History, Evolution, and the Darwin Debate
The Science of Freedom
Students of science these days are given a very narrow history of their subject. But real science education should include the history of modern philosophic reaction to Newtonianism, and the paradoxes that are generated by reductionism. Beginning with Rousseau and Kant a counterpoint to modern science arose that tried to clarify the issues that subsequently became suppressed by the rise of scientism.
The relationship of history and evolution is confusing, especially for those who think inside the Darwinian paradigm, where, evidently, the autonomous freedom of man evolves by reductionist natural selection, at which point man enters ‘history’ with an evolved ‘freedom’. It is actually not so simple, and the eonic effect shows us something surprisingly different.
HIV’s Ancestors May Have Plagued First Mammals
ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2009) — The retroviruses which gave rise to HIV have been battling it out with mammal immune systems since mammals first evolved around 100 million years ago – about 85 million years earlier than previously thought, scientists now believe.
A Short History Of The World
Who says world history is random?
Evolution Revolution
Four decades after being rejected by the scientific community, Lynn Margulis’s insights into evolution have become standard textbook fare and established her as one of the most creative scientific thinkers of
our day.
Free Harvard course on justice
by Jerry Coyne – Why Evolution is True
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/free-harvard-course-on-justice/
from Dawkins site
Michael Sandel’s course at Harvard, “Justice,” is enormously popular, and is highlighted in today’s New York Times. The course is now being made free online, and can be found here. There are videos of every lecture, and online study material. You can neglect all the ancillary stuff, but this is a fantastic opportunity to see a great teacher for free, and I for one plan to watch every episode (there’s a new one every week, and two are already up).
A hostile takeover of Zionism
by Patrick Martin – The Globe and Mail
from dawkins site
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/a-hostile-takeover-of-zionism/article1302318/
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has come a long way.
Getting a Leg Up on Whale and Dolphin Evolution
New comprehensive analysis sheds light on the origin of cetaceans
The “Year of Darwin” continues, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species, and 200th of the ineffable Charles himself. We have now survived three-quarters of it, and are feeling all the fitter for the experience.
The idea behind almost all of the public events has been to propagandize for atheism — to drive into the thick skulls of common folk that their religious beliefs are primitive, irrational and highly unfashionable; that the “cool kids” are all strict “scientific materialists.” The frustration of the Darwinists is understandable. Many of them are unhappy university professors, deep in the suspicion that the world is ignoring them. Their superior intellects are not properly acknowledged; their own students sometimes jest behind their backs.
New Species Discovered In The Greater Mekong At Risk Of Extinction Due To Climate Change
ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2009) — A bird-eating fanged frog, a gecko that looks like it’s from another planet, and a bird which would rather walk than fly — these are among the 163 new species discovered in the Greater Mekong region last year that are now at risk of extinction due to climate change
Global Increase In Atmospheric Methane Likely Caused By Unusual Arctic Warmth, Tropical Wetness
ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2009) — Unusually high temperatures in the Arctic and heavy rains in the tropics likely drove a global increase in atmospheric methane in 2007 and 2008 after a decade of near-zero growth
Two Proteins Enable Skin Cells To Regenerate
ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2009) — Never mind facial masks and exfoliating scrubs, skin takes care of itself. Stem cells located within the skin actively generate differentiating cells that can ultimately form either the body surface or the hairs that emanate from it. In addition, these stem cells are able to replenish themselves, continually rejuvenating skin and hair. Now, researchers at Rockefeller University have identified two proteins that enable these skin stem cells to undertake this continuous process of self-renewal.
Heavier Rainstorms Ahead Due To Global Climate Change, Study Predicts
ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2009) — Heavier rainstorms lie in our future. That’s the clear conclusion of a new MIT and Caltech study on the impact that global climate change will have on precipitation patterns.
Published on Monday, September 28, 2009 by Reuters
Negotiators Urged to Speed up Climate Pact Talks
by Thin Lei Win and David Fogarty
BANGKOK – Delegates at the start of marathon climate talks in Thailand on Monday were told to speed up “painfully slow” negotiations as they struggle to settle on the outline of a tougher pact to fight global warming.
Hypocrisy in Pittsburgh
More Lies, More Deceptions
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The G-20 ministers declared their meeting in Pittsburgh a success, but as Rob Kall reports in OpEdNews.com, the meeting’s main success was to turn Pittsburgh into “a ghost-town, emptied of workers and the usual pedestrians, but filled to overflowing with over 12,000 swat cops from all over the US.”
This is “freedom and democracy” at work. The leaders of the G-20 countries, which account for 85% of the world’s income, cannot meet in an American city without 12,000 cops outfitted like the emperor’s storm troopers in Star Wars. And the US government complains about Iran.
mxmail
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/24/after_20_years_of_filmmaking_on
gnxp
Alcohol abuse, obesity and depression seem to go hand in hand for many women, according to the first study to look at how the three relate to one another over time in young adults
gnxp
The rise in Clostridium difficile infections in recent years is due to genetic changes rather than dirty hospitals, say UK researchers
Questions over conflict of the sexes remain
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090927/full/news.2009.954.html
gnxp
What makes someone an addict? The clinical definition of drug “dependence” is flexible, but may still mislabel individual choices as disorders
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/rethinking_addiction/
gnxp
Research based on advances in technology and biology is raising hopes
for progress on one of science’s holy grails
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/health/research/27eye.html
RG mail
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2009/09/pilger-british-afghan-labour
New Statesman September 17, 2009
The party game is over
John Pilger
RG mail
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/25/sources-u-s-was-aware-of-new- iranian-nuke-site-for-years/
CNN September 25th, 2009
Sources: U.S. was aware of ‘new’ Iranian nuke site for years
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The United States was aware of Iran’s unfinished uranium enrichment site for several years, senior U.S. officials told CNN on Friday.
U.S. officials have known about the facility since President George W. Bush’s administration, according to the officials who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.
Iran came to realize fairly recently that the facility was no longer secret, so Washington found itself in a race with Iran to reveal the facility to the international community, the officials said.
RG mail
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opinion/28krugman.html
September 28, 2009
Cassandras of Climate
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you’ve been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we’re hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to avert it.
Morals Class Is Starting; Please Pass the Popcorn
Sandel’s new book Justice is available in print:
Justice
Many of the 14,000 or so students who have taken Harvard’s wildly popular course “Justice” with Michael J. Sandel over the years Read the rest of this entry »
Dawkins in his new book The Greatest Show On Earth has changed his slant and emphasis, as he puts the focus on demonstrating the fact of evolution. That is a strategy that indirectly reflects what I have been suggesting from many years, and represents about all that can be asked of the public. You can make the case for natural selection, but the high decibel promotion of that as science has backfired, because it isn’t science.
Even so, the issue of the ‘fact’ of evolution is also not so simple, since what we observe of evolution is only its most superficial aspect.
The Limits Of Observation
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