* Ferriar’s The Bibliomania
* A futurist from 1881’s 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century
* Aesop’s Fables
* Shakespeare’s Hamlet
* Abbott’s Flatland
* Hugo’s Marion De Lorme
* Dunant’s Eine Erinnerung an Solferino
* Bolívar’s Proclamas
* Dante’s Inferno
To find out-of-copyright books that you can download, simply select the “Full view” radio button when you search on books.google.com. (Please note that we do not enable downloading of any book currently under copyright. Unless we have the publisher’s permission to show more, we display only small snippets of text –- at most, two or three sentences surrounding your search term -– to help you determine if you’ve found what you’re looking for.)
Of course, this is just the beginning. As we digitize more of the world’s books — whether rare, common, popular or obscure — people everywhere will be able to discover them on Google Book Search.
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Posted in Science & Religion, Evolution at 5:03 pm by nemo
Atheism as religion
[There’s] a new 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that approaches the issue of teaching origin-of-life theories in public schools from a new angle . . .
Few are aware that the courts have ruled atheism is a religion for the purposes of the First Amendment in 2005 and thought about its implications on the teaching of origin-of-life theories in public schools. In brief, evolution becomes both a religious and scientifc theory (using the court’s definition of scientific theory), and abiogenesis becomes purely a religious theory. That being the case, these atheist origin-of-life theories should be treated the same as any other origin-of-life theory. Anything less is unconstitutional. Visit the website at http://originoflifefairness.org for much more information and the links/facts to back it up.
The mainstream media wants to keep this knowledge quiet. If you agree the public needs to know about this issue, your help would be greatly appreciated telling the public about this website. . . .
Sincerely,
Randel Huey
CEO/Founder “Origin of Life Fairness in Public Schools, Inc.”
Jacksonville, Florida
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Posted in Evolution at 5:00 pm by nemo
‘Pure science’?: the lack of technological applications of evolution is one reason the ‘paradigm’ gets stuck in place. A theory as sloppy as Darwin’s in the airplane field would produce calamity immediately, leading to theory feedback. Darwinists on the other hand can produce Just So stories about times and places that are unobservable and that serve their interests. Noone can really refute them and the theory makes good fodder for ideological purposes.
ID on the other hand, I should respectly note, is completely worthless, about ‘applied ID’ has its uses no doubt for Bible Belt propaganda.
….if truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.
Jerry Coyne
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Posted in Evolution at 7:08 pm by nemo
Evangelicals have failed to grasp the implications of Biblical criticism and the results in the false obsession with Israel (they aren’t the only ones!) threaten to produce a catastrophe in the politics of the Middle East.
Summary: Religion has always been a major force in U.S. politics, but the recent surge in the number and the power of evangelicals is recasting the country’s political scene — with dramatic implications for foreign policy. This should not be cause for panic: evangelicals are passionately devoted to justice and improving the world, and eager to reach out across sectarian lines.
Walter Russell Mead is Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Further reading for this article can be found at www.foreignaffairs.org/mead_reading.
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