History, Evolution, and the Darwin Debate
New Type Of El Nino Could Mean More Hurricanes Make Landfall
ScienceDaily (July 3, 2009) — El Niño years typically result in fewer hurricanes forming in the Atlantic Ocean. But a new study suggests that the form of El Niño may be changing potentially causing not only a greater number of hurricanes than in average years, but also a greater chance of hurricanes making landfall,
I am usually reluctant to put up statistics, but here are
Some stats for June, for a short time.
total pages/total visits are the main stats
Total pages went over 300000 for the first time
total visits are down slightly, and are highly volatile
(a sign people get angry and stay away)
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deleted
How Evolution’s Co-Discoverer Discovered Intelligent Design, Part I
To judge from previews, the new Darwin biographical movie Creation will emphasize the challenge Darwinian theory posed from the beginning to religious belief. Yet the life of evolution’s co-discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace, suggests that properly understood, and that’s a major proviso, evolution needn’t upset faith at all. On the contrary, Wallace reasoned from what he knew about life’s history to a belief that an “Overruling Intelligence” guided life’s development, much as intelligent design (ID) does today. Science historian Michael A. Flannery calls Wallace’s evolutionary thinking a “preamble” to ID.
Nothing that Wallace proposed is the same as what we are getting from the current ID movement.
It is impossible and dangerous to embrace ID in the current environment.
We cannot equate Wallace’s thinking with that of the Discovery/ID group.
Published on Friday, June 26, 2009 by Agence France Presse
Author Naomi Klein Calls for Boycott of Israel
BILIN , West Bank - Bestselling author Naomi Klein on Friday took her call for a boycott of Israel to the occupied West Bank village of Bilin, where she witnessed Israeli forces clashing with protesters.
Bestselling Canadian author Naomi Klein on Friday took her call for a boycott of Israel to the occupied West Bank village of Bilin, where she witnessed Israeli forces clashing with protesters. ‘Boycott is a tactic . . . we’re trying to create a dynamic which was the dynamic that ultimately ended apartheid in South Africa,’ she said. (Photograph by: John Kenney, National Post)”It’s a boycott of Israeli institutions, it’s a boycott of the Israeli economy,” the Canadian writer told journalists as she joined a weekly demonstration against Israel’s controversial separation wall.
Published on Friday, June 26, 2009 by The Associated Press
Slowdown in Once-Booming Organics Troubles Farmers
by Rick Callahan
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/06/26-4
Westby, Wisc. - The organic dairy industry was thriving when Allen and Jean Moody bought a 200-acre Wisconsin dairy farm in 2006 and joined the ranks of farmers churning out milk raised without growth hormones, pesticides or other chemicals.
In this photo taken Tuesday, June 9, 2009, organic farmer Allen Moody is seen on his farm in Westby, Wis. A growing number of farmers who went all-natural in the years when organic food sales were growing at a double-digit pace are giving up their organic certifications. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)Three years later, the good days are gone and the Moodys aren’t alone in wanting out.
Published on Friday, June 26, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
People for Sale in a Hungry World
by Ramzy Baroud
One might be tempted to dismiss the recent findings of the US State Department on human trafficking as largely political. But do not be too hasty.
Criticism of the State Department’s report on trafficked persons, issued on 16 June, should be rife. The language describing US allies’ efforts to combat the problem seems undeserved, especially when one examines the nearly 320- page report and observes the minuscule efforts of these governments. Also, it was hardly surprising to find that Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria — Washington’s foremost foes — languish in the report’s Tier 3 category, i.e. countries where the problem is most grave and least combated. Offenders in Tier 3 are subject to US sanctions, while governments of countries in Tier 1 are perceived as vigilant in fighting human trafficking.
Longer Life Linked To Specific Foods In Mediterranean Diet
ScienceDaily (June 24, 2009) — Some food groups in the Mediterranean diet are more important than others in promoting health and longer life according to new research published on the British Medical Journal website.
from Dawkins site
RDF TV - The Baloney Detection Kit
Michael Shermer, The Richard Dawkins Foundation, Josh Timonen
The first video from RDF TV!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUB4j0n2UDU
Download Quicktime version: Small (640×360, 122.4 MB)
Download Quicktime version: Large (1280×720, 342.9 MB)
Download mp3 version (13.4 MB)
With a sea of information coming at us from all directions, how do we sift out the misinformation and bogus claims, and get to the truth? Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine lays out a “Baloney Detection Kit,” ten questions we should ask when encountering a claim.
Stephen Meyer Launches Signature in the Cell With a Speech at the Heritage Foundation
CSC director Stephen C. Meyer launched his important new book, Signature in the Cell: DNA and Evidence for Intelligent Design, with a speech today at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. In Signature, Dr. Meyer exposes the increasingly evident hopelessness of materialist explanations of life’s origins and makes a fresh, powerful, and seemingly conclusive new scientific argument for intelligent design.
I haven’t read this book, but feel (as usual) some alarm at the wording in this passage.
The problem is not materialism. The difficulty is accounting for the complex natural design in the cell by natural selection. There must be some more complex process.
It is pointless to reject materialism here without good cause. Cells amaze us because of their natural design, but also because of the amazing things that can be done with material objects at nano-scales.
Now there may be good cause for extending the material account with processes perhaps analogous to force fields, as physics has done for centuries, and quibbles are possible as to whether force fields burst asunder from ‘materialism’.
But is it not a very good argument to cavil ‘materialism’. And one reason for that is that, while materialism may prove a too limited container, its opposite is not coherently a spiritual domain, at least not in biology. It is far more likely to be some extended materialism.
Frankencrop Experimentation in the Caribbean
Puerto Rico: Biotech Island
By CARMELO RUIZ-MARRERO
In the global debate regarding genetically modified (GM) foods and organisms (GMO’s), the little-known role of the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in testing and propagating GM crops has gone largely unnoticed and unexamined. The agricultural biotechnology activity in this tropical US colony is simply massive.
In light of the previous post with James’ comment about the Greeks and science, it is worth looking at this: The Case Of The Missing Centuries, the prime evidence for the strange evolution of science, and its correlation with the historical dynamic called the eonic effect.
Brown plus Ruse vs. Myers: Are atheists responsible for creationism?
by Jerry Coyne - Why Evolution Is True
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/brown-ruse-vs-myers-are-atheists-responsible-for-creationism/
I swear, sometimes I think that pro-evolution accommodationists see evolutionists as a bigger enemy than are creationists. This became clear to me earlier this week, when I received a nasty, chest-thumping email from philosopher Michael Ruse, accusing me of …
No, not Eagleton again!
by PZ Myers - Pharyngula
Reposted from Dawkins site
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/06/no_not_eagleton_again.php
1.02 Billion People Hungry: One Sixth Of Humanity Undernourished, More Than Ever Before
ScienceDaily (June 20, 2009) — World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1,020 million people going hungry every day, according to new estimates published by United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Talks Diane Benscoter on how cults rewire the brain
TED - filmed Feb 2009, posted June 2009
from Dawkins site
http://www.ted.com/talks/ex_moonie_diane_benscoter_how_cults_think.html
Massive European Solar Project Set for Launch
A German-led consortium wants to fund an international solar-energy plan to the tune of €400 billion. The idea is to gather solar heat in North Africa and send the electricity to Europe. If it works, it would be the largest green-energy project in the world.
Does religion have a monopoly on enchantment?
Clearly the answer to the question is no, but given the propaganda war in progress noone will be able to withstand the religious propaganda system.
And part of the problem is the sheer muddle-headedness of the scientific community in making Weber’s prediction come true. For the reductionist Darwinians promulgating scientism, the disenchantment of the world has been accomplished most methodically.
You have to be suspicious here: only two candidates are present: the fundamentalists, and the Darwinists. It can’t be that these two groups have monopolized discussion, but sadly it appears to be true.
One problem is the term ‘enchantment’. Weber’s usage was clear enough, but a lot of mischief will be played with the term by its inheritors. Let’s adopt a more useful terminology, unless you wish to make use of the real meaning of the word. To be enchanted is to be the victim of magic.
Is that what is being discussed?
The strange thing here is that the members of Christinaity are as disenchanted as anyone in science. In fact, the two groups are mostly identical: large-scale social formations of people, despite educational/conditioning differences, who have no real connection with their greater self, this being disallowed by society.
Take a look at the eonic effect: a generalized framework of evolution and history that can easily bridge this artificially created divide. The collilsion of science and religion is simply set aside.
The issue is not ‘disenchantment’ but conceptual impoverishment of consciousness created by scientism, next to the deceptions of theological creeds designed to create ‘belief’ instead of ‘religious’ awareness.
New Nanoparticles Could Lead To End Of Chemotherapy
ScienceDaily (June 17, 2009) — Nanoparticles specially engineered by University of Central Florida Assistant Professor J. Manuel Perez and his colleagues could someday target and destroy tumors, sparing patients from toxic, whole-body chemotherapies.
Having a higher purpose in life reduces risk of death among older adults
Published: Monday, June 15, 2009 - 11:36 in Psychology & Sociology
Learn more about: life questionnaire older adults purpose in life risk university medical center
Possessing a greater purpose in life is associated with lower mortality rates among older adults according to a new study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center.
Comment on Barbara Forrest and naturalism (etc)
James said,
June 16, 2009 at 3:09 pm
[yawn] The intellectual equivalent of a dog chasing its tail (applies to both sides).
Scientists confuse the particulars of scientific research, which pursues successful ‘objects of cause’, and the whole, about which ‘naturalism’ must apply, unable to see why this might not be successful. That is not because of some ’spiritual domain’ outside.
Note the point at which various Kantian antinomies begin to apply.
Two related articles
by Daniel Finkelstein - The Times Online
from Dawkins site
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/daniel_finkelstein/article6028030.ece
Thoughts for the week: the magic of Paul Daniels
Am I dumb, or just a sucker for magic? Science has come up with an explanation
Published on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 by The Guardian/UK
Number of People Driven From Homes by Conflict at All-Time High
Report by UN’s refugee agency shows more than 28 million people displaced within own countries
By PATRICK COCKBURN
The plague of snakes is the latest result of an unprecedented fall in the level of the water in the Euphrates and the Tigris, the two great rivers which for thousands of years have made life possible in the sun-baked plains of Mesopotamia, the very name of which means “between the rivers” in Greek. The rivers that made Iraq’s dry soil so fertile are drying up because the supply of water, which once flowed south into Iraq from Turkey, Syria and Iran, is now held back by dams and used for irrigation. On the Euphrates alone, Turkey has five large dams upriver from Iraq, and Syria has two.
For Greening Aviation,
Are Biofuels The Right Stuff?
Biofuels – made from algae and non-food plants – are emerging as a potentially viable alternative to conventional jet fuels. Although big challenges remain, the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could be major.
New support group Recovering Religionists helps people who leave the church
by Helen T. Gray - The Kansas City Star
from Dawkins site
http://www.kansascity.com/238/story/1249250.html
The number of people unaffiliated with any particular faith has grown more rapidly than any other religious group in recent years. According to a 2007 Pew study, 16 percent of American adults say they don’t belong to any religion, compared to 7 percent who were raised unaffiliated.