01.24.09
Posted in Evolution at 2:48 pm by nemo
The (real) Debate on Evolution
The real debate on evolution is a high level one, one that is had between trained professionals. Unless a biology teacher at the high school level is willing to devote the entire year to evolutionary theory, there would be little chance to get to the real controversies within evolution. University level students who specialize in biology will typically learn about these controversies, but the level of primary and secondary school students usually involve the broad strokes of the theory, which are only being debated or contested by non-scientists with religious motivations. Many other fields of science have internal debate and yet there are no demands that teachers of geology, physics or chemistry teach the “weaknesses†of their subjects, as it is properly understood that such debates are far beyond the level being taught to the students. I’m entirely certain that Constitutional law has it’s share of heated debates, but no one is trying to teach the “controversy†or the “weaknesses†of the Constitution in civics.
The real debate over evolution is very simple: the claims for natural selection, which have been turned into metaphyical claims about reality, claims science cannot support, certainly not with Darwin dogmas.
And it is false that only experts can discuss these questions. If anything these professionals are too insecure to speak truthfully about the issues.
As to the comparison with geologists, et al., these other sciences are functioning relatively normally. Only Darwinian evolutionism is beset with the chicanery of false claims that we see ad nauseam.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 2:35 pm by nemo
Split Outcome in Texas Battle on Teaching of Evolution, and Evo-News praises the Times,
Surprise of the Week: New York Times Gets the Real Story on Texas Evolution Standards
AUSTIN, Tex. — Moderates on the Texas Board of Education prevailed over conservatives Friday when, in a battle over the teaching of evolution, the board voted to drop a 20-year-old mandate that science teachers explore with their students the “strengths and weaknesses†of all theories.
In Texas, a Line in the Curriculum Revives Evolution Debate (January 22, 2009) Still, the conservative faction, led by the board’s chairman, Dr. Don McLeroy, managed to pass several amendments to the state’s science curriculum that opponents say would open the door to teaching objections to evolution and might encourage students to reject it.
Chief among these amendments is one that would compel science teachers to instruct students about aspects of the fossil record that do not neatly fit with the idea of species’ gradually changing over time, like the relatively sudden appearance of some species and the fact that others seem to remain unchanged for millions of years.
Dr. McLeroy, a dentist from College Station who describes himself as “a Darwin skeptic,†said during debate on Thursday that students should know that the fossil record does not depict a clean picture of gradual changes.
But some defenders of evolution said the amendment was intended to engender doubt in students about what most biologists accept as fact: that evolution occurs, even if there is debate about how and why.
Every educated person should understand the strengths and weaknesses of Darwin’ theory. But this much the scientific community can’t manage, giving the game away–that they are more interested in indoctrination in a known set of fallacies than in science.
That’s the absurdity of this situation: for all their faults the religious critics are demanding science (whatever their other agendas).
The ‘strengths and weaknesses’ resolution failed, but the other amendaments look to be of interest: the peculiar character of the fossil record.
Even this much the Darwin fanatics can’t stand. What is the problem? This peculiarity of the fossil record has been known for a long long time. So what is the reason the ‘scientific’ community objects to this minimal amendment.
What a pathetic betrayal of science by the establishment of Big Science Propaganda.
I find it surprising that liberals are so intimidated, or so brainwashed, that they automatically fall in line behind these deceptions. This debate needs liberals to lead the way beyond the machinations, and brazen lies, of the Darwin establishment.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 2:24 pm by nemo
Just Living With Females Extends Reproductive Life Of Male Mice
ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2009) — Living with a female mouse can extend the reproductive life of a male mouse by as much as 20 percent, according to a study conducted by Ralph Brinster and a team of other researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. The study was reported online January 22 in the journal Biology of Reproduction.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 2:22 pm by nemo
Native U.S. Lizards Are Evolving To Escape Attacks By Fire Ants
ScienceDaily (Jan. 24, 2009) — Penn State Assistant Professor of Biology Tracy Langkilde has shown that native fence lizards in the southeastern United States are adapting to potentially fatal invasive fire-ant attacks by developing behaviors that enable them to escape from the ants, as well as by developing longer hind legs, which can increase the effectiveness of this behavior.
Permalink
Posted in global warming at 2:20 pm by nemo
Think Again: Climate Change
By Bill McKibben
January/February 2009
Act now, we’re told, if we want to save the planet from a climate catastrophe. Trouble is, it might be too late. The science is settled, and the damage has already begun. The only question now is whether we will stop playing political games and embrace the few imperfect options we have left.
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 2:07 pm by nemo
Activists Seek New ways to Get Food to 35 Million
Overhaul looms to decades-old system that feeds hungry people across U.S.
