Jun 6th, 2008 by Bones | 9 Comments »
On another website a creationist posted the following:
Students should be allowed to discuss and debate evolution in the classroom. That’s hardly possible when only one side is given. Besides, we’re not even talking about ID or Creationism here. We’re just talking about teaching evolutionary theory in a scientific manner. The whole story needs to be presented.
Only one side?
And which side is that? And which side is being omitted? This complaint really boils down to — the side that is taught is science, and the side that is omitted is religious belief. And not just any religious belief, but a fundamentalist belief in the inerrancy of the bible. That is the “side” that they want taught.
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Jun 3rd, 2008 by Bones | 3 Comments »
Lizards Show Proof of Adaptive Change
AMHERST, Mass. — In 1971, five pairs of Italian wall lizards were transplanted by biologists from their home island of Pod Kopiste, in the South Adriatic Sea, to the neighboring but subtly different island of Pod Mrcaru, where none lived, as an experiment in evolution.
How, if at all, would these creatures change?
…
“It’s good evidence that not only can evolution happen rapidly, but animals can evolve new structures as well (in a short time span),” he said.
The interesting thing about this study is that the lizards developed new structures, a part of their gut called a ‘cecal valve’ (which separates the chambers) and they remained genetically identical to the parent population released three decades previously.
Hmmmmm. Unless the intelligent designer was working overtime on a tiny island off the west coast of Croatia these past few decades, we seem to have some very interesting insights into one or more of the mechanisms behind evolution.
And that’s one of the strengths of science. We keep learning new things!
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May 2nd, 2008 by Bones | 1 Comment »
The Truth is Finally Revealed–Hitler is Darwin’s Illegitimate Son by Lady Hope!
New internet research has documented the absolutely false story that Adolph Hitler was the illegitimate son of Charles Darwin!
This information has long been hidden, but can now be revealed for the first time.
When Lady Hope visited Charles Darwin on his deathbed, and witnessed his deathbed conversion and his repentance for the theory of evolution, apparently more transpired than has been previously revealed–much more. And apparently Darwin was not nearly as close to death as had been reported.
Some nine months after Darwin’s death, Lady Hope delivered a child, but she sequestered him away until she could spirit him out of the country. She also fudged his age by seven years; he was small for his age so it worked. She found an Austrian orphanage that would take the young lad, and returned to America to get on with her evangelical activities, unencumbered by the demands of raising young Adolph. Through this subterfuge, the connection to Charles Darwin was safely obscured. Until now.
Little can be told of the earliest, and previously unsuspected, years of young Adolph’s life; they are obscured in mystery. We don’t even know if he was aware of the identity of his true father. But when it comes to genetics, Lysenko was right, and Hitler’s true character soon revealed itself.
And at last we can fill in the dots, and we know the true source of the attraction Adolph Hitler had for the theories of Charles Darwin, and which inspired him to some of the worse mass murder in history! Hitler was Darwin’s son.
Now you know the truth that has been hidden for so long!
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Jun 29th, 2007 by Bones | Comments Off
THIS IS THE SIXTH OF A CONTINUING SERIES examining what is being passed off as science on creationist websites.
This article examines a specific false claim made on numerous creationist websites in an attempt to discredit radiocarbon dating. A list of some of the websites repeating this false claim appears at the bottom of this article.
Claim:
“Some time ago eleven human skeletons, remains of the earliest humans in the western hemisphere, were dated by this new `accelerator mass spectrometer’ technique to about 5000 radiocarbon years or less. [R.E.Taylor, `Major Revisions in the Pleistocene Age Assignments for the North American Human Skeletons by C-14 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry', American Antiquity, Vol. 50, No.1, 1985, pp. 136-140] Source
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Jun 25th, 2007 by Bones | 2 Comments »
THIS IS THE FIFTH OF A CONTINUING SERIES examining what is being passed off as science on creationist websites.
This article examines a specific false claim made on numerous creationist websites in an attempt to discredit radiocarbon dating. A list of some of the websites repeating this false claim appears at the bottom of this article.
Claim:
Natural gas from Alabama and Mississippi (Cretaceous and Eocene, respectively) — should have been 50 to 135 million years old. C14 gave dates of 30,000 and 34,000, respectively. Source
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Jun 16th, 2007 by Bones | 3 Comments »
THIS IS THE FOURTH OF A CONTINUING SERIES examining what is being passed off as science on creationist websites.
This article examines a specific false claim made on numerous creationist websites in an attempt to discredit radiocarbon dating. A list of some of the websites repeating this false claim appears at the bottom of this article.
Claim:
Coal from Russia from the “Pennsylvanian,” supposedly 300 million years old, was dated at 1,680 years. (Radiocarbon, vol. 8, 1966) Source
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Feb 25th, 2007 by Bones | Comments Off
THIS IS THE THIRD OF A CONTINUING SERIES examining what is being passed off as science on creationist websites.
This article examines a specific false claim made on numerous creationist websites in an attempt to discredit radiocarbon dating. A list of some of the websites repeating this false claim appears at the bottom of this article.
Some creationists feel a need to discredit radiocarbon dating because it is incompatible with their belief in a young earth. In trying to discredit the radiocarbon method, they often resort to distortions, misrepresentations, faulty science, and outright lies, all compounded by poor scholarship.
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Oct 19th, 2006 by Bones | Comments Off
A new study of human fossils asks, what if we are the odd ones?
Most people think of humans as the top, the apex of the family tree. But new research suggests this quintessentially human infatuation with ourselves may have impaired our judgment. Erik Trinkaus, a paleontologist and Neandertal expert at Washington University in St. Louis, believes that modern human features are unusual enough, compared with ancestral members of the genus Homo, to make us a side branch of the family tree.
[snip]
Article continues here
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Sep 13th, 2006 by Bones | 1 Comment »
ONE DAY THERE MAY BE A FILM OF IT, perhaps starring Daniel Day-Lewis. It is the epic tale of survival against the odds, while surrounded and outnumbered by competitors with superior technology. The title: The Last of the Neanderthals.
Neanderthals were thought to have gone extinct around the time modern humans arrived in Europe, about 32,000 years ago. But now, the discovery of artefacts in a cave in Gibraltar shows that a remnant population clung on until at least 28,000 years ago. Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens coexisted for thousands of years.
Clive Finlayson at the Gibraltar Museum, and colleagues, recovered 240 stone tools and artefacts from sediments dated to the Upper Palaeolithic period – between 10,000 and 30,000 years ago. Mass spectrometry dating puts them between 28,000 and 24,000 years old.
The exciting point is that the tools are all of a type known to palaeontologists as Mousterian: they are flints, cherts and quartzites exclusively associated with Neanderthal manufacture.
“Mousterian technology is firmly associated with Neanderthals across Europe,†says Finlayson, who adds that in the sediment layers where the tools where found there is no hint of intrusion from more recent layers, and no sign of tools made by modern humans.
[snip]
Source.
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Sep 12th, 2006 by Bones | 1 Comment »
HARMLESS VIRUSES APPARENTLY STOWED AWAY for millions of years in the DNA of mammals have proved to be more than idle passengers.
New research in live sheep has demonstrated for the first time that they help embryos change shape, implant themselves in the womb and grow a placenta. The same almost certainly happens in other mammals, including humans, they say.
The findings provide new insights into how so-called endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) and mammals evolved together to the mutual advantage of both. ERVs typically account for 8% to 10% of the DNA in most mammals, including humans.
[snip]
Source.
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