In the News

George Johnson writes in the NY Times about a forum this month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. It might have been one more polite dialogue between science and religion, but began to resemble the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told.

Look out, evangelical materialism is charging up, but there are rumblings from opponents, and Darwinists.

Read this amazing article...

John Hanna of AP writes on KS science standards and the Wichita Eagle picked up the story.

Kansas public schools are likely to get their fifth set of science standards in eight years, and officials who want to ditch the anti-evolution ones now in place aren't planning to act immediately.

Two new State Board of Education members take office Jan. 8, ending a conservative GOP majority and giving control to a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans. That makes a return to standards treating evolution as well-grounded science - not a flawed theory - seem inevitable.

Back to the 19th century...

ScienceDaily reports that University of Iowa scientists have made a discovery that broadens understanding of a rapidly developing area of biology known as functional genomics and sheds more light on the mysterious, so-called "junk DNA" that makes up the majority of the human genome.

Some of the junk DNA is not junk at all, but instead consists of sequences that can generate microRNAs.

This shows that the so-called "junk DNA" trumpeted by Darwinists as leftovers from random mutation, should have never been called junk. While there is more "junk DNA" that still looks like "junk", maybe it isn't. And, if scientists hadn't assumed the Darwinian paradigm, maybe the function of the DNA would have been discovered sooner. Darwinism could have been a "science slower".

The Center for Inquiry is a global federation committed to science, reason, free inquiry, secularism, and planetary ethics.

The purpose of the Center for Inquiry is to promote and defend reason, science, and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor.

With the mission and purpose stated, regarding freedom of inquiry, would ID have a place at the table. No wait, that darn materialistic worldview is there; committed to secularism. Even though some IDers allow for non-supernatural ID, they probably wouldn't be welcomed either.

CFI doesn't realize evolution is neutral on religion, according to NCSE.

Steven Swinford, writing in the London Sunday Times, reports that Richard Dawkins, the Oxford University professor and campaigning atheist, is planning to take his fight against God into the classroom by flooding schools with anti-religious literature.

He is setting up a charity that will subsidise books, pamphlets and DVDs attacking the "educational scandal" of theories such as creationism while promoting rational and scientific thought. The foundation will also attempt to divert donations from the hands of "missionaries" and church-based charities.

Truth in Science has sent DVDs and educational materials to thousands of secondary schools to encourage them to debate intelligent design. Andy McIntosh, director at the organisation and professor of thermodynamics at Leeds University, said: "We are not flat-earthers. We’re just trying to encourage good scientific discussion."

Dawkins, however, describes the theory as a "bronze-age myth".

Dawkins seems to be a master at ad hominem attacks and name-calling, which is the tactic of choice when you cannot put forth a good argument.

This just in from thte BBC.

In July 2001, a mysterious red rain started falling over a large area of southern India. Locals believed that it foretold the end of the world, though the official explanation was that it was desert dust that had blown over from Arabia. But one scientist in the area, Dr Godfrey Louis, was convinced there was something much more unusual going on. Not only did Dr Louis discover that there were tiny biological cells present, but because they did not appear to contain DNA, the essential component of all life on Earth, he reasoned they must be alien lifeforms...

However, a little known fact is that mammalian red blood cells have no DNA. They shed their nucleus and all organelles upon reaching maturity.

And, anyway, if life on Earth came from “another planet,” how did it begin there? Oh, that's right, conditions were "different" there, so it was inevitable that life would spring forth in the cosmos by natural processes.