"It's incredible to think that we might be the only intelligent, living system in the universe." ...

Hmmmnn ... I can't argue with that.

..."Military pilots, airline pilots, mostly, from all over the world, for 50 years, have reported these things, but they've quit because they're told to shut up and not talk about it by military and intelligence people,"

Source

I wonder which kind of aliens they are?

Are they conservative UFO's,full of cattle-mutilating, human-raping, evil scientist aliens? Or are they liberal UFOs full of alien benefactors spouting helpful things like, “Protect the environment” and “Avoid GE foods!”

Maybe, just maybe they are the same UFO's that were spotted in England recently!

Well, If I'm Elected - I promise to expose those involved in the conspiracy that has been keeping the truth from us for so long!

Your humble servant,
Stacy

Casey Luskin insists the Discovery Institute is a secular think tank. And he says it with a straight face.

What is it about the spreading of pseudo-science that makes reasonable people cringe and gag? One characteristic is surely the introduction of religious / political thinking into discussions of fact. The natural world simply is. If it upsets our human sensibilities, too freaking bad for us. When a bull shark bites a potential food item (a human leg, perhaps), it is being neither good nor evil; it's simply hungry and inquisitive. It's nothing personal. Thus, describing the natural world is best accomplished through observations of what is, not through contemplation of how things should be. Blaming Darwinism for the Holocaust, communism, capitalism, rock 'n roll music, abortion, racism, moral relativism, and the general decay of Western society is irrelevant to the scientific question of whether or not evolution by natural selection is a valid explanation for observed evolutionary change on planet Earth. What is and what ought to be are two distinct questions.

But throw a rock at the Discovery Institute and you're more likely to hit a lobbyist or a lawyer than an actual scientist. For example, Casey Luskin, an attorney with the DI, blogs to his fellow intelligent designers about the "it's just a theory" argument.

Darwinists love to bash Darwin-skeptics who call evolution "just a theory, not a fact." The truth is that I rarely, if ever, hear people who are closely involved with the ID movement using this line to oppose evolution. The "evolution is just a theory, not a fact" phrase tends to come from the vox populi—intelligent people who studied this issue in their biology class or perhaps have read books like Darwin’s Black Box, Icons of Evolution, or Darwin on Trial, but otherwise don’t follow the issue very closely.

But most creationists do use the argument, endlessly. They also use the "intelligent designer" and "irreducible complexity" arguments. The fact is that intelligent design creationists are a small minority. Polls indicate that most American creationists are of the Old Earth variety. And I think the Discovery Institute knows this full well. Isn't it really all about talking points, ones the DI can easily disseminate, and ones the general public can easily digest and regurgitate, regardless of the scientific facts?

Casey Luskins also lists his scientific qualifications:

Having taken over a dozen courses covering evolutionary biology at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, I’m a scientific skeptic of neo-Darwinism.

Fine, be a skeptic, Luskin. But are you as skeptical about intelligent design? Have you taken a dozen courses covering intelligent design at the undergraduate and graduate level? No, because intelligent design isn't a science, and it can be pretty well summed up in a single 15 minute lecture. ID is a vague conclusion, not an explanation. The only thing propping it up is a propaganda machine. And all the whining in the world about "morals", "culture", and "academic freedom" isn't going to polish the ID turd. The Discovery Institute calls itself the "Center for Science and Culture". But it really should choose one or the other, "science" or "culture", not both. Let "ought" and "is" be distinct; life works so much better when our desires don't cloud our judgment of reality.

Science can tell us only about the universe since time began and must always stay within the time-space matrix in its studies and explanations.   That is a legitimate human study and does contribute to our knowledge of the universe (and in as much as the universe reveals the Creator, science is helping us to know the truth not only about the empirical order but also about God - Romans 1:19-20).   Religion and the bible is not confined in its purview to the empirical, visible or known universe and therefore can accept that time and space themselves exist in a larger context, namely in God.

See also my blog  Coloring Inside the Lines of Space and Time

In the Memphis Commercial Appeal we read: Evolution evangelist to speak at Church of River. Excerpts:

Believers on both sides of the evolution-creation debate have been slugging it out for more than a century.

The journalist stumbles at the threshold. Science doesn't have "believers." Scientists accept currently successful theories because they explain the observed data and have survived experimental testing. Unlike doctrinal belief, theories are accepted provisionally, because there is always the possibility of new data that may challenge a theory.

