Darwiniana: blogzone

See:

 http://www.sacbee.com/107/story/1191417.html

Chopra says: I’m an explorer of spirituality. Spirituality is inclusive, unifying. It does not contradict what we know of evolution. … If you take a look at the world, most fervent believers are fundamen- talists, and they’re making a mess of the world. This morning I had a dream that species from another highly evolved planet were looking at us and thinking, “These people are going to self- destruct in a short time.”

See:

 http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Alberta/2008/08/28/6595636-sun.html

Article reads: Scientists at the University of Calgary and the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller have been studying a 75-million-year-old fossil of a turtle, which was found in 1999.

See:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=intelligence-evolved&sc=rss

Article reads: The human brain contains no highly conspicuous characteristics that might account for the species’ cleverness. For instance, scientists have failed to find a correlation between absolute or relative brain size and acumen among humans and other animal species. Neither have they been able to discern a parallel between wits and the size or existence of specific regions of the brain, excepting perhaps Broca’s area, which governs speech in people. The lack of an obvious structural correlate to human intellect jibes with the idea that our intelligence may not be wholly unique: studies are revealing that chimps, among various other species, possess a diversity of humanlike social and cognitive skills.

See:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19926711.600-viruses-the-unsung-heroes-of-evolution.html?feedId=life_rss20 

Article reads: Since the discovery of DNA, biologists have insisted they have the answer: complexity arises as the result of small errors that occur when genomes are copied and passed down the generations. Although individually small, these mutations can add up to enormous change across the vastness of time. This view of evolution has held sway for about 50 years, but now biologists are sensing that it is missing a major element - viruses.

See:

 http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/38015

 New book on alternative medicine:

 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/24/RVRO1234SA.DTL&feed=rss.books

Writing on what is truth, we find the authors being quoted: For Singh and Ernst, the answer is simple: scientific method. Good science - and, by extension, good health decisions - are those made after careful review of studies that are randomized and double-blind, that employ identical conditions for both control and treatment groups, and that take into account what we know about the placebo effect. Through compelling case studies, the authors demonstrate why - despite its long history and devoted followers - alternative healing must be held to the same, strict research practices that are dominant in conventional medicine.

But this narrow view of truth is found slipping off into scientism. In fact, truth requires error recognition more generally. And the scientific method is bent only on one type of error recognition: that having to do with Popper’s refutation applied to wayward inductions. What remains untouched is deductive error recognition, and emotional error recognition, which again points to healing as we learn to embrace a truth that is found free of errors. Error recognition relates directly to alternative medicine at the foundational level, and hence it cannot be removed by scientism bent on narrowly defined truth.

See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/us/WEB-tenquestions.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1219588784-dzYd1inJjd3pDrYK6YOXcA&oref=slogin

Article touts: Textbooks present the finch data to illustrate natural selection: that populations change their physical features in response to changes in the environment. The finch studies exquisitely documented how the physical features of an organism can affect its success in reproduction and survival, and that such changes can take place more quickly than was realized. That new species did not arise within the duration of the study hardly challenges evolution!

I don’t believe the NYT has a degree in evolutionary biology. Therefore, the NYT is unqualified to give answers.

See:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/23/HOKO11469A.DTL

Article reads: Butcher designed his ingeniously simple pedal generator for maximum comfort and efficiency: As the rider pedals, a wooden flywheel drives an electric motor, which generates an electric current that flows into a bank of salvaged lead-acid batteries for storage.

See:

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/stories_local.php?id=130188

Article reads: Ontario Power Generation‘s coal-fired station in Atikokan is working on becoming more environmentally friendly. “(OPG) has successfully demonstrated that the plant is capable of achieving design capacity using 100 per cent wood pellets and existing equipment,” station manager Ed Enge confirmed Friday. The OPG plant has been test burning wood pellets since January and had just recently recorded the 100 per cent burn.

See: 

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/education/24evolution.html

Article reads: With a mandate to teach evolution but little guidance as to how, science teachers are contriving their own ways to turn a culture war into a lesson plan. How they fare may bear on whether a new generation of Americans embraces scientific evidence alongside religious belief.