Megan Greenwell
WASHINGTON – In soup kitchens, food pantries and universities across the country, activists are planting the seeds for an overhaul of the way America feeds its more than 35 million hungry people, the first major challenge to a system largely developed in the 1960s.
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 2:00 pm by nemo
Report From Rafah
Worse Than an Earthquake
By KATHY KELLY
Rafah, Gaza.
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 1:57 pm by nemo
Has Anything Changed Since Sabra and Chatila?
In Israel, Detachment From Reality is the Norm
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 1:46 pm by nemo
gnxp
Individuals with the so-called “warrior gene” display higher levels of
aggression in response to provocation, according to new research
co-authored by Rose McDermott, professor of political science at Brown
University
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/bu-gp011909.php
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 1:45 pm by nemo
gnxp
The skull of the so-called hobbit discovered on the Indonesian island
of Flores in 2003 suggests its owner was an archaic human ancestor,
not a diminutive or diseased modern human, according to a new study
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090123-hobbit-skull.html
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 1:43 pm by nemo
gnxp
Evidence for an alternative form of inheritance
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12971012
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 1:42 pm by nemo
RG mail
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n02/sieg01_.html
London Review of Books 29 January 2009
Israel’s Lies
Henry Siegman Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 1:35 pm by nemo
RG mail
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057670.html
w w w . h a a r e t z . c om 22/01/2009
Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel
There was no doubt as to who was David and who was Goliath in this war.
By Gideon Levy Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 1:31 pm by nemo
RG mail
Agence France Presse January 22, 2009
UN fears “systematic war crimes†during Gaza offensive
Geneva — A UN human rights expert on Thursday said Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip during its recent offensive there raised “the spectre of systematic war crimes” and needed to be investigated. Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
01.23.09
Posted in links at 7:17 pm by nemo
Some recent posts Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in physics at 6:51 pm by nemo
Quantum Teleportation Between Distant Matter Qubits: First Between Atoms 1 Meter Apart
ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2009) — For the first time, scientists have successfully teleported information between two separate atoms in unconnected enclosures a meter apart – a significant milestone in the global quest for practical quantum information processing.
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 6:49 pm by nemo
‘Warrior Gene’ Predicts Aggressive Behavior After Provocation
ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2009) — Individuals with the so-called “warrior gene†display higher levels of aggression in response to provocation, according to new research co-authored by Rose McDermott, professor of political science at Brown University. In the experiment, which is the first to examine a behavioral measure of aggression in response to provocation, subjects were asked to cause physical pain to an opponent they believed had taken money from them by administering varying amounts of hot sauce.
Permalink
Posted in selections, World History and The Eonic Effect at 5:39 pm by nemo
The promotion of Darwinism is completely overhyped, and never really answers the main difficulty, the inability of reductionist science to really address the issue of ethics and evolution. Here are two selections, one in relation to the other, as it were, before and after we look at the historical data of the eonic effect, Evolution And Ethics, and Evolution And Ethics–At Close Range
We discuss the question too much in the abstract, but once we sit down and look at world history we detect the way in which questions of ethics and values emerge as part of the overall evolution of civilization.
This reminds us that the reductionist accounts of ethics (e.g. with kin selection/group selection theories) proposed to save Darwinism from itself are somehow beside the point.
The evolution of an ethical agent and his freedom to make ethical decisions is never addressed by Darwinism, with misleading arguments to the effect that it doesn’t matter.
Permalink
Posted in Science at 5:19 pm by nemo
Stephen Smith responds to Rightfull Place question (from Seed)
See the Seed invitation
Dear Rightful Place
By all means, improve the placement science in our culture and schools. However, we have a problem with a neo-Darwinism that pretends to be the cornerstone of evolution, when it is not.
I have collected the following ideas, and your organization is free to use them.
(1) What does the evidence imply about Darwinian evolution? Darwin’s theory did not anticipate biological symbiosis. It did not explain the extreme convergences of a kind noted by Simon Conway Morris (see his book “Life’s Solution”). It did not anticipate the fewness of our genes (humans only have 25,000 by most counts). It did not anticipate the Hox systems, and the extreme examples of cooption noted by the interactive complexity apparent (and necessary) in the genome. It did not anticipate the findings of epigenetics where DNA is found activated by environmental cues. Darwin’s theory anticipates little, it is merely rationalizes itself after the fact of discovery.