But let's not be distracted by a technical quibble. This article is actually a lot of fun:

But Rev. Michael Dowd is trying to make peace between science and faith by spreading the message that embracing evolution will bring people closer to spiritual fulfillment. He is the author of "Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and our World." Crisscrossing the country, he has been doing what he calls "evolutionary evangelism."

Okay, it's an unusual ministry, but if it works for Rev. Dowd, it's fine with us. Continuing:

Dowd will be in Memphis on Sunday at the First Unitarian Church of Memphis, also known as the Church of the River.

Unitarians in Memphis? How did they get in? Ah well ...

Dowd and his wife, Connie Barlow, an atheist and a science writer, have been living out of their van for the past six years doing full-time evolution evangelism. Their vehicle displays two fishes kissing with the labels Jesus and Darwin.

Sounds like a happy couple. We wish them well.

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We've previously mentioned creationist Muslims. See: Why Muslims Should Support Intelligent Design, By Mustafa Akyol. There are also the Raelians, a sect based entirely on Intelligent Design ("ID"). Another group promoting creationism is the Unification Church, founded by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. One of Moon's followers, Jonathan Wells, is a leading intellectual in the ID movement and a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute.

Here is an article about Hindu creationism from Frontline, which describes itself as India's National Magazine. They are the publishers of The Hindu, a major newspaper in India: Vedic creationism in America. The article is from January of 2006, but other than mentioning some then-current court cases in the US, it's not outdated.

We offer a few excerpts, which may encourage you to read the whole article:

The intellectual force driving Vedic creationism is a pair of American Hindus, Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson, both resident "scientists" of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, the research wing of ISKCON. Cremo recently published a huge book, Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory, which ties together his (and Thompson's) previous and even larger book, The Forbidden Archeology, with literature on paranormal phenomena to argue for creationism from a spirit-centred, Vedic-Hindu perspective. While Cremo insists he is offering a "scientific" alternative to Darwin, almost all of his evidence comes from paranormal phenomena, including studies of extra-sensory perception, faith-healing, reincarnation and past-birth memories, UFOs (unidentified flying objects) and alien abductions. (He needs the paranormal to make a case that purely spiritual causes can modify the DNA and create new life forms.)

This is very exotic stuff. Here's a website for Cremo and Thompson, discussing their book: Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race. Is this stuff for real? Who can tell? When one abandons the objectively verifiable evidence of reality, there are no guideposts.

More from the article:

What are the Vedic creationists saying? They deny that different species of living beings, including humans, have evolved, or risen up, from simpler organisms, as Darwin claims. Instead, they claim that all species, including humans, have "devolved", or come down, from a highly evolved, super-intelligent being, which is pure consciousness itself.

That sounds rather odd, but how would one decide if it's a better "theory" than the "theory" of Intelligent Design? Neither seems to be testable. Another excerpt:

Like all fundamentalists, Vedic creationists take the Bhagvat Purana, along with the Bhagvad Gita, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, to be literally true. They then proceed to use the "facts" described in these sacred texts to condemn Darwin and all of materialist science.

That's a very familiar methodology. Indeed, it's identical to that of our own creationists. Well, the scripture is different, but aside from that, the "science" is the same. The article makes exactly this point:

Proponents of I.D. bring in a Designer God to explain the existence of "irreducible complexity" of life, which they think cannot be explained by natural causes alone. Proponents of Vedic creationism likewise, bring in Atman because they think that the existence of consciousness cannot be explained by natural causes alone. Just like the ID-ers completely ignore the mass of studies showing how complex structures such as eyes can arise out of natural causes, Vedic creationists completely ignore the mass of studies showing that the phenomenon of consciousness can be explained by purely natural causes. In both cases, there is the same wilful neglect of scientific method and scientific evidence in order to defend a religious conception of natural order.

As you may have been suspecting, the article, written for a Hindu readership in India, isn't terribly enthusiastic about the situation. It concludes:

If we are troubled and tickled by the creationist challenge to the scientific understanding of evolution in America, it is time, perhaps, to look at the anti-scientific creation stories that we ourselves subscribe to. Can we, in all honesty, believe in Vedic creationism and still think of ourselves as modern, scientific and enlightened?

There are apparently some sensible people in India. We need a few more like them here in the West.

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Just what is it to explain something, anyhow? It is to come away with more information than you began. To have a set of distinct causes, effects, and overall processes, in place of what was once complete ignorance. It means being able to state what needs to be done for some event to happen: what specific capacities are necessary for something to do it.

To say that the standard theistic God has caused phenomenon X is essentially to say that it was done by a being that is hypothetically capable of doing anything. In short, it is a truly ingenious means of avoiding having to give any specific explanation for how X happens. No ignorance is dispelled.

Using God in this way is much like answering a multiple choice question by filling in every option, and then claiming that you have answered the question correctly. But while you are indeed sure to have filled in the correct bubble at some point in the process (unless of course, we've tricked you by simply not offerring the right answer there at all), your "answer" doesn't actually tell you or anyone else which option was the correct one.

That is to say: we may indeed credit God with X, but in doing so, we have learned nothing about either X or God. Indeed, because the actual nature of God is essentially beyond our understanding in any case, saying that God has done something is really no different than saying that "some cause that we do not understand did it in a way that we don't understand." Which is really just a creative way of saying "we don't what caused it or how."

We don't generally encounter this dodge when looking to other sorts of causes. Avalanches, for instance, are capable of crushing hikers under rocks and snow through a fairly predictable and intelligible sequence of events. Knowing that, when we find a hiker crushed in such a way, avalanches are likely suspects. An avalanche is not, however, capable of writing a sonnet.

A hypothetical God, on the other hand, would, however, be capable of both. Not because we know anything about how these things happen, but simply by definition: God can do anything (including doing any particular in nearly any way at all).

So when we find a sonnet, or a crushed hiker, or whatever else, we could claim that it was caused by God: nothing can ever preclude the philosophical possibility. But this claim wouldn't help us understand what, specifically, happened... and it is absurdly gratuitous to boot. In order to explain a single specific event like the results of an avalanche, we are resorting to imagining something possessing every single possible causal capacity, including a nearly infinite number of things that have nothing at all to do with what is necessary to cause the effects of an avalanche.

This is why scientists, even religious scientists, aren't particularly satisfied with theism as an explanation for any specific scientific question. They want parsimonious, targeted explanations, not indiscriminate atom bombs.

But what about questions beyond the range of empirical science? What about philosophy in general? What happens when we encounter an event so outside our experience that we do not know, and can barely even begin to conceptualize, the possible causes? Is God a more plausible answer in that case?

No.

It's true that the cause of, say, the universe (if it had an ultimate cause) might be something totally beyond our current understanding, or perhaps even our capabilities for ever understanding. But whatever capacity is necessary to cause a universe (and perhaps also to be uncaused), there's no reason to think that the thing that has this capacity has every other capacity as well. There's no more reason to think that a "universe causer" could write a sonnet than to think that an avalanche could.

We don't know how, or even if, the universe had its ontological beginning. We aren't even sure we're asking the right questions in regards to how to conceptualize the problem. All we do have is knowledge of the Big Bang and the beginning of the universe as we are familiar with it. And while it's true that most of the natural laws we are familiar with likely were shaped by the particular nature of the Big Bang, we have no way to discerning how or why things are that way: i.e. if there were simply more basic, underlying laws. You could call them "natural" or not depending on how you define natural. But it's clear that philosophically, there is no justification for calling whatever they are "guiders" or asserting that they must be God. The field of possibility remains wide open.

We are left with a simple reality: we have some stuff here (a universe) and we want to explain it. But we don't seem to have enough evidence at present to really understand what we need to understand. So we're left with the observable, conventional universe, and lots of unanswered questions.

What theists are generally advocating is a doubly disappointing "answer" to these questions. It means jumping to a particular conclusion despite the fact that it a) doesn't actually explain anything and that also b) basically smuggles in all the other capacities and characteristics of God (i.e. sentience, omniscience, etc.) along with whatever still unknown capacities were actually necessary to cause our universe (if it was caused at all).

It's an assumption that demands a huge price for no discernable benefit: paying out your entire life savings for nothing in return. It's simply not worth it.

However, the comments on her article which follow show that convicted Darwinists recognize the infuriating frustration they experience by the fact that no matter how many examples of genetic variation within a species they can point to (natural selection at work in the survival of the species), anti-evolutionary forces still remain unconvinced that macro-evolution actually occurs or that speciation - a new species emerging from an old - really happens.  Though they don't seem to recognize it, these defenders of evolution experience the same frustrations that believers in God feel when no matter how many believers testify about the power of God in their lives, the atheists, agnostics and skeptics still maintain it proves nothing regarding the existence of God since each testimony is purely anecdotal.

As a non-scientist, I must admit that the evidence Judson offers is underwhelming.  Yes it does show how within a species variation occurs as natural selection predicts.  But the evidence offered could just as easily be proof of intelligent design - that the Creator God built within His creation the ability for species to adapt and survive.  The fact that Galapagos finch beaks change over time indicates survival of the species is a force in nature and that the genetic code is flexible enough to allow great variation over time.  But all the variation shows is that when conditions change the beak size changes - larger and smaller, back and forth through time without any new species emerging.  The finch gene code keeps the less helpful trait in the DNA and stores it for a rainy day as it were; and when that rainy or draught period comes along, the species is able to survive because the genetic variation is built into the species, but it does not morph into a new species.

And one has to ask - given that scientists have bred countless generations of rats, mice and fruit flies for specific genetic traits, has there been even one instance of a new species emerging as a result of selective breeding?  If under ideal laboratory conditions it doesn't happen, how can we assume it happens in nature?

The theory of evolution has got many things correct and can overall explain many aspects of the variety of species in the world and the variations within a species.  But at least to this observer  it still does not have quite right an understanding of how a new species originates. 

And though I am a believer in a Creator God, I fully acknowledge that at some point whatever God does in creation becomes part of the natural order and can be fully studied by science.  So I think scientific explanations for life are possible - science is capable of exploring all aspects of creation within the time-space limits of science.

But so far, at least in my eyes, all that evolutionary scientists can actually show or prove is the survival of the species is factual, which is a far cry from showing the origin of new species.   And the claim that "well, it takes billions of years for speciation to take place" - I would ask with physicist John Polkinghorne  give us a rough estimate:  we are talking science here, facts and figures, so give us an estimate for how many generations and how many years are necessary for a new species to emerge or for a functioning eye to appear.  Because if you can't or won't, then your theory is no different than the Sidney Harris cartoon joke (what's funny about science?") about two physicists looking at an equation and saying "at this point a miracle occurs."

See also my The Spontaneous Apperance of Life:  God is Creative 

There is a prayer that I used to know as a christian. Tons of people know it but few actually comprehend it I think. “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the thing I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the WISDOM to know the difference.” News flash! REALITY is one of the things YOU CANNOT CHANGE!

It's so relevant because those who attack science today are basically trying to change reality - to fit their preconceived beliefs. That's the nature of the creationism/intelligent design argument.

That's OK, you might say. People believe weird things. We just have to accept that as part of accepting that beautiful variation characteristic of all life - not just human life.

But the sad thing is what this does to our children. When children are denied access to science, to an understanding of reality, that is immoral. Its a form of child abuse.

We should think of this when we hear news of creationists attempts to introduce their material into New Zealand's school science classes (see Culture wars come to New Zealand). And what about those children who are educated in 'faith school'? Or those home educated? What guarantee is there that they are not being denied access to a good education in science?

Have a look at this short video showing a "biblically correct" museum tour for home-schooled children in the USA (thanks detroitus for the original post). Doesn't it make you angry?

Creationists Pollute Young Minds at Museum (9 min).

Similar articles

It seems to have

started as an argument. 

Nothing became something,

rapidly expanding

to a whole laundry list

of things.

Separation and settlement

followed.

Over time things cooled.

Mother got her planets; Father 

took the stars.

As in any divorce,

vast distances opened,

and continue to grow.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-102519600994873365]

A Simple Perceptual Test and Intelligent Design

The question for each picture is, "Does this appear to have been designed?"  Write down your answers so you can find out what you are at the end of the post.

1.

2.

3.

4.

 5.

6.

7.

Now here's a really simple perceptual test.  To believe that ID is the correct way of looking at things, you'd answer "yes" to all of the odd numbered photos.  To believe that naturalistism is the correct way of looking at things, you'd answer "yes" for 1 and 3, but "no" to everything else.  If it is considered to be "living" then everything we know about complexity and design is irrelevant.  It's only those things that we can observe being designed that matter.  If we can't observe it being designed, then everything we know is false.  This, despite the fact that every living thing is more complex than anything designed by man.  This is an incredibly logically inconsistent perspective.  The question is, how does one make inferences about any type of design from a naturalistic perspective? 

I suppose it goes a little like this.

1. It has to exhibit complexity.

2. The complexity has to be specific.

3. It cannot be alive.

4. It cannot be a virus.

5. It cannot be a prion.

For those with an ID perspective, there are not "It cannot" statements.

1. It exhibits specific or functional complexity.

Now, atheists and naturalistic evolutionists like to point to snowflakes, polymers, and crystals as naturally occuring things that have complexity.  Though with the simple ID criteria, none of those things would be seen as designed, and rightfully so!  But, they just keep banging away on a specious argument--trying to get as much milage as they can from it.

Off to Boston University (no, not Boston College the more famous Catholic institution down the street that we usually beat in hockey).  I was required to take a lab science.  I hate lab sciences.  I inevitably mess up the experiments.  But just prior to my sophomore year, a class caught my eye.  It was .... Bioastronomy and the Search for Extraterrestial Life.  It was a lab science, but one without experiments!  I was all over that class!

The premise of the course was that the only way to determine if the possibility there was life on other planets was to study how life supposedly came to exist on this planet.  As a result we studied astronomy and evolution to arrive at an equation to determine that possibility.

A liberal blog that decided to make fun of my in this matter among others, figured that the professor didn't do a very good job.  I think the professor did a fine job communicating the material to the converted.  But something happened to me.  I began to see all the factors that were vital to the existence of life.  At the end of the class there was a 1 in 10 to the 26th power chance of there being life (or something like that).  That is 1 followed by 26 zeroes.  That seemed quite unlikely to me.

Then as you consider large scale evolution in light of the laws of thermodynamics ... I began to see problems.  Where did the energy come from to move from a less complex system to a more complex system?   Why was there more order instead of less?  I saw evidence of design.  I realized it took more faith to believe in evolution than it did in a Creator.  I was not yet a Christian, merely a confused theist who had some exposure to Christianity.

Often, children raised in a Christian home go off to the "big, bad secular university" and have their faith pulled out from under them.  In reality they were living off their parents' faith, not their own.  I was essentially secular, and went off to the "big, bad secular university" and had my secularism pulled out from under me.

At the same time as this internal revolution, I had a relationship fall apart.  She dumped me, but I could see how my own selfishness was a prime factor in driving her away from me.  Could this Creator care about how I lived?  Having essentially agreed to the Argument from Design that there was a God, I began to believe He was personal and ethical.  I was in deep weeds.

But I remembered the liturgy I had heard nearly every week as a child: "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us."  Of course!  The Creator is the same as the God of the Bible, which incidentally starts off with creation.  And this God has provided salvation through faith in his son who died on the Cross.

So, while on Christmas break, broken by my dismantled personal life, I asked God to forgive me.  I also asked him to show me how to live, recognizing that I had thoroughly botched it so far with a rather lengthy list of sins I do not care to share here.  Suddenly the previously obscure Bible began to make sense to me.  Suddenly I was "unable" to commit certain sins associated with my undoing (don't worry, I don't believe in perfectionism for many other sins still remain).  It was like an invisible buffer zone had been erected.  I can't explain it.  But I had moved from believing in large scale evolution (evolution between species rather than within species) to believing that a holy & loving God made the universe and humanity to glorify and enjoy him forever.  Where so many saw evolution, I now saw God- my misplaced faith in evolution was now placed in my Creator and Redeemer.  This is not because I am smarter (or dumber) than other people, but rather that God "made his light shine in (my) heart to give (me) the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Cor. 4:6)"

In other words, life couldn't evolve, so god did it. But thanks to a 1987 court ruling on creation science, any mention of god or creation is completely forbidden, so they had to think of a new way to get creationism into class. So they took a creation science textbook, later known as Of Pandas and People, and put the buzz words "intelligent design" in the place of all mentions of creation, creationism, etc.

In the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial, early editions of this textbook were released that show, in the IDeist community's own words, that creationism is the same as ID. They changed no definitions, just words: creation to intelligent design, creationism to intelligent design, creationists to design proponents.

The scientific community is dealing with some deceitful people. Their only arguments are religious based ones and yet claim that their argument is one of scientific credulity.

These people are well known, and I've blogged about them many times, but this time has a very valid purpose. On the blog Uncommon Descent, they call everyone in the scientific community evolutionists and darwinists, neither of which exist as official scientific terminology. Yet they propagate these creationists buzzwords, and others, as well as calling evolution a religion for the purpose of getting ID recognized as science.

I propose today that we retaliate by calling intelligent design the following: IDeism, Dembskism, and their proponents IDiots, as they're doing the same thing to us.

Words above and video below posted by AlJazeeraEnglish

Part 1

Part 2

The book is published by Harvard University Press and it's available at Amazon: The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition.

Here are a few excerpts from the review in the Times:

Ronald Numbers has given us what must surely be the definitive study of the rise and growth of a cluster of well-meaning, but irrational, theories over a period of some 160 years. The Creationists is an expanded version of an earlier edition published in 1991. During the interval, the proportion of Americans who favour some form of Creationism has risen from 47 per cent to 65.5 per cent and the phenomenon has spread worldwide. ... . The fact that such extremism has now become global should worry theologians as well as scientists.

That came after a long discussion about creationism's history. Here's a bit more:

Fundamentalism tends to discount the significance of historical development in the biblical narratives, preferring to treat each revealed word as a relevant expression of God’s truth. This encourages a concentration on supposedly infallible statements, detached from their historical context and from the intentions of those who wrote them, thus paradoxically imitating those sciences in which statements of fact can be treated as objectively precise. Conflict with science is the inevitable result. The “fact” of God’s design, for instance, has to be defended in ways that are incompatible with the “fact” of natural selection.

For those who care about this topic, the book seems to be essential. Read the whole review, then go to the Amazon link where you'll find some additional reviews.

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As Curmudgeon fans already know, Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist, is a research fellow in biology at Imperial College London. Here are a few excerpts from her latest article:

[A]lthough we tend to think of evolutionary change as being something that only takes place over the course of millions of years, it isn’t. It’s going on here, now, all around us. So, this week, I thought I’d round up some examples of recent evolutionary change in nature. (What do I mean by recent? Within the last 40 years.)

We're shocked. Shocked! Creationists keep insisting that the "Darwinists" have no evidence. Can it be that -- gasp! -- all those creationists are babbling nonsense? We read on:

Galápagos finches.No discussion of evolution in nature would be complete without mention of the evolution of beak size in finches in the Galápagos archipelago.

Every year since 1973, large numbers of medium ground finches (Geospiza fortis) living on the island of Daphne Major have been marked, weighed and measured, and so have their chicks. In these finches, survival largely depends on the ability to open seeds; this depends on beak size. Bigger beaks allow the opening of larger seeds. How many seeds there are depends on the weather; some years seeds of all sizes are abundant, and the finches thrive. In other years, most seeds are scarce, and many birds die.

You'll have to read the article to learn the current condition of those finches. Another example from the article:

Field mustard. Between 2000 and 2004, southern California had a severe drought. For many plants, including field mustard (a scrawny annual plant with little yellow flowers), a drought means a shorter growing season. A shorter growing season means that plants that flower earlier are more likely to leave seeds than plants that flower later — which are in danger of dying before they’ve finished reproducing. Since flowering time has a large genetic component, a drought — by favoring plants that flower earlier — could cause an evolutionary shift towards early flowering.

Has it?

Yes. The beauty of plants is that they make seeds — small packets of genes that can be stored for a period. This means that the genes of the past can, in principle, be compared directly with the genes of today.

That's all we'll excerpt from the Times. It's more than enough to get you to click over there and read the whole article.

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What is a skeptic and why we need them? -Out of the typing fingers of babes. One of the next generation of young skeptics comments on what it means to be a skeptic:

Why secular activism is necessary -The Religious Right affects public policy and every day they are fighting for control of the world. They're fighting to control what we can and how we can think. This is the very antithesis of the free secular republic designed by our Founding Father. And that vision is worth protecting.

Pastafarian Swap

-TV's reality series WifeSwap has a history of bringing atheists into America's living rooms:

But Jinxi and Steve's family won't be the last atheistic family as the program is currently casting Pastafarians.

Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis's is displeased w/ review of Creationist Museum -Apparently, Ken Ham took umbrage with a few bits in the descriptions of his Creationist Museum in the book, Weird Kentucky. What's funny is the details he chooses to complain about how he tries to correct the book's "errors" with information that is equally absurd than the claims suggested in the book.

Center For Advanced Medicine And Clinical Research--fancy name for an anti-vaccine propaganda front -These guys are just pure evil. There's no way I can be gentle about this. Nothing Michael Savage has said comes anywhere near as repulsive and dangerous as what this quacks says in his blogs. People see the title "Doctor" and use him as an example of doctors "exposing the evil Big Pharma conspiracy because his claims confirm what they already believe.

And some science news:

Stem Cells: New Way To Treat Spinal-cord Injury

-A researcher at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has pinpointed stem cells within the spinal cord that may lead to a new, non-surgical treatment for debilitating spinal-cord injuries.

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UK rock phenomenon "The V-Rats" have now launched their new album "Intelligent Design." ... The V-Rats are now embarking in 2008 to 2009 on a series of live shows across the globe to promote Intelligent Design which is gaining great reviews from the all aspects of the Christian and secular media and looks set to be one of the "must have" albums for 2008.

It's like School House Rock minus the whole facts and education thing.

Hat Tip to Florida Citizens for Science on this one. :-)

Today I was planning on writing my review of Lauri Lebo's book
"The Devil in Dover" so I'll keep it quick.

--- It's excellent. A very quick and informative read that you should pass along to everyone you know.

If you are familiar with the Kitzmiller vs Dover court case, you'll know that Lauri Lebo is an education journalist who was assigned to cover the case.

She gives a detailed, personal outlook on how this very important case unfolded.

I personally want all of my fundamentalist Christian friends to read it - but I won't hold my breath. In short - Go buy it!

Now! Back to the regularly scheduled program ... I've got a new book that I'll have to read. It's free for download here.. And it's name:

"Sowing Atheism" - The National Academy of Sciences Sinister Scheme to teach our children they're Descended from Reptiles. --- by Robert Bowie Johnson Jr. of Solving Light Books and friend of Answers in Genesis

This book is entirely a creationists response to Science, Evolution, and Creationism by the National Academy of Sciences (which is also available for free download).

From the beginning, it accuses the NAS of using scare tactics to get schools and the government to teach evolution. --- Pure Propaganda.

Don't you know that science will lead to Atheism?

To conceal the lack of evidence for its brand of evo-atheism (evolutionist-atheism), Mr. Johnson writes in his book, the NAS book-writers resort to illogic, enchantment, and outright deception in order to mislead and manipulate their readers. "It's all smoke and mirrors, philosophy and empty seduction, not true science," Mr. Johnson added.

On his Web site, Mr. Johnson urges Christians to take advantage of the free download of the book, read it, send it to educators and school boards in their area, and encourage others to do the same.

And you must take every single word in the Bible literally or you are not a Christian! (That's what is so offensive to me BTW)

I don't know if I'll be able to get through the whole thing but I'll try. It's really quite maddening to me when people who know nothing of science try to make themselves authorities on the subject.

Let me know what you think - if you are able to read all of it.

Stacy

For molecules-to-man evolution to happen, there needs to be a gain in new information within the organism’s genetic material. For instance, for a single-celled organism, such as an ameba, to evolve into something like a cow, new information (not random base pairs, but complex and ordered DNA) would need to develop over time that would code for ears, lungs, brain, legs, etc.

Here's the article's conclusion:

The biblical perspective on change within living things doesn’t require that new information be added to the genome as pond-scum-to-people evolution does. In fact, we expect to see the opposite (loss of genetic information) due to the Curse in Genesis 3. Biblically, we would expect mutations to produce defects in the genome and would not expect mutations to be adding much, if any, new information.

Observations confirm that mutations overwhelmingly cause a loss of information, not a net gain, as evolution requires.

Okay, what's the response? One clear example should suffice, so let's make it a good one. Ideally, it should be something newly-evolved that wasn't carried aboard Noah's Ark. Can we find such a mutation? Yes, we have one. This is probably the most impressive example of all -- Nylon-eating bacteria (bold added for emphasis):

In 1975 a team of Japanese scientists discovered a strain of Flavobacterium living in ponds containing waste water from a factory producing nylon that was capable of digesting certain byproducts of nylon 6 manufacture, such as the linear dimer of 6-aminohexanoate, even though those substances are not known to have existed before the invention of nylon in 1935.

Further study revealed that the three enzymes the bacteria were using to digest the byproducts were novel, significantly different from any other enzymes produced by other Flavobacterium strains (or any other bacteria for that matter), and not effective on any material other than the manmade nylon byproducts.

And so, my brothers in pond scum, yet another creationist claim is shown to be worthless -- as are all the others.

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