(2) What can we say about the theory in an abstract sense? Darwin’s theory assumes a friendly sample space given as Richard Dawkins’s bioform space, and it assumes a dynamic (responsive to biological change) and smooth ( friendly to natural selection) fitness landscape. That is, Darwin’s theory comes with a precondition that natural selection can never explain, as this boundary is hardwired into the very fabric of space-time. Or stated another way: Randomness and selection are not context independent. Randomness depends on the sample space, and selection depends on the fitness landscape. This dependence cannot be argued away, and so natural selection is not self-contained. Natural selection is found depending on the very fabric of space-time, its boundary condition. Therefore, natural selection is incomplete; randomness and selection are only abstract caricatures of the space-time fabric. Space-time is concrete, not abstract. And in deed, the boundary can be co-opted by an agency turning natural selection into artificial selection that has goals. And you see natural selection cannot explain the precondition or the
agency that co-opts the space-time fabric.
Here is a collection of books that can give support to my observations:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Beyond-Darwin/lm/R21N3IK5VPAKGS/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full
Glad to help!
Sincerely, Stephen P. Smith
Permalink
Posted in Evolution at 4:21 pm by nemo
The Evolution of Darwin
The scientist’s problem with God did not spring from his theory.
Dinesh D’Souza | posted 1/22/2009 09:38AM
It was in 1859—exactly a century and a half ago—that Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species. It is perhaps the most controversial book of the past millennium, and the work that has since made Darwin the patron saint of modern atheism. According to Richard Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”
Evolution does seem to turn many Christians into unbelievers. A famous example is the distinguished Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson. Evolution gave him a profound sense of intellectual liberation from his Baptist upbringing in the South. Evolution also makes some people secular evangelists for the Darwinist cause. Michael Shermer was an evangelical Christian studying at Pepperdine University when his study of evolution convinced him to give up his faith. Shermer is now the editor of Skeptic magazine.
Permalink
Posted in Critique of Evolutionary Economy at 4:10 pm by nemo
Changes Ahead You’d Better Believe In
The Freefalling Economy
By P. SAINATH
Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 3:59 pm by nemo
gnxp
The notion that there was a time of perfect adaptation, from which
we’ve now deviated, is a caricature of the way evolution works
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/health/views/20essa.html
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 3:58 pm by nemo
gnxp
Researchers believe they have found a potential way to regenerate
nerves by stimulating a gene and said on Thursday they hope their work
in worms may some day help people with spinal cord injuries
http://uk.reuters.com/article/rbssHealthcareNews/idUKN2213705220090122
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 3:56 pm by nemo
sciftp
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/obamas-urgency-on-warming-meets-cool-public/
January 22, 2009, 10:01 am
Obama Urgent on Warming, Public Cool
By Andrew C. Revkin
The latest in an annual series of polls from the Pew Research Center on people’s top priorities for their elected leaders shows that America and President Obama are completely out of sync on human-caused global warming. Mr. Obama stressed the issue throughout his campaign and several times in his inaugural speech, mentioning stabilizing climate in the same breath as preventing nuclear conflict at one point.
According to the survey of 1,503 adults, global warming, on its own, ranks last out of 20 surveyed issues. Here’s the list from top to bottom, with the economy listed as a top priority by 85 percent of those polled and global warming 30 percent: the economy, jobs, terrorism, Social Security, education, energy, Medicare, health care, deficit reduction, health insurance, helping the poor, crime, moral decline, military, tax cuts, environment, immigration, lobbyists, trade policy, global warming
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 3:54 pm by nemo
RG mail
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/education/23gap.html
January 23, 2009
Study Sees an Obama Effect as Lifting Black Test-Takers
By SAM DILLON
Educators and policy makers, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, have said in recent days that they hope President Obama’s example as a model student could inspire millions of American students, especially blacks, to higher academic performance.
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 3:51 pm by nemo
RG mail
Here’s how we could solve the credit crunch without giving anything to
the banks.
by George Monbiot
The Guardian (January 20 2009) Read the rest of this entry »
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 3:47 pm by nemo
RG mail
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/22/studentpolitics-londonschoolofeconomics
The Guardian 22 January 2009
Protests over Gaza spread to eight English universities
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 3:46 pm by nemo
RG mail
Tree Deaths Double in Pine Forests in Western U.S., Canada
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=awISWUdE.YSA&refer=canada
By Jeremy van Loon and Randall Hackley
Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — Old-growth forests once studded with pine,
hemlock and fir trees are dying across the western U.S. and Canada at
double the rate of a half-century ago in what scientists are blaming
on climate change.
Permalink
Posted in you've got mail at 3:44 pm by nemo
Did Israel Use a Horrific ‘New Weapon’ in Gaza?
Posted by Steven D., Booman Tribune at 2:39 PM on January 22, 2009.
Al-Jazeera is reporting that Dense Inert Metal Explosives — DIME weapons — were used in Gaza.
Permalink
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »